On the move from Hartshill while the ice is clear..

Hartshill to Br 27, Springwood, Coventry Canal, 1.25 miles 0 locks

Opening the curtains this morning showed that the ice had disappeared.. hooray now we could move the short distance to the water point and fill up our now very low tank of water…

A huge British Waterways yard here at Hartshill, but all that is available in the way of services is water!  There is nowhere to dump the rubbish and nowhere to do the loo cassettes.  It’s not that it’s miles from anywhere either, there is a main road runs right past.  I suppose BW will argue that it is a maintenance yard..

I chose today to stop at Bridge 27, Ann and Chas our winter companions on NB Moore2Life, were happy with that.  Bridge 27 is opposite the very quiet Springwood Haven Marina.. there are some lovely walks around here, but wood has been spied in the copse alongside the towpath, so tomorrow will be a toss up as to whether we stock up on wood or whether I can go enjoy a few miles across country..

I walked to Nuneaton today with Annie to collect the post.. was important you see to get that, it’s Vic's birthday tomorrow, and there were loads of cards to pick up… more tomorrow apparently!

Comments yesterday about how we manage when the canal freezes.. well to be honest we just chance our arm a bit, although I do look at the 5 day forecast to get some idea of when a freeze is likely, and move accordingly to top up with water and empty the loos.  Diesel for us is about every 6 weeks, so that is not so critical really, although we will top up when we get down to the half mark.  Water can be well saved, and we have managed on a tankful of water for 3 weeks when we were not able to move once.. it’s just a way of life on a narrowboat really, you get used to it, and get used to ‘managing systems’ during the freezing weather!

It’s nice here at this mooring, I wouldn’t mind staying a while… mind you I don’t really fancy another 4 mile hike to the post office, but the mooring is nice!