We're at IC3!

On Monday morning, Grace declared herself well enough to go back to look after Kantara through "The Beast from the East" that is our current weather. So back we came.

Truth be told, St Albans was looking more likely than Yelvertoft to get the snowy, chilly blast they've been forecasting for days, but it was flipping cold back on the boat, I can tell you! The max/min thermometer sitting on top of the calorifier told us that the lowest temperature it had sat through since we left in the first week of December was just minus .1° Celsius, and the highest had been 14°. All was dry, all was well. And after a couple of hours of running the stove, we were warm and snug, too, and Grace was feeling much better after her lurking lurgy.

We woke the next morning to snow lying on the frozen marina pound, and ducks doing their obligatory skidding-around-trying-not-to-look-stupid routine. They were denied that opportunity by mid-day. The ice had gone, the snow had thawed. Social media were full of tales from boaters for whom the conditions had only got worse. And desperate times call for desperate measures!

But we're snug in the boat. The water taps on the pontoons are frozen, so there's no tank-filling for those who need it, but we did that pretty much as soon as we arrived yesterday, so we're okay for several days. We don't have a lot of food; that is, we don't have the ingredients for many conventional meals, but we have plenty to eat if we dispense with convention, and we're happy to do that. "Experimental" has been the label on many of the meals we've eaten on Kantara over the years! 

We're only here for a couple of weeks. March has a lot in store that I'll blog when the time comes. After that... well, let's see if any other Beasts raise their icy heads.

We're currently at IC3 on the Canal Ice Scale.