We'll be back!

After the excitement of a family Christmas, the laziness of New Year's Eve and the physical effort involved in the clearing of thirty years of "stuff" from our loft (the result of which really gave us a great buzz) we pretended that the job was complete, ignored the fact that there was a queue of said stuff waiting untidily on the landing to be taken to the recycling centre, and headed off to the marina.

Having failed last month to fill Kantara's fuel tank (the ice was too thick for her to get across to the service platform, remember?) we returned on Tuesday, confident in the knowledge that the ice was long gone. A max/min thermometer in the saloon showed that the temperature had been down to -3℃, so the first thing was to fire up the central heating, then pour a glass of wine, sit down and enjoy the peace and quiet. The boats on either side of us were empty, and the nearest human habitation was on a couple of boats right up the other end of the pontoon. We almost felt lonely.

A strong, gusty wind blew throughout the night, knocking Kantara against the pontoon and rocking her quite forcefully, but we slept well and woke to a calmer morning. There wasn't much for us to do on the boat, apart from test the smoke and carbon monoxide alarms, and do the monthly routine of shaking our fire extinguishers to prevent the powder from caking in the bottom of the cylinders.

Feeling the need to get out for a while the next day, we drove into Rugby. All we wanted was a new cryptic crossword book; we'd completed our latest tome before we came away, and couldn't do without one any longer. We've been doing a crossword every day before rising since we started our boaty life back in 2011. WH Smith had just what we wanted, and Grace couldn't turn down the offer of a couple of jigsaw puzzles in a clearance sale there. Job done.

The next morning, we ran the engine, checked Kantara over, lubricated the stern hatch runners, which had seized up and were stopping us from opening the hatch, and looked despondently at the huge areas of  green algae on the roof. Next time we're there, we'll have to wash that off, and I'm not looking forward to it. I just hope it hasn't permanently stained the paintwork,

Second in a queue of three, we nipped across to the diesel pump and filled the tank to the very top. A strong wind was blowing us sideways against the platform, so getting back to our mooring was going to be something of a challenge but, after a bow-spring to point the stern into the wind, Grace reversed past the berth, then powered forwards into it. Easy-peasy.

Excitement over, we packed our few bits and pieces, kissed the boat goodbye, and drove home to complete the loft job. We'll be back!