B-Hive - The Return

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 Got back on Monday - boat still floating - broken ice on the canal outside - cold and a little damp inside (condensation) but habitable. Decided NOT to cart the complete contents of the van across a very muddy field but left everything parked in a nearby housing estate overnight. (Including Spike, covered with a blanket )


Tuesday was fun - Moved a little way up the cut to unload the van from a more convenient spot. Then we had to move the boat about a couple of miles up the cut so as to empty the toilet (and how important is THAT!!)


There was still quite a lot of ice on the water - it had obviously been pretty thick at some time. Boats had been through so it wasn't too bad
until.....we had to turn round!! The winding hole (shallow at the edges of course) was well frozen and the boat only works as a moderately good
icebreaker going directly forwards. Sideways it just looks at the ice and laughs!! There was Alan at the back and Susan at the front each with a
boathook bashing ten bells out of the ice before ramming it as hard as possible with the boat. We got round in the end!!! Also, just to complete the scene the computer decided it did not want to play. I mean REALLY did not want to play. NOTHING: ZILCH: BLANK.
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This was the winding hole AFTER we had attacked it with the boathook.

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Having turned round we ploughed our way back through the ice remnants.
 

 
Wednesday saw Nick's first day back at school while Alan was doing the van/train/taxi thing - which all went according to plan until he got back to Nantwich to discover that there are NO taxis. He said he needed
to stretch his legs anyway!!

Thursday - ah yes - wrong part sent to mend starter motor.(see 13th Dec) Of course Alan only discovers this after he'd walked into Nantwich to pick it up from the Post Office and spent most of the morning trying to fit it. Only when he phoned the suppliers and found that the item he was holding did not match the description of the supposedly self-same item the guy at the other end of the line was holding did he realise that the problem was not in his reading of the instructions. Promise to send replacement part.

Friday - part fitted and working - much relief all round. Also found very helpful computer shop in Nantwich where Alan spent a merry hour or so
testing bits and acquiring a new motherboard etc all for a very reasonable price. Took him till just now (Sat eve) though to get
everything up and running.

Heard today that Nick has got into the secondary school of his/our choice - goody

 

Now we can get on with the rest of our trip.