We tried....

We set off as planned this morning, although it was snowing lightly, we were determined to put Nantwich behind us - nothing personal - just need a change. We had to wind (turn) the boat to start with and that should have been our first warning as the winding 'ole was frozen so we had to plough our way through. We managed that one with no drama, then after stopping off to top up the water tank at the wharf we set off bravely foolishly up the cut toward Chester. It became obvious that conditions were deteriorating as we moved forward but there was little we could do at that point as you cannot turn a 60 foot boat just anywhere. We were forced to carry on to the next winding 'ole which as we suspected was completely frozen. It was easy enough to get the bow through the ice into the winding 'ole but more troublesome to pivot the boat sideways through unbroken ice. Ali had a severe sense of humour failure at this point - mainly because she was in the bow with a boat pole and could hear the sound of the ice breaking against the sides of the boat ( you might remember we had the boat bottom 'blacked' when we bought her - cost £700) Baz was busy just trying to keep the boat moving!
But HEY we made it and are now moored back at Nantwich in exactly the same spot as before, we even put our doormat on the bank in the same snow free hole we had left earlier.
We will monitor the weather conditions before moving off again.

The winding 'ole after we had broken the ice

Baz waiting to pick me up after I had taken photos - looks like he might go without me!

Well lessons learnt - everybody safe and sound. On a positive note we have noticed that the daylight hours are getting longer - hurrah!

Bye for now
Ali and Baz