Melting moments?

Saturday, 11 December 2010 12:43

It may be 11 degrees outside but ...

We have returned from a few  days away in the North West, as regular readers may have gathered! The Lancaster Canal in Lancaster had begun to thaw yesterday, but there was still a layer of ice under the surface.

Here it is in sunnier times, from Penny Street Bridge and arriving back in Lancaster from the northern section. This is the section of the "Lanky" that I had on a couple of blogs - the last blog photo was across the canal from left to right in the first photo below.

We "motorwayed" down via Birmingham with a visit to the University for lunch with my brother. I finally managed a look in the Aston Webb Great Hall - very impressive. Those of you who indulge in Breakfast TV on BBC1 will have seen a clip of a graduation ceremony there this morning!

Below is Aston Webb Great Hall in last years snow, with the sweep of domed buildings beside it in Chancellors Court

The snow had more or less disappeared from roads and hedgerows, but as we travelled south some of the fields still had a dusting in sheltered places. The canals we spotted (a favourite pastime of motorway travel!) still had ice on them, namely the Worcester and Birmingham, Trent and Mersey, and North Oxford Canals.

Arriving home in the dark we could not see what state our bit of canal was in, but this morning it appears to be in the same state as the Lancaster Canal: a layer of water, then ice below.

The good news for South Oxford narrowboaters is that there is talk (on very good authority!) that Mr David Dare (Oxfordshire Narrowboats) is breaking ice towards Banbury to meet Dusty and his coal boat, who is making his way south towards us. This means that there will be a broken ice channel to Heyford at least - hopefully down to us and those narrowboaters south of us too. So diesel and coal is on its way - yippee.

It looks as if we will be staying here for a while longer though, as the temperatures are due to go down again tomorrow and even a broken ice path can damage newly blacked hulls!

PS. Thanks to Matt from Tooley's who sorted out our starting problems whilst we were away and Bones and Maffi who kept an eye on our home too.