Post by naughtyfox on Mar 4, 2018 11:51:34 GMT
Ran out of firewood, found some nets at B&M in Sowerby Bridge for £3.50 each (£4.00 in Tesco's), bought four nets. Chopped them up with axe, drying them in shower, surfaces had some snow.
Stanley Ferry Marina on Thursday. I braved bitingly cold winds and Northern trains without heating to travel to Wakefield via Dewsbury and Leeds, to make a delivery of alcoholic beverages to NB Ellis. Ellis and Andy kindly gave me a car lift back to Wakefield Westgate station.
At Wakefield Westgate station, an indication of the severity of the weather. Luckily for me, the 1255 local train to Leeds was running. And then it was time to do our packing, bicycles back inside, back cover on... a 5am wake-up on Friday and off at 0715 for the trains to Leeds and Sheffield and London St Pancras.
Whilst I went to Wakefield and Stanley Ferry, the Witch went by train to Hebden Bridge and took this. That's Mayroyd Mill Lock (No 8) at the end. Photo taken from the road to the railway station.
We left an hour early on Friday just in case, and we had a tight connection at Sheffield anyway. As it turned out, we had an hour and 10 minutes to fritter away at Sheffield station. On the journey we saw Lemonroyd Marina and Lemonroyd Lock, Woodnook Lock as the railway crosses the River Calder near Castleford (we were there last August, at Woodnook Lock), crossed the Calder & Hebble Navigation twice to the east and south of Wakefield, and we saw canal boats in Sheffield (though looking at the map I don't understand from exactly where the railway crosses the navigation there). The railway crosses the Trent just to the east of the junction with the River Soar and I saw that clearly (we should be there next Christmas?), saw the River Nene near Irchester (it's very small!), and saw boats on the Regent's Canal just before arriving at St Pancras station - it was well frozen.At St Pancras a man in sunglasses and a rolled up copy of The Times under his arm smiled at us and whispered "Are you Twats?" and so was immediately recognised as Thunderboat's very own MI5-MI6 agent, and we spent an hour with magnetman in the station's old booking office which is now a restaurant/bar, before jumping on a Piccadilly Line train back to Heathrow.
A few planes had been cancelled, ours was an hour late, so we missed our 2345 flight to Kokkola. About 30 other passengers had missed flights to Hong Kong, St Petersburg, and other destinations, and Finnair put us up in a hotel near the airport, and gave us 34 Euros' worth of vouchers to buy food/drink from the supermarket at the airport. Hotel breakfast was included. We were put on yesterday's 1205 plane to Kokkola, which was the next one (and only half full).
All in all, not a bad trip. I did not get to deal with the many small jobs on my list of 'fings to do', but we have made several steps forward with our boating issues. Brighouse household waste site (dump) took 25 litres of 'murky' diesel sucked from the bottom of our fuel tank, and 5 litres of old engine oil. We now have four LED strip lights to be put up, and old fluorescents to be removed from inside the boat. We now have one lifejacket inside the boat, for the River Aire, along which we have to chug next June. The engine started first time (as usual). It was a little chilly when the wind from 'Storm Emma' was blowing and we were bemused to see smoke being blown back down our chimney and out of the stove into the cabin!
Quite pleased with what we achieved. The most serious mishap was me banging my elbow against the toilet roll holder in the middle of the night when I went to the loo! We met a nice friendly Polish couple from Elland (he's a truck driver, ffs!!) so may keep in contact with them, we met them at a lock and let them have a look inside our boat and let them drive it a bit.
That's it. Back to work for the next 3 months... and to start packing & planning for our Summer boating - Leeds & Liverpool Canal / Bridgewater Canal - back to Nantwich.
