A reflection on our Winter.

First of all I’d like to take this opportunity to thank the Canal and River Trust for being so exceptionally supportive of us whilst we navigated a different course toward care for my (Chris’) Mum.

They were helpful and compassionate far beyond anything we’d hoped for, and it was solely down to their care and understanding that we could stay between bridges 193 and 196 on the Trent and Mersey Canal, for what was almost eight months. Equally deserving of a mention is the team at the Salt Barge Inn, that allowed us to park both our vehicles there for the duration of our time. We did obviously suffer a few long nights slightly inebriated as way of a thank you, especially enjoying New Years Eve and the complimentary chip butties!

That was one of the things that really struck me. The speed at which we can now adapt to new surroundings. Obviously it helps that we are familiar with the area but being greeted with kindness with no anticipation of anything in return was very special. And I genuinely feel grateful to have experienced it.

Almost as special as spending our very first Winter on the towpath. Aside from the lack of Sunshine to power our solar and the slightly leaky wood burning stove. We never ran out of water or fuel and all the work earlier in the year foraging for wood certainly reaped dividends. Becoming iced in and experiencing the alien noises as the ice cracked and shifted was an exceptional experience. Waking up realising the list of the narrowboat had ceased as the ice was so thick, and then the weird cracking elongated sounds as someone was brave or stupid enough to cut their way through the ice crushing large sections against the hull.

We also got to witness our first Starling murmuration as Autumn became Winter with the tiny birds gathering in their thousands over Neumanns Flashes put on incredible displays nightly before Sunset. Again nature leaving us in awe of her. This then led us into the Lapwing displays as hundreds of birds gathered over the the ploughed field whooping and rolling as they seemed to relish the Winter sunshine and the crispness in the air.

A common thread to our life here has been our daily jaunts into the woodlands in and around Marbury. Technically part of the Mersey Forest, Marbury was once home to a majestic house that was demolished in the late sixties, but thankfully the lands associated with house withstood a housing application and the then owners ICI, leased the land to Northwich Council in 1975. It now forms part of the Northwich Woodlands that encompass ancient woodland and formal landscaping. It is within the woodlands that we escaped for refuge and reflection. I will go as far as to say that those ancient trees and their rebirth during Spring helped us through some of our most difficult moments.

And the pure unbridled joy for the nostalgia of the Bluebells re-emerging and carpeting the floor of the woodlands was a happiness that I had not witnessed for over twenty five years, as descriptions go, Marbury can definitely lay claim to the name Bluebell wood as the display that flourishes there every year is something to behold.

And then seemingly over night the warmer weather came, the nights of the log burner diminished and then our attentions turned to the boat and the inevitable Spring clean we both feel as the temperature equalises both inside and outside the boat. And even better the time spent outside of the boat doesn’t result in thirty minutes cleaning Luna and ourselves.

Our thoughts now turned to essential maintenance of Oddstruck Belle and a desire to get moving. Almost 48 weeks to the day we should have gone down the Anderton Boat Lift, we booked passage as our time on the canal was coming to an end as we re-traced our first narrowboat steps and descended to the River Weaver, a place we hadn’t wet the hull in almost 4 years.

Mums Care is still paramount in our minds, but we now have a twice daily care visit that covers essentials, allowing us to just visit and actually spend time with her. I had found my visits resulting in a whirlwind of washing, cleaning and cooking, so this new help is a welcome respite, and it has allowed for a better quality of visit.

So here I stand in our new office writing this as the drone of a sander attacking the hull of the boat next door reverberates through the walls and I wait patiently for our hull to be surveyed, and the impending sense of disaster my character cannot help but feel after seeing the state that the hull is in on Saturday as I blasted the detritus from it’s surface. And that’s another wonderful thing that this narrowboat life has taught us, to just allow things to happen. “This too shall pass” any gut wrenching news today will pass and repairs made and that feeling will be blown from me as we reflect and continue on our way up the river. And this feeling too shall pass……