Fri 28 Jan 2011 Napton

Last night was interesting in more ways than one. We went to the Wharf as planned and when we arrived we found they had a function on. It was a talk and tasting session for Bombay Sapphire Gin including using it in cooking. The had take up the canal side end of the dining room. To demonstrate the use for cooking they had a portable gas ring,Unfortunately they had chosen to place this directly under the fire detector, luckily for them it was not a sprinkler, just a very loud alarm. So we had free entertainment for the evening. Since last night I have been thinking about the food we had, steak pie and game pie served with mash potatoes and peas. After a lot of deliberations I must say I think they were the best pies that we have had for a very long time, not only that but the mash potato was very good as well. O and we were drinking Hooky.
We returned to the boat and toddled off to bed, but not for long, Magic decided at 4 am that he was hungry and wanted his breakfast, this was followed at 6 am when he wanted a drink, after that it was under our bed and off to sleep.

We set off this morning at 9-50 to a bright but cold morning. A chap filling his water tank and extra containers told me that the new water point at Marston Doles was out of use, BW has only recently fitted a new tap stand so the information may be out of date.
We encountered the first ice at the winding hole and then broke very thin ice for about half our journey home. We didn't see a single boat all the way back to our moorings, once there we unloaded the dog and dirty washing to the car and then drained down the water system again, because there is still plenty of time for a lot more cold weather.The journey had taken us exactly 3 hours.

In the past 13 days we have done 130 miles and 26 locks clocking up 59 engine hours