Christmas and Light!

Blackbird sitting on the christmas tree
Take these broken wings and learn to fly
All your life
You were only waiting for this moment to arise...


Our first christmas onboard has been well, different! It started with a hot drink, delightful presents and watching the birds. After a fried egg and bacon sarnie it had got to 3pm somehow. So we set off to collect 20 litres of water and have a wash from running taps at Leigh's mums. What a joy. After a bit of family time we set off back to the boat. It was late and the chicken hadn't even left it's plastic tray so we opted for Christmas Indian Takeaway. Leigh told me how he was as shocked as the serving staff that they were open and he was ordering on Christmas day. It sure was delicious though! And so back home, we lit the candles, threw a log on the burner and snuggled down for the late night. That reminds me, the lights!


With the ignition on the blink we couldn't run the engine at all over christmas to charge our battery system and so we were reliant on the generator. This is not as rosy as it seems. We would run the generator for two hours and charge up phones, laptops, vacuum etc and by 4.30 as the day would draw into night we would light candles around the boat (trying to conserve them as much as possible as we only had a few and the shops were now shut) and by 10pm all charged items were often starting to die off. Each day we would try to start the engine with no hope.

That was until the day before yesterday! We had done the ritual of jobs - putting away the bedding, standing up the mattress to dry out, filled up the coal, brought in the wood, collected water from the tap at the next lock, tidied up, fed the animals, brought the porta-potti through as our toilet is now ripe for emptying... then I thought I would look over the ignition.

It was a mild day, the rain overnight had washed away the snow, but there was still alot of ice and the canal was hard as stone. The electrical guys who looked over the engine had said that the cold could effect the electrical system and as our ignition is housed in an old wooden box outside I guess it had. So I inserted the key, but nothing, no volts, nowt. I unscrewed the panel but all the leads appeared to be in place, the wires all in tact. So I did a bit of wriggling, straightening out and alleviating some pressure on wires that were quite taught. I put the panel back in place and Voila! the voltage dial hit 12V. Ho-bloody-rah!

When I shouted through to Leigh who was inside the boat to 'come here quick' he was preparing to jump into the canal after me... and after the initial heart attack moment he was elated that I'd got the bloody thing working. We fired up the engine and had an entire evening of all the lights on!

If the foul weather continues we are going to have to consider some good insulation and maybe replacing the panel. That is when the money tree does actually start growing tenners. And so there we have it, as unusual as life is these days it is beautiful in every way.