Mad Dogs and Englishmen

Weather themes seem to be the order of the day. I have a Google alert for "canals" and "narrowboat" and this alerts me to lots of blogs and unfortunately also rubbish! Everyone is commenting on the weather, cold, wind and wet. So here is my contribution!


A good maxim I heard yesterday (from a GP who advocates walking as a good health mantra) is "there is no such thing as bad weather only bad clothing". Thats OK for the effect of wind, rain, snow and ice on us but how does one clothe a narrrowboat? Good insulation, an effective heating system, keeping the stove in overnight, high tog duvets, thermal nightwear etc are all current themes. Sat dishes and roof furniture are another matter!


Our sat dish easily goes over too - BJ has yet to invent a system to prevent this, he will - he is good at practical solutions. Middle of the night excursions meanwhile are prevented by forward thinking and bringing in anything that might fly off if there is any likelyhood of blustery conditions. We once spent a night on the Shroppie canal with the boat bucking and straining to be off down the canal into the next lock! Lesson learned, ha ha.


A Boxing day ice-in last year taught us that it is best to stay put, enjoy the nearest pub, wrap up and walk along the towpath to enjoy the scenery and watch the hire boats break the ice in their quest to return to base in time. After all bare steel on the bows wasn't their worry was it?


So to all of us who enjoy boating in all weathers, keep it up, the canals are an all weather leisure activity and maybe we will have the last laugh (like Noah did) if the climate finally floods the land as predicted. A discussion for another day I think!