Tinally

Where I am on the Lincolnshire coast it got down to 5°F ( - 14.7°C ) last night. That's the coldest my weather station has ever recorded. It has now ( 11.00am ) just struggled above freezing in the sun......still well below in the shade. It's costing a fortune to heat the greenhouse I use for propagation! P.S. Metcheck is always going wrong. Try http://www.xcweather.co.uk/

Friday 3rd February 2012.....until ?? Just had an email advising me that the Witham has frozen over and to ask boaters to refrain from travelling along it until the ice has thawed! First it's the weed, now it's ice. I suppose as soon as it warms up it will be back to the weed problem again!

22.42 hrs Lincolnshire coast....down to 25°F ( -3.8888889 °C ) and falling. Enough ice on my pond to make the moorhens that usually sleep on the island take to the trees to avoid predators! Doesn't actually feel too bad because the wind is virtually a flat calm.

Wind's picked up a bit here on the Lincolnshire coast, and it feels like it's straight from Siberia. The temperature is a few degrees above freezing, but the wind chill makes it feel a few degrees below.........and the dog wants to go out!

Super photos. Thank you. Makes me want to take a cruise down the Thames one day! As a matter of interest, what resolution did you shoot those pictures at?

I WILL make time to get out on the water more!!

At the end of my first season with "Tinally" at Boston marina, the steering became what you might call a little worn, culminating one afternoon in my cruising steadily past my mooring while frantically spinning the helm in the hope that it would respond! A burst of reverse made me dead in the water and a passing mariner kindly threw me a line and pulled me in. The boat was due to come out of the water the following week anyway, so I added "a new helm, cable etc" to my shopping list. There were several jobs to be done on her that winter ( come to think of it, it seems there always are! ) and with being busy and the weather being very cold, repairs were done at the last minute before re-launching, in fact fitting the new helm unit and cable was the last thing I did. It all went in remarkably easily and I looked to the stern as I spun the wheel and watched the steering arm moving from side to side. Packed up, went home,came down early next day for the launch. Now in those days we launched from the trailer at the Grand Sluice in Boston and having been craned in I pulled "Tinally" out of the way and went through the usual post launch checks, i.e. "Can I heard a bubbling sound from anywhere?" and checking under the floor that there is not actually any water coming in! Checks satisfactorily completed I breathed a sigh of relief and fired her up, push off, opened the throttle and turned to starboard towards my mooring. The boat turned to port and headed towards the boom guarding the sluice! I had to look down and make sure I was actually turning the wheel the right way.....and I was. A millisecond or two passed and I realised my ghastly error. When I put the helm in I checked the steering arm was moving freely, but didn't stop to consider if it was moving in the right direction!! My new helm unit worked in the opposite direction to the old one, so to turn right, I had to turn left and you would not believe how incredibly difficult I found it to override my instincts and navigate a way to my mooring. I'm told that spectators ( where do they all come from when you're in trouble? ) were convinced I was pi.....slightly inebriated as I zig zagged back and forth across the river to my mooring. When I phoned the company that supplied the helm unit they sent an adaptor that allowed the cable to travel in the opposite direction and the situation was resolved with an afternoon's fiddling about, but it has taught me never to take anything for granted and check and double check what you've done is actually producing the right results!

My friend has just bought a cordless window vacuum cleaner to deal with the condensation on his cottage windows. It is extremely efficient and saves all that mopping with cloth or tissues! You can, incidentally, get a smaller head for it, so you can get into awkward places!

My Springer spaniel loves fireworks. First sign of pops and bangs and he's ready to go. I think he thinks it's shooting and that is exciting!! Took him for a walk at the height of the local activities and he sat down on the grass verge, head tipped back, watching all the lights in the sky. First rumble of thunder, however, and it's a different story........a shivering, nervous wreck trying to hide up the back of my jacket. Odd really, 'cos it's only fairly recently that he's behaved like this. He never used to mind storms at all when he was a pup!

The Azolla is not really the problem....that is just unsightly, though detrimental to the flora and fauna living beneath. We can all push our way through that,( if it's not too thick! ) it's the bloody duckweed that is mixed up in it that does for my water intake filter and the various "pondweeds" that are growing beneath. In one spot where the surface was clear I could look down into 10 feet of water and see 9 feet of weed growing up to meet me! That is what fouls our props and rudders. The weevils aren't going to be munching on that lot!