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Showing results for tags 'Rain'.
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A few weeks ago I got a PM from Emerald Fox inviting me to come along as crew for a week or so over Christmas up north. Much of my boating so far has been around Braunston, but he meant way up north, going up the Pennines on the Rochdale, subject to the canal not being iced over, always a possibility. Always being open to the opportunity to crew for someone I said yes, and that is why I now find myself about to sit down to Christmas dinner with Foxy. Duck, stuffing, roast potatoes, carrots, parsnips, and Brussels sprouts of course. And cranberry sauce, and Foxy says a very acceptable Reisling. Foxy’s cookery is good, we had some nice Mexican pancakes yesterday, but he has just partly burnt the Brussels and is doing his best to rescue them. It’s nice and warm inside the boat with the stove going, but outside is a different story. To a southerner like me who’s never been to the Pennines before (and only up north at all on a few occasions), the Pennines in winter conjures up a picture of a lone shepherd (wearing the obligatory flat cap) searching a 3 foot snowdrift for lost sheep on a TV news item about bad weather. In fact I haven’t seen any snow but it is cool, sometimes rather windy, and it rains a lot. Ee, it’s grim up north. There has been some clear weather but unfortunately most of it was on Wednesday when Foxy had to be away for the day. That was also the day when we had to get through the Tuel Lane lock because CRT have to operate that, and opening times are limited. So Foxy, being a very nice trusting type, agreed that I could single hand his boat through the set of three locks although I had very little experience of single handed boating. Though I say so myself, I think I did it pretty well and managed not to crash into anything. The combination of the rain and Foxy’s packed social calendar means we’ve been moving rather slowly by my standards so far, but there does appear to be a chance that it could stop raining for a while on Sunday. Maybe.