After the storm

I knew I shouldn't have left anything on the roof. When I arrived on Friday, my gang-plank was teetering on the edge of my pontoon with one end in the water, the other end hanging on a neighbours mooring rope and one of my barge poles was missing altogether. I had not expected any significant problems because, when I left the boat last week, the weatherbods were predicting a cold snap and a bit of wind. As it turned out, it was the other way round with the worst storm surge for 60 years. Anyway, it could have been worse I suppose.

I went down to Ely, keeping my eyes peeled for a recently wood-stained 3m bargepole but there was no sign of it. Never mind. I still have one and who needs two barge poles anyway?

Ely was even quieter than usual. On days like that, I wonder if I've missed an important Civil Emergency message on BBC Radio Suffolk and everyone has been evacuated to a nuclear bomb shelter in the deepest fens. Anyway, on Saturday morning, I dragged myself out of my bunk and wandered up to the market to find there were still some people about. Phew!

With the real possibility of freezing weather in the coming weeks and months, I thought I should top up my coolant with antifreeze. To be honest, whenever I've topped it up during the year, I've used just plain water, so I thought it might be a bit weak so bought a 5 litre bottle from the local agri-depot and gave it a boost. I also checked the engine oil, which was fine and gave the engine a thorough checking over and clean up. I'll service it fully in the spring after my cruise.

After an hour so of reading my script for the panto (yes, I have read it!), I left at mid day and headed home. There were no other boats on the river so I had the river to myself. I guess the recent weather may have put many people off but it was pretty good from where I was standing.

When I left Skylark, I chatted to another boater at Lazy Otter and told him I would be leaving at the end of December, partly because of the hike in charges. He told me he was leaving too. I suppose this is a fairly natural process with some people shuffling from marina to marina to find the best deal at the time. Of course, the cost is not the only factor but it is one of the main ones, for me anyway.

Tomorrow, we are taking part in the twice yearly Street Fayre, hoping to convert some of our interesting clutter into hard cash. It should help to keep us afloat for another few months.