‘Futurest’ and I are now well settled here at Warwick. She is safely tied alongside her usual mooring and with her pile of coal stacked alongside, she is well set up for the coming winter months, no matter what is flung at her. She is well content.
‘Futurest’ ready for the winter
We have both enjoyed a wonderful Summer and tackled it very positively and adventurously. Being in the company of two ladies, both similarly natured to ourselves, it has been a very busy season as well, full of excitement and with its fair share of surprises.
Often by the end of October the country is experiencing its first freeze-up so I have long since decided it is wise to be tied up safely near a fresh water supply and all the other services by that time.
Even without the icy conditions cruising in the winter can be difficult since the on-going canal refurbishment programme starts at the beginning of each November and runs through till the end of February. So winter travel on the water needs a great deal of extra careful planning to make certain that you don’t finish up being stranded between two sets of locks that are out of commission for the winter. Here life could be difficult with no water point or a shop for miles, especially if it is snowing hard for most of the time.
So as always, I was happy when the yellow Kate Boats sign hove into view, swinging squeakily in the fresh but mild breeze, on the side of that tall very distinctive building in Warwick, next to Bridge 49. We are safe now with our pile of coal for whatever the freezing Winter has in store for us.
Except that it seems to be ‘out of stock’ at the moment, as each day passes very much as an extension of the Autumn, which itself at the time appeared as a continuation of the Summer. Today the Sun is shining in an almost clear blue sky and though I felt as warm as toast in bed during the night with the ‘Squirrel’ made up, like many similar days, I now feel like letting it burn out as the Saloon is uncomfortably hot.
As a result of all this I should feel on top of the world but over the last few days I’ve been feeling most lethargic like a party balloon that has been taut all Summer but has now been deflated. Though I have awoken each day with great plans, the hours have rapidly dissolved away without me having accomplished anything worthwhile except a lot of listening to the radio and ‘reading me book’; novels mostly. My mood is such that even though I might have enjoyed the read, I felt I had wasted my precious time.
Autumn carpet in Warwick
But today things are different and I’m actually writing again, even though I had no idea or plan at the beginning of this post what the content would be.
However I must confess that I am currently in the middle of a favourite book of mine that I have re-read many times since I was a lad; ‘Sailing Alone Around the World’ by Captain Joshua Slocum. I have just come across an old hardback copy, which I need to get back to and devour. He’s just repelling savage Fuegan cannibals in the Straits of Magellan with carpet tacks spread across the deck of his ‘Spray’. Exciting stuff so I’ll have to get back to it.
