finally moving...

Unfortunately Nigel and Jacquie weren't available to help me in February, so some equally good friends - Roger and Shirley-Ann Andrews made the journey from Devon. This time I had checked the stoppages and checked the canal was clear of ice. When they arrived we celebrated by going off to a lovely little pub in Crick. A merry evening passed and when we eventually wandered back to the boat, I did notice the temperature had dropped and there was a little snow in the air. But as we crossed the bridge to the marina the water was well, still water, so I didn't worry.
The next morning we woke to find that the country was blanketed in the thickest layer of snow that had fallen in the last 18 years. Worst still, the canal had frozen overnight and yet again, I was stuck! (to have a look at just how snowy it was, scroll down to my second post and you'll see a picture of my boat the morning after the snow started falling)
We waited for a several days but the ice just got thicker, the tank to my toilet got full and I couldn't move the boat to get it pumped out. One night, the toilet overflowed - I won't go into detail, but suffice to say, the next day Roger and Shirley-Ann took me off the boat and made the fairly hazardous journey back to Devon.
They put me up there for a long and frustrating week. We followed the weather forecast on an almost a minute by minute basis. I prayed daily that if I could just get out of purgatory I would be a good girl forever!
Eventually the whole country had thawed and so we returned to Crick. I always thought purgatory would be very hot, but in Crick's case it was the opposite - ice still lay thick upon the canal. We passed a day or two bashing it with sticks to try and break it up! Much more effectively, a British Waterways work boat came through and finally, on 14th February, Don't Panic left Crick Marina and dashed (if 4mph can be described as dashing) up to Barton, on the Trent and Mersey, before the weather turned once again or the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse arrived! On 17th February, 6 weeks after my first attempt, I finally cruised into the heaven that was Barton Marina.