Halted by Ice Again!

An early start saw me stoking the fire that had stayed in overnight (HURRAY! I'm getting good at this...) and taking on coal and fuel as soon as Yardley Wharf opened. Then onto Cosgrove, and the sun was shining! I had planned to stop at Cosgrove, but upon arrival there at 11am, it seemed like the right time to go still further. Not to mention the fact that I had no internet signal, and nothing else to do...

So I pushed on towards Milton Keynes in the sunshine, the view over the aquaduct just below Cosgrove was amazing.

I approached the second aquaduct, over the road, and saw the figure of my mum walking towards me along the towpath! Thus this photo was possible:




THANKS MUM!

All went wildly awry, however, not long after that. It turns out that a short stretch of the canal in New Bradwell is shaded so perfectly that no dent has yet been made in the ice there! So here I am! Another in a growing number of boats held up on one side of a very thick (and equally short) stretch of ice!

Tomorrow I go out in the morning with a very large stick or a brick on a string to see whether it could be sufficiently broken up from the bank...Here's praying for sunshine and extraordinarily localised global warming for once, industrial lasers accidentally misdirected onto the canal here from the Super X-Ray Deathbeam Satellite, or just a duck with a hairdryer, the usual...