Winter’s coming so we’re planning and ham-ming it up!

The first frost arrived this week hard on the heels of the clock change, and a need to have the fire lit more often now to keep us cosy. The frost caught me by surprise meaning the early exit the dog and I make through the stern hatch turned into farce. The hatch was frozen shut so we ended up crawling through the rear half doors emerging floundering on the narrow rear deck in the crisp morning dark.

And we’ve had Bonfire Night, which heralds the tail of autumn.

November for us, as for many creatures, means conscious preparation time for HAM (Hibernate, Adapt, Migrate).

In conventional homes we tend to prepare for winter by checking fuel supplies and heating systems. We do that on the boat as well – checking where and when fuel boats are passing to make sure we have bottled gas for cooking and fuel for the stove. The stove is our sole drying and heating source as well as a winter cooking source for soups and stews. Just as many animals change their diets in winter, so do we – more soups, stews, slow cooking using the stove. We also start spending more time foraging for winter fuel – for sticks to light the fire, and Steve keeps warm by chopping the wood we collected and stored earlier in the year.

This year we aren’t corralled by a lockdown (currently). Last year that prevented us moving. Covid resulted in us seeking out a place close to services to reduce the amount we needed to travel for water and waste disposal. From December to April, Willington in South Derbyshire became our mooring home for the duration of lockdown 3.

So as continuous cruisers we have a choice in terms of location. We could hibernate – choosing to pay for moorings in marinas or online along towpaths on allocated winter moorings operated by Canal and River Trust (CRT) across the country. From 1 November until 28 February 2022 CRT sell permits for allocated mooring areas. Winter moorers pay by the metre of their boat and by the month. Each mooring site has a different price depending on location, proximity to facilities and demand. The costs this year range from £7.10 to £22.90 per metre per month.

We don’t think we are going to go for the marina, single or even multiple location winter moorings but stay as continuous cruisers although we will look for longer mooring spots – those allowing us to stay for 14 rather than 2 or 5 days.

Animals stock up on food for winter hibernation…and I’m starting to do that with tinned, dried and longlife foods so we have enough if we get iced in on a part of a canal somewhere away from shops. If there’s ice then it’s not good to move the boat – the potential for damaging the protective blacking or other boats is real.

Some animals add body fat to get them through the winter…I think I’ve done that despite the fact that I don’t actually have any intention of living off it during the cold months! Time for extra exercise to burn it off I feel or as you can see – I shall roll off the boat in the Spring!

We will adapt our movement for the winter – muddy towpaths make for slithery walks, ice makes crossing over locks to operate them difficult and dangerous, it also makes lock spindles slippery, and the whole lock environment becomes riskier. To stay safe you need to take more time, move more slowly and with more care. In cruising terms, we want to reduce the number of locks we have to travel in the winter time – reducing the potential for accidents or incidents.

So we will adapt the way we cruise, looking for less locked routes (the latter is the reason so many people seek the Ashby Canal where we are now in winter as it has no locks for 22 miles), and seeking longer mooring stops.

We also need to adapt our travels to take into account the winter closure programme of canals which is created by CRT. As winter is a time when fewer boats use the waterways, CRT and others like Network Rail or gas companies plan a programme of essential repairs and maintenance during these months. There are 166 scheduled repairs to locks, bridges, and other elements of the network this year. Some last a few days, some months.

So wherever we move we need to take into account these works as they can completely shut canals for navigation, meaning we could find ourselves trapped a long way from vital services. That has changed our selection of routes. We originally thought of heading for the Shroppie (Shropshire Union) for the winter but having seen six scheduled works along its length stretching from 8 November to March 2022, we’ll enjoy it with all its improvements, in the Springtime. It’s good to see that some of the locks we’ve struggled with on canals in the past are down for some tlc this winter which will make boaters’ life easier. The Rochdale and the Llangollen, both on our travel wish lists will also be improved by the winter works which is good to hear.

We are also adapting the way we live on the boat – the windows are now encased in their secondary double glazing. Last year I said we needed to replace the old scratched and cloudy Perspex panels so we could see out better…but the pandemic put paid to that! Perspex became a high demand and high price item thanks to Covid demanding screens everywhere we turn. So replacing our double glazing can wait. We are going to snuggle down in a faintly fuzzy world for the winter. It will allow us once again to emerge blinking into a brilliant clear Springtime once we take them down. Perhaps next year we will take them to a Perspex company to use as templates for replacements.

We won’t migrate south to warmer climes but head north from where we now are on the Ashby Canal, which actually means we need to head south first as the Ashby is in effect a long cul-de-sac! We want to be midway between Leicestershire and Lancashire so we can reach either fairly easily should we be needed/wanted.

That gives us a variety of locations to explore – the Caldon, the Peak Forest, the Ashton, the Macclesfield (we travelled the Macc at a rush last year coming back at speed from Yorkshire so didn’t have a chance to discover its true character).

The Ashton Canal is a tiny waterway – just over seven miles linking the Rochdale, Peak Forest and Huddersfield Narrow canals. It may be short but work is scheduled for 5 projects there this winter on locks, from ladder replacement and grouting to replacement of gates and also the realignment of a towpath section for a new cycleway. Those works range in time from 8 November to the middle of March, so we’ll give the Ashton a wide winter berth!

The Caldon extends 18 miles with 17 locks from Stoke-on-Trent to the Staffordshire Moorlands and Churnet Valley. It is a canal that came about to support two major industries – bringing limestone needed for iron making and flints essential for pottery. It has two arms, one leading through a low tunnel to the Wharf at Froghall, the other Leek branch ends at the River Churnet Aqueduct. These two branches will be benefitting from 5 projects over the winter, one a major canal bed replacement over an embankment at an early part of the canal will take from November to March. So the Caldon will be one for another season.

The Peak Forest is a canal we have enjoyed touching on in the past, but we haven’t really got to know it in detail. It runs 14.8 miles from Ashton-under-Lyne east of Manchester connecting to Whaley Bridge in Derbyshire. Four of the Peak’s 16 locks are being repaired during this winter, and to get to it we would need to travel the length of the Macclesfield Canal from where we are now. So it looks like the 27.5 miles of the Macc will be our winter destination – somewhere to explore with amazing winter walks along its length. The Macclesfield will take us from just near Kidsgrove near Stoke to Marle Junction with the Peak Forest in the foothills of the Pennines.

The Macclesfield is renowned for its beautiful countryside, fantastic walks and also includes some delightful towns – the silk town of Macclesfield obviously but also Bollington and Congleton. There are services along the length, and we didn’t encounter issues with wifi when we travelled through in the summer so we feel confident we can work there.

The Macc isn’t scheduled for work this winter. It was the subject of major work earlier this year when it suffered a breach when a culvert wall collapsed. A section of the canal had to be closed and drained completely for repairs. Hopefully there won’t be more breaches this winter…but if there are, well it’s a pleasant canal to be stuck on, with good fuel supplies and services.

First though we need to get there. We can’t set off until after 15 November when we will travel along the Ashby to the Coventry, up to the Trent and Mersey and onto the Staffordshire and Worcestershire Canal as we’re due at Action Trussell in Staffordshire the first week in December.

From there we will then head back to the Trent and Mersey Canal, before turing onto the Macclesfield Canal. That part of the journey will be delayed by stoppage work on the Trent and Mersey which we will need to wait to be completed. At the moment those works are scheduled from 8 November to 17 December. If the works are able to completed on time (depending on weather and the complexity of the work), then we might get onto the Macc in time for Christmas – but who knows? Time will tell – the only think we know for sure is that we will winter somewhere…!