Interrogating the season

Bet it’s bad in winter – you don’t live on it all year round do you – guess you don’t move at this time of year? Constant questions boaters face at this time of year. Our responses are usually always the same – it’s cosy inside as small spaces are easier to heat – it’s great in many ways living on a boat winter – canals are quieter and mooring is easier to find. Yes, we live on the boat all year round because it’s our only home, our office and our workshop.

Life takes on a different pace in winter, it needs to. We move slower, we move the boat less, we take more time to live, to move coal, collect sticks for kindling, to stoke the fire and tend it so it never goes out. There is increased work in winter, and we accept that’s part of the lifestyle.

Because of that fire and the increased retro fit insulation which we keep adding it’s not cold on the boat in winter. If the fire went out it would be bitter at the moment. We keep warm screaming at the radio or TV regularly when they tell us everyone in the country is benefiting from the £400 winter fuel allowance. It may well apply unless you are off grid and itinerant. We are immensely grateful to the National Bargee Travellers Association who are fighting the corner or us and every other traveller, seeking to get us all help with our coal and gas bills. Living in a metal box in winter every little helps.

We are aware all the time what it’s like outside. We see the grass alongside our windows by the towpath is white and crunches under foot when we finally get to it. Getting to it is a bit of a struggle and involves crawling out of the doors beneath the rear hatch because the metal hatch has frozen solid. We crawl out clutching the kettle that’s heated on the stove ready, and thaw the runners open to allow us to slide the hatch open and stand upright at our back doors.

On the water side of the boat this week has brought ice, not thick but still creating a duck skating rink. Our mooring ropes are stiff and solid, glistening with ice, a far cry from being flexible and pliable as usual. Sometimes they thaw during the day, other times they stay rigid like metal hawsers all day.

The air smells different, it is sharp and breathing in out here hurts, but it feels clean and pure at the same time. It is easy to imagine that lurking germs have been wiped out by this sudden deep freeze.

My paternal grandmother used to talk about bitter winters on the farm in Kent when at the first sign of winter she claimed they would smear yellowish goose grease (by-product of a hearty meal) over their chest and back, wrap the oily areas in brown paper and then don a tight vest over the whole unsavoury package. Those three layers would stay untouched until the dawn of spring. Heaven knows what the smell was like by then…perhaps it reached a peak and then died away? Or maybe everyone smelled the same so no one remarked upon the rancid whiff.

We avoid goose fat and brown paper. Layers are the order of the day, but layers including our thermals are back in action. The best I’ve found came cheap from Aldi some years ago, lightweight yet warm, they make moving about easier and safer at this time of year. In the cold morale can dip and if you are cold you move less fluidly which can lead to problems, particularly when tackling icy locks.

Moving the boat means negotiating locks, (unless on the lockless Ashby Canal) an occupational hazard for continuous cruisers like ourselves. We haven’t selected to go into a marina or take a winter towpath mooring for some months so at least every fortnight we need to move in a meaningful manner. That demands managing locks, Lock mechanisms and lock beams get icy at this time of year and demand significant care. A dip in freezing waters from a slip is not what anyone wants or needs. Given hypothermia can be fatal unexpected swims are best avoided.

So yes, we love winter, we love the fact that winter and the work it entails helps us appreciate the other seasons when they come, helps us appreciate our stove and the comfort food bubbling away on its welcome heat, appreciate the fact the grate broke a few weeks ago when we weren’t freezing and could replace it. We appreciate the blanketing calm of winter on the waterways and the constant incredible service of the coal boats crewed for long, long days by some of the most amazing individuals we’ve ever met.