I went past that miserable bunch of cows I saw the other day on my walk. Today, they were looking a bit happier. It's wonderful what a spot of sunshine can do.
I thought they would look even happier if they were wearing novelty antlers!
I was surprised to see a vast flock of Canada geese in the river as I got within sight of Ely. They were also surprised to see me and took flight in a huge flapping frenzy.
The quayside, next to the Ely Maltings, usually looks good but, in a hard frost, it looked fantastic. All along the quay there were anglers dressed in camo gear - I very nearly didn't see them. All day they jostled for the best spots in between the various narrowboats. It was so cold, I wondered if any of the fish could be bothered to nibble their bait.
The green, just outside the Cathedral, looked Dickensian in the heavy frost. Even the sky looked like it was covered in frost.
With weather like this, I spent a couple of days exploring the footpaths around Ely, interspersed with food shopping and carrying out a few more jobs on the boat. Meals revolved around things I could heat on top of the coal fired stove. It beats heating up the gas oven and, with a bit of thought, reduces the washing up.
Back to the temperature issue; during the 3 nights I was there, the outside temperature teetered around minus 6 - 8 degrees, while inside I maintained a comfortable plus 14 - 18. The coal fired stove stayed alight 24 hours a day so even in the early morning, the temperature inside didn't get below plus 8. Pretty good really.
At 3.00 pm on Saturday, I headed back to Lazy Otter. There was a gentle breeze from the northwest so that wouldn't hinder my solo mooring. As I have said before, anything more than a moderate side wind makes mooring pretty difficult. I had left Ely a little late so wondered if I would get back to Lazy Otter in daylight. It took me about an hour and a half to get back. As I pulled into my pontoon, I was greeted by a Kingfisher darting along the entire length of the marina - a wonderful welcome. I stayed on board Saturday night to keep an eye on the weather. I should have had my guitar with me or a selection of DVDs as the selection of programmes on tv was appalling. Whatever is happening to mainstream telly? I wonder if I could get Sky on board Skylark?
This morning (Sunday), I felt confident that I could leave Skylark with a very low fire still burning in the stove. The weather forecast for Sunday and Monday is predicting more snow and low temperatures followed by a slight improvement but the fire should keep the inside temperature in the positives for about 12 - 18 hours and, after that, it shouldn't get below zero.
So, I left at mid day and headed down the A14 into a light dusting of snow, wondering if those anglers were still dangling their lines in the water at Ely. I remembered the old saying: Give a man a fish and you will feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish, and you won't have to buy him a fish.
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