longest day

At last its the longest day and we can all start to look forward to lighter nights! its been another bitterly cold day here at Norbury, coal sales, diesel sales and gas sales are through the roof at the moment i just hope that we can keep up with the demand, we had more coal delivered today so we should be OK for over the Christmas break now.

The holiday makers on Summer Wine decided to call it a day today and have left for home, apparently the forecasters have said we will have up to ten inches of snow this week, it doesn't look like the ice will disapear for quite some time, Sovereign Lady is try to make it back through the ice, its out again on Thursday so keeping my fingers crossed, its not far away so hopefully we will see it tomorrow. Fred has been ice breaking today and when he came back he said that i was right it is hard work, the poor old day boat will need blacking now after its duties as an ice breaker.

I'm off home now to stoke my fire and put my feet up.

Simon

lonely day

Its been quite a lonely day here at Norbury today as David was off, Angela was off Paul was off and Amanda was off so i almost had the office to myself except for Jay to keep me company, this weather is really starting to cause some problems now -20 over the weekend and the ice is so thick that it has stopped us docking boats as we just cant get down to the dock, roll on some warm weather, i did have to go out and break some ice along the embankment today, it was very thick but i managed it so that one of our hire boats could get some water as they were running low.

that's it for today

Simon

It's mighty cold

I arrived at work this morning to find an envelope pinned to the door. Inside was a compliments slip from Staffordshire police to update us on our break in. Apparently they were here at 12.30 this morning and walked around our site to make sure the buildings were secure. Just goes to show that theres some very good coppers out there that go beyond the call of duty. The regular drive-by's will hopefully keep those thieving hands at bay.

I'm a bit late writing our blog today. Time seems to fly by at work in this weather, with very little achieved!

First task of the day was to dock a boat. So I set to breaking the ice with the day boat, but it was virtually impossible down the arm, and I didn't want to do any damage to Strait and Narrow, so we moved to plan B.

Plan B - Float our two hire boats. Slide them alongside each other, pull the boat in that needs docking, push it over to the far side and slide the other two out. I know it sounds a bit like a Bunbury Shuffle (well I suppose it's the same!). Here's a description of Sue doing the Bunbury Shuffle with No Problem.

That worked pretty well, but we had to leave one of our hire boats in as the ice was too thick to break with freshly blacked boats.

Paul's still been busy working on installing the heating system on Lion. Another day or so and it'll all be up and running.

I've been trawling through our website, updating it here and there. I think I have also managed to find a company in Cheshire who can help us with our webcam that Simon wants to install (thanks Dad!).

It's -12°C outside at the moment, so I reckon tonight will be a cold one... Let's hope I can get to Manchester tomorrow.

Well it's 17:45 and I should be at home. So have a good Christmas if I don't get to say that during the week.

Regards,

David.

Fingers crossed...

We had a bit more snow in the night and some more this morning. There's now about an inch of the white stuff everywhere! It seems to be causing disruption all over the country. Listening to the radio, Gatwick airport has closed and BA have suspended all of the outbound flights from Heathrow today. My Mum and Dad are due to be flying over from Spain on Monday to spend Christmas and New Year here with me. They are booked on a flight to arrive into Manchester at about lunchtime, so we need to keep our fingers crossed that the flights don't get cancelled!

The occupants for the two boats that we have going out today, have arrived, the first boat has already left and the second will probably be departing the basin as I write.

Fred's been busy blacking in the dry dock. We have two of our hire boats on at the moment (Phantasy and Python).

Mick's still busy with gas work on all the boats that we have in for winter maintenance.

Paul's doing a sterling job at fitting a diesel stove and heating system into Lion. The radiators are now all hung, the new chimney collar is in, stove in place and the fuel line is in. He is now in the process of putting in the pipework to the radiators. His fingers must be dropping off. I've just been onto the boat to see how he is getting on and it is mighty cold in there. He's had to remove the solid fuel stove to run the pipework, so he can't even get some warmth into her from that.

Mandy and Jay are cleaning the holiday cottage and motor homes respectively, ready for the customer that will be arriving on Christmas Eve.

Well we will keep our fingers crossed that the weather doesn't get any worse, at least until Monday.

That's all for today.

David

More snow, more ice!

Its getting tedious now, the sub zero temperatures are back and causing us problems again, not as bad yet as they have been but it still takes twice as long to do jobs in this weather,and its going to get much colder, the canal was frozen over today so out with the day boat and ice braking was the first job, in the torential snow,the ice was not to thick around half an inch but it is enough to stop a boat from moving forward when not under power, we had to move several boats today to make room for the boat being drained in to the water, yes it did happen today! sorry no pictures as my fingers were just to cold to hold the phone and press the button!

Dont worry if you are supposed to be coming to collect a boat and you are reading this, the roads as I speak are ok, if you are concerned about the conditions here just drop the office a line in the morning and check.

We have had two boats go out today and we have two more out tomorrow, I don't think they will get far and to be honest if it were me I wouldn't attempt to go far just in case the ice gets to thick.

Well that is it for me for this week, David can keep you up to speed with the goings on here at Norbury, I'm off for the weekend, so until next week.

Simon

Whoops!

Its been a busy sort of day, as I said yesterday we were craning this morning so David moved the boats out of the way, moved the Trailer that was in front of the boat to be craned and we generally got everything in order to do the job, we then went over to the dry dock to dock a couple of our boats for blacking etc, it was around 10.30 when we finished and I said to David " a that crane is quite a bit late"it should have arrived at 9am, then the penny dropped, I got the days wrong and its Friday we are craning! needles to say David was not amused, so it just goes to show, even I get things wrong! He then had to put all the boats back where they were until tomorrow.

You don't notice sometimes just how busy it is until you run out of something, we have three diesel pumps on the wharf, we have a delivery of fuel at least once a week, sometimes twice a week in the summer months, two of pumps ran out of fuel today,fortunately we have a delivery tomorrow so no one will be disappointed.

We are craning tomorrow so I will get some pictures then.

Simon

busy day today

Its a bit like writing a diary everyday but I have to leave a lot of things out as there just isnt enough space to write everything so this is just a snap shot of things that happen at Norbury. It all started very early this morning with filling the dock as we have had two boats to dock today for survey, so once we had moved some boats out of the way of the dock, broke some more ice we were ready, one boat docked by 10am then the next one docked by 1pm, the boat that was on the dock(Ember) was moved over to the painting dock while the one in the painting dock (Silhouette) came out looking much tidier after a lick of paint here and there, I moved the boat and it is superb now with its new engine, I know that the owners will be chuffed with how it is now! We carried on moving boats all day, we seem to have so many boats at the moment that we have to move two boats to get at one and so on, it seems to take for ever! I finally got back in to the office at 3pm for a meeting, thank God for that as it gave me chance to thaw out my fingers.

We are craning a boat in to the water tomorrow so alls being well I will get some photos for you.

Until tomorrow Simon