One more day to go....

We moved our Derby base to Staffordshire on the 9th July. I guess you could say it was all downhill from there.... well light wise it was  and until you live on a boat for an extended period of time you do not understand how dark the experience can be !

Ok so not a doom and gloom post but the reality of living while still working on a boat is you get up in the dark and come back in the dark. No daytime cruises to get your vitamin D. I spoke to Kev my neighbour and he casually said it is an existence over the winter aboard. This is much the case when you are off the grid and living on 2 leisure batteries. It can be cosy, it can be romantic(not when you are on your own mind) but it is bloody dark most of the time. The irony is I bet when I return to land living in the spring (good timing !!) to sort out the house to sell I will miss the boat I guess, even more so as the days will be getting lighter all the time.

So why the post today.... well I pushed across to water up and empty the cassette, and then decided to give the batteries a real good top up as well as top up my vitamin D with some wind blast sunshine and rain. We only went to Alrewas and back for winding but it was a challenge in the wind. Talking of winding, the Alrewas winding hole can be a pig if the wind is in the wrong direction, today it was and would have caught me broadside and slowly pushed me onto the far bank if I had not passed the stern rope to Rachel whole kept the stern near the armco while I winded - almost felt like I knew what I was doing!

The one more day is tomorrow up to 23:03 when the earth's orbit sees it lengthening the exposure to the sun in our northern hemisphere

The winter solstice itself lasts only a moment in time, so other terms are used for the day on which it occurs, such as "midwinter", or the "shortest day". It is often considered the "first day of winter" or the "start of winter" (Lidong in the East Asian calendars), although in meteorology winter spans the entire period of December through February. The seasonal significance of the winter solstice is in the reversal of the gradual lengthening of nights and shortening of days

So from 23:03 tomorrow night the days get longer and the nights shorter and it feels like survival, only some consider tomorrow the start of winter and as we all know we have yet to have a blast of cold weather for any sustained period. 

Bottom line is we moved the boat today, we are together now for 16 days, it's Christmas in 5 days time and goodness only knows what 2015 holds for us !

Happy Christmas and a safe and secure New Year to you all.

It's on its way..... !!