'Twas sun today we saw

Yesterday has been officially recorded as the coldest March day since 1987, but finding actual temps for the local area yesterday is proving to be a bit difficult. Suffice it to say that it was 'fecking' freezing, in Andrew's words.  It was not so much the actual temp but the wind chill which took it well below freezing.  It was interesting to see snow blizzards one minute and clear sky the next, and then back to blizzard.As we are sensible narrow-boaters, we did not move in those conditions! Instead, the next bear is in progress.

This morning the canal around us was ice but surprise surprise, there were plenty of boats on the move, just like yesterday, even though there was still a bitter wind. Great Haywood really is a very busy junction. So today we moved too. Well we had to, we were on 48 hour moorings :)
The ice had kindly already been broken for us by others. We stocked up on food essentials at the local Canalside Farm shop before venturing around the corner. Well maybe a bit more than the essentials but I cannot resist a good cheese and homemade crumble.

We are happily moored now in Tixall Wide, less than a mile from where we were.  Open fields on both sides of this very wide section of the canal. Along with the Gatehouse, which I found can now be booked as a holiday let (Tixall Gatehouse)  And see, we also had some lovely sun:

More indoors occupations today with a bit of local bird watching.  We saw this cormorant but in my excitement, I had the wrong settings on the camera. So again not great photos but a very interesting sequence.

That fish was huge. Amazing to watch, even through a lens.