Cross country

Well what an interesting drive home this morning. Liam is back at work today so we set off at the usual time from the boat only to find that our route home was blocked by the closure of Dunham bridge due to flooding.

It is a long way around so we set off in the direction of Gainsborough to the next bridge crossing the river. It made a change to try a different route home but we do hope that the bridge is open again tomorrow as it is much easier for us to get back to the marina travelling on the a5£.

Tidal Trent

We went for a little wander down the rivr this afternoon to see how it was coping with the water heading downstream.

Short answer, not very well. The bank at Torksey has been breached and the river water is thundering into the adjacent fields at a alarming rate. The caravan site behind the swan pub is in danger of becoming very wet. The fishing lakes are already flooded losing a great stock of fish to the river unless they can be saved.

The flood gates at Torksey lock are holding back a good eight feet of Trent. Rather surprisingly they have managed to drop the fossdyke almost to normal levels, it is no more than six inches above normal levels.

With more rain on the way these good be very interesting times on the Trent!

The big day

Merry Christmas everyone. I hope that wherever you are you have a good one, eat too much and drink too much!

Christmas Eve

Well it is almost here at last. Christmas Eve is upon us. At last the boat has been declared illness free after a few days of sickness bug and Christmas cold. Maybe we will now get into the Christmas spirit.

The rain is still hammering down outside and the river level is still rising. Any hopes of a Christmas cruise are now well and truly dashed.

Today we are going to have a drive around the locality to see the effects of all of this recent rain. More pictures to follow shortly.

Here we go again

Once more the fossdyke is in flood. When will it end?

This year has been so wet that the ground is saturated so the rain has no where to go but straight into the river. What we need is a good long dry spell to allow the ground water levels to settle down.

Slow cooked pork belly

We tried this for the first time last weekend and it was really very good. The longer you give this dish the better it becomes.

So we used a good quality slab of pork belly and seasoned simply with sea salt and cracked black pepper. Place the pork fat side up in the slow cooker and cover with a layer of chopped sweet potatoes.
Stick the slow cooker on low and forget about it for the day.

We let our pork cook for 12 hours by which time it was tender to the touch. You didn't need a knife to cut it. We served simply with the sweet potatoes, carrots and Brussel sprouts.

A simple dish but boy was it tasty. Perfect after a long cold day out and about on the boat.

Success

Yesterday we had some success with the delivery round. We now only have one delivery to make on Monday.

After a slow start it looks like Christmas is finally happening in the broughton/Jennings household. Not that you would know it just by looking. The house is devoid of Christmas decorations, these have been saved for the boat this year.

Now we can kick back and relax for the rest of the week and start to look forward to the big day. Our plans for a week on the river look set to be ruined thanks to the weather. The forecast is for a lot of rain which will most probably see the river go back into flood, meaning we will be locked in, great!