1700s canal engineers tried various weir designs. This one's circular. Excess water flowed down the channel and over the perfectly horizontal ring of bricks, to drain away.

Sadly, this is part of an orphaned section of canal that is now fallow.
Happily, there's a group of Lichfield volunteers rebuilding this canal and its locks, to reconnect it to the Birmingham Canal Network. It'll take years because two roads were built across the land.

Getting up at 02:30 to put more wood and coal briquettes on the dying fire is something people with central heating, gas, and electricity don't have to think about.

I thought about it because, though I was still comfortable under the blankets, my exposed face was feeling a chill creeping through the boat. The thermometer inside said 14°C (57°F). The ice outside suggests more cooling to come.

Along the dock, the marina has a number of prepay-type electric meters for shorelines. I keep a healthy balance on mine so the boat always has electricity.

To top up my balance, the meter accepts prepaid cards made of paper with a brown magnetic strip in the centre. I lift up the plastic cover (held on by duct tape) to insert the card in a slot. There's a digital display that shows my current balance.

I buy prepaid cards from the marina office.

The canal's iced over. Almost got frostbite, walking back. The embers of this morning's fire kept the boat at +4°C (39°F) inside.

I waxed a log with candle stubs to help it ignite, then re-lit the stove. In 90 minutes I'll take off my coat and mittens.

I put my sleeping gear—2 layers, bottoms and tops with hoods—near the stove, so I won't have to change into iced garments for bed, later.

While I was away, the wind ground my (electric) shoreline between the dock and the hardened bank, fraying the wires and shorting out the entire dock.

My neighbours unplugged my boat, leaving it without minimal heating while the weather went below zero.

Tomorrow I'll detach the plug, cut off 2 meters of cord to remove the frayed wires, and then reattach the plug. Three minutes, easy fix.

Thanks for nothing, neighbours.

It's freezing -3°C tonight and will freeze -2°C to -4°C every night for at least a week.

I won't get back to the boat for another 36 hours to light the wood stove, so I hope the electric heater, which I left on low, does its job. If not, this weather might be hard on the plumbing. It'll certainly be hard on me once I am back.

It's windy tonight and the boat is getting thrown around a bit, but it's not causing me any worry.

It took me a while to realise there was no 230v electricity on board. I was using things that run on the 12v network.

I don't know whether to call it a breaker or a fuse, but it tripped. Internet helperfolk looked at the photo and declared it to be a Residual Current Circuit Breaker, or RCCB.

I've got it all running again, but I also set a recurring timer to remind me to check the breakers and inverter every 20 minutes.

My new #Meaco DD8L Junior dehumidifier is . It took 5 litres of water from the air.

This breaks the cycle: wipe condensation off the boat windows, dry the rag (adds humidity to the air), which then condenses on the windows.

This appliance generates a tiny bit of heat—good in winter when I'll be running it to combat damp.

The electric meter says it used £1.25 in 24 hours. That's less than I spend on briquettes, logs and kindling.

When the freezing weather comes, two electric space heaters, set on low, will keep the plumbing from freezing when the wood fire burns out.

I dug these heaters out of the bow hatch, then unboxed them and reassembled their feet.

Today the boat reached the outskirts of the town where I'll spend the five cold and dark months

with a shoreline

and acquaintances and friends

and culture

and a shorter train ride to London

and groceries nearby.

Tomorrow Is the last day of active boating for the season. Boat life continues without any navigation.

Had a look at the winding hole, which is about 6 boat lengths ahead.

It's lined in concrete. I could see where boats have scraped and chipped away at it. Some wood beams would be welcome, to protect both the steel boats and the concrete.

Tomorrow I'll turn the boat in there, very slowly, and then head back uphill and south for a full day before deciding: east, west, or further south?

I walked the towpath to the river, past 5* locks.

Boats were moored between locks 1 and 2. Lock 2 was chained up. People were fishing from locks 2 to 4. A huge steel barrier blocked all passage under the bridge between locks 4 and 5.

* Lock 5 was missing its lower gates to the tidal river. From the bridge it seemed to be filled with concrete.

Ran out of money; "fixed" things so boats can never pass again. Shame.

Nothing but open boat road ahead.

The boat road is wet, and the sky is sunny.

Hair raising to watch your floating home move over a motorway and through the air by crane, then onto a dolly with a tug1q, but in the end it was all OK – almost like these folks had done it before.

The hauling company asked us to remove the solar panels, which was the most labour-intensive part of the whole move.

Now that the boat is off the dead-end canal amd ready to roam, it feels like freedom is back!

The boat is on land.

First, it slowly motored into the marina's a lifting bay, then the boat was floated by hand over two huge, submerged straps which attached to a crane (see below). The crane lifted the boat out of the water and then slowly rolled away from the bay and deposited the boat on the concrete tarmac on two railway ties.

We're moving the boat overland tomorrow. The crane operator asked us to drain the water tank, and we've also emptied the brown water tank.

This is done at a self-serve pump-out station, operated by credit card. Just tap and pump.

The hose plus in to a standpipe in the gunnel, and then you turn the handle to start the suction.

The local cygnets, still in the grey plumage of juvenile swans, have begun to practice flying.

Lots of flapping and slapping of wings on the water as they get going. About ⅔ of them now become completely airborne—though only 1 meter above the canal.

They go 500 meters, from one bridge to the next, then return to the adults by paddling all in a row.

A square raft with scaffolding strapped on just zigzagged past. It was used to inspect a rail bridge from below (which passed).

The raft is large—the very opposite of hydrodynamic—so one outboard motor is insufficient to steer it. Lots of spins, stops, turns, starts, … but in the end they reached the crane that hoisted scaffolding and raft out of the canal.