One of those days

A lot of hard graft and not a lot to show for it. Spent the morning stripping down the Refleks oil stove which has given up the ghost after months of perfect running. Put it all back together having found no faults and it seemed ok.
In the afternoon we went up to Fradley for a second go at bringing back to the boatyard the little narrowboat moored there. There seemed to be less ice. Seemed...
After a bit of bashing we broke out from the bank and set off but the ice was unrelenting. Not always thick but crashing and cracking around all the time. And every now and then we hit a thick stretch which ground us to a halt and demanded more smashing with the three inch fence post we were armed with. Starwoman was steering and I was up in the bow wielding the pole.
With Streethay almost in sight we hit the thickest ice of all and ground through it, forward, stop, smash, reverse, forward again until we reached the moorings. And there we finally did grind to a halt in four inch thick ice. Reinforcements were called for and we finally got it to the yard, blistered, knackered and cold. That's us not the boat.
After that it had to be a fish and chip supper. Ate it in the van, came back to the boat and found that the stove was, once more, running badly.
One of those days...