Fifty shades of dull green – and grey and red and yellow and purple and brown and sky-blue-beige #narrowboat #boating #England

It’s late autumn here in England. Yes, yes, I know that the month is Augustus, but according to reality – id est, the weather – tis late autumn, tis very late autumn.

Solid wind, solid rain and I solidly refuse to light the stove in August no matter that the temperature is in the mid-fifties Fahrengezundheitings (that’s about twelve or thirteen Centripods if you’ve been converted to natural gas).

There are boaters boatering past, one or two, but they all look about as happy as a queue of dogs waiting in a veterinary surgery on “Half-price Neuter Your Dog Day”.

My solar panels are doing a grand job, but there’s really very little light-of-nukular-fission out there to work with.

In summation, England is about as cheerful and welcoming today as is the inside of a Swedish wrestling-camel’s jockstrap.

Every scrap of vegetation on or about the towpath is canted over at an angle of at least forty-five degrees thanks be to the breeze. A goodly portion of it is drowned and yellowed and dying a death.

You know how to thistle don’t you shweetheart? You just put your petals close together and blow. Thweeee… Thweeee (or possibly four). Thistle-esque things…

Even thistle-like things have “bad hair” days. Who doesn’t in this damnable wind?

What do trees have in common with elephants?

Why trunks of course, they both wear swimming trunks.

Well-hidden in the greenery is the very occasional splash of yellow.

Purple is thinking about making a reappearance, but a lot of the purple is feeling too blue to campaign. It’s hard to wave a flag for the cause when you’re soaked to the root and have lost the will to live.

There are one or two aliens lurking in the shrubbery of the towpath.

These ‘orrible-looking growths for example.

They look like something you might stumble across on the rear end of a cat that doesn’t eat sufficient roughage.

Ugh.

This wee beastie, while a most excellent rusty-red colour, reminds me of nothing more than what a pomegranate might look like if it exploded onto a hairy twig.

I have no idea what I reminded the plant of.

Possibly of a human, only uglier.

I have given the towpath a decent wander up and down today, but it’s just not been satisfying. Most of the rain is falling downwards of course, but roughly one in every hundred drops is flying sideways. These sideways raindrops have an unerring ability to home in on my ear ‘oles, flying in one and out of the other. It’s most disconcerting.

Today is a day for mostly staying indoors and for drinking coffee.

I have that awful nagging suspicion that I may also go to bed quite early today.

Two or perhaps three pm.

I will try to stay up until at least four.

It’s difficult to nod off into a relaxing sleep though, when the Hoi and the Polloi are manoeuvring outside on the cut.

‘Steer into the wind a bit more, Margot.’

‘I am steering into the wind, Todd, it’s just not answering the helm the way they said that it would.’

‘Oh Margot, everyone will think that we’ve got crabs.’

‘Crabbing, Todd, the term you’re groping for is crabbing. Not “got crabs”. We’re crabbing. Do try to be at least a little bit nautical.’

‘Margot, darling, you might be crabbing it, but I’m bricking it. Please straighten out before we hit that nice boat. Remember that we have to be in Birmingham by three, to hand the boat back.’

‘Todd?’

‘Yes, Margot?’

‘Next year we’re having two weeks volunteering on an archaeological dig in Prestatyn. I’ve had enough boatering to last me.’

‘Yes, Margot.’

🙂

Chin-chin for the moment,

Ian H., &etc.