Ginger Season

Ian Hutson

a.k.a. ‘The Mighty Drear’.

Or possibly auburn season. Is it open season on Auburn Hepburns? Do people still use the word ‘auburn” or has linguistic down-dumbery reached the point where The Oxford will soon be deleting the word because nobody knows what it means?

Whatever.

Dull it has been and is, Little One.

This photograph makes it seem as though I am moored in the winding hole. I’m not, obviously, being a boat length away. Such is telephoto distortion.

It’s a bit ginger around the winding hole, too.

South is to the left of frame, so the panels get what short feed is available before the day ends at half past one or whatever it is at this time of the northern hemisphere year. On ordinarily luminous days it’s all I need, but these past two or three we’ve fallen short, all of the photonic ergs having been stolen by the cloud cover.

To the rear of camera in the shot above are the official “El Visitor” moorings, and a gaggle of boats, live-aboards and refugees from the marina both. We are all in our own way huddled around the Elsan Point*.

*Not literally.

I am sat sitting in today awaiting the visitations of the Fuel Boat, nb BARGUS, whereupon to take delivery of as much coal as may be stashed on the well deck and still allow humanoid ingress and egress. Word was (when last I heard the word) that Jason is starting his day from Church Minshull, so there’s a chance-ette that he may be here in daylight today. The previous bunkering took place in pitch-black darkness which, while adding an air of the canal equivalent of two cigarette boats meeting to swap contraband halfway between Florida and Cuba, does make spotting one another a tad difficile.

We shall see. There are a surprising number of customers strewn along towpath and offside.

Not ‘strewn along’ as in bodies thrown against trees or haphazardly across the path or anything, obviously, but as in waiting in various states of patience (including Clock Patience) in their boats.

We just need coal this time, having engrabinated Elsan Blue and kindling a-plenty on the previous visit. No idea why I keep buying the stuff, I only burn it.

Early-morning perambulations are taken in misty muted colours for the moment (as in the scenery is muted). My wardrobe has always been on the green/brown/dark-blue/black & tweed side of vibrant. I was born in faded tweed flat cap, tweed nappy and monocle.

There is a generous sufficiency of sog on the towpaths.

Even Mr Moon is looking a tad deflated, when hand-held with a pocket compact and a nervous twitch. I can’t help but once in a short while (on a reasonably frequent basis) wonder if the Cardinal and I might not be better off moored up there, on the edge of the Sea of Tranquility or somewhere, looking down at Earth through My Powerful Gestapo Binoculars, Helga.

Or Mars perhaps. I do wish that they’d open up the canals of Mars, and sort out the link.

Some trees lose their leaves, others take this stripping for winter lark to flashy extremes.

The geese are back here today, although quieter than of late. Perhaps they are, in all of this meteorological dullth, suffering from SGD?

Seasonal Goose Disorder.

Don’t be fooled by the low, weak sunshine here below, this is a “stock” photograph wot I dun taked a few days ago.

Still, at least we’re none of us Danish Mink.

I suppose that I ought to brace myself and go and read the interwebnettings, check on today’s lies, damned lies and statistics, dip my feeding spoon into the daily dish of outrageous Establishment manipulation, that sort of thing.

Chin-chin for the mo, Muskies. Keep on keeping on, it riles them to believe that you perceive the web they weave.

Other Bloody Mues references are available, mention here does not imply endorsement. All opinions are those that have been given to me and are not necessarily those of Warner Brothers Inc.

As they say at the end of each “news” broadcast these days, th…th…th…that’s all, folks.

Ian H., &etc.

15 Comments

  1. Out of interest, nay a huge dollop of nosiness what do you do for light come the evenings of a particularly dreek and mizzerly day? Oh and how do you power up your flat thing? I could always be persuaded to send you for Christmas a hamster who on an evening would be more than happy to generate enough power for you and Sizewell B.

    LX

    Liked by 1 person

    1. Yonder Cardinal has a bank of 12V leisure batteries and a roof full of solar panels that even on dull days charge the beasts a little. On bright days I have more power than you could shake a small but perfectly-formed oil-sheikh at. If there is insufficient sunshinery to make up the previous day and night’s deficit the engine has two alternators that can shove electrons around when needed.

      Most things aboard were already or have been converted to 12V and are all chosen for efficiency (LED lights, even in the table lamps, 12V sockets in most corners). I don’t have a television as such, since there’s virtually nowt but cr*ap on every channel these days, but am as happy as a dog with two tails using a small DVD player instead on occasion, one that was intended for use in a car. Provided that I choose my day according to the weather the system is muscle-bound enough even to run the washing machine.

      The cctv, alarms and anti-intruder systems are all 12V and efficient and take nobbut a smidge of electrical juice to run 24/7 – until triggered, when the cremation elements can take quite some power, especially if the intruder is on the large side.

      All designed and installethed by the Bro. 🙂

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      1. I’d keep the big Bro on-side if I were you, he is not only your sparky but your Fortnumb and Jason type butlery’n’stuff, what with him as if by magic appearing with victuals by way of a wicker hamper. One does so need a footman in these challenging times. I suppose he does draw the line at emptying the po over the side?

        LX

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      3. The cremation element would of some little use to me. Someone has been systematically knocking my sideview mirror off my car. And I very much want them to be incinerated when I go out to the car in the morning and find it hanging by its wires. I don’t know who it is, but I foster deep suspicion against the the Trump drive rally neighbor. He drives his truck with three Trump flags flying. As far as I can tell, he attended all the pointless drive rallies. Its possible I may have gestured with intention toward him as he drove past me after such a rally. And it’s also possible he quite accurately interpreted my intention. Thus no mirror. And my longing for an incinerator.

        Liked by 1 person

  2. You sent me down a rabbit hole of etymology. I began to wonder if auburn and autumn are related words. They are not. There is apparently no known PIE for Autumn, all though there is for all of the other seasons. Latin is the farthest back they can trace it and it still had the same meaning. But auburn is derived from the word Albus – which is WHITE, but designating it to be of a brown or yellow white. It shifted by the 16th century toward toward gold and brown. With a bunch of spelling variants which don’t have the au beginning.

    Liked by 1 person

    1. Ah – etamology. It’s the study of Spanish separatist insects, isn’t it? 😉 I do love a good word or phrase mystery, especially when the answer is likely to be ‘we done it because we could, innit, and der is no logic or nuffink about it’! There are some gorgeous words in the language. ‘Huh?’ being one of them… 😉

      Liked by 1 person

  3. Wonderful colours in autumnal, I used to love going up t’scottishland in October because of the colours.It does make me wonder what happened to the year now we are hurtling up to that thing most people feel compelled to celebrate even if their lives depend on it – oh, yes, so they do. Hey ho! Nottingham is threatened with this universal testing thing after Liverpool – testing for mushy pea addiction I shouldn’t wonder. Stay huddled down!

    Liked by 1 person

    1. Tis gobsmacking – the “news” photos of the “testing” centres caused me not some little black amusement today. Hundreds, perhaps thousands of folk, who haven’t got symptoms, queuing with hundreds, perhaps thousands of total strangers, to get an unreliable test that will likely be wrong – or instantly out of date because they caught “whatever this is” in the queue while waiting for the test – a test after which even if “positive” the most they would achieve would be to be told to ‘go home and isolate, and whatever you do, don’t join queues of hundreds or thousands of total strangers because you’ll like as not infect them if you do’. The logic defeats me. Folk do seem to be desperate to be controlled.

      I much prefer autumn to people! 😉

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  4. I hope auburn is still a word. I have a character in one of my books who has auburn hair. If it’s not a word, then he’s suddenly gone bald! Anyway, it’s a nice word to use for the colours of the trees. (Those that haven’t gone straight to brownish grey dead).
    Why have you changed the gender of the moon? It’s been female for centuries in literature!
    Oh, and I’m so pleased to see you’ve given our planet its rightful capital letter. Too many people (including writers who should know better) have forgotten it’s a proper noun, and so needs to be capitalised.
    I enjoyed your post, as usual. Many thanks.

    Liked by 1 person

    1. Thank’ee for your kind words, ma’am (as with H.M. Queen, your “ma’am” rhymes with “ham”).

      My reclamation of the genders is a small but satisfying response to modern “Feminism” and the “WOKE” mob – a deliberate assignment in each case. Mr Moon, Miss Devil, Father Nature, Mother Time, that sort of thing. I’m still working on it of course, it is a transformation in progress. 😉 I am a distinctly naughty old Hector.

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  5. I fear you may be confusing the end of a news report with a well loved but now sadly departed, due to the extreme violence, classic Fred Quimby production of pure fantastic fantasy, not that there is a great deal of difference in content really.

    Liked by 2 people

    1. Perhaps less violence and less total fiction in the Quimby classics…

      I can’t understand why “live” (a generous classification in most cases) news presenters are still used when the Bi-Valve Electrical Computer is quite capable of generating much more appropriate characters and lip-synching them to some remotely typed in text from News HQ.

      The Woodentops perhaps, or Bill and Ben (The Flower Pot Men), using The Wombles for “outside” broadcasts… I feel that it would add the appropriate gravitas. 😉

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