May B

Well, you must admit that this surely cannot be May “A“.

The weather forecast for the next few days looks like something the Spanish Inquisition came up with especially to torture English prisoners. Wind, rain, wind, rain, comfy cushions, wind, rain, hot pokers, wind, rain…

The view from the side-hatch today has been alternating betwixt blue sky and blue-sky-with-a-vast-army-of-clouds.

We’ve mooched on again (twice), the Cardinal and I, since last we spoke. Once to the restricted moorings above Cholmondeston Lock there to meet the Bro who undertooketh some electrickeral work for us (praise be &etc), and once from there to Windy Alley – ready for the breeze and the rain and the comfy cushions of the Spainish Inquisition (which really nobody expected).

What I didnae expect on that second move was traffic. All that we had to do was a swift fall down through the lock and a couple of hundred yards or so. Nope. I’d no sooner chosen a quiet moment, stoked up the boiler and untied the last rope than not one not two not three but four boats appeared, and appeared they from all directions in this Earthly plane. From being alone with the twittering hedgerow boyds I suddenly found myself queuing for the lock, assisting others and wotnotting a-plenty.

Many thank’ee kindly sirs to Mr Wye Knot, for his bold and wholly volunteered assistance with some welcome windlass abounding – it was much appreciated (saved me the damnable lock ladder, for the one thing). 🙂

We found our way through, the Cardinal and I, sneaked past Venetian Marina and moored up in a nice puddle of interwebnetting signal – whereupon the canal went totally quiet again as suddenly as it had become “busy” – and here we’ll be until the weather gets this angst out of its system.

Only a few days ago the it of it was in much more contemplative mood.

Tiny cows, huge trees.

My – “my” – garden was beginning to look most splendid again indeed.

Trees were beginning to try on their new season’s leaves.

The odd canal was dripping in early mist.

Aside from War, Famine, Pestilence and Anaemia (he’s the Pale rider who ought to eat more spinach), all was well with the world.

Now though we have more than ever before of the above and cr*ap weather t’boot.

I can’t believe that I am going to have to be either very Victorian/Edwardian in my domestic outlook, and put up with temperingtures in the forties or at best the low fifties Fahrengezundheiting or thereabouts indoors, or else I shall have to keep lighting Mr Stove in the mornings. Note to self; see if the Bestest Chandlery (Venetian) have a bag of logs for purchase.

Still, at least on these moorings we have trains for me to oogle at. Ooh, big machinery… rumble rumble chug. Earlier today I was treated to what my untutored eye reckoned was a delicious old Deltic, tugging four or five carriages along at an industrial pace for such an elderly beast. I didn’t have the camera to hand of course.

This isn’t a Deltic, it’s an ordinary Wotsit, heading over the bridge and up towards Chester way.

I much prefer steam trains and Deltics.

I’m just weird like that.

We only really have June, July and August now and then we’ll be in September, muttering about autumn which we will undoubtedly skip entirely and go straight into winter. What peculiar critters we be, we humans. It was only fifty (and odd) years ago in my youth that we had distinct, recogniseable and fairly reliable seasons in England. Snow at Christmas and school summer holidays that were held each year actually during summer…

Mind you, it was not much before that (about 11,000 years ago) that the last glaciation retreated, and only about 425,000 years ago that England first left Europe, when the river that ran where the English Channel is now decided to become and to remain a major Channel just wide enough to prevent the French lobbing their empty Champagne bottles at Dover. Really, the pace of change is insane hereabouts, and I simply refuse to even try to keep up.

Often, tbh, I don’t even bother to keep upright.

The human species fell out of the trees in the rift valley and chimpanzee-waddled away to do… things. Frantic things.

I fell out of my tree and landed in a recliner with foot-stool, picked up the DVD remote and called for coffee and cakes to be fetched.

What may I say? Some of us have style, some of us have panache, and some of us are still experimenting with ridiculous amounts of meaningless activity.

Just while I’ve been typing this the boat moored ahead of the Cardinal upped-sticks, screamed down to the winding hole and disappeared astern, two gentlemen not from Verona (in two boats) have departed Syke’s Hollow for home moorings, and another boat has made some wild journey from somewhere and moored up in the space vacated by the boat that oiked away only minutes before. Quiet, quiet, quiet – mad rush – quiet.

Slow, slow, quick, quick, slow.

I’m rambling, aren’t I?

It’s the thought of another two or thee days of monsoony-typhoonish English summer.

Hibernation, it’s the only answer – but then I’d miss seeing the trains come past.

Coffee and biscuits, that’ll see me through.

You can’t beat a good Rich Tea with a coffee.

Wibble moo fribble de-clomp.

Also chin-chin, and so forth.

Ian H.,

…wondering what the punchline is to this planet but wise enough, just, to not want to find out.