Bank Holiday Moanday

May the 8st and Mr Stove has been lit. Not so much for reasons of coolth but to finish off drying yesterday’s laundry, and for the modicum of cheer engendered by the exothermic transmogrification of a couple of logs and some old dinosaur nuggets. The day itself is grim; wet and breezy, determined to rain all day and to mizzle when it can’t actually rain.

Yesterday was a full-on Summer’s day (hence the laudribode).

A holiday boat came past yesterday (among many others) – ten miles from base, and they still hadn’t come to grips with the whole steers-from-the-rear left/right tiller thing. They missed the Cardinal by mayhap half an inch. One of the “Dawn” boats has just come past this morning (possibly the consistently worst behaved fleet on this entire corner of the canal system), sporting some very bedraggled bunting, and two soaked Anoraks on the stern that may or may not contain life advanced or life primitive. It is not uncommon for empty Anoraks to boat past.

The wind is howling nicely through the generosities of the side-hatch, sounding as though there’s a gale blowing when in fact it’s perhaps twenty miles per hour, just blowing directly onto the side of the Cardinal.

I’m not entirely certain that it’s legal (or moral) to blow onto the side of a cardinal, in office or retired, but that’s what Mr Weather is doing. There must be some reward (possibly in Heaven) otherwise people wouldn’t risk doing it. The church moves in mysterious ways.

The views here, unencucumbered by modesty screens, and when not near-monochrome and soaked, have been spectaclibode on occasion, some of the weekend having been that warm, humid, thunderous nonsense (that did actually produce some lovely thunder, although no visible light-er-ning). Mr Farmer mowed one of his lawns, and that pleased the local crow population mightily, there being much commuting back and forth across the canal from their “starter home” nesting copses to feed on the bewildered insect population of the field, stopping en passant only to shit out half-digested bugs onto my solar panels.

The clouds shown were “for real”.

I finally witnessed a spectacle yesterday that I had hitherto heard of but not had personal proof of; aliens whipping out of some other dimension to join a commercial flight (Economy Class, presumably) and/or disappearing to flit back home. They can run, but they can’t hide the condensation trails…

The airline pilot must be new and/or nervous, otherwise he’d have flown much closer to the interdimensional portal.

Remember this next time you’re on a BOAC Douglas DC-7 flying from Scunthorpe Airport to Tristan Da Cunha, and you notice that the passenger numbers change en route and with different “people” returning from the lavatories than went in.

Add to this the patent fact that the food on most airlines is not intended for human consumption and that the seating was not designed to accommodate human legs and I think you’ll have to agree that the evidence is conclusive.

They live among us.

Actually, when I remember that Nanny used to crawl up into a corner of the Nursery ceiling twice a year, build a nest out of spit-soaked old copies of Racing News (she said she bought it for the problem page) and lay eggs, I ought not to be suprised.

What I shall politely term to be “an elderly lady” stopped by yesterday. It was quite obvious that the Cardinal was occupé, what with the bow doors being wide open and sundry items of laundry on the clothes horse on the well deck. Aforesaid biddy beamed and virtually clasped her hands in delight – as she watched her dog take a monumental piss on the doormat (perforated rubber) that I put out to protect the towpath from my repeated step.

She feigned deafness when I offered to follow her home and take a loaded Shih-Tzu to her old coconut-husk “Welcome Mat”.

People never fail to astound me (for all of the wrong reasons).

I checked the Vegetable Holding Pens this morning, with tragic results. The remains of the broccoli had turned yellow overnight. I don’t think they were very brave to begin with. Something in the dark must have startled them. Whatever.

I made them walk the plonk.

“Plonk” being the noise things make when they are flung into the canal as duck/goose/fish/shrimp food.

God (who does not exist) Save The King (whom I do not recognise)!

&etc.

E&OE.