Beached baby

"Have you made landfall yet?"
"Roger."
"Are there any good pubs in the area?"
"Roger."

Today, three people in the pub spoke to me. On the way back I had two long conversations with other folk I know, walking their dogs, and David tooted at me from the road. It struck me that I belong to some kind of a community, people who live along this stretch of the Caledonian Canal. It's not the immediate community in which I live, full of harum scarum folk who forge great (alcoholic) friendships, one day and then rent them asunder in ugly retribution.  I am a canal person, and I don't even have a boat!