The time is out of joint

I haven't taught English on my friend John's boat since 2019, and I reluctantly refused again this year because I wanted to be around for the work on the house. But we'd agreed to meet up when the boat ended the trip in Oxford this weekend. Although John plans the routes carefully they can vary for all sorts of reasons and so it turned out this time. Earlier this week I knew that water levels meant our meeting point would be somewhere between south Birmingham and Stratford-upon-Avon and yesterday we agreed that my friend D and I would get ourselves to Kings Norton this morning. Ah, D couldn't leave that early - Lapworth this afternoon.

Walking up the canal towards the boat we saw a brood of tiny ducklings. I hope they manage to find enough food and learn enough about survival before autumn.

Every lock we passed walking towards the boat was a treat, as we knew that we'd be working them as we came back down again.

We met John walking towards us on the towpath. We met the students and their teacher on the boat. We flung ourselves into the whole happy business of life at 2mph, winding the paddles up, putting our backs onto the beam, winding the paddles down, seeing the boat through, closing the gate again, walking on to the next lock (extra).

It is warm, it is sunny. John has converted the boat and it is mostly running on solar power. It is so quiet.