Boundaries

If you were an alien anthropologist who had - by means of some strange criteria - decided it would be worth studying my life from a distance, then you might well think that one of my hobbies was picking up my fourth daughter, Milly, from her friends' houses so that I could drive her to work.

This morning's pick up was in Stainton, which is a small hamlet between the A65 and A590 as they run in a very loose parallel from junction 36 to Kendal. The Lancaster canal also crosses the M6 at that point and terminates in Kendal, winding its way between the two roads although never getting very close to either of them.

By the M6, the canal is still full of water and, indeed, you can take a small trip on a short narrowboat along the canal from Crooklands. However, by the time you meet the canal at Sedgwick, it is all filled in.

Until this morning, I'd never seen the point at which the canal gets filled in but here it is, just along the road from Stainton. I've always wanted to see it but I think that's quite human, isn't it? We like to see the point at which things change, become other. We like boundaries, if only (sometimes) to flirt with crossing them.