Did we not learn our lesson from going down the Aylesbury Arm? No sooner had we turned a very tight right hand corner to get on the Slough Arm then the misgivings set in! Sure enough, before long we were fighting the weeds strewn across the canal. So dense were they we had to stop the boat and physically pull the weeds from the water. No wonder R is exhausted tonight. Then horror upon horror, we met a wide beam advancing in the other direction. The last thing you want to do on a thin, shallow strip of water is to be forced to the side. Holding our breath we managed to squeeze past and continued gingerly along until the first available winding hole. We then turned the boat around and thankfully began our return journey. We needed to pick up some train tickets so had been heading in the direction of Langley station. However Iver station was nearly as close to the canal so we stopped under a nearby bridge and left the boat to collect the tickets. We needn’t have bothered. No sooner were we back aboard then messages started arriving from our kids talking about Tier 4. I’d never heard of such a thing but it soon became obvious we were travelling through said tier and before our eyes our Christmas plans evaporated like the morning dew. Along with hundreds of thousands of others I assume. In some ways I am relieved. I wasn’t sure I wanted to travel anywhere, even for the sake of my children, as I have watched the ‘r’ number steadily rise. Now the decision has been taken from us and R and I will plan for a rather different Christmas. Probably the first one spent with just each other since 1986, the year we got engaged. We were in London and I remember returning to our car from the morning church service on Christmas day only to find our car had been broken into because I stupidly had left my handbag in full sight of passers by. Thankfully my flat keys were in my pocket so we were able to return to the cooking turkey and the other good surprise was that although my handbag was stolen, the thief left R’s full bottle of whisky!
But disappointing times the prospect of not seeing our children or other family members over Christmas. It makes sense (Covid is no respecter of the time of the year) but still the sadness lingers – the thought of a very different Christmas. Who knows – we may quite like it! No expectations to meet; no heavy workload and time enough to contemplate the real meaning of Christmas, especially this year when we have witnessed our world change in ways most of us couldn’t possibly have imagined at the start of 2020. We still have so much to give thanks for, including the vast quantity of veg we ate today – R had said he wanted to turn off the fridge freezer before we left the boat so having realised it was full of frozen veg, and not wanting to waste any, I started cooking it all up. I had visions of turning it into soup and taking it with us!! When I realised we weren’t going anywhere the veg got roasted along side a baked egg custard as I didn’t want to travel with half a dozen fresh eggs!
NarrowboatTLC 