Walking along the towpath I was careful to socially distance myself as I passed an older man standing outside his boat enjoying a rollup with his dog scampering around his feet. We fell to talking, he told be ‘Lolly’ was a rescue dog who on arrival 15 months earlier was angry and terrified in equal measure, having suffered abuse at the hands of a previous owner. Lolly was now calm and affectionate after patient and loving handling. I thought what an nurturing job this man had done and what kindness it showed. He said he was quite a loner having been widowed many years before and had lived in a campervan for a decade before buying a narrowboat eight years ago. His previous rescue dog became very ill at the end of his life and needed to be put down by the vet who said it would cost £170. Not having £170 the vet told him to take the dog home and wait for him to die. He went back to the boat heart broken on behalf of the dog who was suffering and asked a friend to go back to the vet to see how much it would cost if the dog’s owner was homeless (theoretically you are homeless on a narrowboat because you have no letterbox!) and was told £25! So as a ‘homeless’ person he was able to afford to have his beloved pet put down humanely. He said he wept for that dog more than he wept when his wife had died which led me to think that all his unexpressed grief from his wife dying 20 years before was released through the death of his much loved dog.
A second towpath walk towards the north end of MK to find moorings for the next few days and it seems that we still have a couple of miles before we reach a stable internet signal. We’re discussing a book for lent every Wednesday evening for the next six weeks on Zoom so we’d like to have internet if possible when we moor up. Also our scattered children have arranged a family Zoom for the weekend – 34 years married! I keep thinking that if I’d looked into a crystal ball 30 years ago and seen myself just with R for near on a year and for 5 months of that in a space 60ft x 7ft, I would never have believed it!! A sense of humour has been a vital ingredient in our marriage and I remember R saying he didn’t want to be bored, so I have tried to keep that from happening!
We’ve moved on to a new detective series – Unforgotten. Series 2 as we watched Series 1 a week or so ago. The pattern seems to be a body being found years after the murder has been committed so the detectives have to find the murderer, in the process disrupting family lives that have been built up in the intervening years. Chilling what can be hidden. Series 2 is a bit errie for me: body found in River Lea, the river that runs through the village I grew up in; the murdered man was Mr D Walker, like my brother’s name and the murder occurred on my birthday!! Too many coincidences. We watched three episodes back to back and no doubt will try to finish this series tomorrow. For the first time in our lives we are recognising actors appearing regularly in different films. Not having had a TV whilst the family were growing up we are making up for lost time. Britbox has all the TV oldies available!
First cherry blossom
NarrowboatTLC 