there's something about the trees

Two weeks back, a big tree fell across the canal, missing Paul's boat by a hundred feet. He was a bit rattled, but no harm done, and we got stuck in and made firewood of it.

So Paul moves on down the canal to Avoncliffe, and blow me if another tree doesn't fall down, grazing his stern and sinking his tender.

I went along with the chaps in the CRT workboat, with my chainsaw; because they're not allowed to use them because H&S etc, but I can cut my own silly arm off if I like.

job done! Obviously there's no action shots because I was in them

And we cleared the navigation. And presently Paul came chugging by, looking for a mooring spot that's out of reach of them darned trees that seem to have it in for him, like John South in Hardy's Woodlanders, haunted by his fear of the big elm.

full fathom five Paul's tender lies

Then it was back to work for me, packaging up and sending off pictures and calendars. These Three Hares maps are off to Devon.

Reminds me of when I worked in the regional distribution warehouse for Somerfield supermarket, in South Bristol (temping while waiting for my next ship). I was an order picker; which means trolleys came along the aisle, and I read the sheets attached to them and added the things from my section, and they continued on until they were full and then loaded on to lorries and sent off to supermarkets all around the country.

It was interesting seeing regional variations; Farnborough folk were evidently fond of Thunderbirds assortment fruit yoghurts, and I imagined the boffins at RAE there pausing from designing the aircraft of the future, and tucking into little pots of black cherry yoghurt with a picture of Thunderbird Two on it and Dreaming Large.

Muller desserts, v popular in the Birmingham suburbs where the net curtains are always twitching.

And Ginsters pasties, loads and loads went trundling on down the motorway and over the Tamar to the land whence they'd come.