when a tree falls on the towpath and you don't hear it, it's still there

It's no great inconvenience that you live out of earshot of most human activity and amenities, if you've got everything you need right there with you.

So when it poured and poured down on Wednesday, I philosophically commuted the ten paces from my bed to my desk, by way of the bathroom and the galley, and spent the day painting pictures and writing. 

It was a good day, and I was happy with the work. That night I slept the sound sleep of one who knows that they've done their best and it was fairly OK.

The morning started with a robin singing at 0415, followed rapidly by the blackbirds and song thrushes. The song thrushes here would give the heftiest coloratura opera diva in all of Milan a very serious run for her money.

It is really all very nice. 

So I got up and brewed some strong tea and finished the fiddly last bits of the painting.

And looked up to see the sun rising. As you see from the photo. 

After a shower and putting on city togs I was ready to go to Bristol to pick up some prints. But Chris from the boat next door called me out.

"Dru! Have you seen this?"

At abut nine o' clock last night, a very large tree had fallen over the towpath and into to canal. I'd heard something, but just assumed it was the Pongoes playing wargames over on Salisbury Plain. Chris and Jinny my neighbours had heard it and investigated. It had narrowly missed a hireboat, whose occupants had phoned the Canal and River Trust to inform them. 

Here it is look.

So I changed into my CHAINSAW TROUSERS, the wearing of which is like one of those dreams where you absolutely must escape from something but can hardly move. But it's probably better than accidentally cutting your own leg off. And we all got to work, cutting and splitting and carrying away. Because the towpath needed to be unblocked, and if you get a pile of firewood as a byproduct, then why ever not? This is enlightened self interest at work here.

This is a very quiet section of canal, but we were interrupted twice by local folk demanding to get by; one was a dog emptier (you can easily distinguish them from the similar dog walker by the way they are so anxious to precede their dogs on their walkies. In this manner, they can be unaware that their dog has a bowel that it is quite happy to void on the towpath, and preferably right outside your boat, on your mooring pins for maximum points. It's a neat trick if you're into that sort of thing, allowing you to be at once oblivious, supercilious and Always In The Right).

They squeezed by in the slowly widening gap.

The middle of the trunk was a rotted hollow, with a huge ants' nest and signs of several types of beetle, including what looked very much like lesser stag beetle burrowings, though we found no living ones. Out of season, probably.

Here's Chris, looking as cheerful as we all were. What better way to work up an appetite for breakfast?