Three Women - and a Man - and a Dog - in a Boat

Going to see Dru in her new home reminded me of the time we went mulberry picking - how she could walk straight up the (slanty) trunk of the tree while I climbed cumbersomely, scaredly, not liking the thin air on either side of each branch. 

Because she's already trotting along impossibly narrow ledges while I peer at my feet, trying to work out where the canal bank ends and the silty reed edge starts. 

As soon as we arrived in darkest Wiltshire - that's me, Ted, Dru's House Teenager (whom I suppose must now be called Houseboat Teenager), and my own Son the Younger who has less than a fortnight of teenagerhood remaining to him - there was stuff to be done.  Like returning a narrowboat that had slipped its moorings to the bank.  

Time for a quick glance at NB Eve, Dru's new abode ... 

... before we had to get the boat facing the opposite direction, which meant going through a lock to reach the turning point and then coming back the same way.  Poor Dru, her crew had no idea what they were doing. Can only  hope to get better with practice.  

'What's that funny squeaky noise?' worried Dru as the water level fell, taking the narrowboat with it. 'It's OK, it's only Ted,' I said.  

By the time Dru had turned Eve and we'd come back through the lock the other way, Ted was an old paw and coping with equanimity.  

And Dru was looking to the manner born.  

Once we'd moored again, it was time ... 

... for tea and cold cross buns.  

And to watch the first swallows of summer buzzing the water for insects.  (Well, my first; Dru had spotted them the day before.)

Then we walked the two and a half miles along the tow path to the Barge Inn at Seend, with its flocks of rooks and jackdaws ...   

... its pussy willow and massed blackthorn ... 

... the remnants of the GHQ Stop Line which I didn't know about till Dru told me ... 

... a gnarly old ash tree, with an old, mud-lined nest from last year in it ...

... and built and rebuilt bridges.

Plus more rooks to go with our cider.