How odd?

Not a lot to report today, except getting an Ocado order in and starting the process of booking a BSS survey; Sanity Again is four years old this spring, so we need to get one done before she’s next due for licensing.

Well done to Des Barnard for his complete answer to my quiz question yesterday; for those who couldn’t be bothered to Google it, the answer was the central characters of the Arthur Ransome sequel to Coot Club. From time to time I have to resist the temptation (or rather, Sheila resists it for me) to buy a complete boxed set of the Swallows and Amazons books (in their original dust covers) on the feeble excuse that the grandsons will appreciate them in due course.

I seem to remember a report of a survey some time ago that showed that a goodly proportion of canal boaters (indeed of boaters in general, I suspect) date the onset of their boating addiction to reading those stories as a kid.

I know that I used to get them out of the library; a perfect evening for me was to read one whilst sitting by the blazing coal fire in our house in Whitley Bay. The fire had a large, square, all encasing guard round it as my baby brother was still quite small. You could balance those big water biscuits on top of the guard so as to warm them up, delicious.

OK, you get the picture, I’ve been a bit odd for a very long time…

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