Well I’m in trouble again.
The last blog was so long I forgot to tell you Hanna’s nick name. She was most upset when she read the blog and realised I’d mentioned everyone except her. In fact, I forgot to mention India’s name as well, but she can’t read and as long as I have bacon in my pocket, she will love me forever.
We have lots of names for different things. Sometimes it seems that everything has been renamed. For example, Chicken en Croute with cream cheese and panacetta filling is now Bashed Chicken, because you have to bash the chicken to make it flat to roll the stuffing inside. Saffron and Wild rice is Mouse poo rice because the wild rice looks like little bits of black mouse poo. Hanna said we are not allowed to tell the guests that name though. Coq au Vin is Gravy night, Lemon Syllabub is Sybalub, Dauphinoise Potatoes are Dolphin Potato and the Eberspecher which heats the water and runs the central heating is called an Aber Whacker (mostly by me because I can’t seem to get it right) And my classic mistake has to be “parking the boat up a leg” instead of “mooring up an arm”, but what’s an arm and a leg between friends?
We had a very eventful day today, it is Sunday 12th September and the morning started well with bright blue skies, warm and sunny. We trundled down the canal, (it was definitely the canal because I checked, we weren’t on the river yet) and then we went through a lock and had to turn sharp right into a bridge hole through another lock and then onto the river Thames. It was a tricky manouver, but nothing we hadn’t done before, except before when we did it there wasn’t a 60 foot boat and a clutch of canoeists in the way. As the back of the Butty emerged from the lock and I saw all these things in my way I panicked and cut the corner, apparently this was wrong, but at the time, steering straight at the other boat didn’t seem like a good idea either..........
As we approached the bridge hole, Hanna tried to jump on the front of the boat, slipped and fell backwards. From the back of the boat where I was stood it looked like her legs were going to get trapped between the boat and the bridge hole and I could do nothing to help! I have no motor, no brakes and not enough speed to steer quickly out of the way. I watched in panic as John raced over, grabbed her arms and pulled her to safety. It must have been the scariest 5 seconds of my life. Luckily, she is ok, a bit bruised, and shook up, but lived to tell the tale with no serious harm done, thank goodness.
Anyway, while we were recovering from that shock, Lauren was on the lockside, winding paddles and opening gates. As we left the lock she was closing the gate, and then ran ahead to try and find a place to get on the boat. But by now we were on the Thames, which is a river (i know this because I checked) and as it is natural the edges are full of reeds and rocks and silt, compared to the canal which is manmade and has clear edges. So there was no-where to pull over.
Hanna and I were busy being far too emotional about what had just happened when she nearly fell in, John was busy steering and trying to retrieve a little bit of decorum, everyone assumed that Lauren was somewhere else on the boat...........Never assume anything.
She was in fact, doing battle with the overgrown, jungle like riverside, desparetly trying to find a place where we could pull in and pick her up. We were only going slowly and she was yomping ahead, widening the distance between us and her bit by bit. After about 20 minutes, we started looking for her, it was a classic case of:
“but I thought she was with you”
“ no I thought she was in the galley”,
“Maybe she’s in the loo?”
“Lauren?”
“where are you?”
“Oh buggar, she’s not here!”
Now don’t panic and please don’t call the RSPCA, but we regulary leave India behind at locks, but when we go back she’s there waiting for us, confident that we wouldn’t leave her completely, and most of the time so engrossed in sniffing out new sniffs, she hasn’t even noticed we’ve gone. But Lauren is not like India. She decided to plough on and find a decent place for us to pick her up. In the mean time, we had decided to turn around and go back and make sure she wasn’t injured, lost or generally stuck. And anyway, when we do this with India it works, so why would it be different with Lauren?
While we were heading back, we met a boat and asked them if they had seen Lauren, but they hadn’t. Lucky we did speak to them though, because as they went on past the point where we turned about, they met Lauren, and asked if she was lost, because they had just seen us and we were looking for her.
Then lots of wires got crossed. There was confusion over us going through a lock or not (we didn’t) heading to Oxford or not (we weren’t) and lots of people we asked if they had seen Lauren and them denying it, even though Lauren said she had passed them.
All the guests were concerned, Hanna and I were imagining all sorts of horrible things from broken legs to kidnapping, the only person not overly concerned and confident in Lauren was John, although he did admit she could have gone the wrong way at the junction.
But eventually, we all met up, got Lauren on the boat and headed off to Lechlade.
Hanna said we should call it scary Sunday , due to al the drama that had happened.
Anyway, all’s well that ends well and everyone is safe and sound and no harm done anywhere.
Take care everyone, we are going to Chatsworth house next weekend so will update you on that later, xxxxx
PS Hanna is called Big Brain because she is always coming up with good ideas and India is called India Two Poos, because thats what she does!!!
