The mystery of the Wol Strangler

Sunday 5th August 2012

As himself was making ‘Pain Singe’ for breakfast we discussed the relative merits of the overnight mooring with a view to leaving Jannock here until next weekend, the lady-crew was muttering mutiny because of the rain. However the towpath is sodden with loads of puddles and it would mean multiple treks in the mud to vacate the boat. We moved on to discuss it’s quietitude rating. This morning we were rudely awoken by a family of swans bashing the hull to demand feeding – with menaces. Not your usual duck-weed-nibbling interface. Pigeons had been a-flapping and cooing in the trees opposite since dawn, not that they didn’t also make loads of noise attempting to get airborne out of the trees at stupid-o’clock. What we hadn’t heard was the owl that was hooting for England when we returned from the grand Junction Arms – not a quiet drinking spot due to a lack of soft furnishings and a vibrant CD collection. I declared that I’d have to think about shooting said owl if it carried on like that all night. Another hoot and then .  .  .  .  the strangest sound a wol has ever made. It could only be described as a strangulation in progress. We then heard no more from it all night! So, keep us informed if you hear the Bulbourne woods owl or find an owl strangler creeping about the towpath at night. Or do I read too many murder mysteries?

In a society that is too afraid to let it’s children play in the street for fear of kidnap or abuse, finds the game of conkers too risky, fails to immunise some children against killer diseases on the say so of poor and discredited science for fear of autism, why the heck are little ones of 2 or 3 allowed to wander over open back decks or be freely moving around on moving day-boats without life jackets. If you love your children make them wear a life jacket. Be a responsible adult.

We descended solo down the Marsworth flight without having the opportunity to wait  for a partner due to two boats awaiting to ascend the full top lock when we arrived. Only two things of note during our descent. First was the enormous dead mirror carp that we shared one lock with and the second was the amazing bit of manoeuvring that Brenda did in order to enter lock 41 having had to wait on the offside for an ascending boat. The crowd of gongoozlers were very impressed.

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