Justify

9th October

Recently The Doctor instigated the idea that we should do a big clear out of the boat; get rid of all the things that we’re not using. It’s amazing how many possessions you don’t actually need or use. In my early days of boating I was told about a game called ‘Justify’. Hold up any object that you keep on board and ask yourself do I really need it? Do I use it? You have to justify why you keep it on board. If you cannot justify the space it takes up, it has to go. I admit, that we do not play this game nearly often enough. We piled the back deck high with black bags of rubbish and bags full of charity shop donations, and yet the boat still seems full; there is still more to do. So, this morning I swept the floor, sorted the laundry and bagged up more bric-a-brac bound for the Harlow charity shops. I happily did this while listening to country and western music; another of my guilty pleasures. It reminds me of my mum listening to Radio Devon, with the smell of Sunday dinner cooking. Luckily for The Doctor, he did not have to suffer this glitch in my music taste this morning, as he was reversing the boat backwards and into Roydon lock, accompanied and assisted by our eldest daughter. The husband of the Lady of the Lock sorted us out with gas and diesel, and filled the water tank. I gave another load of laundry to the Lady of the Lock and joked that we should set up a tab with them. I was sat on her doorstep nattering, with my baby in my arms and Big Sister strolling about on the lock-side in the sunshine.
“Last night did you hear what happened out here? Did you hear any noise?” the Lady asked me.
“No, what happened?”
“A man and his dog, fell in the lock!”
“Oh my god!”
“Yeah, he was out here walking, pitch black it was. The dog went in, and the man went in after him to get him out. Big dog it was too.”
Her husband came out of the house to help him.
“I suppose once the dog was in the lock he couldn’t see a way out” I said. “He wouldn’t know to swim out of the lock to find the bank, especially not in the dark.”