Schools out 15/17: Back to a lack of normality

So one day you are looking out of the window and taking pictures of the beaches of Tel Aviv and the ancient port of Jaffa, and the next you are driving back from Orpington and pulling over to photograph a traffic jam on a canal in Surrey.

Unfortunately by the time I had screeched to a halt, pulled the car up at a 45 degree angle on a muddy bank, grabbed my camera and run back to the lock the boats had sorted themselves out, so I took this shot instead which struck me as a bit weird. (a) because the woman in the prow of the boat looks like a very stiff wooden figure like they used to have on the front of sailing ships; (b) because the gang of four on the riverbank seem totally distracted by something out of shot; (c) because the guy steering the boat looks like he really isn't interested; (d) because there is a strange figure staring out at me from inside the boat; and (e) because the figure in the boat, when you zoom in, is actually my own reflection. Duh.

I was visiting my 89 year old mother in Orpington. Her lapses of memory broke new ground today when we were talking about things people used to eat when times were tough back in the 20s and 30s (you know, whale, horse etc) and she said she thought her mum used to cook cats. Either she was having a very senior moment or she had let slip a sinister bit of family history. After a moment she concluded it was the former. "We had cats for pets" she said. "We didn't eat them".

Phew...