Fond Farewell

Two birds, one stone. We are having a mini-break from the maxi-break of our retired existence. For her 50th birthday, I bought MrsM a surprise canoe - not this one, brcause the original was stolen; this is a (superior) replacement. In day-trip chunks, We canoed the full navigable (by canoe) length of the Stratford Avon; the Thames from as high as possible to Goring (where it gets boring); some of the Teifi; some of the Cleddau; the Cherwell, as far up river as we could get; A short stretch of the Nevern; a lot of canals, including the beautiful Llangollen

It's good to catalogue it. It was fun - more than fun, an intense way to experience the (mostly) rural scene, from a different perspective; somehow slightly subversive; a sense of being an observer, an outsider

We have found that the effort/reward ratio has shifted to the point that we are not using it. We may canoe again, but we will hire a canoe, and let someone else put in some of the transport effort. So MrsM found the canoe a worthy new home: an idyllic and joyful young people's activity centre at the bottom of a long, steep gravel track down to the flood plain beside the river Wye, surrounded by wooded hills, close to where we happen to be staying

The Kawartha lakes are north of Lake Ontario. It's a Canadian canoe by type, by design and by manufacture. Serenity is the name we gave it - inspired by the sci-fi film/TV franchise with a spaceship of that name, but appropriate to its life afloat, and now appropriate to our sentiments about its future