MESSIN’ ABOUT IN:

It was a sleepless night again, I’d moved to the sofa from a bed that gave me bad dreams, woke up stiff all over, the sound of a stuck water pump making it impossible to even rest my eyes. Mornings like this the head fills so fast with noise the only antidote it to start singing Queen’s ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’. “We’re out’ve water, you won’t be able to shower until we re fill the tanks” she said as I squeezed the last drops out’ve the tap for a cold cat-lick, enough to dress to get the boat off its moorings (did I tell u we’re on a boat?). “There’s a water point just up ahead” she said, running the boat aground as we headed upstream. We tried everything to refloat our boat, but nothing would budge it. “Throw us a line!” Shouted our mate in the other craft, but that did nothing either, so I started rocking from side to side to see if that would help, but the morning rain had made the deck so slippery even my deck shoes couldn’t stop me going over the side. The heavy waterproof I was wearing dragged me down but I remember feeling sure I wasn’t going to drown “he can swim!” She screamed, which wasn’t true & I remember feeling right pissed off she’d embarrass me like that as I was drowning. I swallowed some of the swill before remembering ‘this is a canal you idiot’ & stood up. It took three people to haul me out – Oh how we laughed, still stuck on the mud bank, still with empty water tanks. “Go & have a nice hot shower” she said. “There’s a hole in my bucket…” I started singing as the noise in my head subsided.

(K)