Saturday 9th May

There can be no denying that our dog is a greedy bugger. It is standard practice for him to take himself off to boats moored near us in order to try his luck with pleading eyes and wagging tail - though you only have to look at him to see that he is unlikely to starve.  Taking him out for his  constitution one evening this week, I was unable to stop him getting into the well deck of the narrowboat 'Jack Snipe', moored a few boat lengths in front of us.  I was not to concerned as it was nearly dark and 'Jack Snipe' has solid steel doors and it's generator was running; the occupants would never know that he was there.  That is until I realised, to my horror, that Hobbes had stuck his head through their cat-flap, or at least the frame as the flap was missing.  I could only imagine what the occupants made of such an event and was desperately trying to get him off the boat without a fuss, when his head came back out of the hole - and sticking out of his mouth like a prize cigar was a bloody great biscuit! It seems that he has been doing this for a while and the boat owner, Val, had taken to keeping a box of biscuits next to the flap so that she could reward his intrusions.  All Val saw of him on these occasions was this:                       

It turns out that Val's last and much loved dog was a doppelganger for Hobbes and she would be more than happy if we were to leave our beast  with her while we are in Ireland. We can only imagine what size he would be when we returned.

The other highlight of the last few days was meeting a canoeist called Derek. He spends most of the year canoeing round the waterways, camping overnight wherever he fancies and generally doing exactly as he pleases. This year his intention was to try to get to Kendal which meant sneaking past British Waterways at Tarleton Lock as they would not consider a canoe safe for the passage across the Ribble estuary to the Lancaster Canal.  I doubt that it will be a problem as Derek has already crossed The Wash, a decision  made when he considered the fenland drains of the Middle Levels to straight and dull ( he had looked at them on a map!). That year his journey inland took him through Thetford - where he had been pelted with Argos catologues thrown from the town bridge - and all the way up to Euston on the River Blackwater. His not having any notes for the Ribble crossing was a bit of a weakness in his current plans, so we invited him onto Hawthorn for coffee while he looked through our charts and tide tables.  He now intends to drag the canoe across the fields above the lock and slide down the mud into the River Douglas when no one is looking. With a bit of luck all will be well but, given that the M6 motorway cuts across the upper reaches of the Lancaster Canal six times, he has a lot of challenges ahead if he is to reach his goal of Kendal.   Good luck Derek, the world would be a better place if there were more of you.