‘Summertime, and the living is easy.

Fish are jumpin’ and the cotton is high

Oh, your daddy’s rich and…’

Oh, hello.

Nearly missed you there as I lean against the brickwork of old bridge number 38, eyes half closed, strumming on my banjo, in my straw hat and plaid shirt, reflectively chewing on an ear of corn.

Yes – summer is upon us and I’m in the mood to relax through the lazy, crazy, hazy days.
And let my imagination have free reign. (Hence the crazy).

For example – the plaque on the downstream side of the bridge has disappeared.

How?

Why?

Did someone maliciously remove it and weigh it in for scrap? Probably not because the one on the upstream side is still there.

Did it, after all these years simply drop off, perhaps because the straining fixings holding it to the bridge’s crumbling masonry rusted through.

And if it did plummet into the cut and, more importantly, if no one was around to witness the event, did it make a splash?

Perhaps it struck a duck, killing it stone dead, as it struggled vainly to overcome the laws of gravity.

Come to think of it, have you ever seen a dead duck? Floating along on it’s back, little webbed feet pointing at the heavens.

No – nor me. Not in all these years of wandering the towpath down here by the Staffs and Worcs canal. I wonder what happens to them as they shuffle off to the afterlife, perhaps to be reincarnated as a three toed sloth – if you believe that sort of thing.

Perhaps they don’t die at all. Ducks may be immortal for we know. In fact the only dead duck that I’ve heard of lately is Keir Starmer. (Sorry – never write about politics, not even in jest. Some things simply aren’t funny).

And if the plaque is indeed now languishing in the silt, why did it sink?

No, it’s not a silly question at all. After all that great lump of steel that you’ve just driven into the bank, carving out a great wedge of Staffordshire countryside as you attempted to sail past - that floats doesn’t it? Otherwise you’d be rather damp now, let’s face it.

Yes, I’ve heard about displacement and that sort of stuff - frankly I don’t understand the concept - but who came up with that daft idea?

Imagine if you will, the inventor of the steel hull, busily welding bits of iron together and chucking the finished fabrication in the nearest lake to see what happened.

How all the other shipbuilders since the time of Noah, gaily nailing together that famously buoyant material – wood - would have laughed at the disaster befalling the hapless blacksmith as his creation sank to the depths.

But it didn’t. It floated! How I ask you, how?

That rental boat that you’re chugging about in weighs more than the now sadly departed bridge marker. Considerably more, considering that the fridge is stocked full of cans of lager to keep the captain on a less than even keel.

The mystery of it all eh?

What’s that, sorry?

Oh, you’ve got to go.

Well nice to chat.

If you turn around at the next winding hole to make your way back to the marina, why don’t you join me as I muse on the complexities of quantum physics and the ability of socks to seemingly wink in and out of existence. Perhaps they inhabit alternative dimensions?

Yes, summer. The time for quiet reflection and meditation.

You can’t beat it can you?

‘…and your ma is good lookin,

So hush, little baby, don’t you cry.’

Oooh, look – it’s raining now. I wonder why?

By the way – in case you were wondering, this was not written by an AI thingy.

I AM NOT A ROBOT.