Eels

it's eel season aparently.
i didn't know that this morning though, as i lay in bed trying to drop off. something swam by the boat and it weren't no moorhen - images of some dodgy old black and white B movie had me thinking more along the lines of a giant squid. i did rush to look out the side hatch but i couldn't see anything. i still have no idea what it was because it would have to have been awfully big to make that kind of noise!
you get used to certain sounds after a while, a bit like when you move into a new house you have to get used to the central heating. things like fish no longer freak me out, and i can now recognise the different sounds that ducks, swans and moorhens make when they are coming in to land as well as the calls they make. i like the the creaking, cracking sounds as the boat warms up in the sun in the morning and the steel expands. the sound of feet on the roof as moorhens skip about and the sound of swans pecking the boat. and no road noise, just the sound of birds and cows and, if the weather is bad, water lapping right by your ear as you lay in bed.

loki did a runner again this evening - well ok that's not strictly true. it's not like the great escape or anything. andy took him out for a walk and on the way back he took a detour to the willow pond. when loki goes to the willow pond he switches his ears off in favour of his nose - he can be just feet away meticulously sniffing a scent trail but he will not listen to you and carries on sniffing. the trouble is the willow pond is surrounded by dense brambles and bushes, so you can't go in after him. he's done it a few times now, and andy has waited for him for up to 40 minutes and eventually left him there! but to our relief, each time he has brought himself home about twenty minutes after andy looking really pleased with himself, full of thorns and with a snapped tail!!! (that isn't as bad as it sounds, apparently all beagles do it, they get so excited and wag so hard that they hit the very tip of their tail against stuff and it bleeds).

one more night before a week off, and boy do i need it!!!