Day trip

Today marks the middle of my boat adventure. I’m half way through it. So I decided to celebrate by taking the kids on a little day trip. There was no school today anyway, as all the kids in London went to protest against climate change. Pee Cassettes and Poo Bag did not fit all on my bike, so I went to that lovely Lebanese man at the grocery shop across the bridge and asked if I could borrow his lovely trolley. He asked what I needed it for, I replied I had to bring some heavy boxes to Little Venice.

When I came back from the shop with the trolley, Poo Bag and Pee Cassettes were waiting for me eagerly. It may have been the spring air, the sun or the crescent moon, but they were uncontrollable with joy. So I tightened them all up with ropes and off we went to Little Venice (yes, the same one as last time, the one that looks nothing like the real Venice). On the way there Pee Cassettes were chatting a lot amongst themselves and passers by looked at the two pretty sisters in awe. Poo Bag was silent. But he’s always silent. He’s a kind of introvert. Lovely, but introvert. On the way to Little Venice which looks nothing like the real Venice we saw many things. But mostly, we saw rubbish. There was so much rubbish everywhere. In the water, and on the canal path. Bags and bags and bags of rubbish, some more recent, others less so, some still intact, others ripped apart and their stomachs of empty cans and plastic wrappers scattered on the grass. Some remains of the bags got caught in the trees’ branches like ancient ghosts.

Poo Bag and Pee Cassettes are still very small, but they were furious about the rubbish. They could not understand how people could just dump it there that way. I told them it was bad, and some people who threw the rubbish were indeed bad and lazy, but other people were probably very sad or very ill or both and they didn’t care about anything, including rubbish. The kids weren’t totally convinced by my explanation. I thought I was lucky to have them all, so smart and woke. But I’m just not sure what kind of life they’re going to have in between all that plastic.

Then we got to Little Venice and all of a sudden I lost Poo Bag and Pee Cassettes went all quiet. And I just went back on my own.