Sunday 5 October 2014

Excitements

Climbing up the steps from our pontoon this morning to visit a local church, we found four fire engines, two ambulances, half a dozen police cars, a scientific enquiry vehicle and a taped-off area around the nearest corner of the dock just over from us.


I asked three lads with some musical instruments inside the area if they knew what was amiss, and was asked firmly by an official to "move along" – there was nothing they could tell us.


From the seriousness of the response it looked rather as though they had a fatality in the water, but no one was saying anything, and we've searched in vain on the local news websites. It's frustrating not to find out what was going on – with us moored just a few yards away.

As if that wasn't enough excitement, we picked up a voicemail from Stephanie at CaRT, advising that gale-force winds are promised for tomorrow morning and would we like to postpone our exit from the Liverpool docks. We think that's probably be a good idea, even though it probably means we'll be here till Thursday – the next normal day for leaving. The docks are large, deep, open spaces, and a heavy side wind on a craft with no keel could be more exciting than we want.

And finally – parsnips! They normally keep very well in the fridge, but the ones I pulled out to incorporate into tonight's meal had a rather beery smell, and a rather soapy feel. Well, said my best beloved, parsnips are supposed to make good wine so a bit of fermentation probably doesn't do then too much harm. So I washed and peeled back to good solid stuff, and they're cooking as I write. Hope there's nothing hallucinogenic or too excitingly intoxicating in parsnip fermentation by-products!

2 comments:

  1. Found this in the scripts from BBC Radio Mersey:


    A post mortem examination is due to be carried out on the body of a man pulled from Salthouse Dock in Liverpool. Police are treating his death as unexplained and are trying to work out who he is and why he ended up in the water. Emergency services were called to Salthouse Dock yesterday morning after the body was spotted by a member of the public.

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    1. Thanks for this, Adam. Very sad. TV reception is bad here, so we still haven't seen whether it's now been reported on the news. Incidentally, it was Canning Dock – Salthouse is where we re moored.

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