Middlewich dog

It's one of those heart-sinking moments. Busy in the cruiser stern shortly after tying up for the day, your eye is drawn to a brown, sticky disgusting blob of something on the gunnel, just where you come on board. What's more, it carries the imprint of a trainer sole, and you know you've just been in and out of the boat in the last few minutes, doing stuff.

A quick call down to my best beloved inside confirmed the worst – it had been tramped at least half way through Erin Mae's interior. And a quick check confirmed that I had also walked it all down the gunnel on the right-hand side, when I had gone down to set the TV aerial for this new location.

Dog poo presents one of the more severe challenges to my faith. I can understand that it's all part of a fallen world, but I wonder what's going to happen with it in the new heaven / new earth scenario (I'm not one of those disembodied, harp-playing, sitting-on-a-cloud types, you see). Rabbits, of course, aren't disgusted by their poo. They eat it. But dog mess somehow seems to belong in a different category. As far as I can see, there's going to have to be serious redemption, either of the stuff itself, or of our approach to it. In the meantime, there's the other, more immediate challenge of managing my extreme anger at the people who allow their dogs to pollute the Middlewich towpath in this way, when there's a bin for it just 30 yards away.

My best beloved, being more holy than me, just donned a couple of plastic gloves and washed Erin Mae's floor from front to back. She said it needed doing anyway. I got the mop off the roof and swabbed all exterior surfaces and mats. Then I knelt by the canal, dealing with the trainers with a stiff brush and a screwdriver. I discovered that Vibram's latest trainer sole has all sorts of unexpected nooks and crannies, and a definite unwillingness to see all its crevices washed completely clean.

Apart from this it's been a very pleasant day!