Exercises in Overlooking

Going boating with Dr Bones on Saturday afternoon was a sort of little bit of holiday before my holiday started. I and Ms Formerly Aldgate drove up to Lower Heyford and helped the good Dr and Adrian (and Bones the dog, of course) shift the fair vessel down the Oxford Canal to Thrupp, where we met and had dinner with Ms T. We even managed to help with the locks. 

The journey started in dramatic fashion with screaming as Dr Bones lifted the first tyre buffer out of the water where it was protecting the side of the boat, and found a crayfish squatting in it. I hadn't thought a woman who happily deals with animals once they are dead would be quite so scared of a small live one, albeit one that can nip you if you get too close to it. I offered my assistance and eventually tipped the creature back into the water. It was then that I learned that boaters who come across American Signal Crayfish (of which this was one, Dr Bones recognised its body markings) are not supposed to put them back in the cut, but kill them, a messy and upsetting process which needs either a brick or a pot of boiling water. This is because they carry 'crayfish plague' that affects native species. We decided we hadn't seen it.

I was reminded of delivering a banns certificate to a couple that morning only to be told by a man who was either the groom or the bride's father that they weren't there, but now had their own home elsewhere. They hadn't told me that they were moving; technically the banns being read while they are actually resident somewhere else could be problematic, but if Dad hadn't been in, or I'd decided just to put the envelope through the door rather than knock, I'd've been none the wiser. I decided that in the interests of sanity I should probably recover my previous ignorance in that case, too.