Categories: uncategorized
Date: 14 May 2007 18:53:58
You'll like this:
You may have read in the blog below about the walk which my sister and I did, accompanied by Smudgelet on wheels, along the canal towpath to the rather nice little cafe at the waterside. You may or may not (I suspect the latter) be surprised to know that my sister and I decided to stop at said cafe for a cup of coffee and an icecream. Smudgelet, however, was reluctant to part company with his bike so he stayed on the towpath, cycling back and forth and, for fun, peeping over the wall at us and calling "hello". The towpath itself was quite a bit lower than the cafe garden so he had to reach up with his hands, grab the stones of the wall, and leap up to do this, which was indeed quite amusing to see first some fingers and then a helmetted pair of eyes appear above the parapet and rapidly disappear again.
After a little while the whole body of a Smudgelet heaved itself up onto a slightly lower piece of wall further along the garden and, with a wave, sat there admiring the view. Then he turned and called to my sister in an "interested enquiry" voice: "Auntie J, which, if you dont' mind me asking, is the path to Bath?" but pronouncing both a's as long in a rather posh manner. "The parth to Barth?" we echoed. "Yes, the path to Bath!".
"Now the question is, do you want the path to Bath or the parth to Barth?" Our accent, coming from the Midlands, naturally shortens the a while Smudgelet's Isle of Wight accent lengthens it so it was enormous fun to tease him. From here we proceeded to tease still further: "To get to Barth you go up the stairs, holding onto the bannister for safety, along the landing and through the door immediately in front of you." Smudgelet is such fun to tease - he gets so flustered and exhasperated :D "Stop being silly, will you? If I wanted to go to Bath, would I go to the left from here or to the right?" "Oh no, Smudgelet, you can't have a bath in the canal, you'd be arrested!" "Look, just answer my question and stop messing around, you two. Which direction would I go if I wanted to go to the place called Bath?"
We gave in. Having absolutely no idea which way it was, we guessed and my sister said, "I think it's more likely to be to the left than to the right -yes, I think it's that way".
Seconds later the top of two cycle helmets went past the wall alongside us in the direction we'd indicated, and a lady's voice called out, "Thank you, mummy and Auntie J!"