Geese and swans

I got a call from friends in London saying, because of the hot weather they would like to get out of town and come on the boat for the weekend.  That’s what I call fair weather friends. So I went back to Ely to empty and fill.  As I ambled through there were plenty of mooring spaces, I thought the one under the willow tree looked cool and shady.  Half an hour later when I left the pump-out station all the good spaces had been taken and I was left with a concrete mooring amongst the geese and tourists.  This morning I’m glad to be leaving I’m looking forward to a good nights sleep after the last two disturbed ones.  It wasn’t traffic, or drunken revellers or even the convention of Morris Dancers jingling their way around Ely that kept me awake.  It was the bloody geese.  Every night hundreds Canada Geese leave the fields and do a sail past through Ely, then in the early hours of the morning they start a noisy squabble with the very vocal pack of resident white geese. 

This morning I could hear bumping and splashing along the outside of the boat.  I looked out the side hatch and a swan was flapping about trying to drown something.  The only weapon I could find to throw at him was half a loaf of bread.  It hit him on the head and he let go of his victim and pursued the bread instead. The young Canada Goose that he’d been trying to kill scuttled off and the potential murderer ignored him and tucked into what should have been my breakfast.