Spooky moorings at Mapledurham

At Mapledurham the river’s edge was shallow so, after a couple of attempts to moor more conventionally, we tied our narrowboat to trees.

At night it was pitch black, except for a glum orange glow from a shed on the other bank. The camera’s flash lit up all the marks on the side of the boat, slapped there by ropes that have been dunked in muddy water then used in locks.

I sat outside on the rear deck for a few hours, with a pot of coffee, a wool blanker and my laptop, to get some work done. Looked out across the wide water and thought how rare it’s been for us to be out in countryside like this, so quiet and dark at night.