There is a lovely corner of Haga, not far from our house, where there's a little triangular flower garden dedicated to the famed Swedish botanist Linneus. F and I were taking in the afternoon sun and admiring numerous examples of A. mellifera and B. terrestris as they went droning about their daily chores. There were lots of them. A full gamut from A to B, in fact.
The garden is also decorated with little concrete sailing boats with triangular metal sails. Not quite sure why, maybe Linneus did a lot of travelling by sail? I thought most of his journeys were on land, but I'm not an expert on his doings. Wikipedia tells me he went round the Gulf of Bothnia as a young man, which I guess is hard to do with dry feet.
Anyway, F was sailing one of these boats (as captain, of course. I was helmsman, Bunbun was AB, just to maintain that line of jokes) perched inside the sail, with a foot either side of the cut-out interior. She was gazing formidably into the middle distance, eyes set on either some disappearing French ship of the line or on the mysterious cities of gold, I forget which. It was a very particular look, anyway, one I have come to recognise with a heavy heart.
"What are you doing, F?"
She gave me a slightly shifty look. "I'm just sorting Bunbun out," she said, bustling abruptly to life.
That there was evasion being practised was discovered by two sets of natural phenomenon. Chanelling Carl's spirit to aid my botanic skills, I noted that
- the smell of privet had been displaced by an altogether earthier smell, as of night soil, and
- the air was suddenly thronged with multiple specimens of C. vomitoria seeking nourishment
Further investigation showed that following this foul wind, the boat now had brown sails.
I took F home (she needed showering), and then like any good citizen, went back out with a roll of Torky and some Ajax to restore the fragrance of the garden. Swabbing the poop deck indeed. Good to have both defaced and defaeced a public monument in one fell afternoon.
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