The River

Last week was, um, challenging. A difficult temp assignment and – more upsettingly - a female friendship under stress. In the coming week I am agreeing the figure for the sale price of the flat with the estate agent, the necessary forms will be signed and I will be tidying as I have never tidied before ahead of the arrival of potential purchasers.

Yesterday afternoon there was a brief hiatus. A trip on the Thames near Richmond on a friend’s boat. I arrived after lunch, nerves still jangling and unsure how the afternoon was going to unfold.

He has the boat moored alongside a landing stage, with a café and a children’s play area nearby. The whole area is thickly wooded with beech and plane trees, their first leaves now just starting to turn. Coming here I am always reminded of the Seurat painting of Parisians on the banks of the Seine ....

In the late summer sunshine we motored upstream past Eel Pie Island to Teddington Lock, where the tidal river ends and the inland river begins. We passed lush and beautiful weeping willows set on lawns reaching down to the river bank, eccentric boathouses, millionaire hideaways and repair yards. We carefully overtook canoeists and waved to fellow sailors. Geese, ducks and moorhens plus the occasional heron watched us go by. In the evening we tied up at the moorings and ambled through to the nearest riverside town for dinner.

A few hours later we walked back along a quiet lane beside the Thames. By now the river was ebbing strongly and the silhouettes of the trees on its banks were black against the night sky. The recent equinox high tide had flooded the roadway, which was still wet and littered with driftwood.

The river is the soul of this place. It can be neutral, dangerous, benevolent. It has a definite and powerful presence.

He drove me home. I don't know where this friendship is going. But I have learned to value constancy, generosity and thoughtfulness when they are offered. I accept them with gratitude and try to reciprocate in kind.