An early summer...

is what the ever optimistic Brits are calling this unseasonal burst of blue skies and bright sunshine. Bwaaahahahaahaaaaa...... little do they know, this IS summer.

The longer days make me brazen enough to find that funny as I toast myself while we glide over the mirrored surface of the canal. Like an overweight cat, it's a toss up between devouring the sun or the fluffy ducklings paddling behind mama (the first of the season, assuming all the cats have been rendered inoperational with the weather) as we wend our way to Camden Town, to pay homage to the pinnacle of tastelessness in food and fashion. An affirmation that there is life outside the stereotypes, while reinforcing it's very own. Odd couples, expressions of peculiar sentiments, a mélange of bizarre costumes and accessories that include feather, canines, metals, acrylics, faux furs, bone, leather, little men in tight pants.......

Unfortunately, my resolve to people watch is rent asunder by a collection of LP's, a gorgeous aqua and black Japanese plate with accouterments, an unspeakably rude Stewie t-shirt for a future baby an utterly pointless fake silver waist chain with teeny bells, and a woman insisting children must wear colour. Unfortunatelier (it's called literary license), recession has left my pockets woefully inadequate and I succumb to the woman with the colourful dungarees (not the ones on her, rest assured) - one for the niece and one for the nephew. Now, all I have to do is to get my Catholics to pray that the colour doesn't run if they leak. But wait, altruism must be rewarded and the sight of my turned out pockets and cupped hand full of 20 p's (courtesy the colourful children lady) wrests surrender, and I jauntily jangle my way back to the boat. It must be the air in Camden....