Curiosity Killed The Cow

Yesterday evening I walked back along the river bank in the autumn sunshine, the water looked like mercury and the air was warm. The boat was still moored securely around the bend and silhouetted by the setting sun. Silhouetted next to it were two people; it looked like they were staring into the windows of the boat. As I approached one of them, a girl, turned to me and said:

“Is that your boat?”

“Yes, yes it is” I replied, intonating the unsaid question: ‘Why do you want to know?’

“There’s a cow stuck down the side of it” her friend, a young bloke, answered.

And there was. Young, but almost fully grown, stuck between the side of the bank and the side of the boat, and looking terrified. It looked like it must have been getting a bit curious about the boat, tried to get a close look and part of the bank fell away. Then Splash! It was in, able to stand as the river is shallow at the edges, but because of the boat, not able to get out. It must have been cold, and curiosity could have killed the cow. I pushed the back of the boat out and with a lot of encouraging the young heifer moved along the bank to the open space, where with a lot more encouraging, and a few failed attempts, it managed to get sufficient purchase and climbed out. The poor thing looked terrified and cold, it just stood there staring at me. Another larger cow, I assumed was its mother also stared at me as I rubbed the bridge of the young ones nose and softly told it to run around and get warm again; I’d seen something like this in Crocodile Dundee. I don’t think the young cow understood a word of it but the two young people, still standing around, seemed pretty impressed. She’ll be fine I told them, not knowing if she would or not, nor whether or not it was a he or a she, but it looked and sounded good, and everyone seemed happy.

At last I climbed aboard, opened up and went in and lit my first fire of the season. The weather forecast had said it would drop to just a few degrees overnight. Of course it didn’t, in fact it was probably one of the warmest nights we have had for a few weeks. Very soon the boat was like a sauna! I have walls lined with wood so it even looked like a sauna. I opened all the windows and doors to try and cool it down. Even with those open it was still very warm. Eventually I stripped, closed the doors and some of the windows and fell asleep on top of the bed. I didn’t even cover myself with the duvet. And all the time people ask me “Isn’t it cold living on a boat”!