with punts until last summer, couldn’t get around the mockery impulse. But a year back I had to race to an upriver rendezvous at the Victoria Arms and while zigzagging the bends, ducking under willows and kicking away at the bank snags, I finally got it. It wasn’t Wordsworth out on the lake but in the unthinking dash I had my flash of punting serenity, the infinite drip of the green-mirrored water slab made sense to me. Now, when it gets over 25C, I just want to be out on the water. Or mooring up at the beer garden. Flat water has a rightness about it.
