A week last Sunday Rosemary and I were lucky enough to spend a day with friends on a boat chugging from Sunbury right up to Teddington and back, stopping at Hampton for a tasty picnic.
As the day wore on I realized that I was becoming increasingly more relaxed and laid back (and that wasn't the wine having its evil way), and within a couple hours I was happy and content with everybody and everything in my life.
And I suddenly realized why. Because on a river, everyone is happy. Everyone's smiling, waving, acknowledging each other, everyone's courteous and polite.
Not only the river traffic, but the families on the banks, revelers in riverside pubs, toe path cyclists, old ladies with what seemingly what looked like smiling dogs, children pointing as we happily passed them.
In one of the locks we came across four giggling old ladies in a small motorized boat, who were getting into a bit of a pickle. One of the lock keepers came down to help and in no time he was giggling with them. Yet no one was getting irritated because it was taking twice as long.
An idyllic panorama of contentment and enjoyment.
I then compared this vista to the M25. An environment so aggressive, so intimating, where no one smiles, no one is ever courteous, no one is relaxed, where everyone is tense and anxious.
Imagine 4 old ladies holding up traffic on the M25?
I want a boat on the Thames!!!!!! It inspired me!
love this Mr W, if only the M25 was one giant waterway
ReplyDeletealso interestingly on this point of environment changing behaviour - they've done studies that prove that it's not sugar that causes rug-rats to run wild at parties, it's the environment they're in when they're consuming it
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