RUN, RABBIT

It's been a weekend of allsorts.

I made quite an idiot of myself by reprimanding a group of teenagers, failing completely until too late  to see their side of the story. I felt very sorry about that. I got suckered into a moral position that, if I'd had a few moments thought, I'd never have taken. I was boring in my atonement. But no one was greatly harmed, just my pride.

My pride was at stake at the boat, as the worst bit of boating is leaving and arriving at a berth, when there is almost always an audience to see one's hopeless attempts at controlling a large cumbersome object affected by at least three fluid media - water, wind and tide. My marina berth is tight requiring reversing with the helm hard over one way, and then firing ahead, ostensibly pointing directly at other boats, but with the helm hard over the other way, trusting that the bow will spin round. Hitherto calm, hidden boat owners appear during these manoeuvres, with furrowed brows, ready to take steps to protect their vessel as I seem intent on dinging both theirs and mine. Fortunately this time I got it right - just, and a kind lady aboard one sparkling boat gave us a thumbs up. So George said, anyway. I was way too concentrated to notice. But my fear, my true fear, is not damage of property, but, again, damage to pride.

In the conversation this weekend a prominent feature was the subject of men who go off with other women. A few examples have occurred. It's easy to rush to the same sort of judgement I made about the teenagers about this. And maybe moral opprobrium is more appropriate. But many a marriage is a loveless and lonely place, or worse, and that must surely go for men as well as women. Who knows?

I admired George for battling seasickness and still performing the essential functions of a crewman when asked. That takes some effort. A morally upright and righteous determination to do what one says.

I was very tired by the time we'd driven back from Plymouth. As I went to bed, there were two rabbits, gloating on the drive. I grumpily got the rifle out. I shot the first and he screamed. Really screamed. I hit him just beneath the head and he threw back his head and screamed. Then he skittered about, legs going like mad, running nowhere except into his own extinction. The second rabbit witnessed this, and was on high alert because of the screams. She froze. I shot her too. She bucked up, raced a few feet, and fell near the wheels of my car. That's what a moral bloke I am. That people shoot for sport baffles me. It leaves me feeling dirty and debauched. I've persuaded myself that the rabbits have to be shot as they eat everything in the vegetable garden. And that is true. But then, since I've had the boat, I've hardly touched the vegetable garden and, apart from a couple of rows of onions and potatoes and a few sad lettuces, its a weed jungle. So what am I protecting, Lord Bloody Protector of my land. I felt the same after shooting the rabbits as after reproaching the teenagers. Crap.

I went to bed and dreamt, horribly, of grotesque rabbit courts sentencing their rabbit felons for infidelity, and saving their harshest sentence for a pompous, fat man with rabbit ears, guilty of making a damned fool of himself with all sorts of ridiculous actions and judgements.