That sinking feeling

Granny’s report on the sinking of NB Abigail made me go all queasy as it brought my near Northgate staircase disaster ‘flooding’ back to me. Abigail’s owner and I were both ‘in the same boat’ in that we faced a situation where time was against us and everything was happening in the blink of an eye. Thankfully, we both escaped unscathed (bodily wise), me drier than him, but I still get sick thinking about what would have happened if....What would the dogs have done if we’d sunk in the bottom lock? I have visions of me performing a gallant rescue of all five but I know deep down that if things really had gone tits up, I probably wouldn’t have had the time or the mental capacity to do anything but sauve qui peut. What the whole experience has done though is make me extra vigilant. I have always been pretty careful but perhaps over the years, over the course of many locks successfully navigated, one can drop one’s guard a bit and get a huge left uppercut for one’s pains. So if you meet me in a lock and I’m not talking to you, apologies – I’m concentrating. I know, I know, I’m a woman, I should be able to multi-task. But there are only so many brain cells to go round, you know...