Illuminated Boats

‘Go home,’ she said covering her mouth with her hand. ‘I don’t want to spend my day looking at that face!’

The two women edged away from me as if I had bubonic plague and leprosy combined.
‘Go home,’ she said.

I left.

They were right about the face and sending me back home. I had the flu and shouldn’t have been any where near the place. The ‘face’ when I looked at it could have been mistaken for one of the witches’ faces from that notorious Scottish play. I looked grey and there were bags under my watering eyes.

I had started to feel unwell a few days earlier at the Illuminated Boat and Carol Concert. Nothing can quite beat singing carols in the cold rain while standing on wet grass next to the cold brown hungry waters of a canal.

The small village community bravely stood their ground and sang out while the band seated comfortably on a moored boat played the carols at a break neck speed finishing each line of each carol before the children had had time to draw breath.
At the end everyone dispersed and I was left alone standing in a puddle. I walked by the canal for a moment hoping to see and enjoy the illuminated boats but as I approached each one the lights went out.

I was shivering with cold as I gave up turned and went home.