A Woman and her Canoe

She, of course, had the canoe ready. ‘There is something so erotic about a woman who has her canoe at the ready’, as Winston Churchill so appositely remarked back in the summer of 1924. Back then, though, it was regarded as somewhat risqué for a woman to be over-familiar with rowboats and to know too much about rowlocks for her station in life, especially if she looked too much like the kind of woman who liked to get an oar in.

The canoe, though, was regarded as eminently suited for the woman of the time, especially as the paddle was deemed to be far les phallic than the rather rude oars. The canoe and paddle also did away with the matter of the rowlocks, without - as in the Victorian era – of having to a gentleman always making certain that his rowlocks were always kept concealed from the ladies whenever he invited them into his boat.

Anyway, that all belongs back in the days of black and white and the strange jerkiness of the silent era, consequently it is of little relevance to the modern age and to the aquatic adventure we were preparing to depart upon.

Still, though, knowledge of history is always useful. This time it did rather adequately – at least I thought so – fill an awkward conversational lull when further up the river she pulled her canoe under a riverside weeping willow tree and lay back on the floor of the canoe, asking me if I could think of anything we could do to pass the time during such a lazy summer afternoon on the river.