There’s a guy who cruises up and down the South Oxford Canal filling boats with diesel and delivering coal.  In the way that people call each other after their boats, he is known as Dusty.  I have his real name on a bit of paper somewhere, for when I write the cheques, but I think of him only as Dusty the Coal Man.  When he is on his way he sends text messages to everyone along the route, reminding us to fill up. 

The texts are usually vaguely suggestive: “Dusty – your man for hot nuts, exotic red juice and whiffy gas…Nice! Rock on Tuesday, Kidlington Wed, and on to Oxford Thurs/Friday.”

We are the “Rock”, short for the Rock of Gibraltar, the pub on the other side of the bridge.  I have no idea why it is called that.

For several weeks Dusty was stuck in the frozen canal, and now that the ice and snow have given way to rain, we hear he is headed toward Oxford and won’t be back at the Rock for another ten days or more.  Between him and us is a stretch of the River Cherwell, now in flood. 

So I am getting fit, not just by heaving my toilet cartridge up the tow path, but by heaving bags of coal down it.  I keep the fire going all the time, day and night: the trick is to stoke it up with coal and turn down the vents at bedtime, feeding it in the morning and opening the bottom door to fill it up with fresh air.

I was getting quite smug about how well I was doing until the fire went out yesterday afternoon (I got stingy with the coal when I had to carry it), and it has been troublesome ever since.

Meanwhile my engineer friend who fixes things for me whenever I smile pathetically appeared outside my window with sixty kilograms of coal that he had pushed along the path in a cart stolen from a nearby garden centre and left by the bridge for everyone’s use.  He stood absolutely knackered and barely breathing outside my boat, and then he lit up a cigarette to give him strength to hand the bags on board.

The fire, now glowing warmly again. I lit the candles just for you.