Paul recommended a hotel for us in Barton upon Humber - there were two bold parrots in one of the lounges - I was much diverted by these raffish birds - they wolf whistled whenever a girl passed by their cages - they had clever, knowing, eyes - brass fans revolved slowly overhead -
There was a view of the Humber Bridge from the hotel gardens - a gateway provided access to the southern bank of the estuary - sandbanks were like the backs of sea serpents, barely covered by rushing water - shoals and deep water channels formed an intricate, shifting, pattern -
Outside our bedroom, there was a bookcase containing volumes for the use of the guests - there were creepy breeze blocks by Graham Hancock about lost civilisations next to stout yarns by John Buchan - Anne devoured Pollyanna -
Paul and Sophie guided us around the ancient, quirky, town - they took us to The Ropewalk, an arts centre housed in a former rope factory - the narrow building was almost a quarter of a mile long, a reef of venerable brick - we walked in bright sunshine -
Inside, we visited the rope museum, with its exhibits of ropes and bizarrely shaped machines - I was moved by the poignant testimonies of the workers - a widow had donated the small brass lighter given her husband as a retirement gift -
We looked into the galleries - I stared for a long time at the brave abstracts - I tried to gauge the meaning of the shapes and colours -
I remembered the fracas in the Venice Guggenheim, when Anne had tried to tidy up a happiness machine -
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