176 Emails And All The Cats Of My Marina

I went to Brussels for the day on Monday - more of which in my next post. While I was away, mysterious forces were afoot that meant when I checked my phone on the train home I nearly expired when it informed me that I had 176 emails waiting for me. I never have 176 emails waiting for me. I am an out of work pensioner-in-waiting who lives on a boat. The most exciting thing I do with my days is wander the streets, coming up with conspiracy theories regarding the proliferation of chicken shops in the Greater London area and looking for elaborate baked goods to spend my money on. I automatically assumed that the boat had sunk while I was away.

The boat had not sunk, which I was thrilled about. Not as thrilled as I was to be informed that Substack had decided to pop me on their Discover page and people were duly discovering me. Hello, people who have discovered me. You are very welcome here.

Today’s post is for my best friend, Andrea, who was responsible for taking me to Brussels yesterday. In return I bought her moules frites, an ice cream sundae and the promise of a newsletter about the cats of the marina. I have since expanded the brief to include all creatures great and small and possibly all things wise and wonderful.

For a small marina, we are remarkably well endowed with animal life both wild and domestic. I have had to do a crash course in bird recognition since moving here. Coots and moorhens are ubiquitous but are particularly tricky because they are so alike. They are virtually the same bird, skinny legs, ludicrously floppy feet that look like umbrellas blown out by a storm when they are in motion, priestly bodies and clown faces. The trick to telling one from the other is all in the beak. Moorhens have a splash of red paint on their beaks. Coots stick to monochrome, being the more fashion forward of the two. As well as learning this, I have also discovered that they all have very loud honks to body mass ratio. They like to demonstrate this by plaintively hooting about the marina at night like sad foghorns.

Ducks pass through but don’t tend to hang around. We had a band of regular park style ducks for a while. When they moved on we had some slightly more stylish ducks with dark suits, norty, pinched faces and fierce yellow eyes. They looked like a band of ne’er do wells, casing the joint, so I was quite pleased when they decided we had nothing worth stealing and left us to hang out in Canary Wharf, preferring to menace tech millionaires and crap on the fake grass.

We get the odd cormorant, although they prefer the river proper in the main. Sometimes I walk down to the shore and watch them fishing. They sit on abandoned piers, staring out across the water. One moment they’re perched like pterodactyls, all stony and bony, still as the grave. A blink later they’re launched at the river, folding into a liquid dive that makes them look like they’re made of the water they’re entering.

Various geese come and go in noisy gangs but we have a pair of steadfast swans who have raised six cygnets to swanhood here over the summer. So far, despite their reputation, nobody has tangled with a swan and come away with a broken arm. I’m a little bit disappointed about this if I’m honest.

My greatest joy has been the grebes. I have been worrying about the grebe situation for weeks, because I have only ever seen one grebe sculling round the marina. I couldn’t decide if it was one, lonely grebe who had no friends and had to resort to begging for company from sub par human beings who can’t even speak grebe, or a series of lone grebes arriving to announce their solitude to an indifferent world. It turned out to be a pair of grebes hatching a baby, taking it in turns to sit on the nest. The baby grebe made its debut at the marina last week in a tumble of fluff, sporting a disproportionately long neck. What I particularly enjoy is that it already has its distinctive hair fringe that make it look like an Eighties New Romantic. It just looks like it’s wearing a fur coat at the moment, ready for A/W ‘23.

There are, of course, rats skulking about, mostly in the environs rather than the marina proper. Yesterday morning I left the boat at 6.00 a.m. heading for the DLR and disturbed a rat attempting to cross the underpass. I’ve never had the leisure of seeing one so quietly going about its business and I was struck by the fact that when it ran in front of me, it was surprisingly leggy. I realised I had imagined rats being quite low slung creatures, fur brushing the ground as they go. What actually happened was that it lifted its skirts and ran, exposing spindly rat ankles and causing shockwaves to ricochet through all of rat society. The scandal.

On the domestic front we have several boaters who have dogs. My favourite is a bull terrier owned by our pontoon neighbours. This is the breed that Tallulah once described as a ‘hammerhead dog’ and which I think is a much better descriptor than bull terrier. The American Kennel Club describe them as ‘Among the most comical and mischievous citizens of dogdom,’ which is an utter delight. He is a splendid, handsome beast and scores 15/10 on the best dog in the world scale devised by me and Oscar. The rule of the best dog in the world scale is that every dog has to score more than ten out of ten and no dog ever fails to please.

There are a couple of French bulldogs, who are busy, just waddling about being their best selves. My favourite boi likes to lean on available legs and if this is permitted, will sometimes fall asleep on your shoe. This is the behaviour we love to see and I find him extremely relatable. Sometimes I like to do this to Jason, although he gets unreasonably annoyed if I dribble on his foot. 14/10 and a biscuit on the BDITW scale for leaning boi.

Cat wise, we are spoiled for choice. I have already mentioned the majestic marmalade floofer with fluffy pantaloons. He is my favourite. He lives on a red cruiser, which is so small it looks as if 90% of the interior is immediately taken up by trouser fur when he steps aboard. He does spend the majority of his days spread across the pontoon, which is probably necessary to let his trousers breathe and gain their full, magnificent girth. I’m fairly sure he’s the king of the marina. He seems serene and unruffled by the comings and goings of other cats and hammerhead dogs. He doesn’t need to impress. He lets the trousers do the talking. If I am ever allowed to touch him, I make sure to address him as ‘your majesty.’

There is a wisp of a black creature with lamps for eyes who is full of nervous agility. I’m not entirely convinced he is 100% feline content. He may well be part imp. He’s particularly good at twitching his ears whilst jumping into the air when startled. He skitters about life’s edges, popping up from time to time when he accidentally forgets he is made of shadow and steps into a sun patch. He spends most of his time wandering the quantum worlds at his disposal. The rest of the time he likes to hang out on the tug boat moored at the marina entrance. Half the boat is painted black so it makes excellent camouflage for a sooty little soul. Sometimes he falls asleep on the rim of the boat and you don’t see him until he opens his eyes. It’s unnervingly like the boat is looking at you. I wouldn’t put it past him to actually merge into the boat. He has no name. Well, he does, but if you knew it you would be able to control him, so he will never tell.

On the far side of the marina is a beefy individual, white with calico patches. He looks like he puts his thumbs in the loops of his belt and sucks his teeth a lot. He’s probably called Dave. I’m fairly sure he’s a plumber, but you know, he’ll try his hand at most things. I caught him sleeping in the bottom of a dinghy on Saturday. He was supposed to have been retiling a bathroom in Romford, but he rang in sick. His relationship with time keeping is continental. When he’s not sleeping on the job, he likes to go to Poplar Caff for an all day breakfast and tea with five sugars. He’s a right laugh.

While the trouser king lives on my side of the marina, the queen lives on the other side. I think she’s a Burmese, but crossed with something. I’m fairly sure the thing she’s crossed with is a coffee table. She’s low slung and portly, with Queen Anne legs and eyes like soup plates. She proceeds, stately as a galleon, waddling about the pontoons, looking for treasure and ignoring anything that walks on two legs and most things that walk on four. The first time I met her she was head down in a planter, bow legs akimbo, fat tail quivering with excitement. I said hello. She carried on excavating the petunias. Eventually she emerged and condescended to be petted. Once she had extracted due obeisance, she swayed off to shout at the wardrobe mistress about the state of her robes and have her cushions plumped.

There are other cats which I have yet to be acquainted with and of course, there is Derek, Pirate queen and renegade mistress of the ill behaviour. She has yet to step off the boat but she has taken to crouching on the rim of the cushioned seating at the stern. She uses the added height to hang over the door to the pontoon like a furry gargoyle, spying on the neighbours and being bewildered by the birds. She has only ever seen birds either flying or on grass. The concept of birds who live on water is blowing her tiny mind. If I’m up there with her, she keeps turning to me as if to say: ‘Have you seen this?' Are you not even slightly bothered by this? Look at this bird. No. Honestly. Look at it. This is madness. What is that wobbly stuff?’ The day she decides to find out is the day I’m going to wish I had bought a keep net.