At lunchtime today

The Mary Celeste continues to bob about in the very high water of the incoming tide up the Medway in front of Chatham library, presumably still hopeful for a helmsperson with or without advantageous passport. And it was sunny too!

But yesterday evening, after I had blipped, I went downstairs to take the rubbish out. Who should be loitering in our communal doorway smoking a fag but the delightful young chap who had jumped out in front of my bicycle a couple of months ago and succeeded in charming from me the entire contents of my wallet.

He seemed not to recognise me, he applauded me (again) for being lovely, though this time we did not hug. Again he waved his arm “over there” to indicate his residence, and gave me a door number along with an invitation to visit at any time. But of course this time his feet were on a different spot and he was facing in a different direction and so the wide arm gesture was pointing at another address entirely.

This time his daughter, the apple of his eye, is not a sudden premature addition to the family as she was eight weeks ago, this time she is a healthy bouncy five-month old.

I reminded him of our encounter at a bus stop in November and he assured me that wasn't him, though he had heard tales of a local bloke who did look a bit like him.

“What a shame” I said. “I bought a soft & cuddly toy for that chap's daughter, but never could find his house, for a moment there I thought I'd struck lucky, I thought you were him, but I'm happy to come over to your place now to meet your daughter instead”

A swift vanishing act and I felt as though I had stumbled upon the original Mary Celeste.

A shame really, he is charming and delightful, we could have become friends, but it seems that he has less Faith in me than I did in him. Sad really, I have always been a pushover for charming and delightful chaps.

NB; I have it on the best possible authority that the infamously vacant sea vessel did actually sail under the name “Mary Celeste” and not the more popularly believed “Marie Celeste” Not that that makes a blind bit of difference to this blip.