A Day In the Life

I do a bit of running and cycling and this has enabled me to make a study of the Common English Pothole. 
It all starts in the summer when the local council goes around spreading black gloop and gravel all over the roads. Unbeknown to them this is impregnated with pothole spores, probably about the size of the middle of a polo mint,which are difficult to see with the naked eye.
After a period of dormancy, nourished by nitrogenous run-off from the farm fields, and the autumn rains, they grow into whoppers at the first sign of frost. 
Their diet mainly consists of pedestrians and cyclists, though they have been known to swallow whole joggers, emitting a loud satisfied belch and settling down for a post prandial snooze before hunger pangs cause them to stir in search of another meal. They will also attack large cars, leaving them with a nasty and expensive nip around the wheel rim.
This is a Warwickshire middle-of-the-road pothole, a close relative of the Oxfordshire crumbled-edge variety which upended me recently, though they, the crumbled edge ones, have a symbiotic relationship with buses, and will also eat double yellow lines.
I think I've heard in the tabloid press that giant European potholes or Nids de Poule as the French call them are on their way to our shores on an unstoppable rampage northwards. Heaven knows how they get here. They probably come in clinging to the undersides of pensioners coach trips to Bruges, or they may even be able to swim. They will probably be immune to our normal hole destroying measures. We're all doomed.
I feel further studies are needed to determine just how many of these things there are and their potential size, so that it should be possible to calculate how many it will take to fill the Albert Hall.
This one is sporting a splendid growth of green grass, like a tuft of hair on a giant nostril. It hasn't reached full size yet and is in a lane near us, watching, waiting, growing.......


(Update on kayaking. All going very well so far.
Collisions with other boats about 6
Eskimo rolls zero
Sausage rolls 3
Instructors running away screaming probably at least one.)