Paula is allergic to something in the English autumn. We think it may be barley. As befits a country with a great tradition of beer drinking, barley is grown pretty much everywhere, and Paula’s allergies started up for the first time as we set out this morning. She is loading up on allergy pills and hoping for the best.

It was sunny and windy this morning. We moved the boat a few miles today, and moored up in a lovely spot with a view of rolling fields and the distant drone of agricultural machinery pumping out barley allergens. We were sheltered from the wind by a hedge, so I got out a folding camp chair and settled down on the towpath with a good book. It immediately clouded over and started to drizzle. Here’s the local countryside.

Oh, well, at least we had moved the boat before it started raining. Running the engine also charges the batteries and heats up the hot water supply, so if we sit in one place too long it’s cold showers and that won’t do.

We passed the boat with the ferrets again this morning, and they came out to say hello.

Ferrets are illegal as pets in California, along with a number of other species: gerbils, hedgehogs, dormice, alligators etc. There is a ferret lobby that is pressing for legalization, but so far they have failed to come up with a convincing environmental impact report. The danger to native wildlife (not to mention domestic poultry) from feral ferrets is perceived to be too great. Californians for Ferret Legalization attempted to get it on the 2016 ballot, but could not collect enough signatures, and the last ferret legalization bill passed by the California legislature was vetoed by Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger in 2004. I suspect that California will legalize marijuana before it legalizes ferrets, unless someone can find a way to weaponize them and claim a second amendment right to bear mustelidae.

There is no corresponding lobby to legalize gerbils or hedgehogs. We can only assume that ferrets are the gateway to smaller and cuter mammals.