Downstream

told the various
communication signals: stop,
go left, come to the boat and
‘are you OK?’, which means
putting your fingers on top of
your head as Mo Farah does
after he has won a race. The
next topic is chafing and
Yolande offers to apply
Vaseline to our necks.
Chafing has never occurred to
me: we’re not exactly going
to be swimming the Channel,
are we?