Beau and the Biking Bankers

Marple Junction, Macclesfield Canal

I'm not at my best first thing in the morning.
Not quite as bad as Dad, who often has acute attacks of 'Vague' which generally follow acute attacks of 'Thirst' the night before.

The other morning, as usual, we were about to set off to check on my local 'p-mails'; Dad was clipped onto my lead to stop him from wandering off, and I'd checked to see which side of the boat the water was on. The final check is needed because sometimes Dad parks the boat on the left side of the canal, and sometimes he parks it on the right. Getting it wrong can lead to an unwanted early morning bath.......

With Dad firmly in tow, I'd just stepped off the boat when WHOOSHHHHH.........as this machine went flying past, just missing my front paws..........

I looked up and saw, disappearing down the towpath, two wheels which seemed to be supporting a huge, shining black backside, which had a wide, dirty brown stripe going all the way up it.
This split-second image looked just like the rear view of a huge black labrador with a bad case of the 'runs'.

This near-miss was sufficient to bring Dad out of his bout of the 'Vagues' and he started a really good rant using some words that I hadn't heard since he stubbed his bare foot on the wooden step of the shower-block.
I'm not sure what a lot of the words meant but I think it was mostly to do with Mountain Bikers and Merchant Bankers, whatever they are.........

I'd pretty much finished updating my p-mails on the towpath, and anyway, Dad was beginning to drag his feet, so I pulled his lead back towards the boat, thanking my stars that we hadn't met any more Merchant Bikers during our walk.

No sooner had we turned round when there was a sound like thunder rumbling along the towpath behind us. Dad, who had quickly relapsed back into a 'Vague' whilst I was p-mailing, hesitated just long enough to nearly get trampled underfoot as a solid wall of runners, of all shapes and sizes in brightly coloured T-shirts, swept along the towpath.

All the T-shirts had the same words printed on the back which said something like 'Run For Your Life'.

After the morning we'd had, we didn't need telling twice.......................

xx Beau

                                                    I feel safer here for the moment....................