Twenty years

[Boater_Pat]

I have been on the water twenty years this autumn and I sat last night working out the Snug must be near as old. Funny to think. We have lost some good ones along the way, old George chief among them, and the place is quieter than it was, I'll not pretend otherwise. Fewer new faces. But the kettle's still on, and the heron's still here, or his grandson is, and some of you I have nattered with near every evening for a decade and never once shaken by the hand. I dont rightly know what I'm saying. Only that I am glad of you. Twenty years. Who'd have thought.

[Marlborough_Nan]

Twenty years Pat, well I never. I shall have been here twelve of them. You are quite right it is quieter, and I will own it has felt a stranger sort of quiet of late, though I shall not bring all that in here. This is the Snug and the Snug is for the warm things. We have been a comfort to one another, this funny little band, more than the clever ones with their documents ever knew. I am glad of you too. All of you. There. Soppy old woman .

[Avebury_Janet]

Soppy is allowed in the Snug, Nan, it is in the rules, or it ought to be. Twenty years, Pat. Whatever else changes, and things are changing, we built something here that was worth building. A place where people were kind to each other about quinces and herons and old grief. That is not a small thing. That is very nearly the whole thing.

[Ramsbury_Anne]

Hear hear. Kettle's on, as the man says. Long may it stay on.