Prickwillow lies east of Ely, formed around a water pumping station and the River Lark. The land in this area falls about 2 inches a year and some houses stand proud of the surrounding area, the Fenland solution is to build more steps up to your front door, the schools and vicarage and houses are built on piles. Two steam pumping engines and two oil engines are in the village and two in Burnt Fen; the average discharge is 150 tons per minute into the river Lark. The community is rich with artists, writers and architects, a place of quiet and creativity.

I parked the car down by the river in Ely and set out my watercolours and pencils on the bench, my water in a Volvic plastic bottle. The boat that sits decaying in the Babylon boathouse reminds me of Ernest Hemmingway’s boat that sits in dry dock in Cuba, it is a romantic image of past-times, of adventure and of hope. The surface is an expanse of rust with flecks of blue remembered paint. The waterlilies have surrounded it and the yellow heads lie around the bow rising and falling in the wake of passing cruisers.