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.