We celebrated with great enthusiasm our third houseboatwarming last Saturday. (It seems we’ve miscalculated a little though: the boat is now too warm, so when Stefan leaves we’re planning a housecooling to restore the balance.) One event stands out as worth recording: at a relatively early point in the evening some random fellow let himself in through the front gate, wandered through the throng around the barbecue, picked up a full crate of beer, and headed back out towards the gate. Let me record how grateful I am to Mathieu, who (as I understand it) politely pointed out that this behaviour was a bit unconventional, and traded the crate back for a toke or two. (Sunday might have been easier to face had he let the fellow go, but after all it’s the principle of the thing, what?)