Greetings from York, where I am cat sitting Maisie and Poppy, old friends both, near what once was York City’s football ground, Bootham Crescent.

(Very cheap looking houses are currently being built on what was once the pitch; I give them twenty years.)

I’m not able to do much in the way of exercise at the mo, as I’ve got some stitches in my back from an exceedingly minor operation.

But I got restless, and headed north out of the city along the River Ouse, heading underneath the motorways that takes the cars to the cities, and with electricity pylons and the east coast main line as my near permanent companions.

The drizzle mithered, and I didn’t see many other humans on the flood plains. There is quite a complex system of sluice gates here, to help York avoid future floods. I thought of Wyndham’s The Kraken, and the doomed attempts to defeat the rising waters.

The river meanders off to the west a few miles north of the city, and I followed it, under the railway line and finding myself marooned across the river from the village pubs of Nether Poppleton.

No bridge for weary travellers here. There was once a ferry, from 1089, “a date supported by a ferryman’s seal”, until the 1960s.

They should bring it back. I’d use it.

Ah well. I upped my pace and headed back to the city, to be met back at the house by two black cats who have never – never – been fed in their entire lives.