Moving – scarcely as we are – at something slower than walking pace, the beech trees at Farnhill this early morning are reflected with precision in the still, opaque water. Here in the bows, the faraway engine cannot be heard, and barely a ripple anecdotes the boat’s gliding passage. Gnarled, knobbly roots cling to sandy banks, equally above and below the waterline, making dense and mysterious holes of darkness and nudging great trunks upwards and downwards at matching speed.

Though we pass each tree at a ceremonial pace, none bow, none scrape. There is no concession, no acknowledgement. The suspended branches scarcely move. Body of tree fires into its mirrored trajectory skyward and earthward, as if all its electrons had simultaneously collided on the grey-brown meniscus of the canal.

Into the open, and we hear the awakening traffic on an adjacent trunk road. But the commuters and their noise are from a different universe. A shimmering sleight of time and speed separate them from us. Thistledown and tall spent grasses, immobile, catch the light, all shades of cream and grey.

And that most imperturbable of birds, the heron, cranes his long neck to the minutest degree from the bank, but also declines to move.