Trish and I had our first kayak of the spring a few days ago, paddling up the River Great Ouse in the low afternoon light. The weeping willows were already dressed in their pale early-season green, but everything else – every chestnut, ash, and alder – remained skeletal, bare to the bone. This week on the water We didn't make it as far as the Town Lock. A temporary bridge had been thrown across the river as part of some project or other, and we were obliged to turn back. Which, it turned out,...