Blythe and The Water People

This week I mostly seem to be reading on a watery theme.  After Crozet Joe and his adventures on the Southern Ocean, I have read The Water People by Joe Simpson (thank you for that great goddess Scope) and now am reading a lot of canal boat literature.
So instead of making a picture about The Patience Kershaw Rapper Women, I am going to make a picture about The Idle Women, who during the War worked on the canal boats, carrying essential supplies like coal and aluminium and such.
I bought a book The Clothes of The Cut, about canalboat costume, and I thought I might make a steampunk costume based on it, after Miss Aimson's success with making steampunk costumes (see Barbers and Shearers post).  Apparently the canal boat women were particularly fond of crochet-work.  Here is a picture of some crochet-work from The Kate W. Aimson Collection:

Miss Aimon's first name is Blythe: Blythe is usually a surname, which comes from a place name, and the place names mostly come from a river name.  The nearest Blythe place name to us is Blythebridge.  This Blythe river name just means the same as blithe - happy - a happy river.  I have never found out anything more about what a happy river is; but Joe Simpson talks about it in his book The Water People, a race of beings who live in water.

from page 140 of my copy:
"The spirits had different characters according to their environment.  In rivers they were happiest.  Busy with their work.  In the deep seas it is said they slept in slow-moving currents to recover from their labours."

Well, that doesn't make things much clearer, but perhaps it's a clue.  Maybe all this water-pondering has been brought about by the rain we have been having.  The season is turning from the High Summer, which we have enjoyed for the first time in what seems like years.  Now the seasons roll on and tomorrow it is Lammas.