Dear Sebastian, Lily and Elliott,
When we were talking to Lily last week, we showed her our friend Ria standing on her boat. All boats are boys here in France and in Belgium where Ria comes from.
Her boat is beautiful and shiny and grey and his name is Max.
There is a special story about why the boat is called Max.
When Ria was a little girl she lived on a farm, and her father had a great, big horse to do all the heavy pulling work on the farm. He used to pull ploughs and wagons and help in all sorts of ways around the farm.
He was a special working horse from Belgium and he didn’t have a tail but he did have a wild scruffy mane, and big hairy ankles that made it look like he was wearing slippers.
He was a very big strong horse, but he was very quiet and gentle too even though he was quite old.
One day when Ria wasn’t even as big as Lily is, she was playing near him and she must have made so much noise that he decided he couldn’t take it any longer.
He gently picked her up by the shoulder so he wouldn’t hurt her, and took her away to where she couldn’t annoy him any more!
When Max was too old to work any more, Ria’s Dad went to town one day and came back with a brand new tractor.
It was red and white. Oh oh! What’s wrong with this drawing?
Ria used to help her Dad drive the tractor too, even though she was a very little girl.
So now, whenever we see Ria and her husband Dave in their boat Max, we think of Max the great big gentle horse and the days before there were tractors to do the work.
Isn’t that a lovely way to name a boat?
Give everyone special hugs from us,
Lots of love,
From
Jojo and Papa
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