Havenhold 
I hung the third lantern just after eight, when the canal had gone the colour of a wet stone and the hall windows were the only other light. The first two had been up since Thursday. People kept asking for a fourth because the far cleat sits in a pocket of dark, and Sander, who is not a nervous man, said he had to feel for the rope with his foot. I looked at the post. The grain is opening. A fourth hook would be a hole we do not need.
So the rule is the one I wrote on the board the same night. Three lanterns. The dark boat on the right cleat. The pale boat on the left. Two people in the pale one, nothing heavy, and you tie it back where you found it. If you drag it onto the grass I will see the track in the morning. I am not being poetic. The grass keeps the mark.
Willem asked, from the bank, whether 'the drier one' was a recommendation or a warning. It is both. The pale boat ships a little water if you sit three across. We learned that in June, when Pim and two others decided the evening was calm enough. It was calm. The boat was not a vote.
Saturday is Sander and Elise in the dark boat, and me on the planks if the knot looks proud. Floor has already written that she is not asking for a seat. I was glad of the sentence. A rumour on this jetty travels faster than a boat.
The lanterns do not last the whole evening. They are oil, and I fill them, and I do not fill them for a festival. When they drop, you come in. The path is worse in the dark than the water is. Lena will tell you the ditch has opinions. She is right, and she is talking about mud, not about character.
If you want a boat next week, say so in Talk the afternoon of the day, with your name. Not 'we'. Not 'some of us'. A name I can count on my fingers.