“Water, water, every where, 

And all the boards did shrink; 

Water, water, every where, 

Nor any drop to drink.”

Immortal lines from Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s great poem of 1834, which I enjoyed and still remember class reading at school.

So with me flitting back and forth between Venice and North Gloucestershire floods, I thought an appropriate change for November’s Painting of the Month. One of Gustave Dore’s wonderful illustrations for the book, held in the British Library.

“ ‘God save thee, ancient Mariner! 

From the fiends, that plague thee thus!— 

Why look’st thou so?’—With my cross-bow 

I shot the ALBATROSS.”

And No… I did not shoot the albatross.