Posted by Belated Lyn on June 26, 2006 at 23:02:02 from 198.45.19.38 user LynMellone.
In Reply to: Messing about in boats - Re: Best memory/experience with boats posted by Ed Kiser on April 19, 2006 at 12:42:07:
For some reason when we were discussing this last April, although Ed identified the exact phrase as originating in Wind in the Willows rather then S&A, no one ever posted AR's version of "messing about in boats." Perhaps the rest of you are so familiar with it that it didn't occur to you that "some" of us needed a specific reference.
I just happened to run across it today, in the literary pages. There it was, in SWALLOWS AND AMAZONS: HOW IT CAME TO BE WRITTEN by AR himself -- "We have played about in boats on it ever since we can remember."