The one-minute muse: artistic inspiration and "love at first sight".

Picture the scene. Oh, you don't need to; there's a photo. You know the general scenario. Shubs is sitting in a pub garden with a friend. Autumn is generally happening around him. There's a pint of ale on the table, The Remains of the Day in his hands, thick woollens protecting his paunch, and it's one of those days where one can tell that the warm winds have been elsewhere before here. For a young man made almost entirely of Autumn, brown and 100% organic wistfulness, this is pretty stirring stuff.

And then she arrives. Gliding towards the tow-path at a breakneck crawl, Lief, a lovingly-battered narrowboat, arrives alongside the pub. And at her helm is yet another she; a nameless girl with autumnal hair, a green wax jacket, a blue patterned Christmas jumper, and - obviously - her own sodding canal boat!

Whilst she potters with porta-potties and rubbish, Shrubs is having a mighty swoon-attack. Inarticulate and now unconcerned with the fate of the fictional Stevens, he stares at the boat and its young captain in wonder. Conjecture erupts at the table. Is she alone? Is this her life? Is she actually real? The piles of gnarled wood and a solitary bicycle suggest a well-planned lifestyle. An ingenious and courageous solution to costly London housing. She; a girl of unfathomable independence and spirit. And Shrubs... no, I, fall in love. Here's a girl carrying her life with her. Here's a portable metaphor for the person she must be. Here's a rich vein of inspiration arriving in the midst of many of my favourite things . With my flu-addled brain already in suggestibly woolly mode, here is - essentially - the moon on a flipping stick.

She's now motioning to move, and I leap up. I wander over, smiling but nervous, to ask a few questions. She smiles back. She has a friend who's elsewhere, but it is her boat. Donated by her father. She's working in London. She's come all the way from Sharpness, Gloucestershire, and yes, she is real.

I daren't ask her name, and simply wish her luck. I watch in wonder as she expertly casts off, leaps gracefully from bank to boat, and disappears from my life forever.

So, yes, I fell in love again this week. And she's gone. But the moment...