Diary of a Deckhand

Well, it has started again.  I spent today squished into the shower tray downstairs on the boat stripping out the old silicone sealant and old paint ready to be made shiny and clean ready for the new season.  Our downstairs shower takes the brunt of the showers onboard as you don’t have to brave the cold air with nothing but a towel and your dignity.  The other shower and loo are on the port side and I have lovingly undercoated and topcoated them already, so once the floor is painted with its usual deckpaint (like gloss with sand in it), it will be ready for the season. 

Suddenly it seems so close, and yet it is two and a half months away.  But putting it as we only have a month until we go to Fraserburgh to get our bottom painted and some work done and then a month after that until we run again - oh no. 

If I am honest I am dreading the new season, but I shouldn’t be.  At the end of last year I was so utterly exhausted there was no way I could ever do another week after that.  Each night I was into bed at 8pm and up at 7 and still it was nowhere near enough to take the edge off my tiredness.  I don’t want to feel like that again, but this year it will be different - we dont have 4 months of mad refit before the start so I doubt I will feel like that again.

I find myself pondering what will happen, the people I will meet and the places we will go.  The dramas, the heartache, the arguments and the times when it is so quiet and calm and utterly beautiful I would never want to be anywhere else doing anything else with anyone else.

Many years ago I came across a book which gave me such hope and happiness while I was immersed in its pages, I can truthfully say I doubt I will ever get tired of reading it.  It is called “Somewhere a cat is waiting” and those of you who know me will understand from the title quite why it appeals so much to me.  It is the beautiful autobiography of a couple, Derek and Jeannie Tangye who both live and work in London, Derek a journalist and Jeannie the press officer at the Savoy hotel.  It begins during world war two, Derek dislikes cats to the extreme until Monty, a small ginger kitten is purchased for the cost of a weeks chocolate ration by Jeannie, much to his disapproval at the time.  Soon enough Monty is accepted into the family and he begins to accompany them to Cornwall where they eventually move - to a tiny derelict cottage and meadows called Minack to grow flowers and potatoes. 

Monty is described in such detail I can almost hear him purr, feel his weight on my lap as I read of his exploits in the flowers.  The end always makes me cry when eventually time takes its toll and at the grand age of 15 Monty dies surrounded by the animals which quite clearly are a central part of Derek and Jeannies life.  Following his passing Derek swore he would never have another cat unless a black cat arrived at their door in a storm and they could never trace where it came from.

Duly Lama arrived by some strange cat bush telegraph, black, wet through from the raging storm several months after the passing of Monty.  Lama, named after the Dalai Lama who had been in the news at the time, fitted into the pawprints left by Monty perfectly.  All too soon she seems to fade from the story and Ambrose and Oliver arrive to sleep in the flower packing shed and chase leaves. 

The very first time I completed the book I had the deep urge to jump on a train and go to Minack, to see where the story took place, to meet the now old Derek and Jeannie.  However, I was too late by one year to the day - Derek Tangye had died a year to the day of me completing the book. 

Maybe one day I will go to Minack and see Monty’s leap, the Lama Meadow where Fred the donkey used to chase her and the blue of the sea at the bottom of the cliffs.  I hope I do.

Well, people say you should share everything with your friends - and someone somewhere has given us both the flu.  Now I would be the first to admit I have a cold.  But this is the real deal, no cold and being a wimp.  I can quite honestly say I have not felt this ill in a very long time.  Too cold, fingers and toes of ice while the rest of me sweats, but I feel cold all over.  My back aches to the point that I cannot sleep or lie in bed and I cough like a 100 a day habit.  My joints ache, especially my elbows and ankles and getting the energy to do almost anything takes an age.  However, sometimes, just like now, I almost feel ok.  Right now I could go and do things - but in an hour I will pay for it as I found out.  Ho hum.  I guess I will just have to wait it out.

To keep me occupied I have been watching some videos on youtube.  This is my favourite so far as you cannot buy the song as an MP3

Sigur Ros

I did something I thought I would never do again last night.  I got in a kayak.  Not a life changing event you might think, but for me it was a big thing.

At the tender age of 14 I became hooked on kayaking, having fallen out of love with the equestrian world.  Kayaking became my world, Sunday my favourite day for it was when I got my fix, my two hours of utter ecstasy.  My time to be equal with all the other kids – the skinny ones.  Being rather rotund really seldom predisposes you to sport – I hated PE, I was no good at it.  But put me in a kayak and actually I wasn’t too bad.  I loved the freedom, the water, the sense of being so close to the half hidden world below, being influenced by its ever changing moods.  Seeing parts of the country people never usually saw.  I loved it. 

Working my way through the various awards eventually I became an instructor, logging so many sessions working with so many people they all become a blur.  And then suddenly, when I was 21 and was just about to leave university, it all changed.  I fell out of love with kayaking. 

I suspect it was because I was having to do it when I really didn’t want to.  A job working outside is great, but wait until its freezing cold and blowing a gale and its no fun at all.  You ruin your back, kids had gone from the fun loving trusting people to ones who hated you because you were trying to teach them and were looking for every opportunity to scream “I will sue you!” because they fell in and looked silly in front of their mates. 

So diving took over, my kayaking equipment was sold to fund the diving equipment and I slipped seamlessly from one to the other.  One obsession for another.

Don’t get me wrong, I did miss it.  But told myself not to do it again – it will only hurt when you probably find you shouldn’t have sold all that stuff you had.  So for years, eight of them to be precise, I never got into another kayak again.  Those days when the water is so clear and so flat and it calls to you promising delights and no harm.  So I gave in and went to the kayak club pool session to see if I could remember what to do.  I suspect there was some “oh my lord, will you look at the size of her!” and “this should be entertaining” when I got into a boat and into the pool.  However, I didn’t embarrass myself at all – pretty much everything still works to instructor standard other than my Eskimo roll which is probably hiding somewhere under the bed or between the cushions on the sofa or something.  Who knows if I will go back?  I don’t know, but I wouldn’t say no if I was suddenly the proud owner of a kayak again.

I have never been one for watching films, the latest and greatest my friends had seen when I was younger always remained a mystery to me.  This trend seemed to continue into adulthood, with many iconic films never having been witnessed.  However, there are several which I like, films that I love to watch time and time again for so many reasons.  One of these is Forrest Gump for the simplicity that the character portrays, the beautiful storyline and the pace – it is in no hurry.

One of my favourite parts of it is the opening and closing sequences with the feather caught on the air current, flipping over and twisting round but still being carried onwards and upwards. 

A lost feather to me is a beautiful thing, how nature has evolved such a complex thing to allow flight.