Pavlov's Duck
Some startling conclusions are making themselves known as I sit musing over a glass of vintage cava, the remains of tapas, admiring a blood-orange sun as it dips down over the surrounding hills: ducks know that narrowboats mean someone might feed them, if you spend most of the day sailing into a freezing wind then your face explodes when you warm up too quickly, that my broad muscular shoulders (useful as they are at moving 12 foot lock gates) probably mean that my family is descended from navvies, that I now have permanent hat hair and look exactly like my brother Keith, that Macclesfield has a very good Italian restaurant called Fino where you can lunch and get away from wearing fleece, that even here we spend way too much time looking at smart phones and tapping tiny keyboards, that in 15 days I have read nothing, written only 2 pages of journal and managed no drawing or painting, that all I have done is cruise, battle the elements, learned to steer, eat, drink and sleep like a log, that this simple agenda is satisfying especially aboard the cosy and comfortable Lucy Belle. I can only speak for myself, of course, Jem may have a different story. The Captain will have to come to his own conclusions.
God willing, tomorrow should bring more sailing headlong into gusting wind as we head for our home mooring in Furness Vale.
3 comments:
That sums it up brilliantly. It's surprising how all consuming boating is, even when you don't have to do all the work. It just stops you thinking somehow. Which might or might not be a good thing.
That of course, is the problem as James Duck found out. Danger, or at least discomfort lurks around every bend and lock and concentration is needed. Their speaks boring Mr Sea Safety Advisor. The other thing boating does despite the best of intentions is that it helps your research into eating places and pubs.
There obviously
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