We've been visiting the boat in small doses over the past
few days and yet, she feels like a drug. I have a hard time not thinking about
her, and when I do, I drift off into a world of my own, and people look at me,
slightly concerned, nudging me to see if I'm still there. Some of the best
excuses to come from my mouth so far have been: 'oh, sorry, I got distracted as
I'm so hungry', or 'wow, is that a chocolate gateau?' Or the best one, 'sorry,
I was thinking about a roast dinner after that logo I designed recently for a catering
van, it looks good enough to eat.' Always blame it on food - it's a common
obsession and people don't think you've completely lost it. Well, not yet,
anyway. (Most people think I already have, so it doesn't make much difference).
Today we went for a surprise birthday party for one of my
customers whose business is barely a couple of feet from the marina where the
boat is kept, and for the first time, we actually told someone we had bought a
boat. It was a bizarre feeling, and we were still only getting used to the idea
at the time, but by the evening it felt real again.
We went to our girl after a stressful day dealing with work
problems. The marina in comparison was rewardingly quiet and gentle, the
water rippling in the breeze and ducks bobbing on the miniature waves.
I sat for a while on the shed floor, watching Dad nimbly
wiring a shoreline cable plug together, whilst I stared in awe. I have no idea
how to wire anything and failed at soldering circuit boards at school, hence my
concentration wandered and I went rummaging through the shelves and inspecting
the contents of a yellow basket left for us with a dozen other plugs scattered
inside (don't ask me how to wire them).
Soon enough, we had a working shoreline cable and rejoiced
in the fact we have a choice of two exterior sockets, as technically we have
two mooring spaces, being a fat boat. Sockets 161 and 162 are ours to select at
random - life is all about variety. I have been curious to know what would
happen if we were to switch with one of our neighbours and whether they would
notice if we use their electric for a while to do a spot of hoovering, or put
the toaster on at the same time as the kettle. The trouble is, I have a
conscience and it doesn't let me do things like that. It doesn't want me to be
on Santa's naughty list either.
We checked the boat over once more and Dad sat in the
recently cleaned leather armchair with a 'poof!' We reflected on how pleasant
people are on the canal compared to living on land. Everyone seems happy and
smiley on the canal - even couples walk together in full sight of everyone
without peering round corners to check if anyone is watching in public. It
seems to me, everyone on the canal is on the same level, or, excuse the pun,
'in the same boat'. It doesn't matter who you are, whether you have money or
not - it's your personality and your skills that matter. People take you for
how you appear in that moment, and our experience of the canal shows you can be
in any predicament and people will help you (our narrowboat flooded once from a
burst shower pipe and the kind boaters moored in front of us came to a rescue
with an aqua vac to save us hours of bucket bailing in the freezing cold). If
only land people were the same. My experiences of them are often very poor
ones. Thankfully, I'm no longer one of them.
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