Tag Archives: sailing

Desk

A sneezy light layer of dust, coffee rings, assorted colours of Post-Its with barely legible scrawls. The big, black-framed window on tilt and swivel. Dodgy draught-proofing letting in the freezing air, and the office barely hitting 20 by lunchtime.

I sit too long here on my shabby blue chair, backside numb and fretting with fear of piles. Doggedly wrestling the wares of an information professional.

There’s a story which may well be true. In the other suite, an anomalous desk has extra boarding bodged on, forming a barrier all the way to the floor. Story goes, too many dropped their keys next to Amira’s desk … Or perhaps just one butter-fingered individual. Whoever inherited that one has the solace of well-guarded genitals.

No longer young. Will this daily sitting, year on year, degrade me into some ailing shadow? The magazine copy and countless blog articles promote the stand-up desk, the treadmill desk, and direly warn that sitting all day is just as injurious as smoking.

But the voice inside just says:

Sail away, sail away, sail away
Sail away, sail away, sail away
Sail away, sail away, sail away
Sail away, sail away, sail away

Like the Enya song.

My problem is not sitting on a chair. My problem is a life passing without meaning, of most waking hours chained to a project that that’s tired and tiring.

Computer simulation

I stayed up until 1.30 am. The little ant-like bots still wouldn’t bounce off the walls for me, and I’m buggered if I can understand Donald’s code. Going to bed with that sick-like “It’s way too late!” feeling, knowing my weekend will pay for it.

The ants lay a pheromone trail as they carry chunks of food home to the nest. Pretty soon, others stumble on it, and a busy traffic jam forms, like cars backing up to cross the Forth. (Bridge out of action now. Colleagues today said I should start a water taxi service from Queensferry, with my dinghy. I think not.)

Bombay Mix is a great savoury snack, but I didn’t expect ants to go for it. Still, I hung the food bag on a coat peg out of harm’s way. When we woke in the morning, a river of ants, in spate, was pouring up and down the wall, out onto the hook, into the bag. Spicy toasted lentils and deep-fried noodle fragments disappeared into a crack in the timber panelled wall – not far from the unnoticed “Look out for ants!” sign. A good hour after I’d binned the stuff, disappointed foot soldiers were still following that trail and returning hungry.

There’s a point in the code that says “If there’s no place to go, don’t go!” Luke and I set up the world with a big building against the wall, between the food and home. Pretty soon, an encampment of trapped bots were just sitting there, knowing home was beyond the building, but too stubborn to walk the long way round.

It would have been fun to add sound, and make them grumble while they waited there – and especially, to add a “Yay!” each time an ant found food.

Essentially, I know I don’t have time for this. Christmas and birthdays loom, and the pressure to organise a wonderful festive season slowly builds the uncomfortable tension in my chest. I’m running out of time.

I snap the laptop lid shut and blearily find my own way home to bed, without lentil or noodle.

Bowline

They say I need to be able to do it blindfolded behind my back. Fat chance. The little rabbit comes out of the hole, wanders around for a bit, forgets the tree, and visits a friend in a different hole. Cute and Bambiesque, perhaps. But not a knot.

Or that man: I poked him in the eye. He got me back. And from then on, things began to unravel.

The taste of gritted teeth, and the sweat of tension. I shift uncomfortably as younger and more attractive souls spin wonderful webs of rope. Perhaps they’re Houdini’s harem.

On the video, old Tom clenches a kind of fist and pulls the rabbit out of the hat with a deft gesture. My kids pause briefly in incredulity: “You have a DVD about knots?! You’re old.”

I take some small satisfaction in coiling the rope half-neatly, winding round it tightly, flicking the hank with each turn, and – finally I have learnt how – locking the loose end in place to produce a robust, long-lived coil.

I’ve wrapped it up. 

Tight.

Secure.

Yacht

We are anchored in the moonlit bay. Path of the moon reflected on calm water. Lights of the not-distant marina oranging the sky above low hills.

Nearby, masthead lights of our neighbours sway gently. I clamber up into the cockpit, easing through the hatch, treading carefully in the unfamiliar insolidity of footing. Holding on to what’s-that-called, the wire that supports the mast, with one hand, peeing over the side, arc of fluid capturing moonlight like a nocturnal rainbow. Having a wee tinkle to myself, adding minutely to the sea’s foam.

The salt smell of the water. The smokey taste of whisky from down below, lowered voices while winding down conversation with Andrew, Susan asleep on his shoulder on the foam-cushioned bench. The dated wooden interior boasts cubbyholes labelled “Cocktails” and “Snacks”. Andrew proudly produces ice out of a thermos flask.

An increasing feeling of elation, discovery, possibility – these western coves and islands, all accessible by sea, by floating hideaway, rocking to sleep in new and beauteous places each night. Dinghies with outboard motors or elegant oars. Smoking mackerel on gravel beaches, crouched in the wind-shelter of outcropping shoreline rocks. Scrambling into nettle-guarded caves doubtless frequented by ancestors over millennia.

The yacht, basic, ageing, but honestly herioc, becomes my new dream. Before I’m 50, can I be worthy and capable of this?