Rainy Day Thoughts

Two posts today, both a little more cohesive than the last post. Just out of interest i am posting these on Michael's laptop in the South Bar in Lagos. It is small,. friendly and full of English people.

I retreat into a corner. Blue Sky is well thought out boat as far as nooks to retreat into goes. The cockpit has a nicely curved space where you can wedge yourself against the table. Sitting on the deck with my back resting on the mast and the spinnaker pole is pleasant too. My cabin is just the right width to sit across the bunk comfortably, with my back against the central partition I can look out of the window or the photo I have stuck against the side.

This particular corner however is the navigation station, the bucket seat is comfy and gentle, on one side is a wall and on the other the gloom of the nav station is pierced only by the bright glowing of twenty LEDs indicating that certain electronics are switched on. I settle into the space and relax. I remove my glasses and stare at the form less shapes of the rest of the saloon without any particular interest. Nick Drake plays his guitar and sings so softly soothing me. It is strange to look at the world without my glasses, these shapes normally so full of meaning become indistinct and unimportant. The form of Michael is as stationary and unimportant as the table. George is further away and so is even less real. Only Barney maintains some semblance of humanity by moving in a repetitive measured way as he builds a complex knot known as a Monkey’s Fist.

Its quarter to nine and wet outside, dinner over for once I don’t feel like drinking so sit dry and quiet. It has rained all day, we have hidden below all day running to the chandlery to buy bits of rope and shiny metal in one brief lull. Sheltered below life this, confined by the rain we read and play backgammon, after the chandlery run we play with rope, splicing and knotting. We drink tea and idly play guitar. We are stuck here in Lagos until the radar is fixed, until we the lee cloths we ordered have been delivered and until the wind starts blowing from the North as it should be instead of the unusual southerly it has been for the last week.

Days like this remind me of family, of old summer holidays. We used to sail up the west coast of Scotland on family holidays. These indistinct trips are, like most childhood memories, sensory rather than specific. They smell of damp and mould, sound like rain on cabin roofs and wind in rigging, they taste of salt and look grey, and most of all they are angry. It is no injustice to my mother to say she became angry on these weeks. We were three boys bickering and complaining, and my dad trying to keep people together and apologising for the weather. Everyone was exasperated, and tired. Sailing in Scottish waters is a soggy experience, once anything gets wet it doesn’t dry, and everything gets wet eventually. My dad’s boat Rosie B is nice, and suits my dad’s needs but when it is raining constantly for three days straight everything ends up damp. She is also not particularly big, especially not for three teenage boys who do not wish to be there. I still remember when my mum finally cracked, the shock of her swearing was so sharp that it is still distinct.

Looking back I am so glad we went on those trips, it was a hundred times better than sitting on a beach getting sunburn. They taught me to love the outdoors, to love Scotland and to love sailing, even if I didn’t see that then. Here and now things are different, Blue Sky is spacious and dry, I am here by choice and a wholly different person. Sitting reading book after book listening to the rain, watching the next band of grey water laden cloud approaching my thoughts go back to that time and place. Make me think of my family. My little brother just starting to become an adult and not knowing how. My older brother just coming to the end of his adventure having to come home and deal with the real world. My dad working each day, travelling on commuter laden trains, thinking of his boat. And my mum, walking along a beach in the blustery autumn day, hands buried in her pockets smile on her face.