Category: Uncategorized

Short Story

He was dead! In a frozen, frantic, second he took it all in. His own face reflected in Kasabian’s mirror sunglasses. (How was that his face? He’d never seen it before.) The pistol in Kasabian’s hand. (Who was Kasabian? Why had he shot him?) The realisation he was a second from death. (Who was he?) His lifeless fingers falling away from the pistol in it’s shoulder holster (Why did he have a pistol? Human life is sacrosanct, he could never kill someone.) The deck of the boat rising to meet him as his body fell limp. A frenzy of information assailed his mind while a mania of questions threatened his sanity. He was in a car. WHAT? He threw the wheel over, brakes locking, bumped up the pavement and slid to a stop. There was a long and frightening horn blast as a lorry slewed around him. What? What? What? He looked around frantically. In a car. Where was Kasabian? Where was he? He was on the pavement of a dual carriageway, not on a boat deck. He looked down, his suit was unmarked. He patted himself, not trusting his eyes, no bullet wounds. What? He took a few deep breaths, trying to calm the mind-numbing panic. First things first. Not dead. That was good. Try to be logical. OK. Not dead. Still good. In an old fashioned sports car. Could be worse. He adjusted the rear view mirror and looked at himself. The same face he’d seen reflected in Kasabian’s sunglasses. A white, thirty something man. Clean shaven, slicked, black hair, blue eyes, ruggedly handsome. It was consistent, but still not his face. Who was he? He couldn’t even remember his own name, or one single fact before dying. Oh no. Dying. Dying! He felt the rise of panic. Stop it! Work it out! Clues. He did a quick search of his pockets. In the right hand suit jacket inside pocket he found a long slim wallet. He snatched it out and opened it. A driver’s licence! Bingo! He looked at the face on the card, it was the one in the mirror, then the name. Charles Whyte. He was Charles Whyte. Charles. Charlie. Char. Whytey. He said them all a few times, testing for any sort of response from his memory. Nothing. A stranger’s face with a stranger’s name. He shuffled in his seat and felt in his trouser pockets. A few pound coins. He patted down his suit, only then noticing the bulge under his arm. He was so accustomed to it he hadn’t even noticed it. As his hand struck it he became suddenly, horribly, aware of it. Fearing, but knowing, what he was going to find, he pulled his jacket open. The butt of a pistol met his gaze, projecting temptingly from a shoulder holster. Oh no. Why? Why did he have a gun? To kill a human would be… his thoughts dissolved into incomprehensible panic. He started again. He couldn’t… his thoughts skittered away […]

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Maiden Voyage.

It’s taken me 5 weeks, and so much more trouble than I ever anticipated, but yesterday I finally got my boat on the water. It took me ages to work out how to rig it. The ones at the club already have all the lines (ropes), blocks, and fittings attached, it’s just a matter of putting it all together. I got mine out from under it’s boat cover and it was a bare mast, boom, and a bag of different lines. I finally got it together (not quite right, it turns out, but enough to work.) When it’s all at rest it looks fine, it’s not until you examine every inch of it closely, by assembling it, that you notice the flaws. The sail is shot. It’s old, old, old, (which I knew, and was OK with, it’s only for learning) but when I put it on the mast I saw the sleeve that fits over the mast is ripped. Two 3″ rips, quite close together, so it’s only a matter of time before the middle bit rips and then it’s a huge tear. That’s annoying. I’d previously read that because they are a one design boat, if you get a seaworthy Laser of any age and put a new sail on it you will have a boat that’s at least 95% as good as any top of the range new one. So, it was on my to-do list, if I liked the boat and stuck with it. The state of the sail has forced my hand a little early. Some of the lines are a state. One is the wrong size, most are tired, some fraying at the ends, or in the case of the bungee type line (shockcord) that holds the daggerboard (the small keel thing that you can raise or lower to suit) the outer has totally separated and it only has the internal strands of elastic holding it together. Less than ideal. Also the tiller has a wooden handle (I think it’s from a different boat) which is too long, so the tiller extension fouls the mainsheet. Then for the real test. Is the hull any good? I asked if I was OK to sail as they were having a race of some fancy boats. I said I just wanted to pootle about to test my ratty old Laser to check it wasn’t going to sink. It was a joke, they are literally unsinkable because they have that much buoyancy built in, but the guy took me seriously and said all new boats should do a buoyancy test. So before I could start I had to wade out then tip my boat on its side for ten minutes, then turn it over and try to sink the other side. It didn’t sink. Yay! I took it out for a spin. The sail wasn’t acting right (old, and I hadn’t fitted the rigging right) and the mast seemed to be bending (turns out the mast sections have […]

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What Just Happened?

It’s all gone pear shaped since my last blog. It took us 6½ hours to get to Inverness on the way up. On the way back, due to it being Friday, it said 7½ hours on Google maps. Bad to start with. Then the satnav diverted us to avoid horrendous road works on the M74. But that lead us through a gridlocked town centre instead. We were both getting stressed out. Then I saw I sign for the M74, thought it couldn’t be any worse, and took it. We queued to get on to the slip road, then found out the southbound slip road was closed so we had to go north back to the beginning of the roadworks again. Another disaster ensued. In the end, with a 20 minute stop for the toilets and a brew, and another stop to fuel up, it took us nearly 9 hours to get back. It was awful. Like a really bad day at the office but worse because at least that’s just me, with Wendy in the car, who isn’t used to spending all day frustrated and raging, I was stressing over her stressing. So that was terrible. On Saturday I’d volunteered to do some work at the boat club. The email requesting workers said that due to the 18 months of covid a lot had got overgrown with weeds, and stuff needed sorting to make room for more boats. As my boat hasn’t yet got an official berth (it’s in the temporary overflow at the top of the carpark) I thought I could help the club out and myself at the same time. I stipulated I would have to be on light duties as I had a marathon the next day. Ha! I got there in my chunky boots I use for my motorbike (which I’m no longer used to clumping around in, always being in trainers) and my first job was dragging big tree branches up a field as they chainsawed them down. Then they said they wanted to make a new boat park. So I was digging up thick, clay-ey soil. Then they wanted 20 tonnes of tarmac/ gravel shoveling into wheelbarrows and moving to the new boat park. Which wouldn’t have been too bad except it had been there years and set solid. We had to pick axe it to break it up. Most of the people who turned up were quite old men, and there was only one pick axe, so me and another guy were taking it in turns navvy-ing. It was hard, hard work. I had to take my glasses off because I was sweating all over them. So much for light duties. Today I got up early again and Wendy ran me into town, so I could get the train to Manchester, then the tram. I got there pretty smoothly. There was a 40 minute start time delay. We finally set off. I’d had a thought during the week, if I could maintain 9 […]

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Loch Ness

We made it to Inverness! Wendy was having a bit of terror when I suddenly questioned whether the insurance worked the same on her courtesy car. If they had only insured her to drive, without me as named driver, she would have had to drive the six and half hours here. No, it’s all the same, I’m good to drive. It’s a nice car they’ve given us, a ’20 plate Skoda. Wendy hates it. Since passing her test she’s only driven her Mini, so going from a diesel 1.6 to a litre petrol, with a different bite on the clutch and a slightly different feel, and having to do the adjustment on fast, very bendy, wet, unfamiliar roads is a bit much for her. I reckon if she’d have just been trundling back and to to work, cutting her usual groove, she’s have been fine and really quite liked the Skoda. I drove us here, we went into Inverness to pick up my race pack for the marathon then we drove to our holiday chalet. It’s really nice. Comfy, quiet, and has heating, which is an imperative as we’ve gone from long, long, warm summer into a cold, wet Scottish autumn. It’s weird though. They’ve got underfoor heating. So it takes hours to warm the pipes up and for the heat to get the room toasty, then suddenly you are lathered, you turn the heat off and it takes many hours for the pipes to cool and stop roasting you alive. Not an ideal system, really. Anyway, we got here, race pack collected, and settled in. The owners had left us a welcome pack, a loaf of bread butter, cereal, milk, eggs, shortbread and a bottle of wine! Eek! Thanks but can you take that with you? Then Wendy had to stress again. In the morning my race was a bit weird. You are not allowed to go to the start under your own steam, so Wendy had to run me to the main road (6 miles) where they had a collection point for the coaches. They don’t provide a return service, so I needed Wendy to come and pick me up from Inverness, 20 miles away. Poor sausage was a nervous wreck. I had moment on Saturday night when I realised I hadn’t packed any gels (basically sugar sludge in individual packets, to give you energy). They were giving some out on the race, but not enough, and not at the required intervals. Another stupid mistake: they said it was going to be cold at the start, wear a disposable layer. I looked through my kit, I had a long sleeve running shirt that I never use, wear and discard that. Stupid, stupid me. It’s meant to be a breathable, light top you can wear while running. We got to the race start, where Wendy had wisely suggested I try and buy some gels, and someone on twitter said if not, get some sweets. It was a wind blown, […]

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End In Sight.

I’ve not updated my blog because I was waiting for a conclusion to the boat debacle. It’s not quite there, but I can hopefully finish it off tomorrow. I went back, all full of good plans, to get the boat, throw it on the roof rack and be sailing the same day, last Sunday afternoon. I fitted the roof bars in the morning. They attach by an arm on each side hooking under the roof gutter and a screw to tension them up to the feet actually on the roof. OK. The roof gutter didn’t look that sturdy so rather than ruin Wendy’s car I just fastened them to the minimum, using the small arm of the allen key so I didn’t exert too much pressure. Epic fail, right there. I got to the guy’s house and it took both of us to carry the boat out to the car. He said, contrary to everything I’ve read, to put the boat on transom to the front of the car, because the trailer would sit on top of it, and the handle would obscure you view if it was over the windscreen. The thing is, the boat is shaped so that water, and air, flow from prow to stern. I’m fairly sure that was a pretty big fail as well. We finally got it on the roof, with the trailer on top, and the mast sections all lashed down. I set off and the satnav took me down the motorway for a mile or two before taking me off, across a linking A road, to go onto a different motorway. Within 2 miles the ratchet strap tails were banging on the window. Then the metal hook of the ratchet strap. The tails were just the loose bit flapping about, but the hook meant it had come undone. I quickly pulled over, luckily on the A road. I went to fasten the ratchet strap then realised all four of the screws holding the roof bars on had come loose! The only thing holding the boat on the roof was it’s own weight. So not good. I hadn’t packed any tools, I didn’t have my credit card to buy tools, and I was in Wendy’s car so she couldn’t have come and brought me tools. I took off some of the thick string/ thin rope and fastened the transom to underneath the bonnet. I was still about 17 miles from home. I set of gently, staying off the motorways. The string snapped. I had to pull over and redo it. About 3 times. I was a nervous wreck the whole time. In the end I improvised a strap from the end of a ratchet strap and the string looped around 4 times for strength. That held. It was still only held on by it’s own weight, and the strap was just stopping it from just flipping off the roof. The A roads route led me through Thelwall and into Latchford. It was only […]

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