Boating!

Cornwall is now gearing up for the Bank holiday weekend, the last big event of the summer. In years gone by I would have been one of the crowd. Now I will simply sit tight at home.   I still have lots of old friends around...with several invitations to spend time on their various boats. I am still refusing  all attempts to get me afloat.  My small boating day are  over. Something about the size of the Queen Mary is more my thing these days. My old friends are clearly puzzled by my decision because they are all totally daft about their own boats. One set of friends has spent an entire week making its youngest member  comfortable with all the stuff of small boating! 

Getting into  a dingy, rowing out to a small boat , climbing up into the stern  whilst tethering the dingy safely is fraught with accident prone  young people.  Much time has been spent this week teaching the younger members of the families to be  totally at home with all this. Teaching the youngest ones to swim so that if they fall in they won’t drown,has been the main activity of the week. So now it’s time to go home they are fully prepared for the next occasion when they will all be together. 

The stories of various collapses have been passed around  naturally, all guaranteeing my absence from the boat yard...I am safer at home. I don’t need to join in. So during the coming weekend I shall stay quietly here on my own.  Odd  visitors will be welcome but if the sun continues to shine they will all be out. Sailing is addictive. One set of friends who went home yesterday have four boats between them . And they can all swim.  

I used to be part of this crowd. Now I am happy to see them if they arrive on my doorstep but my floating days are over...I just have to make them understand that!   Ahem!