Wednesday 26 June 2019

a surly hireboater


I moved the boat up to Bradford on Avon ready for the launch of Poets Afloat, of which more in the next post. And then I spent the weekend on the wharf, with my pictures and cards books set out, and the weather was hot (and rather uncomfortably humid), and everyone seemed to be out of sorts. So I made a few sales and met some nice people, but not very many. 

And then a hireboat moored next to me came adrift when the pin holding the stern line was tugged out by the pull of a passing boat; so I scrambled onto the bow, made my way aft and prepared to throw the line to Rustic Mark, who was passing. 

And as I swung it, I slipped and fell down the stairwell, and falling forward, narrowly avoided going overboard.

Hey ho. We got the boat secured anyway. 

The bloke who'd hired it returned some while later, and I happened to be out painting my bike. He gave me a very surly hello, so, not to be slighted, I said "Your boat came adrift; we repinned it."

"The ground's really loose here" he said, and that was his sole acknowledgement. 

He then went and pulled out the pin and hammered it in somewhere else. 

The next morning he set off, ordering his partner about in a very surly way indeed. She and I exchanged a few friendly remarks as she untied the bow rope; they're spending over a week more cruising. Sounds like hell for her.

An aching in my side got progressively worse. I guess I've gone and cracked a rib again. Bloody nuisance, because I'm due into dry dock in less than a fortnight, and was intending to do the blacking myself; but going by how I feel now and how I felt for ages last time this cracked rib business happened, I was seriously worried that I'd be able to do it, and it seems unfair to ask others to help when I'm not able to do much myself.

So I went and talked with Ted at the dry dock, and they'll be doing the job for me. 

The pics are from last year, and not my boat, by the way!

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