Category: Uncategorized

I’ve been reworking my story lately. I’ve decided to do it as a short story. I’m not happy with consistency of it, in keeping with what I now know to be the rationale to it, but I have a beginning, middle and end. I will be pleased just to actually finish one of my stories. This means I’ve been doing lots of typing. I’ve been using the laptop quite a bit and I realised I actually prefer the layout of the keyboard. It’s not something I’ve ever considered. I just muddle through with the touch typing, losing my place on the home keys every now and then. The laptop set up had a big red button in the middle of the keyboard so you stay centered. Once the idea took hold that you can get a better keyboard I had a look. Look at this beast I’m trialing as we speak. A clear division of hands, curved to fit the shape of your hands, and built-in wrist rests. When I get the hang of this I’m going to be way better. The one problem I’ve noted, being self taught, is that I use the wrong hand for the B. I keep trying to reach my right hand over and I’m hitting the N. It will probably be a good thing when I correct it. It only arrived this afternoon so it’s still a bit weird. I seem to have got back into reading again, which is a good. Sadly some of the books have been less than great. So, so, less than great. Which is a damn shame because they have had great concepts. Another new and exciting development is I seem to finally over my latest bout of plague weakness. It was getting me down, to be honest, it had been nearly 3 weeks. So, yay!Over that. Now I’ve just got a common or garden sore throat and cold. So that’s lovely. Variety is the spice of life. I had two days without shifts allocated so I said I was unavailable and took the time off to be poorly. I’ve only got a 7 and a bit hours shift tomorrow, so I should be ok for that. Wow. You don’t realise how many B’s you use until you type every one wrong. The weekend before last it was well windy, and I’d finished setting up all my new lines and sail on my boat, so I took it for a spin. Ha! It’s much the same as learning to drive anything else, you have to know what you are doing, and feel in control, before you can start enjoying the thrilling stuff. As it was I was just getting blown from tack to tack, without any clear idea what I was doing, while fighting the fierce gusts just to stay upright. One of them caught me. First outing of my full size, new sail (which is to say, powerful). No matter how I heeled out of the boat, turned […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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, […]