A life on the ocean wave . . .

 

A life on the ocean wave . . .

 . . . well, Solent, anyway.

                                    Kat, Callum, Hailey and Melia 

Callum ‘phoned. He was taking Kat and the children to the boat, just to familiarise them with it, though Hailey is too young to do more than just sit and look. Kat was intending to take the children home after a couple of hours, so Callum asked if Barry would be interested in going for a sail.

    Melia gets to grips with ship to shore technology in the navigatorium.

Barry hasn’t been down to the boat for an exceptionally long time, with things like sepsis and pneumonia and associated problems disturbing the natural order of things. He agreed he would like a day’s sailing. It’s always enjoyable for him as he doesn’t have to do anything, just keep an eye on things and issue occasional instructions while Callum does the rest very capably.

                            Callum takes his ease before setting sail

Susannah, at home with us for the weekend, said she would drive, as she would like to see her nephew and meet her great-nieces.

Hamble Point Marina is just over an hour away from us, and they set off shortly after 9.00. Callum lives much closer, so his journey is significantly shorter.

Marnie and Dean joined the party later with their two children, who are old enough to take on some of the tasks. It was a lovely day, with light airs, blue sky, and a pleasant amount of sun.

                                            Fergus and Isla
They had a wonderful day, avoiding the Isle of Wight ferries and the cruise liners. The Solent is a remarkably busy stretch of water, but big enough that close encounters of the sailing kind are easily avoided. 

Barry brings the boat alongside after a most enjoyable day

(I don't know whether the video will play! Just checked - it won't.)

Plans are afoot for the future. Gareth and Elliot fancy a day out, too.

 

Defaced blue ensign, ASA

It can only be flown when Barry is aboard 

Sailing, sailing, over the bounding main

Sailing, sailing, over the bounding main

My family enjoys sailing and we have a boat on the Solent, in the South of England. 

Appaloosa, named after the kennel name of Cariadd

The Solent is a 20-mile-long narrow strait between the Isle of Wight and mainland Britain.

The Isle of Wight is marked red

 Isle of Wight , showing the Solent

The Isle of Wight was a favourite haunt of Queen Victoria and it is where she died, in 1901, at Osborne House, her summer holiday home. Her patronage of the island made it a popular destination for wealthy Victorians.

In addition to being a major shipping lane for commercial and military vessels, the Solent is a recreational area for water sports, in particular, sailing. The annual Cowes Week series of races attracts competitors from around the world. The week culminates in a splendid fireworks display.

There are a number of webcams situated on the island, which we enjoy watching. There is also a live map which enables watchers to identify different craft, from huge cruise and container ships, to local ferries to busy little tugs and pilot boats. 

USS Gerald R. Ford was moored in the Solent, near Portsmouth in November 2022. The world’s largest warship, it had been engaged in training exercises in the Atlantic with other NATO partners.

USS Gerald R. Ford

Watching one day, we saw our boat sail past, with one of its fenders hanging over the side. (Our boat is chartered when we’re not using it, which is most of the time!)

Both my parents were born and brought up in the area, my father in Gosport, my mother in Southsea. My father joined the Royal Navy and in those days, the 1920s, commissions were long. He left on a commission in 1928 not long after my sister was born and didn’t return for three years. The men made their own entertainment, Uckers, a form of Ludo, being one favourite occupation. Sometimes it was played on deck, on an oversized board, using a bucket to throw the large dice.

 He was a good pianist, so was a prominent member of any Naval band. He saw action in the Second World War, notably in the Arctic convoys. When he took my mother to Russia and it was discovered that he had been on the Arctic convoys he was treated as an honoured guest.

A favourite pastime with children on our boat was to hoist them up the mast in the bosun’s chair, where they could swing to their heart’s content. The bosun's chair is intended for repairing rigging - no ladders available!

Another pleasure for them was to sit in the boat’s tender or dinghy, attached to the boat and use the paddles. They also used to dive into the water for a swim, always attached to the boat by a line. 

Safety lines and life jackets were de rigeur and none of the foregoing activities were carried out unless the boat was safely moored. So the children became familiar with the boat and the sea, later learning to fish, then gut and cook the catch.

Nights were spent in peaceful moorings, like the Beaulieu river. Watching a wonderful sunset or waking to a glorious sunrise and enjoying the varied birdlife all enhanced the experience.

Of course, the weather was often inclement, sometimes foggy, frequently raining or blowing a howling gale. Then the dress of the day was oilies and sou’westers, often bright yellow or red, for, after all, if you have the misfortune to be swept overboard, you want to be easy to spot in the boiling sea..

Note the opening phrase of this post, ’My family enjoys sailing.’ The sad fact is that they do and I do not. A peaceful day on the mooring is lovely but my anxiety levels rise alarmingly if Barry should suggest that we ‘go for a little sail’. He has tried so hard over the years - more than fifty! – to encourage me but has finally accepted that I am not going to experience an epiphany. 

I find it sometimes boring – a wide expanse of sea with nothing in sight, unless it's crowded with small craft racing, or big vessels travelling – and, more often, worrying. I do not enjoy standing at right angles to the waves - it can hardly be called ‘sitting’ when one is braced against the opposite side of the cockpit, watching the water streaming past one’s feet at a great rate of knots. My family, however, find it exhilarating when the boat is over on its ear, and do everything they can to get the greatest possible speed out of her.

Then there are the ferries, cruisers, tankers and vast container ships and I know they have every safety device known to man, but I fear being mown down into a watery grave. I have every confidence in my husband, an experienced sailor since his youth, who can look at calm water and tell if a breeze is coming, and I know he is a cautious man, up to date with all the latest safety gizmos, but still I cannot help calculating the distance to the nearest shore and wondering if I am capable of swimming to it. I am sure Davy Jones has me in his sights to join his locker.

In short, I regard myself as a Jonah, destined to bring death and disaster on board. Not for nothing do suspicious, superstitious sailors fear that a woman on board presages bad luck.

Anyway, someone’s got to stay at home to look after the animals!

The photographer

Barry is usually to be found behind a camera whenever we have a family gathering or go out. This means that for most of their young lives our children, grandchildren and now our great grandchildren, were only able to recognise him if he had a camera in front of his face.

As the curator of the family archive, spending hours cataloguing the hundreds of photos Barry takes, it began to bother me that there were very few photos of him.

However, there are occasions on which it is possible to extract an image of him. The first one here is taken from an image caught in Callum's sunglasses on a recent sailing trip.

  The second is taken from Kat's sunglasses. Kat is Callum's girl-friend.

 Sometimes, though, he is the subject. iPhones can be very useful! Thank you, Callum.

Wedding Anniversary

It was our Wedding Anniversary last week (August 12^th, the Glorious Twelfth, start of the grouse shooting season – grouse is also a complaint, a grumble, a moan, a whinge – is there a message there for me??)

Anyway, it was forty-six years since we tied ourselves to each other and cemented the bond with four children (not all at once, you understand, like a litter of puppies – I fancied having twins but never quadruplets! In the end they were all singletons . . . )

We have never been hot on celebrations but when our Silver Wedding anniversary came round I arranged tickets for the ballet. Barry arranged a new outboard for the dinghy – we spent the actual day bombing between Gosport and Portsmouth to collect it!

Our Ruby anniversary came and went – we probably had a bottle of champagne. This year we celebrated with an inboard engine. Barry had gone sailing with Gillian and Callum earlier in the month but the winds were not favourable and he had had to resort to the engine which failed spectacularly and left them stranded not far from Poole. He called out Sea Start, the marine equivalent of the AA, who arrived promptly and towed them to safe harbour. The engine was irreparable so a new one had to be located and fitted and this was achieved before the next charter was due. The summer months are good for chartering and enable us to maintain the boat in good order and we didn’t want to lose any of the bookings.

I’m thinking of commissioning a miniature inboard engine in gold, platinum, emeralds and diamonds to hang from a fine chain around my neck . . . it would cost about the same as the full-scale version J

It would look rather fetching, don’t you think?

The Clock Strikes Two

Today I'm joining 'imaginary garden with real toads' to respond to Ella's prompt to write something for this special time of the year.

The Clock Strikes Two

The sails billowed in a fair breeze as they rounded the headland. It was a perfect late October day. The sun shone in a cloudless sky, the sea reflecting it in a thousand sparkling pinpoints. Will, the experienced sailor, knew the coastline well but had never moored in the secluded bay they were approaching. He suggested dropping anchor and rowing ashore to the pub he had spotted through his binoculars. Sarah, a newcomer to sailing, needed to feel firm ground beneath her feet again and so she agreed.

They secured the anchor and clambered down into the dinghy rocking on the waves. The wind had dropped and Will rowed in perfect rhythm as Sarah watched. Not conventionally handsome, Will was a pleasant-looking man in an open, boyish way. He would be glad when he was older that people mistook him for younger than his years.

As they reached the shore Sarah tried to shake off her growing feeling of unease. Will noticed. ’What’s the matter?’

‘I’m probably tired,’ she said. ‘I’ll feel better when we’ve eaten.’

Will jumped out of the boat at the water’s edge and hauled it up onto the beach alongside some fishing smacks. He held out his hand to steady Sarah and she stepped onto the pebbles. The sun was not shining as brightly here and a chill wind had sprung up. Sarah shivered and Will put his arm around her and pulled her to his side. Somewhere a church bell struck the hour.

‘Someone needs to put that clock right,’ said Will. ‘It’s gone two o’clock.’

The pub was in the middle of a row of cottages, where fishing nets hung over stone walls. A church spire rose behind, a blue clock face barely discernible. She looked back at their yacht bobbing on the blue sea, where the sun still blazed down, and longed to be back on deck, away from this place. Will hugged her and together they entered the pub. The interior was dimly lit and smelt of decades of spilt beer and sour bodies. A log fire smouldered sulkily in the hearth. The few customers glanced up unsmiling as they walked in, then looked away.

The innkeeper told them the pub didn’t serve meals so they bought some crisps and went to sit in a corner with their drinks. They spoke quietly to each other, conscious that no-one else was talking.

‘I feel as if we’re being watched,’ Sarah said.

‘I’m sure we’re not but it’s not very friendly here, I agree.’

They finished their drinks and left, anxious to return to the familiarity of their small craft. Sarah looked back at the pub. ‘Look,’ she said. ‘There are no lights in the windows and there’s no smoke from the chimney.’

Will laughed. ‘The fire wasn’t burning strongly enough to produce smoke,’ he said, but his words lacked conviction.

He rowed quickly back to their boat. Once there he suggested lifting the anchor and sailing to another bay, one he knew well, so they could shorten the next day’s sail. Sarah was relieved and set to, hauling on the sheets to raise the sails.

As the sails took the wind and the boat began to move the church clock struck two again.

The rest of their voyage was unremarkable. Meeting friends in a restaurant a few days later, Sarah and Will mentioned the strange atmosphere of the bay and the unfriendliness of the locals in the pub. One of their friends, a local man, looked quizzical and asked for further details. Will drew a map on a napkin.

Their friend blew out his cheeks. ‘You say you anchored in the bay and went into the pub?’

Will and Sarah nodded.

‘You’re sure it was that bay?’

They nodded again.

‘I’m sorry, you must be mistaken. One night, about a hundred years ago, there was a terrible storm and the land just fell away into the sea. It had been eroding for many years. The villagers were warned it was unsafe but refused to leave. They made their living from the sea. Where else could they go? What else could they do?’

‘How dreadful,’ said Sarah and shuddered. ‘What happened to them?’

‘They all drowned,’ said their friend. ‘Like most seafaring folk at that time they couldn’t swim. In any case, they were asleep when it happened so they had no chance of escaping.’

‘What time did it happen?’ Will asked.

‘Two o’clock in the morning. It was pitch black, no moon. They didn’t stand a chance.’

‘Was there a church in the village?’ Sarah asked.

‘Yes, and that fell into the sea, too.’

‘But we saw it all – the church, the cottages, the fishing boats, the pub,’ said Sarah. ‘We even heard the clock strike two – the wrong time, twice.’

‘You were lucky,’ he said and his grave expression underscored his words. ‘If you had heard the clock three times you would not have lived to tell the tale. There are stories galore of people and boats going missing in that area.’

Will looked sceptical.

‘Oh, not all year round,’ their friend said. ‘Just on October 31^st, the date it happened.’

SkyWatch Friday Season 4 Episode 4

Thanks go to the organisers and hosts of this weekly meme who enable us to see beautiful skies around the world. Click here to visit other participants.

These photographs were taken by Barry when he was sailing last week with our eldest daughter and her children.

20:02 27th July 2010

20:04

20:14

20:28

20:46

Soaking

Centuries Years ago, when first I was wed – my, that should be the first line of a song (sings softly to self, see * below, with notes) I started as I intended to continue. My Our life together would be ordered and comfortable and this was quite easy to start with because we didn't have many possessions and lived in Army quarters where all the basics were provided. The inventory was written in an odd, back-to-front way, thus:
Table, dining, oak, polished, officer's, one
Spoon, dessert, silver, six
Cup, tea, china, white, six
Knife, bread, one
Chair, dining, oak, polished, officer's, six
The descriptions may not be are not accurate now, I'm sure, but you might understand the general thrust. I wonder if The inventory must have changed according to rank, so officers' inventories differed from warrant officers' inventories which would be slightly different to other ranks'. What always struck me as very odd was the way the accommodation differed in size according to rank. For example, a general, whose children, if he had any, would be both older and undoubtedly attending boarding school, could have a ten-bedroomed house on a generous plot while a corporal, whose small children would be living with him, would be allocated a two or three-bedroomed house in a terrace with a small garden. Larger families might have the use of two adjoining houses which of course had two of everything – two kitchens, two sitting rooms, two fireplaces, two boilers, two bathrooms (- at a time when British people were still thankful for indoor sanitation and central heating was a thing to be dreamed of. For a short while we lived in a house like this while we waited for an 'appropriate' quarter. After a while we discovered that we were paying for electricity and gas used by our neighbours. Two houses had been opened into one, by unlocking an internal door, then separated again, but someone had forgotten to adjust the metering!)
I digress! One day I decided to 'tidy'. I came across a box full of scraps of paper. There were envelopes, old receipts, pages torn from notebooks, an outdated diary, elderly programmes of events long forgotten. They were all covered with Barry's distinctive handwriting – names, numbers, some addresses. I sorted them, keeping the bits that looked important and deciding that things written on paper napkins or blotting paper (remember blotting paper?) or the backs of ancient receipts could be disposed of. I was pleased with my efforts. A little later came the first utterance of a phrase I would come to dread, 'Have you seen . . . ?' It transpired that the box of oddments constituted Barry's sailing file and of course all those scraps were important, how could I not realise that? Why hadn't I asked? (He wasn't there!) Fortunately the 'rubbish' which was more precious than gold, judging by his reaction, had not yet been consigned to the dustbin so the task of going through it was less messy than it might otherwise have been.
This farce has been re-enacted in various guises in the ensuing forty-odd years. You'd think I'd have learnt by now but there is always a subtle difference in the replay. Now we live in a sea of paper and because the relevant piece can never rarely be found duplicates are sent for, reprinted, redownloaded (is that a plausible word?) to join an ever-growing impenetrable forest. The contagion has spread - to hats, gloves, keys, spanners, screwdrivers, glues, batteries, telephones, remote controls, instruction booklets, camera lenses, DVDs, seed packets, trowels – in fact, anything which is not nailed down is likely to be lost, mislaid, misplaced and frequently replaced. Duplicates, triplicates, quadruplicates abound, never to be found, always to be sought. I used to think we had a poltergeist but no longer. Now I believe that inanimate objects grow legs and run away to hide and giggle at the chaos and confusion that proliferates.
DailyFrequentlySometimes Occasionally I rant and ravestamp my feet lose patience and decide not to clear up, not to pick up and put away. It worked in my favour once. I had allowed a stack of magazines to grow in our en suite (reading in the bathroom is a habit I deplore). For two years I steadfastly refused to move the pile until one day Barry said, 'Have you seen . . . ?' and I was able to locate whatever it was in the dusty heap. Mostly though, because I want to walk on the floor and not on a slippery path six inches above it, I do tidy up. The floors are swept or vacuumed every day even though they never reflect the effort, baths and sinks and loos are kept clean, and our clothes and the dogs' bedding are washed daily, which brings me to the title of this piece.
Sometime clothes need to be soaked to loosen particularly resistant stains, like grass, or grease. That's easily accomplished though not as readily as soaking dishes prior to washing in the dishwasher. I remember the first dishwasher we had. I was rinsing the plates and cups from a meal when Barry said, 'You don't need to do that – the dishwasher will do it.' I didn't agree but didn't argue, either. His sister-in-law, Margaret, had exactly the same response as him and when both our dishwashers needed attention because they weren't working efficiently in different parts of the country, the service engineer in both cases advised that dishes should be sluiced before being placed in the machine. It was obvious to me – after all, when washing up by hand items should be rinsed before going into the washing-up bowl. I notice now, several years on, that the dishwasher manuals recommend rinsing before washing so Barry and Margaret were obviously not alone in their innocent understanding that the dishwasher really would 'do the lot'.
My mother always soaked dishes and pans before washing up and I suppose I absorbed her habit. It is as natural to me to run water into a cup or bowl as to breathe (slight exaggeration there, maybe!) I stand alone in this. His mother never soaked anything and so Barry hasn't – until recently. Now and then I have seen him 'putting things to soak'. So if, after forty-odd years, he has learnt to do that, can I dare to hope that 'tidying up' and 'putting away' might follow? He once told me, rather defensively, that he always tidied his desk before leaving work, no matter how late it might be. Later he confessed, rather sheepishly, that 'tidying' to him meant sweeping everything into the desk drawers and locking them. The look's the thing!
Though I may appear to complain, I really would not have things any other way, for that would mean he would not be the man he is, infuriating though he sometimes can be. For example, about four and a half hours ago he disappeared into the loft to work on his model train layout 'for an hour', after which he would mow the lawn, take some exercise in the gym and walk the dogs with me. He has just reappeared. Yesterday he was backing up the computer chips from the engines – I had visions of tiny discs ½" in diameter being stacked on small thread reels! Today he is completing continuing the computerisation of the far from simple design. After that has been finished we he will design the background. When the project has been accomplished to his satisfaction it will be photographed for posterity.
*When first I was wed (GGEDC)
I lived in a shed (EFDCB)
Or that's the way it seemed then (DECCDED)

Weekend Reflections #41

Thank you to James from 'Newtown Area Photo' who organises and hosts this lovely meme. To see more reflections and perhaps participate please click here.

6:30 on a misty late June morning with the promise of heat to follow. The channel markers guide yachts through the narrow channels of the Beaulieu River in Hampshire (UK) a birdwatcher's paradise.

Face of the Week #14 Eve at the helm

Eve is our youngest granddaughter. Here she is taking the helm a couple of years ago.

Thank you to Sistertex from 'Spacial Peepol' who organises and hosts this lovely meme. Click here if you would like to see more entries - and maybe join in!

SkyWatch Friday Season 4 - Episode 8 - sailing

(sings)
'While we go sailing, sailing over the ocean blue
We're sailors thro'and thro'
The best you ever knew'


I like the sea and boats - to look at! - so it's fortunate for my husband that our children and grandchildren all love sailing and are happy to sail day or night, summer or winter. In fact Barry has become more cautious with the passing years (he once set sail in March in snowstorms when our eldest daughter was three weeks old - I briefly thought she was destined to be the only child of a young widow!!) and this summer's dreadfully strong winds, lashing rain and unpredictable gusts have put paid to his sailing plans. Yesterday it was blowing Force 10 in the Solent. The winds in Berkshire are very strong and we're about as far from the coast as anyone in the UK could be. However, he and some of the family managed a couple of days in August when the weather was cooperative - even then the wind was gusting Force 6/7. So, my SkyWatch offerings have a salty flavour this week.

Barry at the helm - lacking a thick thatch he now wears a hat all the time he's outside and oftentimes indoors too as he frequently bangs his head while rushing about the place.

Callum's eyes are as blue as the sky, just like his mother's and two sisters'.

Sunset in Southampton Water, August 2009

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