Tuesday, 21 July 2009

Still in not so sunny Devon at the wonderful 'Retreatsforyou'...

...and pondering on the meaning of life, led me to recall when I collected Argy Bargy and my baptism of water as I tried to master 'him' and his quirky little ways.
But first a little about how I chose him in the first place.
As I guess most of you female readers will understand, I did not give more than a passing thought to what was in the engine room, or any of the other techie stuff involved with buying a boat.
The colour of the paintwork was not bad, it looked similar to the narrowboats that dreams are made of and inside was sort of open plan, which was just what I wanted in order to convert it to a suitable study where I could be inspired to write and work. Above all, it looked 'cared for.'
So it was not until I came to manouvre out of the marina at Whilton that I realised I had taken on quite a handful.
The bit at the back where I stood to operate the tiller was extremely small compared to the only other boat I had ever driven. The tiller was very heavy to turn and the thingy that increases the speed, a sort of cog wheel with a handle on, was very temperamental and stiff. The gear handle which is on the floor which is up for forward, down for reverse and in the middle for neutral also took a little mastering, especially with my very un boaty shoes. I am sure the other occupied boats in the marina feared for their vessels as I bumped and scraped out of there, apologising profusely as I went.
And so, it gradually dawned on me that Argy was not going to be an easy ride.

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