Paddington Basin

We dock, twice. 

Technically with canal boats it’s called mooring, but this time not so fast - we’re on a wharf - so we’re docking. God. You pop your head out followed by a foot and then with me usually a rucksack; out of this rickety old sail boat, still a tiny floating beauty with a flakey coat of blue paint licked around all sides and her underbelly. Christ. We’re in the midst of big proper decent hardworking buildings, like the sturdy St. Mary’s Hospital where the new ickle princess was delivered, and sharp sleek phat-looking offices made of shatterproof glass with the cold tint of ice imbued within.

The first attempt at docking saw the boat veer left then backwards almost crashing slowly and dreadfully in to the side of one peaceful boater’s home. Thankfully, the wind just nudged it clear and some of my die-hard shoving and gentle kicking off the dock via the nose of the boat made some impact. The boat’s engine whirred and I could hear Mer shouting tribulations of “crap” and “oh bollocks” from inside the hull. 

The wind you see, it moves boats. 

So Mer drove on and did a U-turn at the end of the basin. These steely blocks of professionalism slumming over us and watching us in an all-knowing judgemental sort of way, I felt it, looking pitiably at us scrabbling and the little guy’s battles fought on in this basin, our small corner of ocean. Once we'd docked I had hold of the rope in a lunge position trying to heave her closer in to be tighter with the wooden slats. The air is brisk and Mer says to me with hair in her face - 

‘It really feels like we’re out on the sea here hey!’

‘Yeah. Windy.’

Later on our new neighbour Wendy from somewhere past Brentford who goes holidaying with her husband every summer will tell me that it’s always windy here.

‘Have you been here before?’

‘No. I’m new to it all. Have you?’

‘Ooh yes. Me and him, we go on holiday every summer on the boat. It’s like our holiday home’ she breaks off for a manic chuckle, ‘we ever so like it. Can you believe we’ve been doing this route for the past thirteen years!’

’Thirteen years’ I say.

‘And every time it’s been windy down here. When we first came there weren’t these tall buildings everywhere. The security’s very good too, they have these men in hi-vis jackets checking on your boats. It’s ever so safe here, not like the other parts of London which can be a bit, you know…’

I smile and don’t really know what to say so she finishes off her sentence with the maternal tones of someone who hates being prejudiced.

‘… rough.’

As we’re unpacking the boat and Mer is unfolding her new contraption that is the white foldable bicycle, some more neighbours arrive to our right in a rambunctious barge of navy blue with port holes. A lad with one un-cumbersome languid accent only available in the West Country strides out in that manner which reminds me of Aussies, and bounces his head towards our boat.

‘He-llo. How is it here?’

Mer in her sparky note says, ‘We only just got here like you!’

‘Did you?’ A pause drawn out by this boat-lad’s smile, ‘How did you find it? It’s quite windy.’

‘It’s really windy’ I concur at best.

‘It wasn’t forecast to be windy’ he mumurs.

‘No I thought it was going to be windy yesterday so decided to move today - big mistake that was!’ Mer shook her head and I guessed she was probably remembering the swearing and the near-crashing.

‘Was it trouble for you guys?’

‘Sort of, yeah.’ I concur again.

‘More windy than I thought it would be... weren’t expecting it.’

And the conversation of boaters goes on oblivious to the clockwork precision of these stark buildings and their inhabitants that surround us all bobbing up and down in this basin. Even the ducks that swim past my window look more together in this area, formations of four or six drakes only quacking intermittently, so as not to disrupt or disturb the order. One thing is it’s clean, the other bonus is, I get to use the hospital’s free wifi.

Boat Moves

After having washed my face, brushed my teeth, done a foot stretch and eaten some tomatoes I feel like I’m refreshed enough to write about the boat move.

Arriving back in London after some truly peaceful outings in the countryside; meeting big family etc. makes one feel distrustful and disorientated. The familiar hustle and bustle is still going on in the city (that you only left behind on the kind side of the bank holiday weekend) but you resent it upon return rather than be a part of it. You see people walking with smartphones out in front and you catch yourself being wistful when you know in an hour’s time you’ll be doing the same. I saw a muntjac in the country: a muntjac. Yes a creature that’s sort of an equine looking hare, like a horse crossed with a kangaroo, in fact a type of small indigenous deer with big hind legs. My first and only ever muntjac, what a good Easter. 

On Sunday, tired but diluted with adrenaline, myself and a good friend I’ve brought along to help board the boat. It’s “moving day” and when Eloise and I arrive at the sail boat Mer has already stripped her of all it’s upholstery and hanging water canisters, I presume to make it lighter inside and so that she can see better when steering. We jump on - but only after Mer has given us strict and rapid-fire instructions on what to do and when to do it and how she is now “The Captain”. I’m fine with calling her the captain, Eloise not so much, fair enough.

Off we go. The engine chugs and pumps out water from the side of the boat (so we don’t sink) and the back propeller which is hidden churns up the water behind us, some ducks look on unperturbed. Eloise jumps on and I too but then disaster, the barge moored in front of us becomes unhooked from the river bank and is now steadily sliding horizontally across the canal where we’re heading for a collision. ‘Oh crap! Oh shit!’ shouts Mer; and we her sea cats look about not sure of what the impending problem is but then realise soon enough, and both of us jump back on to the muddy tow path and pull some ropes to bring her back in. Phew. Close call. Soon after an old raggedy looking man with a grey matted beard trundles along towards the escaped barge and waves his arms at us, letting us know, ‘She’s come loose ‘as she? Will get’er out the way for yuhs.’

Back on board again after the false start and the boat moves along smoothly away from the tow path heading east. ‘Don’t lose the mooring pins!’ Mer shouts at me through an open window, ‘And tell me if water is still pumping out the side of the boat!’, I reply with a surprisingly shrill yes and look at Eloise who winks at me. Onwards. ‘Do you know where we’re going?’ asks my co-partner at the captain through the open window. She replies with a resounding no. 

The oddest things pass you by from a “cruiser on the London canal scene” perspective… The backs of disused industrial parks abundant and strewn with disorderly building materials, reminding me of that failed Ruin Lust exhibition at Tate Britain; the very butt-ends of railway stations, or maybe depots jutting out, who knows what; at one point we glide past the huge concrete slab of wall and wired fencing that is the back of Willesden Junction. And we arrive at destinations very quickly because the canal doesn’t follow any roads or tube lines, I guess roads and trains make up much of the London map(s) so canals take up whatever space’s left, and so the canal system joins up lots of points in London you wouldn’t expect in a more direct route. 

In no time at all we we’re at Kensal Green, and to our left lies a cemetery and to our right the grandiose skeleton structure of a gasworks. I notice later in the dead of night that you can hear gas - whirring - all the time if you listen. Mer decides this is a good spot to moor but unfortunately only after we’ve passed the single open mooring spot and so we have to hurriedly jump off the boat again, each time before a leap I swallow so that I concentrate and don’t wrongly step and fall in to dirty cold canal water, thus Eloise and me both jump off and fend the boat away from the bank so as not to crash her. And now we’re all ashore to see the tow path emblazoned with “No Mooring” signs, which before I’d have never noticed as a pedestrian. ‘Oh shit, we just passed that space didn’t I? Oh shit. I should have just parked there, dammit.’ At this point from the rear end of our parked boat looms into view a monster of a barge, in fact two barges strung alongside one another like the double barrel of a water pistol and it’s playing loud techno-house music. Two boaters wave at us clearly lovely happy people who are stoned. They offer us some advice saying we could turn the boat around and then get that space, us two Padwan crew members nod at the prospect and Mer looks determined, but before we go ahead and do this canal equivalent of a U-turn, ‘Do you three want a cuppa tea then?’ Asks the gangly gentleman over the now turned-down sound system, and we all say yes, so that’s that.

Whilst the party boat boils the kettle for some tea we’re tying ropes and untying ropes and in one instance Eloise falls on her arse thanks to the slippery mud and the tug of the boat on the ropes. To my surprise I’m the only one who doesn’t trip or fall or get entangled as Mer lands on her backside at a later point too. Note: I’m not gloating merely stating fact. We start turning the boat around slowly by hoisting ropes at different angles, followed by Mer jumping on board to steer and drive. Mid U-turn some old crooners start heading toward us in a pretentious looking barge, newly painted and decorated in brash colours with a wood stove that screams contempt at minimalism, and the guys slightly shake their heads at us and carry on barging through, literally, whilst Mer tries her best to turn the boat around, we manage fine and I eye up the bully-barge as it disappears from view. 

After moving the boat and mooring her in that single perfect space between the cemetery and the gasworks we’ve remembered the cuppa but when I go back in search for the party boat the crew have gone, sailed onward in their hazy cruise. 

That night I’m shattered and after some tea and reading, I listen to the eternal hum of the gasworks outside my window and try and plan a route in to work tomorrow via the tube map app on my phone. Good night.

Dead Seal Scrolls

‘Merry Christmas!’ says my Grancha, ‘who wants some sherry?’

‘It’s Christmas Eve not Christmas yet’ interjects Granny, ‘you always want to be early for things.’

‘Oh. I see darling. B’won’t stop us from having sherry though will you?’ He asks sweetly but already up and meandering over to the drinks counter. Grandparents in Orkney are the sort of people who have a drinks counter; two bottles of Castelgy Gin, bitter lemon Scheweppes - almost certainly flat, aged sherry sweet and dry, a vintage Taylor’s port, and some red wine that I drank the whole lot of last night. 

The fire is grinning and burning up, toasting the backs of old socks and yesterday, I, as the Youngest of the Lot was on my hands and knees digging ash out of the lead bucket that’s been stuck in the fireplace for over a decade. The grill has snapped in two due to the continuous fires overhead but it still works and can’t be replaced anymore. Scraping ash in the morning - and seven piles of it - when touched feels cold and smooth, like the pebbles on the beach outside. When I was six I threw a tantrum and ran down to Watersound and had a go at the sea, I was angry about something with a burning desire to kick everything to bits and to quell my rage I shoved my hand in to the cold wet sand and dug down until about my whole arm was lost in the depths of the shore that clenched it. When I pulled it up it popped out from the suction and a small yellow-green crab had it’s pincers around my middle finger! I shrieked for the tiny life of me and waved my arm about frantically yelping and jumping about until the crustacean plopped off and scuttled back in to the sea. I ran back home no longer angry or crying but at peace with whatever had just gone on. The ash in the grate was cold as silt and smelt distinctly of nothing.

*

‘Hello. Big fat gross dead Mr. Turkey’ it sat there as a lump in shallow pools of watery-blood, ‘We’ll eat you tomorrow. Sleep well.’

*

When the door bell rings twice succinctly in two onerous rhymes that means Colin’s at the door, he is my hero and 90 years old and wears a fluorescent jacket that has Duck Patrol printed on the front breast pocket and Game Warden emblazoned on the back. It was a joke present from his longstanding friend but he wears it with pride and jauntily. Recently Colin took in Lily, an abused rescue-dog who hangs by his side enduringly and always looks so nervous of being hit again, what brutality can sear in to even animals’ brains I thought, and my hero’s bushy crown of white hair and weathered toothy-smile is what brings life to our laughter. 

‘Someone to come and see you’ Colin says nodding at Lily on the end of the leash, she turns her side to me and only dares to look up with twitchy eyes when she thinks I’m not looking (I am). ‘And to drop off this.’

‘An Orcadian dictionary, perfect. Thanks.’ I bend down to touch Lily but her leg wobbles and I just put my hand out for her to sniff.

‘Merry Christmas then!’ Says Colin as he saunters off with Lily tight by his side, and Granny tuts and murmurs to herself about it only being Christmas Eve. 

Don’t say ‘noo’, say ‘now’,  

Don’t say ‘ku’, say ‘cow’. 

(C. M. Costie, Speech)

The language of Orkney seems to have passed from the Norn to the Scots and then to the “correct way” of English, taught throughout the schools during 20th Century to standardise their spelling and speech. That’s fine I see it happening that way everywhere, I think, but it’s a shame. Now the dialect is known as Orcadian and to be honest when I speak with some I still miss half the conversation or the whole meaning. ‘Back of four’ means anytime after four o’clock and I find the logic sort of odd, just as I find it sort of odd how the sun rises and settles in one low position above the horizon for half an hour in the day before it starts to set again. Darkness is here by four.

*

‘Maybe after lunch you’d like to go beach combing together?’ asks Dad hopefully.

‘Only if we find treasure.’ I say non-plussed, stirring my tea with a hot spoon.

Wrapped up in layers of wax coats and fleece wearing a hat with a flap on both respective heads, the two stride up the drive, atop a cliff edge and down to the Playgroup Beach. Here, if you were to walk in to the sea and carry on straight you’d arrive in Norway, tells me my father, god know’s why we talk in as-the-bird-flies hyperbole. Totally unrealistic. I wanted to look for treasure, odd bits that fell off boats or deep-sea-shells that got thrown up by the swells but all I could see were thick mats of seaweed; layering sinews dripping wet and ripped up from the ocean bed, strewn across the sandy beach and now covered in little skippers (sand midges) eating away at the decaying water-fauna. Then lying there on the shore - I was drawn to it - a body like form. Corpulent; whale-ish in demeanour not size and not yet bloated, actually very calm and still like a sleeping policeman. 

One dead seal.

A big grey body and two little paw pads where the tail should be. I asked in that swallowed-shrill-cough I save for times of shock and persistent calm - 

‘Where’s the head?!’ It was severed clean off.

‘Probably cut off by a propeller of a boat. Nice and clean.’ There’s me looking at the dead thing in disbelief and he sees that and walks away.

‘What boat?’

‘Could have been your ferry. About the right timing.’

‘Hey, I was not involved in the murder of this sacred seal.’ I protest and I have an urge to get close up to it, it doesn’t smell yet and it’s fresh just headless, that’s all.

‘Don’t go near it. Sea-knits.’ Dad walks away and so do I. I don’t believe in sea-knits but I’ll give him the benefit of the doubt. 

‘Merry Christmas, dead Sacred Seal, I’ll pass on your regards to dead Mr. Turkey.’ Another year washes by.