Life Aboard BY MARIANNE BARTRAM
Marianne lives aboard the MV TreSHniSH on the river dart with her husband nigel
E
very silver lining has a cloud. I won forty pounds in a
charity raffle the other day but unbeknownst to me and I daresay to the very minute, I went one pound overdrawn at some piffling bank account I rarely use but it cost forty pounds. Drat. Double Drat. But you see, my needs are actually
quite simple. Riches, jewels, designer clothes, handbags, shoes, world cruises are as nothing to me, nothing. I scorn such superficial matters. How fortunate, you may say since I have no chance of having them and you would be right. I do, however, have one expectation and it is pleasingly simple – I should like very, very much to have dry knickers. Do you feel the same way? Then stay well clear of boats. You have no chance; deck chairs have puddles on them and so do dories and everything in between. Only this morning a sudden squall with pelting rain caused me to kneel on deck to secure a loose bucket but the wind was behind me... I fumed and cursed until Hub was sufficiently moved to ask “are you alright?” with a tone delightfully pitched between sanctimonious disapproval at my language and irritation that he might yet again be inconvenienced by some alarming medical condition on my part. I queried his views on dry pants – he turned it over in his mind and gave it as his opinion that as his bladder control was not brilliant any more he regarded the matter as practise for his inevitable future. We return to the realm of his
favourite theory of “emergent” factors no doubt. Could somebody please explain the joy of paddle boarding to me? It must result in wet knickers. I want dry ones. As far as I can see, the only reason to be pleased
when standing on a piece of anything on the River Dart is because mere seconds after your boat exploded you were lucky enough to land feet first onto a surviving plank. Over and above that, I don’t get it. It is probably because I have turned into a wobbling old crone who no longer just trips up but who “has a fall”. As for going ashore – I envy the fit. I watch others and wonder if I was ever capable of such confident leaping? To spring, as it were, like a startled gazelle with barely a backward glance. Even after four years, I still can’t step ashore with any confidence as to a happy outcome. I spend ages
I don’t much care for the name of our vessel which
would be better named “The Intemperance”.
contemplating the matter: is the prow caught and about to snap off if I step on it or is it so free floating that it will plunge beneath the water and catapult me off . I teeter about (Hub sighing and fidgeting) on the edge of a disaster not entirely without precedent... I recently ended up on all fours on the pontoon trying to look as if I meant to do it by carefully examining a cleat for some flaw – as though I would ever do that at all, never mind with my bum in the air and my knee bleeding. Annoyingly, I was on my way to church so wearing the least boat battered rags I can muster up these days. I am to be trusted with various duties at St. Saviours, some of which involve wine. I pointed out
that I have no balance when ashore and, if I didn’t drink it all out of sheer desperation, I would probably spill it. I was rostered in anyway. On their heads be it. And it probably will be! Since, tired of a lifetime of silky blondness I decided to dye my hair the colour of a wet pavement – I seem to ponder my mortality more. The hospital has written me off. Hub was mildly alarmed and said surely the words used were “signed off”. Not sure. Anyway, it brings me neatly back to my reflections re clouds and silver linings as I am deemed fit to re- commence hard graft on the boat. Inevitably I shall drop down dead and in due course be found on deck half eaten by seagulls. Hub will not have noticed my demise, merely flinging a tarpaulin over me which is what he always does when confronted with a heap of anything unsightly on his boat. I don’t much care for the name of our
vessel which would be better named “The Intemperance”. Treshnish sounds exactly like the explosive sneezes Hub gives vent to which blast all coherent thoughts out of my head. A glance across the busy river
reminds me to acknowledge and not take for granted the many expert workers on the Dart. Simon, for example, of the fuel barge. I don’t suppose there is anything about the River that he doesn’t know or any aspects of safety of which he doesn’t have a firm grasp. We have often sought his advice. I’ve frequently seen him close the barge with all the time consuming precautions that it takes and set off for home. Then, half way across, seeing a vessel
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