Dealing With Boredom - Everything Is Better On A Boat

I was grumbling the other day that the relaxation of the summer has given me a rather shocking case of writer's block. Whilst this hasn't had the worst effect on my blogging, it has rather naused up the plan I had to finish a novel I'm working on before September. I sent a plea amongst my 20sb friends to give me ideas of short things to write, in the hope that it would spark the old neurons back into life and waited for the replies to, well...not FLOOD in, but, y'know, trickle lethargically.

Luckily, the folks at 20sb, and the occasional chaps who read this wee blog are good sports and I've had a few suggestions for 'homework' that I'm currently working on. I'll be putting those up on a separate blog pretty soon and I'll link it to this one, but treat it like a mistress. A little indulgent treat for me when I can find the time. The posts will probably be a bit wordy, so it's more for me, although there might one or two things that you find a tad interesting.

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Today, I had one of the best days I've had in absolutely ages. The aunt and uncle (S&D) have a boat and, being the young, cool types that they are, we spent ALL day on it. It was bliss.

We pottered about Maidstone for a while, doing a few chores and having a lovely little lunch in a cool wee café. They picked the kids up from school, and soon we were breezing along in their convertible in the most beautiful weather to Chatham marina. I got a chance to mess about with their car while we waited, which I had a LOT of fun with, mucked about with the wee cousin and after helping th'uncle get all the coverings on the boat, we set off.

(bee-tee-dubs: if you have an aversion to whiter-than-white Casper skin, then the links may have a damaging effect on your poor retina and leave your temporarily blind, there was a lot of glare from the sun bouncing off my rotten hide.)

Chatham docks are really cool. When my dad was 14 he started working there (circa 1973) and it was really cool to jet along with S&D and the little'uns and see the old dockbuildings and gun wharf where he would have worked. There are hundreds of cool little boats; old US navy land-lease cutters from about 1940, little houseboats that look like wrecks and a few hand-made yachts made of Norwegian pine (one of which I will someday own) and glistening with varnish. It was amazing.

There's a few miles of river between Chatham and Maidstone where we were going to moor the boat, but I managed to have a VERY Duran Duran few moments lolling on the stern. Any cobwebs that had acumulated in the past few days were well and truly blown out from between my ears and I had such a cheesy fucking grin on my face. As you can see here, I was clearly awash in a tsunami of joy:





D gave me a chance to drive/pilot/whatever-the-word his beautiful boat all along the sleepy little twisty greenery bits towards Maidstone; through ridiculously pretty little towns, past castles, along horribly quaint hamlets that seemed to be mostly made of tweed and high tea and crumpets. It was jolly good fun and I really enjoyed learning a completely new skill. Usually whenever I am in control of a vehicle, I either panic and start to giggle, or get a bit angry at all other vehicle users and end up calling someone a c*nt. Not this time. It was challenging, sure, but it was as fun as a bucketful of badgers playing the ukelele. I also saw a custom made pirate ship.

When we finally arrived at Maidstone, I was very very tired, very very red (Casper died in the sun) and had thoroughly enjoyed drinking lots of champagne. Just as we had finished buttoning up, the heavens opened and a terrific thunderstorm rent the sky in two, it was so cool.

As I sit here now, chilling out and watching t.v, I am very aware of several things:

1) I was in control of several vehicles today, which was a hoot.
2) I am rather sunburned, which has put me into a sense of shock
3) The thunderstorm outside is the tits.
4) QI repeats are fucking brilliant
5) I'm going to sleep well tonight. Like a Dutch nun (which I imagine is very well)
6) I had an amazing day.


Good Night to you all.
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