Blog 96. “Forty Thirty. Silence, Please”

Help.  I am a tennis widow.  Or should that be a tennis widower?  Whatever, I am left to my own devices after 1330 every day except Sunday, destined to make my own entertainment, perhaps nibble on a little dry bread and mouldy cheese for supper, and to go to bed alone: a lonely soul.  It is, of course, Wimbledon fortnight and – as predicted in my last blog – Jane is in her seventh heaven.  As I sit in my solitary eyrie of a study reading Practical Construction of Warships or The Admiralty Manual of Seamanship, Volume 1 (as one does), I can hear all manner of weird cries from the drawing room below:
“Oh, for God’s sake!”
“Noooo.  Why did you do that?”
“Yes, Yes, YES!”, followed by clapping.
My mind boggles: even I don’t get that reaction.
I should not be surprised, of course, for it happens every year and, when that time comes, neglect, despondency and loneliness are the themes that define my day.  But I take it in good part: one of God’s little soldiers just plodding on in the march of life, never complaining and always ready to bring a wan smile and a glass of iced water or chilled wine to my dear wife, glued to her television set. At least I can quietly pour myself a snifter in the evening without the usual tacit admonishment of,
“…and you’re going to have that alcoholic drink although it is still midweek, are you?”.  There have to be some perks.

The Wimbledon season has meant a role reversal in the Shacklepin household.  For the duration of war tennis I have been cooking the supper.  One night we had Black Bean, Pork Mince, Noodles and Coriander with Crushed Peanuts (Delicious Magazine), which matched the name of the magazine; on another night we had Wild Mushroom and Garlic Rice with Goat’s Cheese (Delicious Magazine), which meant no kissing.  Tonight we are set to have Butternut Carbonara (Tesco).  I have secretly quite enjoyed the role reversal, not least for the fact that I invariably lubricate the procedures with a glass of chilled white wine.  Jane saves these recipes in vast box files and plucks them out, seemingly at random.  Sadly, her love affair with Delicious Magazine is waining rapidly and she is contemplating cancelling her subscription, for the publication, which has produced some excellent recipes in the past, has deteriorated in volume and quality during the last 15 months and is now increasingly dominated by recipes for vegans and vegetarians.  Waitrose Magazine is going the same way. I do not know what proportion of the British population is carnivorous, but I would wager that meat eaters are still significantly in the majority.  I would therefore expect a cooking magazine with broad readership to reflect that, rather than the opposite.  There are plenty of food magazines that specialise in cooking for vegans and vegetarians, and I am sure they are excellent.  Delicious Magazine and Waitrose Magazine should stick to offering a wide range of recipes, proportional to consumer tastes.  But then, as a friend of mine once said, our society has always kowtowed to minorities and the situation is getting significantly worse; there is a difference between tolerating minority views, and actually adopting them against the majority opinion or wishes.

Covid-wise, England is still bumping along, with rising infections from the Delta variant offset by few deaths (typically 20 a week) and low hospital admissions, the vaccination programme having successfully weakened the link between infection and serious illness. Despite this, there are signs already that the UK government may back-pedal on its promise of total release from restrictions on 19 July (“…some precautions may have to remain…”) so my prediction in the last blog still looks good. The British government and its public, with 85% of the adult population effectively vaccinated, is still terrified of a disease that now has symptoms identical to the Common Cold. I despair.

Health, maladies and aches and pains seem to dominate one’s life as one gets older.  I am not entirely sure when the hypochondria started (though in my case, probably at the age of 28), but it is definitely getting worse.   We already own a pulse oximeter (Blog 79) to measure Jane’s blood oxygen level, and an EKG heart monitor (Blog 93) to record her heart rhythms.  After an impromptu consultation with a fellow boater, an ex nurse, on one of the marina pontoons Jane proposed that we buy a further item of medical equipment, a blood pressure monitor. ‘Why not?”, I thought: another gadget from Amazon.  So now our kitchen is beginning to look like the set of Dr Kildare. And that is where the problem came in: all that equipment was just crying out to be played with.  I tried the pulse oximeter: no problems there, heart beating and 98% oxygen.  I tried the EKG heart monitor: apparently normal.  I then tried the blood pressure monitor: 120/90; bonza, as the Australians say.  The snag came when I tried my blood pressure again, two weeks later (for no other reason than that I was bored): reading 140/90.  Was that not a little high?  I tried again: 150/90.  Surely not.  I tried a third time for best out of three: 160/90.  My God, my pressure relief valve will be lifting shortly.  I then embarked on a comprehensive system of regular readings, four times a day, recording the values conscientiously each time, calculating the standard deviation, the mean and the median, and plotting a neat Gaussian distribution curve.  The pressures remained obstinately on the high side each time I measured them.  Then the memsahib chipped in and started nagging me to make an appointment with our GP (yeah, right).  In the end, I cracked – mentally, not a blood vessel – and called the surgery.  It took me two ten-minute attempts to get through, but when I did I was given a telephone appointment for later that morning; can’t fault the system there.  After discussing my diet, my punishing exercise regime and my non-existent symptoms the GP reckoned there was nothing to really worry about.  What a relief: I do not take any regular medication at present and I prefer to keep it that way.  The moral of the story?  Don’t keep measuring body parameters, for the subsequent anxiety can simply make them worse.

Well, we have the new inflatable dinghy (Blog 95) and it is an absolute treat.  The vendor very kindly delivered it personally, along with the accompanying outboard motor, and gave me a very comprehensive handover.  I inflated the dinghy, found it to be very sound and stable, and we shook hands on the deal.  Regular readers will recall that I bought my first inflatable dinghy last year (Blog 58) with the aim of widening the options open to us on our boat: a small dinghy (a ‘boat tender’) would enable us to anchor off a beach and row ashore, or to moor to a buoy and visit a nearby pub or village.  It had to be light to handle, easy to stow and compact.  The inflatable that we bought last August was a fair compromise on these requirements, but proved to be just a little bit too small for extensive use.  I was working on persuading Jane to authorise the purchase of a bigger dinghy, possibly with an outboard motor, and I succeeded after an extensive psychological campaign as recounted in Blog 95.  The day after purchase of this new vessel we launched her and found her to be much more stable than her predecessor.  I fitted the small, but heavy, outboard motor (not without some difficulty), started it up, and set off on sea trials.  It had been some 30 years since I last handled a boat with an outboard motor and I was a little rusty.  My first attempt to increase power resulted in the motor revving up to full power and the bow of the dinghy rearing high out of the water at (apparently) 40 degrees to the accompaniment of screams from Jane and laughter from our boating neighbours, Raymond and Carol.  Thoughtfully, they also offered several words of advice while recording the sea trial on a mobile phone – no doubt as a formal record.  I trimmed the boat and tried again; this time it all went very well and I zoomed around the marina like a bird released from a cage.  Alas, this pleasure could not continue forever and mummy soon told me that play time was over and that it was time for me to come in and wash my hands before supper.  It was great fun, and I declared myself very satisfied.  Later in the week Jane and I decided to put the dinghy to her ultimate test and use her to take us shopping in Dartmouth, a mile downriver (actually, I decided; Jane reluctantly acquiesced).  Like Columbus setting off for the New World, and with Jane gripping the thwart like a drowning woman, we duly set off into The Great River (well, the River Dart).  Gradually I opened the throttle and we were soon bouncing over the waves, roaring along at a good – oh – four knots.  Spray flew from the bows as we hit the wash of other boats, the engine roared and Jane offered helpful direction and words of advice (“Where are you going?  You’re going to hit that boat in a minute…”).  I developed a stiff neck and cramp in my hand, but we made it to Dartmouth unscathed and secured to a pontoon.  Our disembarkation was a little undignified, being undertaken on hands and knees (can’t see Jane doing that in her dress and high heels), but we soon recovered our composures.  I swaggered along the pontoon and up the steps in my lifejacket, conscious of the eyes of the many tourists and onlookers on the quay: here were two seasoned sea dogs popping ashore for victuals after a testing voyage around the Horn, still a little unsteady after all that ship motion.  Alas, the image was tainted a little when I unceremoniously tripped over a ring bolt and nearly fell up the steps.  I needn’t have worried: no one was taking any notice, being more interested in the crabs that the local children had caught.  So might Sir Walter Raleigh have been received when he returned to Tilbury from the Americas clutching a potato and an ounce of shag.  Anyway, the expedition was a success for we bought our fresh fish and other groceries and returned to the marina dry and proud.

Phase 3 of The Great Dinghy Adventure is to fit a davit to the stern of APPLETON RUM to facilitate lifting the outboard motor from its stowage and lowering it onto the dinghy.  I will let you know how I get on.

Ting-ting, ting-ting, ting-ting, ting-ting. The striking of eight bells on the clock of the BRITANNIA Royal Naval College across the river in Dartmouth was the only sound to disturb the calm of a perfect summer evening at our marina last week, unless you counted the bleating of the sheep on the surrounding Devonshire hills. A seal basked on a marina pontoon and dolphins were reported to be disporting themselves downriver, off Dartmouth. Occasionally, the steam train of the Dartmouth Steam Railway puffed by, 200 yards away, on its journey between Kingswear and Paignton, or the paddle steamer KINGSWEAR CASTLE made her way up river with her characteristic pad-pad-pad; but otherwise all was tranquility as we sipped our glasses of Pimm’s on the quarterdeck in the setting sun. As I have observed before, when the weather in Britain is nice, then it is really nice. Sadly, that was just on one evening, but we must be grateful for small mercies. June was not exactly the best of months in terms of the weather and, paradoxically, the weather in the south west of England was actually worse than further up-country: while Melbury (apparently) basked in bright sunshine and heat, Dartmouth was subjected to only sunny intervals, cool winds and lower temperatures. But we did get that one evening that is worth remembering.

The other evening worthy of note was when I glanced out of the stern windows to see an enormous cruise ship in the river, apparently heading straight for us.  Jane and I immediately dashed down the pontoon to get a better view and take a few photographs.  In the event, the HEBRIDEAN SKY did not prove to be an enormous cruise ship exactly, rather she is a modest ‘boutique’ cruise ship capable of carrying 100 discerning guests, usually on cruises to the Arctic and Antarctic (whatever turns you on).  On this occasion she was cruising along England’s south coast, leaving Portsmouth and calling at Dartmouth, Fowey, Lundy Island and the Scilly Isles.  She had just spent a day in the rain in Dartmouth and was in the process of turning around in the river before sailing.  Any large ship in the rural Dart looks incongruous, but the river is actually quite deep and can accommodate large vessels; the turning area for such ships is just upstream of the Higher Ferry and immediately downstream of our new marina.  HEBRIDEAN SKY is a beautiful ship, looking more like a billionaire’s yacht than a cruise liner, and we later looked up her details on the internet.  The English cruise she was on was a week in duration and cost about £3,500 per person.  Hmmm, we thought, £7k for a week’s holiday in the rain and the English Channel.  Nice ship and exclusive, but – perhaps not.

“What’s that gurgling noise?!” Like a meerkat, the memsahib sat bolt upright, her finely tuned sense of impending disaster sending alarm bells ringing in her head. Nothing wrong with her sense of hearing now then.
“Nothing to worry about”, I said from my position hanging upside down with my head in the boat’s engine compartment, my feet in the air, “Just a little routine maintenance”.
It had been a long and varied day, with several jobs successfully completed, and we were relaxing in the calm of the evening. Supper was finished and we were occupying ourselves as we usually do on the boat, reading and listening to the wireless. But something was bothering me. I had made a few modifications to the plumbing the previous day with a very satisfactory outcome, but I had noted that the pipework as fitted, while perfectly functional, just wasn’t quite right: the angles were not exactly 90 degrees and the pipework was unsupported. In short, the plumbing did not reflect proper engineering practice and it irked me. I should have rectified the matter years ago, and – indeed – it was on my long list of jobs to do, but there were always more important matters to deal with. Tonight, for some reason or another, it all came to a head and I thought I would just lift the deckboards, peer into the bilge, and give the layout a good looking-at; not do anything, you understand (I was showered, clean, and in my smart evening clothes known as ‘night clothing’), I would just look. Hmm, I thought, the problem was caused by two lengths of pipework that had been installed just a bit too long. If they were shortened, then the trapezium of pipework would become a simple rectangle and the system returned to good order. Now it just so happens that the fresh-water pipework on the boat is plastic and uses a proprietary system of instantaneous couplings known as Hep2O; there are no copper pipes or soldered joints, and very few compression fittings. A special tool is needed to undo the instantaneous couplings, but otherwise using the Hep2O system is a plumber’s delight – rather like a big boy’s Lego, but with pipes. Looking at it, I thought that rearrangement could be done quickly and easily: I would just undo that and that, takes those bits out, cut those bits, and click it all back together again: absolute doddle. No time like the present. So I took out the toolbox, isolated the fresh-water system at the tank and tilted myself head-first into the bowels of the boat. And that is when the problems started. Despite using the correct tool, some couplings would not come undone because, hanging upside down, I could not get enough purchase; I had to move further up the line to remove another coupling instead and, hence, remove even more pipework. Have you ever had a situation like this? You know the sort of thing: you want to do A, which is very simple; but to do that you have first to do B, C, D and E (what engineers call “work in way”). To cut a long story short, I ended up removing almost the entire fresh-water pipe system and the fresh-water pump, followed by the connection to the fresh-water tank itself. The gurgling noise that Jane had heard at the beginning of this paragraph was all the boat’s fresh water, some 650 litres of it, pouring into the bilge. I did get it all done, eventually: the outflow from the fresh-water tank was bunged using a wine bottle stopper; the pipework was trimmed and supported properly; the system was reassembled; and the bilge was pumped out. Two hours later, with the sun set long before, the whole thing buttoned back up all neat and proper, I emerged from the bowels with a red face, indigestion and bruised ribs, but with a satisfied smile on my face.
“Done it!”, I said to the memsahib.
She looked up from her reading position, where (I noted) she had sat for the entire exercise, and just sighed,
“You never ever learn do you? You and your five minute jobs”.

The days of our years are threescore years and ten; and if by reason of strength they be fourscore years, yet is their strength labour and sorrow; for it is soon cut off, and we fly away. [Psalm 90.10]
Eight days to reaching the biblical limit – provided, of course, that I don’t burst a blood vessel over the Covid regulations first.  I will let you know how it feels to be Old next time (if I haven’t flown away).

2 July 2021

Blog 95. Welcome to the Hotel California

Right.  The next time I put forward the idea of driving down memory lane (almost literally) and completing a journey on the old trunk roads instead of the motorway (as in Blog 87), then for heaven’s sake stop me.  We decided to have A Grand Day Out last week: a Drive, as my parents would have called it.  We decided to drive to Port Solent, near Portsmouth.  This was partly to get us out of the house for a change; partly to re-accustom ourselves to driving an electric car with the requisite pit stops to recharge; partly to have a look at another marina; and partly to visit a chandlery, and look at inflatable dinghies or tenders.  This last aim was a follow-on from last week (Blog 94) to have a proper look at the real thing and decide the size we would need.  Regular readers will correctly infer that it was also part of my softening up process on Jane, trying to persuade her to agree to a capital purchase, previously vetoed.  Our car could easily do the journey on one charge, but – ever the pessimist – I thought it would be prudent to top up the car battery at Romsey en route, then continue along the old A27 to our destination, spurning the M27.  All went well at first, for England was at its best: the sun shone, the weather forecast was good, the first half of the journey was scenic and smooth, and we recharged at Romsey Leisure Centre without any problem.  Then we drove into Hell.  My memory of the A27 was hazy: certainly it was a road that I had used a lot when I was based in Portsmouth but, hmmm, now I came to think of it, that would have been forty years ago; in later naval appointments I had used the motorway.  The road was appalling: congested, slow, and with a confusing dog’s leg in the middle that took me off the route onto the A33 somewhere on the outskirts of Southampton.  Stop, start, stop, start – we lurched along in the suburban traffic queues, frequently getting in the wrong lane and generally making very little progress.  It must have taken us over an hour and a half to travel thirty miles. Eventually, we did reach the outskirts of Port Solent and I was astonished by the changes in the area.  At junctions, vehicles shot out from right, left, straight ahead and behind: the A27 had become an eight-lane trunk road and was buzzing like a wasp’s nest; it used to be a quiet urban street.  In my day, Port Solent, off to the south, did not exist in name and had been a fairly rural, low-lying coastal area that housed only the Royal Navy’s antediluvian firefighting school at Horsea Island, a great deal of smoke, three geese, two seagulls and not much else.  I had not been back since. The area now had acquired a fancy title and comprised an enormous complex of flats (called “apartments”), a multiplex cinema, industrial units, many carparks, and Premier Marina’s Port Solent site – our destination.  We drove round twice before we found the marina, the roadsigns being confusing and contrary, but eventually we parked outside the Reception building and switched off the power unit with a sigh.  We  clambered out of the car like two beasts that had been trapped in the double bottoms for a week, and took in the view.  It was breathtaking. A huge expanse of glittering, translucent green water lay in front of us in the sunshine, stretching over to medieval Portchester Castle.  To the north was Portsdown Hill, still with the characteristic buildings and radar aerials of what used to be the Admiralty Surface Weapons Establishment (now the Defence Evaluation & Research Agency I believe). To the south lay Paulsgrove and Fareham Lakes and, beyond that, out of sight, was Whale Island, Portsmouth harbour and the naval base.  Navigational piles marked the channel into the marina itself, which was accessed by a tidal lock.  The marina looked modern and smart, with all the facilities needed to support the leisure boating industry: boat lift, workshops, dry stack area, fuel.  It was surrounded by blocks of very ritzy-looking flats, like a nautical coliseum.  This, we thought, is partly what our marina will look like in the future.  I thought it would be a good idea to charge up the car again so that it could be topping up as we wandered around; we didn’t need to do that as we had sufficient charge to return home, but – like passing water – a wise man does it when the opportunity presents itself and does not wait until he becomes desperate.  I approached the marina Reception for guidance.  I had previously sent them an email asking what facilities the marina had to charge electric cars.  The reply had been vague and of the style of “none as such, but marina staff will provide a portable facility on an ad hoc basis”.  I did not understand what they meant by that: a portable generator perhaps, or a 600V battery?  Anyway, armed with this information I approached Reception only to find that it was shut, with a notice on the door: “Buzz to speak. Reception closed because of Covid”.  Ah yes, the –  now standard – excuse for poor service; it was a wonder it didn’t say, “Don’t you know there’s a war on?”.  I buzzed and explained my business, asking at the same time where I could get this “ad hoc car charging”.  There was an awkward silence.  Eventually, a figure appeared on the balcony above me, a male Juliet to my Romeo.  He was even more vague than the previous email: he gestured hazily to a car park and the dry stack, which housed beached yachts, in the distance and said that, if I wandered round there, I might find “something” to charge the car.  My male bovine excrement alarm was ringing at full volume by this time – clearly there were no facilities, but – worse – my email had triggered no thought to make any future provision for electric cars despite the government’s plans to ban the sale of ICE cars in nine years’ time.  Jane and I did wander over to the area he had indicated but, of course, there was nothing: not even a 13A socket.  My own marina at Noss (also part of the Premier Marina Group) is still being developed and facilities are currently somewhat basic; yet they still provided an external 13A socket and a dedicated bay for an electric car when I raised the matter, and the Reception is always open to visitors during the day.  We were not impressed by ‘Solent.

We thought Port Solent Marina was rather impersonal, overlooked and over-busy, and we would not have liked to have kept our boat there despite the lovely views. On the plus side, the marina did have a large bar and brasserie, The Port House, and there we sat in the sunshine eating a very pleasant lunch, served with no fuss or requirement to have booked. From our table we viewed the boats on their moorings, did some people watching, and sought out the chandlery. I had concluded a fair bit of business online with Marine Superstore, the chandlery, but I had never visited it before. It proved to be a veritable Aladdin’s Cave, full of shiny things for boats that you never knew you needed. I wandered the store in delight, touching shackles here, stroking oilskins there, seeking out the inflatable boat section. The showroom was huge and in several sections, like Santa’s Grotto. I was in my seventh heaven, but the magic didn’t seem to be there for Jane somehow: she trailed behind me like a teenager taken into town for a new pair of sensible shoes instead of being allowed to go to the school disco, her eyes dull and lack-lustre, her steps mechanical. Odd that. Anyway, in grotto cavern number five (or whatever), I eventually found the inflatable dinghies and was able to assess their robustness, heft and potential stability. I brought Jane back from her Fourth Degree of Readiness and drew her attention to a 2.3m vessel that looked like it was The Business. Amazingly, she showed some interest and agreed that we should go ahead with the purchase (I may have worn her down when we passed through the stainless steel deck fittings for the third time earlier). Remembering the motto of my alma mater, HMS THUNDERER, to “Beat the Iron While ’Tis Hot”, and never being one to miss an opportunity, I drifted nonchalantly, but determinedly, back to the cash desk and stated the intention of acquiring the dinghy; alas, they had none in stock and had no forecast of when next they would. Damn. Still, the Rubicon had been crossed and I set myself the secret task of finding that type of dinghy from wherever I could find one. I wondered what the Border Agency did with those dinghies used by illegal immigrants in the English Channel – maybe I could get one cheap. It was, by that time, time to go. The journey home was straightforward: we took the M27 motorway. Road works limited our speed on the motorway to 50mph, but the trip was still pure heaven after the journey down. We staggered into home stiff, baked, coated in suntan oil, but happy. What a Grand Day Out.

I did track down an alternative supplier of 2.3m inflatable dinghies the next day (Carpe Diem – Seize The Day) and placed an order on-line immediately.  Blow me, a few hours later, my friend Raymond in Dartmouth sent me an email flagging up the fact that his neighbour was selling a 2.3m dinghy, with its outboard motor, for the same price I had just paid for the new dinghy. What a coincidence! This was obviously an opportunity too good to miss.  Within the hour I had contacted the seller, bought the boat and motor (unseen), paid for it, and cancelled the on-line order.  Raymond very kindly agreed to effect the delivery from his neighbour to APPLETON RUM at her mooring.  Oh it is all so exciting.  I love spending money, don’t you?  More on the new (old) tender and its outboard motor later.

Whale Island (mentioned earlier) is an artificial island in Portsmouth Harbour, created by the spoil from the dredged harbour and excavated dry docks in the dockyard in the 19th century.  It is home to HMS EXCELLENT (a shore base), once the Royal Navy’s Gunnery School, but now Naval Command Headquarters.  The island (developed from an original natural thin promontory) was created largely by French prisoners of war in the Napoleonic Wars and is joined to the mainland by a bridge.  In my time, if you were not of the gunnery branch then most officers just passed through EXCELLENT for courses, often with a shudder for the gunnery branch was the home for the Navy’s parade training experts, the Gunnery Instructors (GIs) – the equivalent of the Regimental Sergeant Majors in the army.  EXCELLENT meant lots of shouting and lots of marching, rifle drill, sword drill, doubling around the parade ground and firm orders: excellent in nature as well as name.  In another life, I should have been a Gunnery Officer. It just so happened that I was living in EXCELLENT in about 1989, undergoing several courses.  Home was too far away to commute, so I lived in the mess (the wardroom) during the week.  Now, it is a characteristic of naval shore wardrooms, and probably the officers’ messes of the other services too, that they are very quiet in the evenings and virtually dead at weekends: officers who can, go home after Secure to their wives or husbands. When I was staying, one evening after dinner such officers as there were seemed to drift away like the sands of the Nile and the bar was empty.  I wandered idly through the building, absorbing the history (I believe EXCELLENT may be the oldest shore establishment in the Royal Navy), looking at photographs of long-dead officers in obsolete uniforms (some, bizarrely, on horseback) and ships turned to razor blades centuries ago.  Down one corridor I found an obscure  narrow stairway that twisted its way up to the cabins on the first floor and, purely out of idle curiosity, decided to explore.  Half way up, at the turn of the stairs, I happened to glance up and saw a small hole, suspiciously like a bullet hole, in the wall just below the join with the ceiling.  Underneath was a small brass plaque, about 3” by 2”.  It read:
“This bullet was fired by Sub Lieutenant A J Ponsington-Smythe Royal Navy [not his real name] on the occasion of a Mess Dinner to celebrate Armistice Day, 11 November 1918.”
Gosh, that must have been one heck of a party.  We don’t have mess dinners like they used to.

Summer has come (in Melbury at least) and it appears to be the time of All Things Sport.  First there is something going on called the Euros (which I thought was a currency), but also it is the time of tennis, and the build up to Wimbledon next month.  Jane loves tennis and loves Wimbledon.  In the heat of a warm sunny day she will sit indoors with the curtains drawn, swinging her head from side to side as she watches the television where players grunt at each other like primeval cavemen or cavewomen.  Having seen some of the female players I think the comparison is apt.  Every now and again someone on the television will say “Juice” or something like that, and the crowd will clap.  I presume that that is when the players break to get their Robinson’s Lemon Barley Water or other juice.  I cannot see the attraction of the game, myself , but Jane is totally hooked and I let her get on with it.  She is making the supreme sacrifice next month and giving a miss to part of the Wimbledon tournament so that I can enjoy my birthday on the boat in Dartmouth; but I know her thoughts will be elsewhere during my birthday lunch.  I have my boat and new dinghy; Jane has her garden and Wimbledon: different ships, different long splices.

Thinking of splices, the last time I was on the boat I spent a busy afternoon splicing some warps.  I was not actually sitting on a bollard, splicing away with gnarled hands and a fid while sucking an old pipe and wearing an old cap at a jaunty angle, but I might as well have been.  Like bulling shoes (Blog 88), splicing is a wonderful opportunity for just pondering on life.  I was reflecting that the ability to splice rope seems to be a dying art among seamen, and I wondered if it was a skill still taught in the Merchant Navy and Royal Navy.  The ability to complete a back splice, eye splice, short splice and long splice used to be a prerequisite for advancement to Able Bodied Seaman (AB), but I would wager that that is no longer the case.  I rather suspect that the rate of AB has probably been overtaken by political correctness too, along with Ordinary Seaman (OS).  Heaven knows what they call them now: Able Bodied Seafarer perhaps, with no-one being allowed to be ‘ordinary’.  I was taught splicing when I was a little boy by my father, a Master Mariner, and I have never forgotten the skill though I would not like to attempt splicing steel wire rope any more.  Fortunately, today’s hawsers are of man-made fibre rather than steel wire, so the need will not arise.

The woke brigade have gone for poor old James Watt now.  Apparently his family had some distant association with slavery, so the co-inventor of the steam engine is to be damned for all eternity, like Isaac Newton.  The SI unit of power will be banned from use, as will be the unit of horsepower. One English university is already reviewing ways to remove Newton from the curriculum and, with his excommunication, his laws of motion will be discontinued, the SI unit of force will be obliterated, aircraft will fall from the sky, ships will sink, engines will not run and all motion will cease.  How much longer will this nonsense and the purging of history go on for?

I wrote a whole two paragraphs whingeing about the UK government’s decision to postpone, for another 5 weeks, the removal of the remaining Covid restrictions.  I set out the facts that the majority of the adult population have now been double vaccinated; that the rise in infections is occurring among young people who mainly shrug the virus off; that deaths remain few and hospital admissions small; that the new milder symptoms are sore throat, runny nose and a headache – like the Common Cold; that Denmark is abandoning face masks; that Florida and Texas have been free of restrictions for months.  But then I thought, what’s the point?  We are in a sinking ship with lifeboats for only half the passengers, but the Captain won’t let anyone abandon ship because he says that if we all cannot be saved, then none of us should be.  Apparently 70% of the English, asked in a poll, think this is fine, so I am in the minority; but that doesn’t make me wrong.  And do you know what?  In 5 weeks time on 19 July we will be given the same lame excuses for why we cannot open up.  I am reminded of that song by The Eagles,  “Welcome to the Hotel California”

“You can check out any time you like,
But you can never leave”

15 June 2021

Blog 94. You Challenge The Sisterhood At Your Peril.

The son and heir has gone vegetarian.  It could be worse: he could have become a vegan (though no prejudice there – I never missed an episode of Star Trek in its day).  Don’t get me wrong: I enjoy vegetarian food and we often have it; but I do object to having vegan or (less often) vegetarian views thrust upon me, especially if they are mixed with strongly-held opinions on man-made climate change that declare that cows and their flatulence are going to kill us all.  “Each to their own”, is my philosophy, and let me make my own decisions without being nagged.  Rupert (our son) came down for a day on Friday, possibly to commemorate Jane’s 70th birthday a week in advance, and it was a delight to see him after 18 months.  No, he doesn’t live in Australia, only three hours away in Hertfordshire, but he is a very busy man and things have been a bit difficult lately.  Don’t they say that you have a daughter for life, but a son only until he marries?  Jane was unfazed by the announcement that Rupert had renounced all meat as we have an old friend who is also vegetarian and Jane is quite happy to prepare a meal accordingly.  A really good vegetarian meal can be a bit of a challenge if the offerings of some some British restaurants are to be believed: the best some can offer is risotto, a nut cutlet or an omelette.  Things are getting  better, I understand, but it would be good if chefs saw the requirement to produce an imaginative vegetarian meal as a professional challenge rather than a chore.  Jane, with  the menus she uses,  is very good and I have yet to be disappointed.  We had Moroccan Spiced Pie with Yoghurt and Harissa Sauce (BBC Good Food website) for our meal with Rupert and it was very filling and delicious; he seemed pleasantly surprised: perhaps he expected a risotto or nut cutlet.  The only problem with vegetarian food generally (according to Jane) is the time it takes to prepare all those vegetables; in that, I do help and I am a dab hand at skinning a butternut squash, a technique that Jane has not mastered.

Rupert looked very slim and healthy on his vegetarian diet and I did wonder if we should become inclined a bit that way ourselves.  Not just for that reason; I was squeamish about meat as a boy (Blog 71) and, like many carnivores, would probably give it a miss if I had to catch a beast myself, skin it and dismember it.  Fortunately, in our civilised world, I don’t have to.  I remember that, quite a few years ago, there was a documentary on the television about the Royal Marines, specifically the mountain warfare cadre: the élite among the  élite, a pretty tough bunch.  We were shown some of their survival training, which included eating rabbits’ eyes (good for rehydration) and making an omelette with wild birds’ eggs and earthworms. A few weeks after that particular episode the Commandant General of the Royal Marines was attending a Mess Dinner with the army in Aldershot (the Royal Marines are part of the Royal Navy, nothing to do with the British Army).  After the food was finished, the Mess President announced that he had a gift for the Commandant General as an extra course and presented him with a tobacco tin containing four earthworms.  This was received with great mirth by the assembled army officers, but the Commandant General of the Royal Marines never turned a hair: he picked up and ate all four worms raw, washing them down with a glass of claret.  Those Royal Marines can be such rough men;  but then, I suppose, that is what they are meant to be.

I served alongside Royal Marines several times and always found them to be bit of a law unto themselves, though highly professional and very tough.  Like army officers, Royal Marine officers (at that time) bore their rank on their shoulders, comprising pips, crowns and – at senior level – crossed batons and sabres.  Unlike naval officers, whose ranks were shown by gold stripes on sleeves or shoulders, Royal Marine rank badges were hard to discern, particularly as their combat uniforms were identical to those of Other Ranks.  To further complicate matters, Royal Marine officer ranks used to be one step out from the ranks of army officers, so that a Captain RM was equivalent to a Major in the British Army and a Lieutenant Commander in the Royal Navy; a Major RM was equivalent to a Lieutenant Colonel in the army or a Commander in the Royal Navy – a Senior Officer (the ranks have since been aligned)  A fellow officer of mine, a Major in the Royal Marines, once told me of an encounter he had had that exemplified the confusion of identifying ranks.  He was walking through the dockyard one day and noticed a Midshipman coming towards him.  He prepared to be saluted, but did not receive the courtesy as they passed; he shrugged and did not follow it up.  However, five yards later he was arrested by a shout behind him:
“Royal Marine!”, shouted the Midshipman in a shrill voice.
My friend stopped and looked back.
“Yes?”
“ Come back here!”, commanded the Midshipman.
My friend lumbered his way back.
“Don’t you, in the Royal Marines, salute officers?”, demanded the Midshipman.
“Sometimes”, said my friend.
At that point, realisation dawned on the Midshipman’s face as he saw the  Major’s crowns on my friend’s shoulders.  Much spluttering,  apologising and saluting followed.  That Midshipman was very lucky: my friend might have eaten him.

Saluting is a courtesy in the armed forces and not an anachronistic subservient homage to one’s superiors: it is a way of greeting each other as fellow members of the Armed Forces working to a common cause, of people ‘all of one company’.  Occasionally one does encounter a rating or junior officer who fails to salute, usually in error.  Various techniques can be used to challenge such omissions, but the best I ever came across was the gentle reprimand used by a friend of mine, a solution that also summed up the ceremony very well.  He would call the miscreant back and say to the errant rating or junior officer,
“The Queen has commanded that, when we meet, we should salute each other”.  
“Now: you go first”.

Anyway, Rupert’s visit went very well and we enjoyed an excellent long sunny walk in the countryside after his arrival, followed by the aforementioned meal and a fairly large quantity of alcohol.  The Only Son went up ten points in his mother’s estimation by a) his actual arrival and b) bringing two bunches of flowers; he lost points when he later opined that her luxuriant and carefully planned garden “looked a bit overgrown”.  But, overall, the offspring could do no wrong and I was very soon relegated to second place in her affection.  I could live with that.  Twenty hours later, with a hangover, and after declining any breakfast other than two paracetamol, he was gone, taking with him the remnants of the Moroccan Spiced Pie and a complete Eton Mess (his favourite pudding) that he had declined the night before: a 20 hour visit over in a flash.  It was great while it lasted and we must be grateful for small mercies.

Yes, on reflection, we decided we would move towards a vegetarian diet in future.  First, however, we would have that barbecued fillet steak (rare) for supper, and I would need to use up our frozen stock of bacon as bacon sandwiches for breakfast.  No need to get carried away.

The Covid situation in UK trundles on, with little change from the last blog, or the one before that.  As I said in an earlier report, the statistics are bumping along the bottom now, with only the odd ripple disturbing the reports of zero deaths.  The casualty rate is currently below the figures usually reported on British roads. Weekly deaths are still around 50, daily deaths less than 10, daily hospital admissions still dropping; all this despite a rise in infections attributable to the Indian variant, now re-designated  the Delta variant.  Of vaccinations, 77% of the British population have received  their first jab, and 55% have received their second and full immunisation.  Despite this, the media are screaming with headlines of rising infection and warning of the government postponing its 21 June milestone for removing the final Covid restrictions.  I despair.  After the Delta variant there will doubtless be an Epsilon variant as the virus mutates yet again; then a Zeta variant, then an Eta variant and so on.  The vaccinations have been proven to cope with Covid and can be ‘tweaked’ to cope even better with each variant; let us accept that the virus will always be with us – endemic – and get on with returning to normal.  The vaccinations work. Kicking the can down the road is not the way ahead: the economy needs to get going again.

Regular readers will have noticed something of a hiatus in my blog frequency and will have inferred, correctly, that I have been away on my boat again.  With a fair bit of time on my hands in the evenings and no television to distract the mind I could probably have turned out a blog last week, but I was suffering from writer’s block or, to put it more plainly: as I could think of nothing good to say, I decided to say nothing.  If only I had followed that maxim for my previous life: I could have been a Vice Admiral and had more friends now.  Ho hum. The weather in Dartmouth was still variable.  While much of Britain – even Scotland –  sweltered in temperatures of up to 24C during the English Bank Holiday, Dartmouth had sunny days, but a persistent cool wind from the east.  This was sufficient to preclude any lounging on the quarterdeck quaffing gin and tonic, and generated a lumpy swell outside the harbour (“lumpy”: a nautical term that means Mrs Shacklepin cannot keep her feet onboard, gets her spectacles covered in salt spray and – hence – vetoes further marine exploration).   As usual, I completed lots of jobs onboard and, as defects fell off one end of the list, others emerged to take their place.  Perhaps this is called creative inertia; still, it keeps me out of mischief.

Jane had another one of her heart episodes while we lay in bed on the boat one night (they always happen when she is in bed). This time, armed with her rinky dinky AliveCor KardiaMobile EKG Monitor from Amazon (Blog 93), she captured the data (peak heart rate 185 beats/minute) and it has been sent off to her cardiologist for analysis. The episode went on for just under two hours and we were poised to call an ambulance at the two-hour point (as advised) when the whole thing subsided. It is all very distressing for her and we hope the new data will help generate a diagnosis and treatment

The world has gone mad.  Not content with breast feeding to be renamed as “chest feeding”,  cervical smears being offered to men who have decided to be women, and women themselves now to be called “people who menstruate”, the woke liberal establishment now demands that we stop using the term “mother”; instead, we are to refer to a “person who gives birth”.  Is anyone in authority ever going to stand up to these idiots, and tell them to b****r off?  As it is, all sane people will simply ignore the demands and laugh at the fools who issue them. If only Jonathan Swift were still alive: he could have incorporated the whole madness into his Gulliver’s Travels.

She will not let me buy a new inflatable tender for the boat.  And that after I had ordered her a pair of stylish seaboots to keep her diddy feet dry in stormy weather and when helping me scrub the decks (I didn’t mention that last bit to her, not wishing to complicate matters). There’s gratitude for you. Regular readers will recall from Blog 59 that I bought a tender last year in order to widen the scope of our boating adventures.  The choice was a compromise of several factors such as safety, ease of handling, packed size, weight and – of course – cost.  I settled on a 2m lightweight model that folded into a large rucksack.  We have used it once and it was, well, OK but a bit small and unstable.  Have you ever played in a swimming pool with one of those inflatable crocodiles? You know the sort of thing, where you sit on top, wobble, fall off, then spend ten minutes trying to get back on again. No? Not into inflatable crocodiles?  Well, anyway, you get the gist.  Our tender is a bit wobbly like that.  It is also difficult to row, difficult to steer, and Jane has to crouch in the bottom boards, her limbs rigid in terror.  So I have done a bit more research, asked around those who have tenders, applied some basic stability criteria and now propose a bigger and wider replacement.  I submitted these proposals to Jane with cogent reasons why we should change, several offsets to make the idea cost-neutral (buy fewer cravats and waistcoats; use less fuel; eat less)  and a list of the many places we could paddle to in the new tender.  And she said ‘no’.  She did concede that, if I sold the old tender first, then she would reconsider the proposal (I had intended to do things the other way round).  I can see that I am just going to have to chip away at her resolve by my usual subtle means.  Letting her fall in from the existing tender might do the trick, but is, perhaps, a bit drastic even for me.  Also, she is part of The Sisterhood and I must be wary.

The Sisterhood is a strong force and I, a mere man (or person who doesn’t menstruate), challenge it at my peril.  Its feelers stretch out across continents and oceans, and even extend to tapping into these blogs.   One female distant cousin in South Dakota in the USA took me to task for my remark to Jane in Blog 86, “My God, you’re a girl!” when she turned up for breakfast wearing a smart dress and court shoes (I thought I had been quite complimentary).  Now a further female cousin – this one in North Carolina in the USA – has given me stern advice regarding Jane’s heart problem, outlined flippantly in Blog 91 (“Don’t Touch My Button!”).  I quote my cousin verbatim:

“ Now, regarding Jane [and her heart], you must NOT push buttons, flip switches, or piss her off”.

Who? Me?  Never.

7 June 2021 

Blog 93. The Blue Poop Challenge

Whatever happened to Wonderloaf? Or Mothers Pride? Or thick sliced white bread? I posed this question to Jane as I gazed, disappointingly, at the rough lumpen toast with bits in it that rested on my plate at breakfast time. The previous night we had pondered on the important issue of what to have for breakfast the next day and I had expressed a desire for a really nice piece of toast, lashings of butter and Jane’s home-made marmalade: a surprisingly rare occurrence as we more usually have something cooked with eggs. Alas, the fulfilment of this preference did not meet my expectations, and Jane gave me toast made from that strange fancy bread with bits in it. I don’t know what it is called, but it is brown or wholemeal and seems to incorporate bird seed. Most of the time I don’t mind and the bread features frequently with our poached or scrambled eggs; but for a simple breakfast, to be taken with marmalade, I wanted toasted white bread, thick sliced – like about ½“ thick. I voiced my mild disappointment accordingly, but was told – in no uncertain terms – that white bread was bad for me and, in any case, was no longer obtainable in the thick-sliced version that I craved. There was also an unspoken suggestion, reinforced by a sharp eye, that if I didn’t like the breakfast then I could always prepare it myself. I tried calling her bluff on that one and expressed the intention of baking my own white loaf, only to be told that she already had some of my bread in the freezer, ready cut in thick slices, but it was bad for me, so I couldn’t have it. Noting that we had just turned full circle, I gave up. To add further insult to injury, Jane then proceeded to read out an article from the newspaper stating that I should not drink black coffee on an empty stomach either, so I should desist from my current practice of taking the double espresso before breakfast. It all made me ponder on what is the point of life if one cannot indulge in a little luxury now and again: we were not talking cream cakes or pain au raisin here, just a thick slice of toast made from British white bread, not mucked about with, and eaten maybe once a month. I think she is trying to preserve me in aspic, bless her: I am, after all, a little treasure worthy of eternal life.

Continuing on matters sewage from my last blog, Jane now has us participating in an on-line trial to produce blue stools (I hope you aren’t eating breakfast). The “blue poop challenge” is part of a research project into how fast we digest food and it involves baking blue-dyed cup cakes, eating them, and reporting when the – er – end result appears blue in the lavatory pan. The cup cakes, when Jane had baked them, came out a bright fluorescent lightning blue colour like something out of Star Trek, but they tasted all right. We await the results and I will let you know when they manifest themselves..

The weather is still pretty awful, a situation exacerbated by the news that the citizens of Moscow are baking in 30C temperatures.  No chance of that here, and we abandoned the boat last week after six days of rain, wind and (very occasionally) sunny intervals.  We did have the pleasure of entertaining our old friends Benjamin and Margery from Plymouth.  We managed to rush them onboard in a gap between heavy downpours and celebrated the milestone of being able to entertain people indoors with a bottle of Cremant de Loire.  Alas, they declined the option of joining us in steaming the boat away from her berth into a rain squall and Force 4 wind, so we remained alongside gorging ourselves on Jane’s lunch, catching up on news, and slurping wine.  It was a tough choice and I could see that they were disappointed to miss the fun of life on the ocean wave, but the wine offered some consolation I am sure.

It occurred to me, as I re-read an earlier blog, that some readers might not fully understand my reference to “Day Running in a frigate from Portland”. The island of Portland (actually joined to the mainland by a causeway) is located off Dorset and has the distinction of being the first place in Britain to receive the Black Death. It does not surprise me, for it is a bleak and awful place, exposed and wind-swept, and – until just over twenty five years ago – was a naval base for the Royal Navy. Day Running from Portland comprised raising steam at some ungodly hour each morning, sailing into stormy weather and the notorious sea area known as the Portland Race, and doing Something Awful before returning alongside or mooring to a buoy, shutting down, and then doing Something Else Awful. For Portland was more than just a naval base, it was the home for Flag Officer Sea Training, the officer responsible for bringing warships up to full operational standard before they joined the Fleet. The Something Awful referred to earlier could be fending off an attack by aircraft, submarine or ship; blind pilotage (as in fog); boarding a suspect vessel; or taking on fuel and stores at sea. The Something Else Awful could be fighting fires, plugging leaks, pumping out floods, landing an armed party, assisting a civil power after a disaster or resisting an attack by enemy divers. All these things occurred, 24 hours a day, for up to six weeks. It was all very necessary to bind a Ship’s Company into a single efficient fighting unit, but an absolutely dreadful experience. No one in the Royal Navy liked Portland; indeed, we all dreaded it. Even the pubs ashore were awful. Yet Workup (as it was known colloquially) had its humorous moments, particularly when viewed from afar and happening to other ships. I remember that there was one frigate that was tasked with the requirement of boarding a suspected merchant ship. The victim was played by a Royal Fleet Auxiliary (RFA) – a tanker – called GREEN ROVER. The RFA, by the way, is a collection of supply ships and tankers manned, not by naval personnel, but by members of the British Merchant Navy: a hard working crowd who get little credit for their contribution to the Fleet, though I believe their pay and leave conditions are better than the Royal Navy. Anyway, this frigate was tasked with stopping the merchant ship (GREEN ROVER) and then boarding and searching her. Steaming up to the tanker’s beam, the frigate signalled in International Code, by flag and light, Flag KILO:
“STOP INSTANTLY”.
No response.
She called up the ship by VHF radio and ordered her to stop.
No response.
So the frigate stood off and fired a 4.5″ shell across GREEN ROVER’s bow.
Still no response (the RFA crew were old hands at this).
Then the frigate’s CO had a brilliant idea. Frigates at that time carried an anti-submarine mortar: a triple barrelled weapon that fired three bombs, each about 12″ in diameter and 3′ long, ahead of the ship, exploding at various depths above and below a detected submarine. Into one barrel of this mortar the frigate’s crew inserted a large bag of potatoes and this they fired at GREEN ROVER.
It was something of a success. The bag of potatoes described a neat vertical arc and landed bang-on the top of GREEN ROVER’s wheelhouse, pierced the deckhead, and exploded inside, firing potatoes in all directions.
GREEN ROVER stopped and the way fell off the ship.
Cheered by the result, the frigate’s boarding party set off in the motor whaler, armed to the teeth. Unfortunately, the success story ended there, for when the boarding party clambered over the tanker’s bulwarks they were met by an extremely angry crew of merchant seamen who beat them up and summarily threw the boarding party over the side. A case of defeat snatched from the jaws of victory, I feel.
Incidentally, the naval base at Portland closed in 1995, but Workup, or Operational Sea Training, still takes place though now only in the comparatively benign naval base of Devonport in Plymouth. I dare say they still have their fun, but they are welcome to it.

After all that head-shaking and sucking of teeth last week over the latest bogeyman in the Covid 19 saga, the Indian variant, it has now been revealed that the vast majority of people who have died from, or are in hospital with, the variant were eligible to have the vaccine, but had declined it. Enough said. Moreover, after all the hand wringing and threats of halting the programme taking us out of lockdown, the scientists have concluded that the vaccines are – in fact – very effective against this latest variant. But if you are missing this bogeyman then fear not, for there are others lining up for take off: there is now talk of a triple-active mutant variant with pike (or something like that), or a malady called Black Fungus, which sounds like a novel written by John Buchan; the medical fraternity, the British government and the media clearly believe that, when it comes to controlling the general population, Fear is Good: beat them with the stick, then offer the carrot just out of reach, then repeat the cycle; whatever you do, don’t actually give them the carrot. Statistically, it is quite clear that – at long last – the hospital admissions and deaths associated with Covid have been decoupled from detected infections. Daily deaths for the whole of the UK remain in single figures and are still dropping asymptotically, hospital admissions likewise. There are infection hotspots related to the Indian variant, notably around Bolton and Blackburn. With exits now freely open, people are beginning to go on holiday abroad again: some to “Green” approved countries (too many to list here, but ranging from Australia to Tristan da Cuna), but also – more head shaking from the government here – to “Amber” countries (Afghanistan to Yemen, including the USA). The authorities are clearly shocked that some citizens have actually exercised their own judgement on risk in this matter and are choosing to go to “Amber” countries, despite the test and quarantine requirements associated with the decision. People thinking for themselves? This will never do. For completeness, by the way, the “Red” countries range from Angola to Zimbabwe and include India. With this last country, an old saying referring to stable doors and bolting horses springs to mind.

In further matters medical, a lively row has broken out regarding face-to-face appointments with GPs.  It started when a newspaper revealed that the NHS had instructions in place directing GPs to avoid – or even not offer –  face-to-face consultations and rely, instead, on telephone or on-line consultations.  This caused an uproar among the public, so the instruction was flipped into requiring all GPs to provide face-to-face appointments with any patients who wanted them. Cue uproar from the GPs, who have no wish to provide such a service and want to continue with isolation and a telephone triage service.  It is a very curious thing: my dentist, dental hygienist, pharmacist, chiropodist, optician and osteopath have been providing face to face consultations since last June without any difficulty other than the usual face coverings and strict appointment times.  Astonishingly, even hospital consultations are picking up again (Jane has been three times without problem).  Yet my GP surgery ceased on-line booking of appointments last March and the waiting room of the surgery remains empty.  Telephoning to get an appointment can genuinely take hours and often results in finding no appointments available or – worse – simply being cut off.  The impression given by GPs is that they would rather not have to deal with the grubby public and their nasty diseases at all – or at least keep them at bargepole length and discuss their ailments only after extensive filtering and pre interrogation by a female Heracles, the gatekeeper of Olympus.  To be fair, many – if not all – GPs have been heavily engaged in the vaccination programme, which has reduced their availability; nevertheless this outrage from the profession at a time when the epidemic is easing does not do it credit though it has an historical  precedent: the British Medical Association opposed the introduction of the NHS 73 years ago.   Personally, I have no problem with the concept of triage as it should weed out the sickbay rangers and time wasters in order to make way for genuinely ill patients such as my good self;  however, the system should not require protracted waits on the telephone and having to describe one’s piles to some flibbertigibbet or termagant on reception who has no medical qualifications.  At the very least, the triage person should be a nurse.  My theory on General Practice is that the majority of patients are just worried about their symptoms and want simple reassurance that it is not serious; current guidance on ailments does not help one’s anxiety when, for example, anyone with chest pain is told to dial 999 immediately and anyone with a new spot or mole is advised to see a doctor at once.  Triage or seeing a nurse instead of a doctor might well bowl out these cases at an early stage.  At the end of the day, however, you cannot beat a proper consultation with your personal GP who knows your history.  Alas, I rather think that that is now a pipe dream unless you go private and pay a small fortune.

A GP appointment is not exactly a pleasure, of course. In days gone by the surgery would be held in an old house with, maybe, only two doctors presiding. Patients turned up on spec and simply waited their turn rather than having an appointment. I believe there are still some surgeries like that, but most are modern purpose-built facilities with a dozen or more GPs. Ours is one such edifice and there are several “waiting areas” instead of one waiting room. I have always been very satisfied with our GPs (we no longer have a designated doctor) once I have overcome the difficult hurdle of actually getting an appointment, but I never like the waiting area: people sitting there silently and morosely, grizzling children, nothing to read, assessing each other and deciding either that the others are loafing or that they are highly infectious, shouldn’t be contaminating everyone else, and – er – should go to see a doctor. I remember a friend of mine telling me the saga of his local surgery in the early 1960s. The archetype establishment of its time, it was located in a large private house and had one central waiting room with a row of chairs down each side. There were two consulting rooms, each related to its corresponding row of chairs, and two resident doctors. The GPs were traditional doctors who took their time to know their patients, but somewhat different in temperament. My friend related how he was sitting in the waiting room one evening with the rest of the sick and hurt, no-one speaking, several coughing and wheezing, when, from behind the door of Doctor A’s consulting room, he heard Doctor A exclaim,
“A SICK NOTE! Good God man there’s nothing wrong with you! I’ve never heard such nonsense!”
As one man, the entire line of Doctor A’s patients got up from their chairs and transferred themselves quietly to the line for Doctor B, across the room

Ready-meals are not really our forte, the memsahib being of the view that she is quite capable of producing a tasty wholesome meal herself without any short cuts, thank you very much.  Cooking is both her hobby and her pride and I must say she is damned good at it.  So when our friends Fraser and Isla recommended a company called simply, Cook, as a source of such meals we took note, but thought we were unlikely to use the firm a great deal.  Fast-forward to now, when we can visit the boat again, and we decided to reconsider the recommendation.  The cooking facilities onboard are not bad for the size of our boat, but are still limited: there is a small refrigerator, about 250mm of work surface, a two-burner gas hob and a small oven that burns any food placed at the back.  With these facilities Jane still works wonders, but it did occur to us that ready meals might ease the burden on her and – let me be frank here – would reduce the number of pots and pans that I had to wash up.  We have used supermarket ready meals occasionally before, buying food from Marks & Spencer or Waitrose with mixed results – the steak from the former company, eaten on my birthday last July, is still being digested (Blog 54).  There is also concern regarding the ingredients and nutritionally value of these supermarket ready meals, with monosodium glutamate, sugar and salt sometimes featuring in the contents.  Hence, the recommendation of using meals from Cook was attractive.  The firm uses the freshest ingredients and traditional home cooking techniques, sourcing, hand-preparing, cooking, freezing and distributing the meals all in-house in one facility in Kent that employs 300 people.  Meal portions are available for one, two or four people and there is even a Sunday lunch option for a large party.  The meals can be cooked straight from frozen, which is a big advantage, and delivery is free for orders over a certain amount.  Prices of the meals are very reasonable, with a main course for two costing typically about £8. There are also High Street outlets, though only in England.  Anyway, we tried some meals from Cook and they were absolutely superb, so good in fact that we have ordered further batches to cover the weeks when we are away on the boat (we can store the frozen food in a freezer in the marina ashore).  So there you have it: a recommendation for delicious food, ready cooked in the county of Kent and certainly worth a try: Cook (www.cookfood.net). Of course, if you don’t live in England or within delivery range of one of their shops then I’m afraid you are fresh out but – hey – you can’t have everything.

Well you will be pleased to read that Jane’s period with a heart monitor taped to her chest (Blog 91) produced no results to worry about. We were due to depart for the hospital in the Big City on Sunday for the follow-up consultation in Cardiology (on Sunday, note) when Jane received a call that proved to be telephone consultation instead. That seemed quite sensible to me, but it was a pity she was not told of it in advance: we had just put on our coats ready to depart and it was one hour before the appointment time stated in the letter. Also, the drive to the Big City – both of us dressed up in our best Sunday Rig – was going to be our excitement for the day. Anyway, the recorded traces of Jane’s heartbeat showed no defects though – as I said on Blog 91 – she only gets these funny turns once in a blue moon so a week’s monitoring was unlikely to produce anything. However, the consultant suggested to Jane that she might consider buying an ECG heart monitor from Amazon that could be activated if her heart went funny again. Another gadget from Amazon, I thought; excellent! I sought out the recommended AliveCor KardiaMobile EKG Monitor, which links with, and records to, a mobile phone and gulped: £99. Oh well, I was going to buy a new telescope for the boat (such affectation intending to present an alert and professional nautical image when deployed, especially if I wore my new Breton cap with the gold RNSA cap badge); but I suppose a fully-monitored and well-running Jane will be better value for money. The thing is, what with her dodgy leg, I just worry about which bit of her is going to drop off next.

Following up on my second paragraph and the saga of the blue poo, by the way,  I can report that we are four days down the line and still nothing blue in the pan.  I knew you would be interested.  Is this what they mean by being anal retentive?

24 May 2021

Blog 92. Hurrah For The Life Of A Sailor!


The heads ceased working at 0715.  I know this because I had just finished using the facility and I was now (literally) faced with the ghastly residue.  The heads, as you seasoned sea dogs will know by now, is the nautical equivalent of the lavatory.  As there is only one lavatory onboard I suppose the name should be ‘head’ as favoured by the USN, but traditionally we of the Royal Navy have called the facility ‘heads’ whether singular or plural, just as the French refer to les toilettes, and who am I to mess with tradition?  The heads onboard is a sea toilet, that is to say that the device operates differently from your lavatory ashore: you do not just press a button that leads to a flush of fresh water washing away the effluent to somewhere that is “anywhere but here”. Instead, there is a hand pump and a little lever; you pump away vigorously and it empties the pan, you move the little lever and pump some more and sea water flushes the pan at the same time as it is emptied.  The operation is mechanically simple and theoretically reliable, and a series of simple non-return valves ensures that the effluent does not come back at you (you hope).  In our boat it takes 30 vigorous strokes fully to empty and flush the system.  Where does the effluent go?  Well, at sea it goes overboard; in harbour it goes into a holding tank onboard, which is subsequently emptied by sucking it out or by dumping it at sea beyond the three mile limit.  The mackerel love it.  Anyway, to come back to my early morning adventure, I pumped and pumped and the brown contents of the bowl, instead of going down, actually increased in volume, dangerously approaching the rim.  In desperation I prayed to the patron saint of engineers, St Patrick, and he clearly took pity on me as the bowl suddenly began, very slowly, to empty – though not without frequent blowbacks, spitting  and bubbling, like some malevolent geyser in the volcanic Icelandic wastes.  Alas, although the pan emptied, that was only half the battle: the heads would not flush.  Try as I might, I could not draw in fresh sea water to usher the effluent to its final resting place.  I sighed.  Philosophically, I washed my hands and girded my loins for yet Another Job on the Boat, this one before breakfast.  Of course, you could reasonably ask why I had not used the lavatories ashore in the marina, as normal, instead of the cramped and fickle heads onboard; the answer was that the rain was coming down in stair rods in a semi horizontal direction and I was disinclined to make the journey. To continue the story, you will be relieved to know that it has a happy ending.  Nestling in my “come in handy” box was a complete sea toilet repair kit with all the replacement parts needed.  Sleeves rolled up, shoes and socks removed, rubber gloves on and disinfectant on standby, I took the heads apart and replaced all of the rubber  ‘O’ rings and noisome non-return valves, the disintegration of the latter being the cause of the problem.  In two shakes of a lamb’s tail the whole contraption was back together and working a treat, which is what I received from my grateful wife in the form of a delicious breakfast.  Boating life: you can’t beat it.

Matters sewage and sewerage first featured in my professional life when I worked in the Ministry of Defence design division responsible for developing sewage treatment plants (STP) for the Royal Navy. Under the International Maritime Organisation (IMO) regulations all ships except warships have to be fitted with an approved STP or holding tank. Before that, ships simply pumped the stuff over the side as they had done for centuries. Warships are excluded from the IMO regulations but most, if not all, navies comply for the simple reason that, without an STP, a visiting warship would not be permitted in most ports. Having been built in the 1960s, my last steamer did not have an STP, but we overcame the problem in some foreign ports by rationing the heads onboard, the ubiquitous use of wooden bungs and rags, and diverting our sewage into shoreside bowsers or lighters alongside. I remember that we used the latter solution in Naples, an arrangement that cost the Crown a considerable sum of money, and watched the sewage barge take its load just beyond the harbour bar, where it dumped it in the Mediterranean. Actually, the infinite volume of the sea and the chlorine in seawater (and all those mackerel) process sewage naturally in quite a short time, but that does not mean we would like to swim next to the stuff. When I was a boy I could stand on a hill by the harbour mouth and watch the brown stain of effluent from the River Tyne spreading out from the two piers a mile out to sea at ebb tide, but we still swam from the beaches and here I am today. Mind you, at that time the River Tyne itself would not support life and, if you fell into the river, you had to have all manner of vaccinations as a matter of urgency. Thankfully, the Tyne and all other British rivers are no longer routinely contaminated by sewage, and aquatic life has returned extensively. Sewage in inland waterways and rivers would be a major problem because the effluent extracts oxygen from the water as it breaks down and the oxygen-depleted water will not the support plants or fish. I could go on and describe how most STPs work…it’s quite interesting…no? All right. So there you are: a potted history of all things sewage.

We are back on the boat, snuggled down as the wind throws us against the pontoon and the rain comes down mightily.  By the middle of May, Britain had received 91% of its normal quota of rain for that month, so we are on track to break the record for rainfall set in 1967.  Was it only a month ago that I wrote that the earth was as hard as iron and crying out for rain?  Clearly, the cries have been answered.  Amazingly, given this very inclement weather, we managed to take the boat away from her berth the other day and even managed a trip at sea.  There was a brief lull in the weather system on Friday and we took advantage of it. The original plan was simply to give the engines a work out: to get them up to operating temperature and to set the propellers turning.  We only took APPLETON RUM down to the harbour mouth as part of that plan and, in passing, to assess the sea state beyond the bar.  To our surprise, not only was the swell quite benign, but the sun also took the opportunity to say hello.  So away we went, course south-by-west, heading for the Skerries Shoal, three miles off Slapton Sands in Start Bay.  Gradually I brought up the speed: our stern went down, our bows lifted up and soon we were “on the plane” and creaming along at fourteen knots.  Behind us our wake curled upwards and outwards in furrows of green sea and cream foam: APPLETON RUM was alive.  Given our previous adventures recounted on these pages, you will be surprised to read that we did not encounter heavy swell, did not pitch and roll, throwing kettles, books and wives in all directions; we were steady as a rock and going some.  Alas, heavy showers and the next weather system were forecast for noon, so we thought it prudent to turn at the Skerries Buoy and return to the river, but it had been fun while it lasted.  We have remained alongside every since, the wind gusting to Force 5 and the showers blasting the windows like a fire hose.  Life on the water is not like life at home: all the elements manifest themselves at a higher level.  Boats travelling up the river – even small outboard-powered dinghies – create significant wash that rolls us around, even when alongside.  Largely unencumbered by any major land mass or buildings, the south westerly wind whips up the River Dart or down Mill Creek, tugging the boat against her warps and bouncing her off her fenders.  The warps creek in their cleats, creating a constant background noise by night and by day.  Then there is the moaning of wind in the rigging of sailing craft in the marina and the tink-tink-tink of halliards hitting metal masts; the moaning sounds like music or children’s voices, or perhaps it is a banshee, haunting us with the ghosts of drowned mariners.  And as for the rain, well, given our exposure the stuff comes down in sheets and you can see squalls coming from half a mile away.  Fortunately, we have all the kit for when we are outside: the salopettes, the seaboots, the waterproof foul weather jackets with hood and high collar, the automatic life jackets.  The only downside of that kit is that it takes ten minutes to put it on and ten minutes to take it off; that and the fact that, as soon as you get it all on then, as sure as eggs are eggs, your body develops an urge to pass water and all the impedimenta have to come off again.  Jane’s gear is stylish and slimming, comprising a white top with royal blue facings, fetching fluorescent hood and matching royal blue salopettes (no seaboots – cannot find any for her diddy feet); mine is all-over bright orange so that, when fully kitted out, I look like an advertisement for John West Kipper Fillets and walk like a Michelin man.  Still, at least I look the part and am dry.  Snug as bugs in a rug, we are, and greatly relieved that we are not out at sea in this lot.

A trooper in the Household Cavalry has been convicted of sexual assault by court martial and sentenced to two months in army prison.  His crime was pinching the bottoms of two fellow (female) soldiers, as a prank, while on parade; he claimed that he had done it to “lighten the mood”.  It was a daft thing to do, but it is amazing how this relatively trivial, though unwelcome, activity has been escalated.  It is like one of those irregular verbs: I pinch her bottom, you grope her, he sexual assaults her.  The response seems a bit over-the-top to me, but then I often forget that I am living in 2021, as did that trooper, along with the fact that he is living in a society that – rightly – regards that sort of behaviour against women to be totally unacceptable.  In mitigation, I think he was genuinely skylarking and his action might just as easily have been against a fellow male soldier: it is the sort of thing that a band of brothers does to lighten the mood.  But he really was very silly.  The bit that truly astonished me about the whole thing, however,  was that the female soldiers who (correctly) complained, stated that they were “traumatised and almost in tears” because of the incident.  Good grief.  They are soldiers.  If they were were traumatised by having their bottoms pinched in public – probably by a friend or, at least a member of the same company whom they knew –  then heaven knows how they will cope in combat.  How Britain’s enemies must  tremble.

On the subject of Covid, all talk is on the latest bogeyman, the Indian variant.  This joins the previous bogeymen, the Kent variant, the Brazilian variant and the South African variant in the long list that the government and the media have used to terrify us.  Soon to come are the Moldavian variant, the Transylvanian variant and the Venusian variant ad infinitum.  Certainly, India is suffering  very badly from Covid 19, particularly in Delhi where the hospitals have been overwhelmed, and the Indian variant is said to be particularly infectious – just like the Kent variant was and so on.  However, one must take into account the fact that the population of India is measured in billions, not millions, that it has a high rate of poverty and millions of homeless preventing the country from locking down, and that it does not have an extensive health infrastructure. There is also a high degree of ignorance in the population and a reluctance to be inoculated (the Indian prime minister has advocated the application of urine and cow dung to combat the disease).  All the current scientific advice in Britain indicates that, provided we have been vaccinated, we should be able to resist this latest variant.  At the moment, the UK statistics continue to show a fall in hospital admissions and deaths as part of a continuing trend; positive test results have increased slightly, but the low fatalities suggest that our resistance is good.  As I write, weekly deaths attributable to Covid in the UK stand at 72, dropping at 9%; hospital admissions at 103 dropping at 1%. 69% of the British population have received at least one dose of vaccine.  The rate of inoculation is to be increased in the UK and the gap between the first and second doses is to be reduced in order to increase immunity.

On the home front, Britain passes yet another milestone in the move to come out of lockdown tomorrow,  Monday 17 May.  After that, we can entertain friends indoors for the first time in many months.  Up to six people can also go inside a pub, restaurant or indoor event and – to quote the prime minister – we can hug each other again.  I don’t know where all this hugging and kissing  business came from; it is not something I indulge in greatly, except with the memsahib – and that only on high days or birthdays;  it is treated with suspicion if I act amorously with her at any other time.  Certainly I do not extend the practice to members of the same sex.  I think it all started when we started to do the Sign of Peace in church, businesses started calling us by our Christian names, waiters started addressing us with, “Hi guys”, and Mr Anthony Blair (“call me Tony”) became prime minister; it is yet another nail in the coffin of civilised British behaviour. And,  by the way, who is the prime minister to say when we can or cannot hug each other?  It is almost tempting to start the practice out of sheer imbuggerance. 

The sun has come out from behind a cloud.  We are still bouncing around, but that little ray of sunshine seems to make the wind more bearable somehow.  Jane has complained about having to provide tea, twice, while I have been writing to you good people and – further – I have been ordered to go outside and repair a rainwater leak somewhere in poor old APPLETON RUM’s structure.  Oh yes, and the gas has just run out and I have to change over bottles.  To quote the brave and late Captain “Titus” Oates, 

“I am just going outside and may be some time”.

16 May 2021

PS.  The sun went in and a squall hit me when I was half way through the job.  I was soaked.  By way of apology, the sun came out again just as I finished.  Hurrah for the life of a sailor.

Blog 91. Don’t Touch My Button.

“Don’t touch my button!”
I have received many tactile related instructions, directions and orders from my good wife including, inter alia,  “Don’t touch my tummy” and “Don’t touch my leg”; but “Don’t touch my button” must surely be the most bizarre and the only one positively crying out for a witty riposte.  You see, she has, at last, been fitted with a heart monitor after a seven month wait, and a small thin electronic device – about two inches square – is now mounted on her upper chest, with sensor pads stuck underneath and to one side.  The aim is routinely to record her heart rhythm over the course of a week, but in the centre of the device there is a button, to be pressed if ever she gets a repeat of the uneven, palpable heart beats first reported in Blog 59.  It was to this button that Jane was referring when I gave her one of my habitual morale-boosting embraces, forcing me to jump away from her as if she were positively charged with 440 volts.  I am fascinated by this Panic Button: will she collapse in a jumble of bones if I press it, like one of those androids in the film iRobot?  Or will the button engage turbo overdrive in Jane’s already over-endowed metabolism?  Who can tell, for it is unlikely that the button will be pressed in earnest during the course of one week, as she only seems to get one of her “episodes” about once every three months. I am not too sure if the heart monitor will tell the doctors anything, but at least they are trying, of sorts, and it has given Jane something else to fret about, namely, how to take a shower while wired up like a logic circuit board.

That talk of iRobot reminds me to provide an update on the new robot vacuum cleaner, which we have named Marvin.  We have had robot vacuum cleaners of one sort or another for about fifteen years, our first one, a Roomba, arcing its final spark just before last Christmas.  People have asked me if the machine actually worked and I always replied that it did, though with, perhaps, 80% efficiency: a quick whip round with a conventional upright vacuum cleaner was still – ideally – needed about once a month to mop up any leftovers.  However, our new robot vacuum cleaner that arrived in February is another Roomba, a 980 model, and it is much better than its predecessor; I would give it an efficiency of 95% and I have never had to follow up its operation with a conventional vacuum cleaner.  Not only is it more efficient and quieter, it is controllable by an iPhone app or by voice control using Amazon Alexa.  Of course, it also cleans under beds and furniture: the bits that a conventional vacuum cleaner cannot reach. You can set up a schedule and label the rooms that the machine has mapped out digitally too, so that you can tell it to target, say, one room if you wish.   As I write, I have just asked it to come and clean the kitchen: a little chirrup heralded its activation from its lair in the dining room and it then trundled its way to the kitchen before starting to beat, sweep and clean.  The only snag that I have found with the beast is that it is so efficient (or our house is so dirty) that I have to empty its dirt bin after every operation, such requirement being passed on to me by voice and a text.  I do wonder, sometimes, who is the master and who is the slave here.  So there you are: robot vacuum cleaners do work, though you have to choose your model carefully using an impartial review agency such as the Consumer Association’s magazine, Which?  The very best machines, scoring 80% on the Which? scale, are the Dyson 360 Heurist and the Roomba s9+,  a snip at £1,199 and £2,083 respectively; but my Roomba 980, scoring 80% on the Which? scale, cost nothing like that amount, though the current price is £699.  Curiously, the worst scorer was the Miele Scout RX1 on 35% and £349; a very paradoxical result as Miele is generally one of the best manufacturers of electrical goods in the market.  So these things are not cheap, but then it depends on how much you like gadgets, how much you value your time and how much you enjoy vacuuming; personally, I think it is money well spent.

Deaths attributable to Covid in the UK dropped to unity one day last weekend and, overall, are dropping at 39% weekly.  Hospital admissions related to Covid are dropping at 16% weekly.  The vaccination programme is still rattling along and about 39 million people in the UK have received their first jab; 17 million have received their first and second.  This last statistic includes yours truly and the memsahib, who rose at oh-crack-sparrow last Saturday morning to be ‘done’ for the second time at the racecourse of the Big City at 0800.  It was almost as cold up there on 1 May as it had been three months earlier, when I received my first vaccination.  We compensated for the early start and cold weather by indulging in a Fat Boy’s Breakfast on return to the happy homestead (there have to be some perks).  Oh, and by the way, this time I received A Badge after my vaccination, or – at least – a little round sticker saying, “I’ve Had the Covid Vaccination”.  I displayed this proudly on my Barbour gilet, much to Jane’s exasperation, but then lost it somewhere sometime after arriving home.  I suspect sabotage.

With Covid restrictions set to ease in the forthcoming weeks, much interest has been revived in taking foreign holidays, though I cannot think why: to me, in terms of sheer pleasure, the pre-departure tests, the wearing of face masks on arrival abroad, and the hullaballoo after return to the UK all put it on par with a week spent day-running in a frigate from Portland. The government has helpfully labelled various countries using a traffic light system so that holidaymakers can make a sensible choice when it comes to destination, those labelled “green” involving minimum travel fuss and those labelled “red'” requiring expensive quarantine on return. In this list I was delighted to see that South Georgia, an almost uninhabited frozen rock in the South Atlantic, and the Faroe Islands, in the North Atlantic between Norway and Iceland, are included in the “green” category. As I have said many times before, we all get our pleasures in different ways. Personally, I have always found that a week spent in the bracing winds and refreshing waters of Marsden Bay, South Shields to be perfectly adequate for reviving the spirit and setting up the constitution.

The jet stream has shifted, yet again, and is currently wizzing west to east somewhere south of the British Isles. This has encouraged a depression in the North Atlantic and we are revelling (?) in what the UK Meteorological Office is pleased to call, “unsettled weather” ie it is, and will remain for the next seven days, wet and windy. So just guess where we are going next week? Right first time: we are off back to the boat in Dartmouth, gluttons for punishment. Whether we get away to sea or, for that matter, away from our berth remains to be seen, but I shall be reporting our adventures as usual in due course. It is interesting to note that the sale of boats – like that of houses – is going through the roof in the UK. I am not sure why, but I hope the new owners at least use the craft that they buy. I have been a boat owner now for 19 years and have berthed in nine boatyards or marinas in that time. Every marina has had one common factor: 95% of the boats therein never moved from their berth. This has always baffled me: quite apart from the depreciation, boats are very expensive to buy, expensive to moor and expensive to maintain, yet most owners seem content to let their boats just sit there, resting on their beer cans and gathering green mould. In one marina I was in there was a beautiful steel motor cruiser that I would have loved to have owned; in two years I only ever saw the owners onboard once, and that was to sit on the quarterdeck in the sunshine quaffing gin and tonic while the boat remained alongside. Some owners to whom I have spoken have admitted to lacking confidence in handling their boat, hence their permanent attachment to the jetty. Their reserve is sensible, but there are many courses available that can be taken under the banner of the Royal Yachting Association (RYA) to solve the problem. The cost of a course is but a fraction of the cost of the boat that has been purchased, and so would be good value for money. It is all very odd. Incidentally, there is no requirement in the UK to be qualified or have a licence to own or cox a boat: anyone can take a boat away from these shores (provided it is their property).

The task was an important one: to make a wooden bowl for a very good friend of ours, who was about to celebrate her birthday.  I do wood turning for a hobby so the task was not an onerous one, rather it was a pleasure to make something for a friend and it gave me a sense of purpose.  I had a nice chunk of steamed pear in my stock and I reasoned that it could be carved into a decent eight-inch bowl.  I duly mounted the raw material in the lathe and began the six-hour process of converting a piece of tree into a useful household artefact.  First it was turned into a fat cylinder, then I started the curves.  But there then emerged a snag: there was a crack through the wood.  So I turned the wood a bit more to cut out the crack and stopped to check: it was still there.  Round and round went the lathe, higher and higher grew the pile of wood shavings, and smaller and smaller grew the cylinder.  It started to dawn on me that I was in danger of converting a nine inch hunk of tree into a matchstick and enough bedding to house 101 hamsters.  A rethink was required. The diameter of the eight inch “bowl” was now down to four inches, but I reasoned that if I cut the cylinder in half, it would remove the cracked section.  I could then proceed to recover my losses and manufacture a bowl three inches in diameter and one inch high.  This I did. 
Arguably the most important part of bowl-making is the polished finish; certainly it is the hardest part and I was determined to make an especially good effort this time.  My friend is very keen on the all things Green and on the environment, so I set out to use only natural products. Painstakingly, I sanded the almost-finished product with the requisite seven grades of increasing fineness glass paper; I finished the wood with fine wire wool; I burnished it with a handful of wood shavings; finally, I polished the bowl to a high gloss shine using two coats of  beeswax from genuine Barsetshire bees and a woollen cloth from fleece sheared from a Welsh sheep.  I removed the finished, though somewhat diminished, product from the lathe and examined it:  yes, the damage limitation exercise had worked well and – though I thought it myself – the finish was perfect.  I took the bowl into the house for a rewarding cup of tea and my usual Two-Minute Praising from Jane.  Now, Jane is used to my bowls, indeed, the house is full of them: large bowls, small bowls, ornaments, candle holders, and all things round.  Yet every time I make a new one, Jane receives it with a radiant smile, boundless enthusiasm and fulsome praise before carefully placing the item on a shelf somewhere, like mummy thanking her child for that fourteenth jewellery box he made in infant school from an empty carton of Kraft Cheese Slices.  This time I entered the kitchen with my finished product wrapped in my apron, and revealed it with a modest flourish.
“Oh”, said Jane, peering at it under her spectacles as if it were some microscopic specimen from a murky pool, “It’s a bit small isn’t it?”
“Well, yes”, I said, somewhat surprised by the lukewarm reception. “I had to cut it down because of a crack.  But I’ve managed to recover the situation and look at the finish”.
“Yes, yes…”, she said distantly. ”And this was for Harriet on her birthday was it?”
“Yes.  Smell the beeswax.  You can almost see your face in it.  She should like it I think”. 
I eased it under her nose while noting, with some concern, her use of the past tense, first and third person singular word, “was”.
“Yes…”, she said again, “You don’t think…well…you don’t think, maybe, it looks a bit like…an ashtray?”.
“An ashtray!”.  
I confess, I was more bemused than upset.
“Yes”.  She then burst into a fit of giggles.  “It’s just the right size”.
“But look at the finish! The layers of beeswax.  The shine…”
“Yes dear, it’s very nice; beautifully made.  But I’m afraid it does rather look like an ashtray.  We can’t give Harriet that.  We’ll have to give her something else”.  
And she took the little bowl that now apparently doubled as an ashtray, and placed it on a shelf somewhere to join the others.
“It’s a jolly good bowl dear.  Well done.”
And she burst into giggles again.  
I sighed and my shoulders sagged. Oh well, back to the workshop then: I think I have a nice piece of Black American Walnut somewhere that I can turn off.  As I left the house I could hear Jane giggling again.  

I don’t suppose you know anyone who would like a beautifully hand-crafted and very highly-polished ashtray made from steamed pear, do you?

8 May 2021

Blog 90. More Tea, Vicar?

So that was Spring (I think).  Weeks and weeks of non-stop sunshine in April, nights a bit cool and the wind a bit fresh, but – on the whole – very promising; warm trousers, sweaters and shirts stowed away and Mrs S appearing with polished legs in skirts and sandals; and now it would appear that it is all over, and we have moved on to Winter without the inconvenient occurrence of Summer in between. 
A cry of, “It’s raining!”, the other evening initiated a child-like rush to the window to look at this new phenomenon, like toddlers looking at snow for the first time on Christmas Eve, only to result in a derisory snort and the comment of,
“That’s not rain.  Look at it! It’s barely wetting the ground”. 
Be that as it may, the honeymoon is over and we are back to grey days, rain (of sorts) and cold.  Jane is back in trousers and the central heating has been restored to its Winter temperature settings.  Apparently Britain is shaping up for having endured the coldest April since 1961 despite the sunshine, and the forecast is for more cold weather to come. Bank Holiday in England must surely be approaching.

Before all this, and in the final days of sunshine last week, we hosted a cream tea in the garden for our two friends who live in the Big City, and what a glorious pleasure that turned out to be.  Jane laid on cucumber sandwiches on white bread and smoked salmon sandwiches on wholemeal bread (crusts removed, naturally); there was home-baked fruit cake and home-baked lemon drizzle cake; and – finally – came the pièce de résistance: home-baked scones with clotted cream and home-made strawberry or plum jam.  The whole banquet was washed down by large quantities of Twinings English Strong Breakfast tea, served in our best Royal Doulton bone china tea set.  My goodness me: I bet you have put on two pounds just by reading all that; we, for our part, prepared for it all as best we could by eating a very small breakfast and skipping both luncheon and dinner on the day.  Of course, it was a shocking indulgence, quite shocking.  To think that the four of us just sat there and steadily demolished this vast calorie-laden treat while actually enjoying ourselves with sparkling conversation: surely we must have been breaking some law on the statute books that prevents any pleasure under the Covid regulations?  But we weren’t: there are no laws – at present – to prevent us from simply pigging out and talking, though I am sure the present government would introduce one if they got to hear about our gluttony.  Keep it to yourselves, eh?

The latest trivia in the press concerns the method of serving a cream tea.  Clearly, some members of the public are desperate for relief from the news of Covid, terrorism and All Things Bad.  The people of Cornwall are, allegedly, up in arms because of an advertisement by the supermarket chain, Sainsbury’s, depicting a scone served with, first, the clotted cream and then the strawberry jam on top of that.  This was, apparently, sacrilege and – worse – a Devonian way of serving a cream tea; clearly, say the Cornish, the scone should have the jam on first, with the clotted cream on top of that.  Social media was a hornet’s nest of complaints by the citizens of Curnow and Sainsbury’s was forced to apologise and withdraw the advertisement. Historically, cream tea, and clotted cream itself, were items that, at one time, you could only obtain in the West Country: you could not buy clotted cream in shops elsewhere, nor order the Full Monty at a café outside of Devonshire or Cornwall in the 1970s for example, though you could order Cornish or Devonshire clotted cream by post as a treat.  Personally, I have always put the jam on first, then the cream, not knowing that that was “the Cornish way”; I thought Devonians did the same thing.  I am not convinced that there is a right or wrong way to eat the stuff, but I now do wonder how the Queen eats hers.  And now for the next argument: are those scones pronounced, “sconns” or “scoans”?  I’m all for “sconns”, myself, and so is Jane, so it must be right.

Vying with the Great Cream Tea debate we have the ongoing saga of the Decoration of Boris’s Flat. The incumbent prime minister (PM) is provided with a grace-and-favour flat on the top floor of Number 10 Downing Street (though he or she still has to pay for utilities and the Council Tax). Since the days of Tony Blair, who had children, the practice has been for the PM to live in the (larger) flat above the Chancellor of the Exchequer’s house, Number 11, though this is now a bit odd as the current Chancellor has more children than the PM. Each PM is allocated £30,000 annually from public funds to decorate and furnish the flat to their personal taste. Boris’s fiancée, who lives with him, did not like the style of the flat when they moved in and so set about hiring an exclusive interior designer to revamp the place. The result, which looks like a cross between an Indian restaurant and a bordello, is alleged to have cost as much as £80,000 using wallpaper at £840 a roll. The row is about who paid for the work: the tax payer, the Conservative Party, a Party donor, or Boris himself? Ultimately, it would appear that the PM paid the bill, but the debate is about whether other agencies paid initially. My personal view is that the decoration and furnishing are a travesty of good taste and exceptionally poor value for money; I have not spent £30,000 in decorating my four-bedroomed detached house in all the time I have lived here, let alone in a year, so that amount seems awfully generous for a flat, whether Grade 2 Listed or not. I also have reservations regarding an unelected person, a consort who is not even the PM’s wife, having a say in expenditure on public property. However, if we, the public, or I, a Conservative Party member, did not pay for the work then the whole affair does not bother me greatly. The Electoral Commission is investigating the matter, however, and it could result in a serious fine or, indeed, man overboard. Incidentally, to put it all into context, the current Chancellor of the Exchequer, living in the smaller flat above No 10 with his wife and two children, refurnished and redecorated that apartment entirely at his own expense.

Coincidentally, this year is the 300th anniversary of the office of prime minister – the “first among equals”. The incumbent also holds the older title of First Lord of The Treasury, which is the title inscribed on the letterbox of No 10 Downing Street. Sir Robert Walpole is considered to be the first person to hold the title. The house as the official residence of the British prime minister stems from Walpole’s time, when King George II presented the property to Walpole personally, and the latter declined the gift in favour of it being the official residence and office for prime ministers in perpetuity. He moved in in 1730. The building originally was of somewhat gimcrack construction and it has had to be under-pinned, propped up or internally rebuilt several times since. At times the property was distinctly seedy and, over the years, not all prime ministers chose to live there; however it has been occupied by British prime ministers continuously since the start of the 20th century. The black exterior was initially thought to be original, but was later discovered to be of yellow brick, the black exterior being centuries of grime and soot. The present building façade has had to be painted black after cleaning in order to maintain the historic appearance. The prime minister’s flat is, of course, but a small part of a building that houses the principal offices of state of the United Kingdom. Internally, the building is much bigger than one would think, being interlinked with other buildings and the Cabinet Office in Whitehall. Happy anniversary (office of) prime minister, 1721 – 2021.

It’s all happening here.  Last week, in the nearby county of Wiltshire, a group of builders were excavating a garden in an old house in Heytesbury to build a soak-away to improve drainage, when they found some bones.  No problem with that, they thought: probably animal bones from when the garden used to be a field.  So they kept on digging – until they found a human skull.  Oh dear.  Much tumult and shouting ensued, followed by the arrival of Wiltshire Police diverted from their normal activity of investigating cattle rustling, badger baiting, turnip theft and illegal picnics during Covid.  More excavation revealed the remains of five people, two of them infants and it was all building up nicely into an episode of Midsomer Murders until the pathologist and archeologists had a look at the skeletons.  Panic over: they were old bones (phew!), probably from the 14th century (fascinating!), and almost certainly from an old plague pit, being victims of the Black Death (what!).  I understand the bones are being carbon dated to confirm their provenance, then I presume that they will be reburied somewhere in a suitably sensitive and religious manner.  Jane thought that they should just have been tossed back into the hole to form part of the soak-away and when I suggested that, perhaps, the house owners might not be too comfortable with that solution, she remarked,
“Well, the bones have been there for centuries.  Leaving them there a bit longer should be no problem”.
I worry about that woman sometimes.

Burials in private gardens are permitted in Britain provided due process is observed.  I am a bit dubious of the practice, myself, as I would have thought a grave in the garden would seriously deter buyers when you came to sell your house.  Jane and I were bimbling through the New Forest a few years ago and came across a lovely little village in the middle of nowhere.  We wandered through the village churchyard and stumbled (as we seem to have got into the habit of doing – Blog 85), entirely by chance, on the grave of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, creator of Sherlock Holmes.  The grave was well-tended by devotees, with fresh flowers, and a curved pipe in reference to his fictional detective.  I looked up the grave later, wondering what Doyle’s association with the village was, and found that he had died in Crowborough, East Sussex in 1930.  He was buried vertically in his own garden, next to his garden shed, such orientation being by his own request as a reference to his belief in Spiritualism.  About twenty years later, Doyle’s house was sold and his body was disinterred; one can imagine the innocent potential new house owners looking around the property with the estate agent and rubbing their hands,
“Oh, what a delightful house, and such a pretty garden.  By the way, what’s that mound of flowers and lump of masonry that looks like a headstone over by the shed…?”
Anyway, in the 1950s Doyle’s body was exhumed from Sussex and reinterred in the churchyard of Minstead in Hampshire, where we found the grave; this time the body was laid in the conventional horizontal position.  His wife was buried next to him, Minstead being her birthplace  The Church of England was a bit dubious about the reinterment, Doyle being a Spiritualist and therefore not, strictly, a Christian; the Church apparently compromised on its principles by burying him on the very edge of the churchyard.  It is amazing what you find when you bimble around a churchyard.

There is little to report on the Covid front in England.  Infections, deaths and hospital admissions are still dropping, and the inoculation programme is still going well (people in their early forties are now being called forward).  About two thirds of the UK adult population have now received at least their first vaccination.  The number of daily deaths is now so small, and the pattern so irregular, that it is easier and more scientific to examine only weekly deaths, which stand at 153.  In Barsetshire we have had no Covid-related deaths or hospital admissions for several weeks. The restrictions continue without change from the government’s plan, however: 17 May is the next milestone, when restaurants, pubs and other venues can open for indoor activity.  Jane and I are set to receive our second jab on Saturday at the racecourse on the edge of the Big City, completing our course of immunisation (though a booster to tackle virus variants has been mooted for September).  These final stages of the “Covid Emergence Plan” seem to be really dragging on, with (as I write) seventeen days to 17 May and fifty two very long interminable days to supposed lifting of all restrictions on 21 June.  I say “supposed” because this milestone does not include the removal of social distancing or the requirement to wear face coverings.  Some local councils have been recruiting “Covid Marshals” for work after July, implying that hired thugs, zealots and busybodies, oozing virtue and wearing fluorescent tabards, will be patrolling our streets armed with canes until next year at least.  Thank heavens I take a disinterested and even-handed view of this situation, that’s what I say.

It was a surprise, last week in Dartmouth, to encounter two policemen strolling along the Embankment.  I don’t think I have ever seen a policeman in Dartmouth before, but they seemed to be enjoying the sunshine and we gave them a puzzled smile and wished them a “Good Day”, which was reciprocated.  We crossed the road and, blow me, there were another three of them.  Clearly Devon and Cornwall Constabulary had decided to have an “away day” for the staff, or possibly there had been a lot of bloodshed in Roly’s Fudge Pantry earlier in the day; we were quite dumbfounded.  Later, however, we discovered the reason for the relatively heavy police presence: it was the Passing Out Parade at the BRITANNIA Royal Naval College and Boris, the Prime Minister, was in attendance. I thought the geographical link between five policemen on Dartmouth Embankment and Boris at the College, half way up the nearby hill, was a bit tenuous if something were to happen, but maybe the ceremony was over and the constabulary were enjoying a bit of down-time before returning to patrolling the fleshpots of Torquay.

It is always nice to see a policeman or, as I should now say these days, a police officer as, like our Armed Forces, women are fully integrated into the strength now.  Sadly, it is such a rare occurrence, particularly on foot.  I am old enough to remember a time when every bobby  had a beat and his ubiquitous presence, wearing his distinctive helmet, was always reassuring.  Moreover, the law was enforced quite rigorously: it was not uncommon to be woken up during the night, for example,  and told to switch on the parking lights of your car parked in the street (a requirement then) or for a boy on a bicycle to be stopped for riding on the pavement.  True, the response time to emergencies was probably not as good in the 1950s and 1960s as it is now: the police in the past had no personal radios or mobile phones and stayed in touch with the police station by means of carefully placed police telephone boxes, as seen in Dr Who.  Alarms were raised by whistle and each constable was armed with a truncheon.  It all makes you wonder how they managed, looking back, but there were – of course – more police officers on the strength then, and the public were, in general, more conformist and law-abiding.  Now, the policeman’s helmet has almost disappeared as headgear in England and most wear flat caps like they do in Scotland; the smart tunic has definitely disappeared and all officers are burdened with a heavy anti-stab vest and a utility belt bearing all manner of equipment from radio to pepper spray; the truncheon has become a telescopic baton, used quite effectively on the back of the leg of a resisting suspect.  Some specially trained officers in limited situations are armed too, either with pistols or Heckler & Koch assault rifles – a sign of the times; these officers always look sinister, like storm troopers from a Star Wars film.  I acknowledge that we have to move with the times and accept the result of risk assessment, but I do wonder why some police officers are allowed to look like criminals themselves: shaven heads and visible tattoos (and that is just on the women) appear to be common in some counties, if documentaries on the television are to be believed.  Fortunately, here in sleepy Barsetshire our police are still quite normal in appearance, and long may it remain so.  A job that was never easy is considerably harder in the 21st century because of the increasing freedoms that all democratic countries enjoy.  It is not a job I would care to do, and the police force has my respect accordingly.  Incidentally, we are no longer supposed to use the term “police force” any more; it is the “police service”, because the term force is considered too aggressive.  Too much money spent on PR there, and not enough on police on the streets if you ask me. A rose by any other name would smell as sweet.

The police in other countries seem to have a different relationship with their public than here in Britain, where our constables “police by consent”. A friend of mine told me, for example, that in France “the police are not your friend”, and I understand the constabulary are not popular in Australia either. My (civilian) boss in the Ministry of Defence was on a duty visit to Washington (in the USA, not Co Durham) many years ago and was kindly offered accommodation for the week in his host’s house. My boss was very partial to smoking cheroots, but it was an indulgence that he obviously could not enjoy in the house, so he went out into the street for a smoke and a stroll. When he came back indoors, his host said something like,
“Hello, where have you been? I didn’t hear you go out”.
“Oh, I’ve just been out for a smoke and a stroll”
“Oh God. You haven’t have you? We don’t do that here. The police will be around”.
Sure enough, five minutes later a squad car with flashing lights and whooping siren duly appeared in the street. A neighbour had reported a suspicious man prowling the neighbourhood and actually walking. I suppose on the plus side, my boss wasn’t shot and the Washington PD were very nice about it when all was explained to them, though he did hear one officer say, as he got back into his car,
“Crazy Limeys”.

Thinking of that comment about armed police officers made me reflect on the (inevitable) reservations we have for anyone armed with a gun, official or otherwise.  I remember my father telling me of an instance on his ship during WW2, when he was an Able Seaman.  The sailors at that time all slept and ate in the communal fo’c’sle and conditions were quite primitive.  Unlike sailors in the Royal Navy, Merchant Navy sailors did not sleep on hammocks, but their bedding was in some ways worse as it comprised a palliasse bought in the home port at the sailors’ own expense, and ditched at the end of a two or three-year voyage.  Heating in the fo’c’sle was provided by a single pot-bellied coke stove, personal hygiene was undertaken using a bucket filled with hot water from the galley, and food was transported across the upper deck from the same galley, often containing a generous quantity of seawater.  Paradoxically, the food was wholesome, usually well-cooked, and generous – the rations being laid down in law by the Board of Trade.  The quality of drinking water was not, however, always good.  Stored in a deep tank and pumped up by hand, often rationed, the drinking water could be rusty and barely potable.  It was the quality of the drinking water in a particular ship that led to the incident that my father described.  Several complaints had been made to the Mate and the Captain about the water but, seemingly, no improvement was forthcoming; perhaps the structural state of the ancient ship prevented anything useful from being done.  Anyway, a colleague of my father’s came offshore drunk one night and expressed the intention, in the fo’c’sle, of going to see the Captain to complain about the water there and then.  He stomped off to the midships accommodation, banged on the door of the cuddy, burst in, and belaboured the Captain in no uncertain terms, culminating in him punching the Captain in the face.  Help was summoned and the sailor was dragged off to sleep it off, appearing at Captain’s Table the next day for severe punishment (fined five shillings, I dare say).  You would think that this incident would have calmed things down, to have provided an opportunity for sober reflection in the fo’c’sle and consideration for an alternative way of doing things.  It was not to be, however.  At the next port, virtually the same thing happened: the same man came offshore drunk; he declared the intention of sorting out the Captain once and for all and duly stomped off again.  After that, however, things took a different turn.  The man reappeared in the fo’c’sle ten minutes later, as sober as a judge and shaking like a leaf.  Curious, the sailors asked him what had happened.  It transpired that he had marched over to the midships accommodation, banged on the cuddy door as before, and burst in – as before.  Then stopped.  Sitting at his desk in his swivel chair was the Captain.  He swung around to face the door and in his hand was a large revolver, pointing at the sailor.  He pulled back the hammer with a large audible click.
“Yes?”, he said.
“Nothing Captain”, said the sailor, and shot out backwards faster than he came in.
As Clint Eastwood says in that film, Dirty Harry, “Are you feeling lucky today?”  That sailor certainly wasn’t.

Having commented in Blog 89 on the exile of The Tomato Plant to the shed, I am sorry to have to report that my exultation was short lived: it has reappeared in the Garden Control Tower (aka the conservatory) and its dominant verdant presence now lurks in the corner as we eat breakfast.  I am not quite sure how I was persuaded, not only to permit this return from deportation, but to be a party to humping the damned thing in.  I think the cream tea we had last week may secretly have been part of the softening-up process.  Either way, the triffid is back indoors and cluttering up an already crowded Breakfast Room, the bamboo lounging chairs having been shoved into the other corner and being no longer available for lounging.  Asked for how long this anarchy would continue, Jane replied,
“Until it gets warm enough to put the plant outside”.
Here for the duration, then.

30 April 2021

Blog 89. Damned clever, these Chinese.

“And we jolly sailor boys were leaping up aloft, with the landlubbers lying down below”. Ahoy, landlubbers and shipmates: I’m back from the boat, wind-burned, weather beaten, bruised, aching in most joints, and smelling faintly of diesel oil. This last characteristic is a little odd, bearing in mind that conditions onboard are not so primitive as to prevent us from showering every day, which we do, and the boat is kept spic and span; but there it is: we come back home and cannot wait to have a full shower and change. This thing of cleanliness is an interesting one, as I have just read that the sales of soap and deodorant are less than in previous years and there is an inference that people are, well, simply not bathing or showering as much as they did, because of the malaise of lockdown. How disgusting. It doesn’t surprise me, however, judging from the mode of dress in the streets, with many people apparently wearing what they slept in (baby doll nightdresses excepted). What have we become when some people think it is acceptable not to wash and self discipline has been lost? When I was a little boy playing with lumps of coal as toys, my family did not have a bathroom: faces and hands were washed at the kitchen sink in cold water and the bath was a galvanised tin tub filled every Friday, by hand, with kettle-loads of water and taken in front of the coal fire in the living room (I cannot remember how the tub was emptied afterwards). We once stayed with my uncle in Westmorland (as it then was) and his house actually had a bathroom; I can still remember the delight in taking my first proper bath and diving under the water for the plug (I was a bit smaller than I am now). Having a shower on my father’s ship was a further novelty and delight. Yet here we are in the 21st century, with all the modern conveniences, and some people are so lazy that they allow themselves to marinade in their own filth just because they are working from home and don’t have to meet anyone. I don’t call that progress.

Anyway, we had a good time on the boat, which had survived the winter and her lay-up remarkably well.  There was no damp and there were no leaks.  The only odd thing was a plague of dead flies (or should that be a plague of flies which had subsequently died?), with corpses everywhere.  We only had to clean up Batch 2 – our friends in Dartmouth had already very kindly hoovered up Batch 1 for us while the boat was ashore.  The phenomenon was very odd and we had not experienced it in previous years though, when we used to stay in a self-catering holiday cottage very nearby, the fly problem was a known hazard probably associated with rotting seaweed on the river bank.  I do hope it does not re-occur, as we found the corpses in some very obscure places over the course of several days, and it was a ‘pain’ to clear them up. 

The weather was very good for the whole week, with blue skies and turquoise seas every day, and relatively mild winds. The only drawback was that it was very cold overnight, dropping to 0 degrees Centigrade on occasion, and the wind was bitterly cold. We normally get our weather from the south west, bringing with it soft refreshing rain; this last week, however, we had winds from the eastern sector, veering from north east to south. Jobs of one sort or another usually keep me busy onboard, but we ventured out to sea on Saturday and, in a fit of mad adventure, we decided to visit the six redundant cruise ships anchored in Tor Bay. Historically, Tor Bay has always been regarded as a safe anchorage and was often used as shelter in bad weather, for example by the Channel Fleet blockading France during the Napoleonic Wars. We have had the ambition to cross Tor Bay before, but have been beaten back by heavy swell. This time, we were determined to press on and, to our mutual surprise, we succeeded. We motored around to Brixham first of all and explored the harbour, then continued across the bay to Torquay, taking in – in passing – two Holland-America Line ships and a TUI cruise ship anchored quite close in to the shore. Both Holland-America ships looked quite forlorn and mildly neglected, not flying any colours though registered in Rotterdam. We did not enter Torquay harbour, but pressed on further east around Hope’s Nose to Hope Cove, where two P&O liners and (our particular interest) the Cunard cruise liner QUEEN VICTORIA were anchored. We had sailed in QUEEN VICTORIA for a short trip in 2018 (Blog 27) so we were familiar with her, though she did not occupy the same place in our hearts as QUEEN MARY 2, in which we had sailed to Australia and back (Blog 1 – Blog 26). Nevertheless, QUEEN VICTORIA was owned by Cunard and we quite like the company despite the fact that it is no longer British and calls cabins “staterooms”, so we made the effort to circle the ship, keeping well clear in accordance with a large faded banner on her side warning vessels to come no closer than 50 metres for security reasons. I am not sure what they thought the threat was or how they thought anyone could board the vessel, given her very high freeboard; perhaps they had heard rumours of pirates based in the the flesh pots of Brixham. Like the other anchored cruise ships, QUEEN VICTORIA did not look her best: her paint was faded, her hull was superficially rusty in parts and her superstructure looked in need of a good wash down and touch up. When you see these ships close-to in harbour, on a cruise, they are usually pristine; on the day of our visit the ship looked a bit careworn. I would have thought she would need to be dry-docked and given a quick re-paint before she was suitable to be seen in public again; the work needed was greater than could be achieved by putting a few hands over the side on stages. Circuit of the ship complete, we set course south and headed back to the Dart. I think the mistake we made in previous ‘long’ trips was in remaining outside and conning the boat from the upper helm. While pleasant in terms of the view, this position is noisy and, after a time, quite cold and distinctly wearing. Retiring to the wheelhouse, as we did on this trip, we found the noise to be much reduced and the atmosphere to be markedly warmer; Jane could lounge with her feet up on one of the settees, like Cleopatra entertaining her Mark Antony, while The Master did his manly thing in conning the vessel. The only snag was the poor visibility caused by the salt spray on the windscreen, the fact that the windscreen washers appeared not to have survived the winter (they were later found to have not been switched on at the master switch), and the fact that the windscreen wipers – rarely used – had disintegrated. But hey, who needs visibility in a boat steaming close to the craggy Devonshire coastline? We lived a little dangerously and survived. By the way, note my excellent use of the passive third person back there.

The coastline of Devonshire and Cornwall does have a very characteristic appearance.  It resembles the back of a dinosaur, with sharp craggy points, steep sloping cliffs with terrifying footpaths; further rocky outcrops emerge from the sea, as if some giant had tossed them there.  Here and there are beaches and coves, but – on the whole – the appearance is quite forbidding and you can well imagine how there have been so many wrecks around that coast.  I am very wary when navigating around the area.  The most frightening place I have ever visited (by land) in that regard was The Lizard, in Cornwall: the violent pounding sea foaming among the rocks sent a shiver down my spine.  Pity poor sailors on a stormy night around there.

The country has been in mourning all week following the sad death of HRH the Duke of Edinburgh on 9 April. We were flying our ensign at half-mast and it was my intention to honour the one minute’s silence prescribed for 1500. Entirely coincidentally, at that time we were entering the River Dart and passing abeam of Dartmouth and Kingswear Castles. I stopped the engines and removed my cap for the one minute, reflecting that it was here, in Dartmouth, that Philip – at that time, the Prince of Greece and Denmark – met Princess Elizabeth in 1939. They had first met briefly in 1934 when they were children, but the 1939 meeting was – apparently – the ‘clincher’ despite the fact that Princess Elizabeth was only 13. I very much admired and respected Prince Philip, not least for the fact that he was plain-speaking and a real (as opposed to an honorary) naval officer. As well as supporting The Queen for over 70 years, he had done much to modernise the royal household and a great deal for youth charities: the Duke of Edinburgh Award Scheme has been particularly successful in inspiring young people to strive towards excellence. He will be sadly missed though, at the age of 99, he was on borrowed time. Later, at home, on watching the recording of the funeral, we were deeply moved by the ceremony and felt so sorry for The Queen, masked and sitting alone and forlorn in St George’s Chapel at Windsor. Poor woman.

We did not manage to cruise up river to Totnes this time around, because the tides were not favourable. As I have mentioned before, it is possible to navigate up the River Dart all the way to the delightful market town of Totnes for a period three hours either side of High Water; unfortunately the river is too shallow for most boats outside of these times and it is not possible to remain alongside in the town at Low Water (unless the boat is suitable for taking the ground). The trip from Dartmouth to Totnes takes about an hour and the route takes you through the very scenic and picturesque Dart valley, the river twisting and turning on its way, but well-marked by navigation buoys. The villages and hamlets of Dittisham, Galmpton, Cornworthy, Stoke Gabriel and Duncannon are passed in the distance on the way, but mostly the scene is of verdant Devonshire fields and woodland. There are several places where you can just drop the anchor and relax in the tranquility: at Bow Creek, you can anchor and take a small dinghy up the creek to the village of Tuckenhay where The Malsters Arms nestles at the end (older British readers may remember the late TV chef Keith Floyd, who used to own the pub). There is a very good vineyard, Sharpham Estate, further up, that is worth a visit for its white wines though – alas – it is not possible to get alongside the estate quay in bigger boats (we visited it by car). Trip boats from Dartmouth do regular runs up to Totnes when the tide is right, and the voyage is worthwhile – particularly if part of a ‘Round Robin’ ticket which funds the boat trip up, a bus from Totnes to Paignton, the steam train from Paignton to Kingswear (across the river from Dartmouth), and then the ferry back to Dartmouth. The ticket is flexible and the trip can be taken in either direction. Another very good trip is an excursion on the River Dart paddle steamer, the KINGSWEAR CASTLE; this is brilliant, not only for its novelty and the steamer’s virtually silent operation, but also for the immaculate Edwardian internal fittings. Her engine and boiler were salvaged from the original vessel of that name in the early 1900s, and the wreck of her predecessor lies in the River Dart near Sharpham. We embarked on an evening trip in KINGSWEAR CASTLE a few years ago and thoroughly enjoyed it. I had a good chat with the Chief (and only) Engineer, a schoolboy who appeared to have just left the 6th Form and whose face went totally blank when I asked him about boiler feed water quality; and with the Master, in his mid twenties, who confided in me the difficulty of manoeuvring the paddle steamer because the paddles cannot be controlled independently and wash over the rudder is minimal. Details of trips are at https://www.dartmouthrailriver.co.uk and, no, I don’t get a commission for advertising – quite simply, the trips are very worthwhile and the commentaries knowledgeable. The Kingswear steam train, by the way, passes very close to our berth in the marina and chuffs its way past on a regular basis in season, heading for Greenway (the late Agatha Christie’s summer home), Churston and Paignton (where you can change and join the main railway line for London). Sometimes it feels like we are part of a Janet & John children’s book of the 1950s. We have done the steam train trip, but it is very expensive at £19.60 each, single; it is something you should do once, but probably not get into the habit of doing unless you have just won the lottery or are heavily into saturated steam and the Stephenson Link.

Summer has come: it is official.  I have started to bring out my cream and khaki trousers from the Winter Drawer to replace my thick corduroys and moleskins, and I will shortly be airing my short sleeved shirts.  As if further proof were needed, Jane has shed her vest and started doing things to her legs to complement the toenail varnishing reported in Blog 80; she appeared bare-legged at breakfast this morning and, clearly, the die has been cast.   April has been sunny every day and we have had no rain.  It is only a matter of time before some official or other declares a national drought and a ban on hosepipes.  Mind you, as mentioned in Paragraph 2, it has been distinctly chilly in the morning and it is quite cool in the shade; but the sun makes such a difference to one’s feeling of well-being.

Covid deaths are right down and bumping along the bottom – “in the noise” as electronics engineers  say, and typically less than 20.  Rates of death, hospital admissions and positive test outcomes are all falling, averaging 27% a week.  Our next milestone is 17 May, when we can mix indoors at home, in a pub, or restaurant.  Currently, we can eat or drink in a garden,  at a restaurant or at a pub provided it is outdoors, but having seen the cold wind blow napkins and other loose items off the tables on the embankment in Dartmouth I would suggest that al fresco dining is only for the determined or the hardy at present, and we won’t be doing it.

Now tell me, what is the point of cushions and candles?  What purpose do they serve?  The former clutter up chairs and sofas and prevent you from sitting down properly; the latter clutter up every horizontal surface and, paradoxically,  are never lit.  Why do women buy them?  Why are there so many cushion, candle and bric-a-brac shops around?  It is a complete mystery to me.

The plants have invaded the Garden Control Tower (aka the Conservatory or Breakfast Room) again, just like last year.  There are mini pots, trays, spillages of soil, and fruit flies everywhere. Jane waters them daily and coos over them on a regular basis, to the detriment of the attention given to me, the Master of the Household.  Protests have invoked defiance and insubordinate responses, and, until a few days ago, it looked like this mini Kew Gardens was here to stay.  A glimmer of sunshine, literally and figuratively, heralded the plant removal to the outside greenhouse, but my relief was short lived.  You see, Jane has bought a large tomato growing contraption from Lidl: basically it is a very large tub with a false bottom and an articulated framework reaching up to the skies.  She expressed the intention of filling it with compost, planting her tomatoes in it, and locating the huge thing in the corner of the Garden Control Tower.  She went through the motions of asking my views and when I said I wasn’t keen because of the lack of space and the potential mess, she took that as an approval.  I was promised that the incursion would only be for a short time, while her little red tomatoes were getting used to life in the open air.  Anyway, graceful in defeat (as ever), I offered the opinion that she would need help to move this heavy monstrosity into its new home and told her to let me know when she was ready.  I was upstairs doing something Very Important that evening when, from downstairs, I heard an almighty crash and an anguished cry of,
“OH MY GOD!  OH MY GOD! NO!  HE’LL KILL ME”
I shot downstairs, thinking that she had injured herself and there, in the conservatory, was Jane on her hands and knees with the tomato pot overturned on the tiled floor.  Soil and water were everywhere: up the walls, spattering the chairs, over the windows and over Jane  She had tried to bring the thing in herself and had failed in that endeavour.  I refrained from embarking on a lecture in Health and Safety, or on messy garden items being brought indoors – just about.  Strangely, she declined my help and I was told to clear off after the third paternal sigh and shake of the head.  An hour later, the mess had been cleared up and the tomato tub had been exiled to the garden shed, never to show itself in the Garden Control Tower again.  Triffids: they’ll never catch on.

I wrote, last time, about the wearing of ties and the general deterioration of sartorial standards among men.  This set me pondering again on the general theme of the message one sends by one’s choice of dress.  I recall the story of a rather pompous British businessman who visited his son in  Hong Kong when it was still a colony, and came back with the gift of a tie from his generous offspring.  He wore the tie proudly at several cocktail parties back in Britain and pontificated frequently about how successful he was as both a businessman and father.  The novelty of the tie was that it displayed one of those 3D images, viewable from different directions and the image was in bright Chinese characters; it was certainly very distinctive.  At one party, someone asked him about the unusual tie, which he took as an invitation to explain his son’s upbringing, his subsequent success in Asian business, and his own growing business empire.  Basically, he was a pompous ass on these occasions and asking for his balloon to be burst.  At last, New Hope arrived in the form of a fellow guest who spoke and read Mandarin.  Listening to the businessman’s lengthy explanation, he just smiled without comment.  Later, he confided to a friend,
“That guy doesn’t have a clue of the message he is sending to others”.
“Well, that could be true.  What specifically?”
“The writing on his tie”.
“Why, what does it say?”.
The Mandarin speaker whispered into his friend’s ear and invoked a mighty laugh.
The pompous businessman’s tie, with its novelty 3D image apparently said, after translation,

“My bum is a peach”.

I wonder if anyone ever told him?

23 April 2021

Blog 88. Come back dressed like an officer.

The first signs of a crumbling civilisation are beginning to show.  I refer not to the continuing open arrest of British citizens in their own country, nor to the compulsory wearing of face nappies on boats in Force 8 gales; not even to the riots in Bristol and Northern Ireland.  No, I refer to the decision by the up-market supermarket chain, Waitrose, no longer to  stock shoe polish.  Apparently the long period of lockdown, with many folk working from home, has meant people have stopped polishing their shoes and so the demand for Cherry Blossom has fallen away.  I am horrified.  Mind you, it is my experience, from wandering the towns and cities of our country, that few people outside the armed forces polished their shoes these days anyway: I have been appalled by the filthy shoes worn by some men, even on formal occasions such as with morning or evening dress; and as to wearing dirty white, orange or fluorescent plimsolls instead of proper shoes – well – I think my views have been well recorded here.  No, this is the beginning of the end – mark ye well – and I have directed the memsahib to buy up the last remaining tins of Cherry Blossom or Kiwi in black, tan and dark brown so that the stocks will see me out.  Dear, oh dear, oh dear. 

I have always polished my shoes from as far back as I can remember, but it was the Navy that introduced me to the concept of “bulling” shoes and boots: literally using spit and polish to produce a high-gloss finish.  There is something very calming and meditative in sitting there, bulling shoes and boots; it complements the philosophy of W H Davies in his poem,
 “What’s our life,
If full of care
You have no time
To stop and stare?”
I never did manage to achieve the perfect bulled finish on my boots and shoes in an entire naval career (and ‘no’, I did not have a steward to do it for me); I came close once or twice, but I always came in second.  At the BRITANNIA Royal Naval College, Dartmouth I overcame this problem by a useful Memorandum of Understanding with my best friend and cabin mate, Hand Major (Blog 67), who had developed expert skill at bulling, but zero skill at tying a bow tie:  he bulled my boots and shoes for weekly Divisions (parade) for me and I fastened his uniform black bow tie for him every evening.  Sadly the bubble burst on this cosy and very stable arrangement when the ratbag taught himself the art of bow tie fastening, a betrayal for which – frankly – I have never forgiven him.  Never mind.  As it stands today, I still bull my shoes on a regular basis and still with the second class result, but I draw comfort from the fact that even my shoes look outstanding in a sea of grubby footwear.  What is the world coming to, when the supply of shoe polish is allowed to dry up?

Thinking of that statement that I have always polished my shoes reminds me that I think I have always worn a tie too.  I was born at the age of 40, you see.  We still have a photograph of me at Junior School at the age of seven, sitting there cross-legged and wearing a tie with a rather smart tie pin (and, of course, wearing polished brown leather shoes).  We did not have a school uniform, but I recall being keen to present a good turn out.  At Dartmouth, the standard of dress was, naturally, very important at all times – whether in uniform or plain clothes.  A Cadet intending to go ashore (leave the College) in the evening – always in plain clothes – had to “excuse his rig” to the Duty Sub Lieutenant in the Gunroom at supper time, and might well be sent away and told to “…come back dressed properly as an officer”, such requirement implicitly including the wearing of a shirt, tie, flannels and jacket: naval “dog robbers”.  “Trainers” had not been invented then, but their exclusion from this ensemble would have been axiomatic, as was denim.  Before going ashore, we would be fallen in – still in plain clothes – and inspected again, a procedure known as “liberty boat”; we could not just pop out for a drink in the town at random: we had to become accustomed to going ashore at a set time as if catching a boat.  The practice, by the way, of excusing one’s rig from the senior officer present in uniform in the wardroom is a fine polite tradition that was still practised in the Fleet when I retired in 2002 (and I hope it still is); you might be a Commander, but you would still routinely excuse your rig on entering the Mess in plain clothes, even if the señor officer present in uniform were a mere Midshipman.  It would be a rash junior officer, however, who declined the request of a senior and invited him or her to go away and come back properly dressed. A dress code is usually laid down in all wardrooms, as it is in all military messes, and usually includes the requirement to wear a tie (for males, at least).  The exception in many wardrooms was that, for Afternoon Tea, one could dispense with the tie and jacket in the Mess if one wore a cravat or – paradoxically – wore sports rig.  I always found it odd that I could enter the Mess for tea and crumpet while wearing malodorous sweaty squash gear and gym shoes, but would be banned from entering with an open necked shirt, slacks and shoes.  I daresay all this sounds terribly Nöel Coward today and, even in uniform, we have discontinued the wearing of boiled and stiffly starched shirts, worn with wing collars and bow ties in the wardroom for dinner, so I would imagine plain clothes dress codes have advanced too.  However, the principle of smart dress in the Mess is still important in my opinion, and consider the dreadful alternative: I attended a reunion a few years ago and it was held in the wardroom of the naval shore base of HMS DRAKE in Devonport by kind agreement of the Mess President.  There we all stood wearing our suits and ties and clutching our drinks in the Wardroom Ante Room. A huge television blared away in the corner with the latest football match and a member of the wardroom came in wearing a tee shirt, tattoo, jeans and trainers; he ignored us, and flopped down on a bar stool with a pint of beer.  I thought for a moment that I had entered a Junior Ratings Messdeck by mistake, or possibly a four-ale bar in downtown Plymouth.  Excuse my rig?  No, go away and come back dressed like an officer.

There used to be a chain of gentlemen’s outfitters in Britain called Dunns: a very sound and dependable establishment with a good range of sensible clothing which, alas, closed for good some time ago.    It was a milestone in a man’s life when he, who once would have passed the shop window with nary a glance, would suddenly stop and say to himself,
“Hmmm, those trousers look quite smart…”. 
Well, Dunns is no longer with us, but I am conscious of having just crossed yet another milestone in maturity: I have subscribed to the The Oldie magazine.  I had considered it before, but had always rejected the idea because the very name implied senility on the part of a subscriber and I am – of course – permanently of the age of 40.  However, more and more often I would read  a well-written extract or article from The Oldie and think,
“Gosh, that is very wise and profound.  I must try that magazine”.
So now, as I approach the pinnacle of wisdom at the age of 70, I have acknowledged that I am officially Old.  Oh dear: no more Lego Technic sets for Christmas now, I suppose.

The UK weather is still mucking about, with the week starting at temperatures of up to 22C, but ending (as predicted) with snow showers, Arctic winds and freezing nights.  I actually wore a short-sleeved shirt the other day and basked in the sunshine; Jane was spotted wearing a skirt with no tights.  Now I am back wearing my thick shirt and seaman’s jersey, thick socks and insulated boots.  This does not bode well for our week’s stay on the boat next week and the memsahib is already muttering about wearing her furry insulated trousers, several vests and Fairisle sweaters, and that’s just in bed.  Twas ever thus.

On the Covid front in the UK it still blows hot and cold: admissions to hospital and deaths are right down and still dropping, and the vaccination programme is still running to time, but there is no intention of advancing the easing of restrictions; indeed – it would appear that I will still be wearing a face mask when snug in my coffin.  As I write, the number of hospital admissions in the UK in the last 24 hours stands at 248 (dropping 24% weekly) and deaths attributable to Covid at 20 (dropping at 45% weekly), this in a population of about 68 million people.  About 32 million people have received their first dose of vaccine (62% of the adult population), six million have received their second dose. The number of all deaths in England and Wales is below the 5-year average for the third week running.   There is much talk, still, of the concept of “Covid passports” – documents that prove that the bearer has been vaccinated – that might be used to enable the bearer to leave the country, enter clothes shops or be admitted to certain venues.  The pros and cons of such a document are being hotly debated.  I have no strong views either way, other than the fact that I would be in favour of a “Covid passport” if it allowed me to enter a shop or restaurant, travel on public transport, or stand in the open air on the Dartmouth Higher Ferry without being forced to wear a face covering.  As it stands, and as I have predicted before, it looks like we will be wearing these face nappies until next year at the earliest.  I hate face coverings; did you guess?

“So we are paying out £40 a year in order to be able to fly a flag?”
With astute logic, my wife had unswervingly homed in on the nub of the matter embarrassingly well, as usual. I shifted in my seat uncomfortably.
“Well yes. Sort of. But I do get to use mooring buoys in some harbours that no-one else can use. Also, I support naval sailing as a recreation”
“And how many times have we used their mooring buoys?”
“I can’t quite remember exactly”
“Approximately then”
“Errm…approximately none. But I might do in the future”
“Hmmm…”
We were discussing my membership of the Royal Naval Sailing Association, the RNSA, and the pros and cons of remaining a member. The only tangible pro is that, on my boat, I get to fly the club burgee with its august naval crown, and to fly the exclusive Blue Ensign rather than the ubiquitous Red Ensign of the British Merchant Marine. I have not actually “sailed” as such (as in “Ready about…: Lee-oh!”) since 1972 or thereabouts and, although the RNSA does welcome motor boat owners, the Association – for obvious reasons – is dominated by those who own ketches, yawls, catamarans, dinghies and sailboards. There is no club house and, although there is the occasional get-together, the social side of the Association – for me at any rate – is non-existent. I joined because I wanted literally to show the flag and promote the Royal Navy in my travels, to support recreational sailing (which I used to enjoy and which I feel should be encouraged in the navy) and – let me be honest here – for the élite privilege of flying the Blue Ensign: it is the Platinum Badge of nautical recreation, and I am a great one for striving to obtain Platinum Badges in all walks of life. But the memsahib had a point: £40 a year, though modest in the great scheme of things, is a relatively generous amount to shelve out for just flying a flag. No decision has been made on the matter, but the minutes of the meeting record that the item will be reviewed next January when the RNSA subscription comes up for renewal.

I mention the trivia of the RNSA subscription, above, because the subject of flying our national flag, was in our news a few weeks ago.  The British are not good on their national flag; they cannot even agree on what it is called: some insist on calling it the Union Flag, while others prefer the more universal and less clumsy, Union Jack.  Certainly, when it is flown on the bows of a Royal Navy warship that is moored, anchored or secured alongside it is referred to as the jack, and the staff it flies from is the jackstaff.  The flag is only worn when the ship is secure; it is never worn while under way except on special occasions such as HM The Queen’s Birthday, when moored warships are dressed overall. Some say that that is the only situation when the flag may be called the Union Jack; at all other times it is the Union Flag.  I have read the arguments on both sides of the debate (it was a long winter) and the general view from those in authority, such as the Flag Institute, is that the British national flag is called the Union Jack, and it was defined as such by the Admiralty in 1902 and by Parliament in 1908.  So there.  The Union Jack represents the Union: the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, combining the red-on-white St George Cross of England, the white-on-blue St Andrew saltire of Scotland and the red-on white St Patrick saltire of Ireland (pity about the Welsh, but their Principality was considered to be already part of England when the flag was invented in the 17th century).  Further controversy surrounds the flying of the Union Jack upside down.  This used to be a signal of distress, but with the ship on fire and sinking I cannot imagine someone taking the trouble to haul down the jack, reverse it, and re-hoist it again; in any case – very, very few people would notice the difference.  During WWII, a senior warship exchanged the following signals with a junior:
[Senior ship]: YOUR JACK IS UPSIDE DOWN.
[Junior Ship]: THIS IS HOW IT WAS RECEIVED FROM NAVAL STORES OFFICER PORTSMOUTH.
[Senior Ship]: SOME PEOPLE WOULD DRINK SULPHURIC ACID IF IT CAME IN A GIN BOTTLE.
The prominence of the Union Jack in the British press recently came about because a government Minister was interviewed on Zoom by the BBC and the journalists afterwards made snide mocking remarks because the minister had had a Union Jack displayed behind him on the screen.  Unlike the Americans, who are proud of their country and their flag, the British are embarrassed by patriotism or any overt reference to it, and this is particularly acute at present, with woke-ism, recriminations regarding slavery 300 years ago, and Empire denial being rife.  Very few houses in Britain fly a Union Jack and anyone who does so is considered mildly eccentric or retired military or both.  The snide remarks of the journalists reflected that stance to some extent but, more significantly, reflected the anti-establishment views so typical of the BBC today and that, I think, is why so many people were outraged by the remarks:  the annoyance was not about mocking the Union Jack, but mocking what it stood for.  My disgust with the BBC knows no bounds and the sooner we abolish the compulsory licence fee that funds the corporation, the better as far as I am concerned.  Also, the Director General of the BBC has been added to my List.

I conclude with some good news and some bad news.  Regular readers may recall that, in Blog 67, I posed the conundrum of which of your friends and relatives – if any – you would reward with a gift of money if you won the UK National or Euromillion Lottery.  The good new is that Jane and I have given the matter a considerable amount of thought and we have decided that, if we were to win £120 million, we would give £1 million to each of our friends (as a couple).  We might even be able to stretch to £50 for every reader.  There now.  Mind you, that is not quite as generous as you might think, because we actually don’t have that many friends (Jane makes them, I seem to lose them), nor all that many readers.  The definition of “friends”, as posed in Blog 67, is academic for I now have to give you the bad news: under UK tax law I can only give you a gift of £3,000 tax free in a tax year; anything over that amount would be taxable.  True, I could possibly give £3k each to Him and Her, and Jane the same, bringing the total gift to £12k for a couple (I must ask my financial adviser), but – alas – no million for you (or not unless you want to subsidise the United Kingdom to the tune of 40% of the value of the gift).  Oh yes, I forgot to mention also that the other problem is that we haven’t actually won £120 million yet.  Sorry about that, but it’s the thought that counts, isn’t it?

Gosh I feel magnanimous today: I am infused with a rosy glow after that gesture.

Hang on in there: not long to go now.  Well, not unless you live in Brazil or continental Europe.

9 April 2021

Blog 87. “Oh, to be in England now that April’s there…”

There cannot be many people who get up at 0500 just to visit a boat, but – heh – we have had no real excitement for five months, so this was a special occasion.  In its magnanimity, HM Government has permitted us to leave our local area as part of its relaxation of Covid regulations; just for the day mind – we mustn’t get carried away: we must be back by midnight or, to be strictly accurate, we must not put head to pillow anywhere other than on our own beds at home.  Jane and I wanted to make the most of our day onboard APPLETON RUM and we knew that travel to Dartmouth would take about 3½ hours each way, so rising at 0500 and leaving at 0600 seemed the optimum way to achieve our goal.  Of course, as the clocks had gone forward on Saturday, the start time of 0500 meant getting up in the dark, which did not prove to be a pleasant experience but, still, needs must.  Travel down to Dartmouth was prolonged more than usual by my cunning plan to take a different route to avoid delays on the main road into Torbay, the A380.  This road is busy at the best of times, but I had discovered that extensive road works on both carriageways were still on-going from last year (what has the Highways Agency been doing for the last six months?) and I had no wish to be stuck in a tailback for half an hour.  Instead, I had identified an alternative route into the Torbay peninsula using the A379, a narrow scenic route down the western side of the Exe estuary taking in the seaside towns of Starcross, Dawlish and Teignmouth and crossing into Torquay via a bridge over the River Teign; the distance would be the same and we could combine avoiding the hold-ups with a little sightseeing (these are the same towns that the main London – Penzance railway goes through, and I had always wanted to see what they were like from the road).  Oh dear.  I should have been warned by my own use of the adjective “scenic”: the detour was like stepping back 50 years.  Our first experience of memory lane came early, when we spurned the M5 motorway at Exeter and took, instead, what used to be the old A38 through the outskirts of the city.  There we sat in a traffic queue during Exeter’s morning rush hour, being overtaken by pedestrians and cyclists, and choking on lorry exhaust fumes: stop start, stop start…We eventually got through that and hit the open road (poop! poop! as Mr Toad would say) that led down the Exe estuary to the first port of call, Starcross.  This was more like it!  Devonshire as it used to be: beautiful scenery, blue sea, lovely little cottages, not much traffic…which was just as well as, in places, the road was so narrow that only one vehicle could get through, so there was a bit of stopping, shuffling or reversing.  Our initial euphoria lasted about as far as Dawlish, where the “quaint” road started to twist and turn in a series of sharp bends that would have done justice to the Monte Carlo Rally.  Speed dropped to less than 20 mph.  Through Teignmouth we crawled, in the wake of a huge lorry built in 2019 and trying to negotiate roads built in 1850. It was not pleasant. I think the novelty wore off in Dawlish Warren after I missed the turning for the main road and ended up on the truly scenic route, taking us past holiday parks, caravan sites and dreadful holiday architecture, with the sea view obscured by the railway embankment.  I remarked to Jane that I was baffled that the road was so difficult, for I used to take part in car rallies on these Devonshire roads in the early 1970s; but then it dawned on me that cars were so much smaller and narrower in those days – if you look at a 1960s Mini today it looks like something Grumpy or Sneezy might drive.  Also, we young men were totally invincible and fearless when we drove in our youth; maturity brings with it a sense of mortality.  At last, we escaped Teignmouth and crossed the River Teign (missed the turning again), emerging into the conurbation that is now called Torbay.  Tor Bay itself (the bay, as opposed to the conurbation) was dotted with cruise liners sitting out the epidemic at anchor and, among the many, we saw our old favourite QUEEN MARY 2.  It was lovely to see her again and it invoked fond memories of our lengthy voyage in 2017, but heaven knows if we will ever tread her decks again.  We treated ourselves to a battery recharge at Lidl in Torquay before weaving our way through the busy town, then Paignton, then Churston, then finally Kingswear, where the marina is.  I looked at my watch: what with the charging of the battery, the detours, the wrong turnings and the 20mph speed limits, it had taken us 4 ½ hours to get there.  We could have been in Newcastle in that time, and all to avoid the original roadworks on the A380  Ho hum: you win some you lose some.  Starcross, Dawlish, Dawlish Warren, Teignmouth: been there, didn’t buy the tee-shirts and, no, we won’t be going back, though thank you for asking.

The new floating marina at Noss was an absolute delight.  Gone were the rusty steel pontoons covered in red lead, ring bolts, chains, welded patches and trip hazards; instead we found a vast labyrinth of new wooden pontoons, decked out with discreet foot-lighting, neat electrical points and shiny new cleats.  The original bridge onto the pontoon from the hard used to be so steep at low tide that I had christened it the Death Slide, in reference to the hazard of trundling a fully loaded trolley down it, Jane hanging onto my belt with one hand and the guard rail with the other.  That had gone and had been replaced by a long, modern, bridge and a gentle incline.  We sought out our boat in the nest of masts: aha – there she was, in her roomy new berth, looking as smart as a new pin and just as shiny.  We boarded, not without a little trepidation as to what we would find inside after five months.  Do you know, she was in mint condition inside apart from a mass of fly corpses: there was no musty smell and no damp; the engines fired up first time, as did the onboard diesel heater.  I think APPLETON RUM was pleased to see us and welcome us back.  As to the day, the sun shone, the sky was blue and, despite the cool light breeze from the south, Jane and I sat on the quarterdeck sipping cups of coffee, just taking in the sheer enjoyment of being away from home and gazing at the rolling green hills and the busy riverscape once more. It was absolutely delightful.  So might the Count of Monte Christo have felt after his escape from the Château d’If.  I was tempted to take the boat out for a shakedown, but we had quite a bit to do by way of re-stowing our dunnage (which had been removed for the winter) and re-making the bunk in preparation for our return in mid April, when we would be permitted to stay overnight as part of the second relaxation stage of lockdown. Also, Jane forbade it in case the engines broke down (oh ye of little faith…).  Our local friends, Raymond and Carole, came down to see us and we spent a very pleasant hour in the sunshine, sharing a cup of coffee and some home-made lemon drizzle cake, which Carole had thoughtfully baked.  What a joy it was to meet our friends again and to hold a conversation without the assistance of Facetime.  Alas, what with the stowing, the bed making, the chatting and the fly corpse removal, it was soon time to set off back home again.  We took the direct route this time.  Despite the roadworks on the A380, we were back home again in three hours, and treated ourselves to fish and chips from the local chip shop (stuff the diet).  We crashed out early, utterly shattered after a sixteen hour day, but it was well worth it.

Pondering on that remark of, “ye of little faith” in the context of things mechanical, set me reflecting on 50 years of a career in engineering. Science still fascinates me. In my first boat, a narrowboat, I had fitted a diesel-powered hot water heater: a lovely bit of kit about the size of a shoe box that worked a treat onboard, except whenever I had completed my annual planned maintenance on it. To show its contempt for someone fiddling with its innards it invariably would resist starting for several attempts after these little interludes. I took along a very good friend of mine, who was also my Commander (E) in HMS NONSUCH, for moral and professional support once when trying to start the thing, but he could offer no suggestions as to what was wrong. On one occasion, we thought it prudent to retire to the other end of the jetty as the heater went through its start phase, the after end of the boat being completely obscured by white smoke.
“You know, Horatio”, he said, ”between us, we must have eighty years of extensive engineering education, training and experience. Yet all we can do with this thing is stand here and look at it”.
I thought it a very profound observation.
It is a source of infinite amazement and delight when an engine runs, a ship floats or an aircraft flies – particularly so when I happen to be onboard one of the last two vehicles. All those theorems and approximations actually work: fascinating. The hardest thing to overcome when flying, however, is pondering on the fatigue life of aluminium alloys when I watch that wing flapping, or on the centrifugal force exerted on turbine blades. Mechanical things that work are still a revelation to me but, you know, it’s not easy being an engineer.

You will have gathered that England has passed its first relaxation milestone (or is that a ‘step’ – I have lost touch with the current terminology?).  We can now leave our local area and can entertain in our back gardens (or on a picnic) in parties of up to six people – hence the adventure down to Devonshire for the day.  The next relaxation will be on 12 April, when folk can stay overnight in self-catering accommodation on holiday – though only as one household.  I use the name ‘England’ advisedly, by the way, for Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland still have their own timetable for emerging from close arrest, primarily in order to assert their own identities (“because we can…”). It is ridiculous that the UK is not tackling this epidemic as one country, or that we have started to refer to its component parts as “nations” as if they were a tribes of Arapaho, Comanche or Iroquois Red Indians, but that ship sailed long ago. Weekly UK deaths attributable to Covid remain below the level of the 5-year average for this time of year and are now negligible in comparison to deaths due to other causes. As I write, the statistics are: Covid deaths in the last 24 hours, 52 (dropping 38% weekly); hospital admissions 273 (dropping 24% weekly); first dose vaccinations given, 31.3 million (61% of the adult population), second dose given stands at 5 million (increasing exponentially).  There has been a brief hiatus in the vaccination rollout owing to supply problems, but we are assured that the programme is still running on time.  The European Union continues to threaten to ban exports of the vaccine and some of its officials have been thoroughly unpleasant in their comments regarding the UK’s progress with vaccinations as measured against the appalling roll-out on the Continent, which is suffering severely in a third wave of infections. Socially, the warm weather this week has combined with the minor relaxation on travel to produce parks and beauty spots full of people sunning themselves; this has brought on frowns of disapproval on the part of the authorities who, like Oliver Cromwell and his Puritans, disapprove of all pleasure, freedom and enjoyment. Public outdoor mixing may continue at Easter, though the weather forecast is for a return to chilly or even Arctic conditions: ah, the English Bank Holiday, you just can’t beat it for coming up trumps with the weather.  Last week, riots took place in Bristol, ironically initially starting as a demonstration against a new bill in Parliament that would give police the power to curb violent protests; notwithstanding the motive of the demonstrations, I believe the (ongoing) problem of unrest may be a symptom of something greater, namely the safety valve lifting after a year of being confined.    Britons are still banned from travelling overseas unless on official business, and face fines of up to £5,000 if they go anywhere near an airport. Oh, to be in England…

Drunk on our new-found limited freedom, Jane and I decided to visit Bath, my old stomping ground where I ended my naval career in the design division of the Ministry of Defence (Navy).  A city some 30 miles inland from the sea may seem an odd choice as the location for designing and supporting ships of the Royal Navy, but it stems from World War II, when the Admiralty (as it then was) moved the naval design departments out of London to avoid the bombing.  Several hotels and buildings in Bath were commandeered for “the duration”, and many a warship was designed in the bathroom of a Georgian hotel in the city.  After the war, the departments remained in Bath: some in dedicated “temporary” single-storey hutments at Combe Down, Lansdown and Warminster Road, and some still in commercial buildings or hotels.  The Empire Hotel, in the centre of Bath overlooking the scenic weir on the River Avon, was still in MOD ownership as late as the 1990s before being sold and converted into a very expensive set of exclusive flats (my memory was that the building was falling apart when still in MOD ownership, with several areas closed off for safety reasons).  As the Royal Navy shrank, so the infrastructure to design and support the Fleet shrank with it and, gradually in the 1980s and 90s, the MOD offices in the city returned to commercial ownership.  The MOD began to move out of Bath towards the end of the 20th century in favour of a huge purpose-built complex on the outskirts of Bristol, and finally left the city entirely in the early part of this century.  The “temporary” hutments at Combe Down, Warminster Road and Lansdown were demolished, and the sites have now been sold for housing.  The site at Combe Down, known as Foxhill, was where I was based several times and I have very fond memories of working there. It was idyllic: pleasant, semi-rural, plenty of parking and an easy commute from my lodgings in Wiltshire.  I rather suspect that the good burghers of Bath did not realise the extent to which there was an MOD and Royal Navy presence in their city until 1998; in that year, the Chief of the Defence Staff decreed that all military personnel working in MOD establishments should “show the flag” and wear uniform when on duty (before that we were required to work in plain clothes in a civilian environment).  A rash of blue uniforms and white caps appeared all over Bath: officers shopping in their lunch hour, visiting cafés and relaxing on park benches.  I heard at least one citizen wondering how they had managed to get a warship so far up the River Avon.  And now the Navy has gone.

Jane and I had not been in Bath for quite some time and thought that a walk around its beautiful Georgian streets would be a nice change after walking round the muddy countryside, but first we had to get there: we were amazed to find a main trunk road, the A365, completely closed off in Wiltshire and were forced to divert down country roads that we had not driven on for many a year.  More road works followed as we took a Cook’s tour of the county of Wiltshire, but we eventually staggered into Bath after a journey that took more than twice as long as it used to.  We found the city to be surprisingly busy, bearing in mind the present situation: the sun had brought out the inhabitants en masse and the parks were full with people picnicking, playing tennis, or simply revelling in the mild weather.  Bath was as beautiful as ever, and we took great delight in walking down the familiar boulevard of Great Pulteney Street, with its fine Georgian buildings and wide pavements, and across Pulteney Bridge with its mixture of shops and cafés (alas shut).  There was a distinct lack of the usual hordes of tourists, but there was a plethora of schoolchildren, the schools having only just broken up for Easter that afternoon.  Of course, all the shops were shut and boarded up, which rather took the edge off our enjoyment.  We walked through the covered market – normally a thriving microcosm of mixed retail activity – and found only a hardware shop and a cheese shop open; everywhere else had tarpaulins across the counters or shop openings.  Here and there graffiti had increased its desecration and the overall impact of everything being shut almost projected an image of a city abandoned to the Morlocks.  Paradoxically, incredibly perhaps, the traffic wardens were still in evidence and the city council was still charging the princely sum of £2 to enter the exclusive Parade Gardens: the city not quite dead yet, then.  I read somewhere that Bath has become the first city in the UK outside London to introduce Clean Air Zones, with a charge imposed on certain polluting commercial vehicles (private cars are exempt); that will be interesting, as I wonder how it will affect the residents and shops taking deliveries.  I believe a day curfew on commercial vehicles was imposed in Ancient Rome, so how very appropriate that Bath should follow suit 2,000 years later.  Certain pedestrian zones have been created too, but that should not be problem to us as – from memory – driving in inner Bath was always rather difficult anyway; we always used the Park and Ride when visiting.  Notwithstanding the closed shops, art galleries, cafés and Abbey, we still enjoyed our stroll through Bath, revisiting familiar areas and noting changes from our last visit, but it soon became apparent that the cold front predicted by the meteorologists was on its way: the wind had veered to the north and – insidiously at first – began to make itself felt. By the end of our stroll we were marching at a swift and determined pace back in the direction of the car, which we had parked on the outskirts of the city.  A swift return home (by an alternative route) followed, and we were finally able to sit down in our Drawing Room, exhausted yet cosy, and take onboard a hot-crossed bun and a nice sensible cup of tea.  Such an exciting day.

Well, my new waistcoat came (Blog 86) and I am absolutely delighted with it.  It cost a few bob, but the expense was well worth it for the quality of workmanship and cloth, both originating in the UK instead of the Far East.  Our industry needs all the help it can get at the moment and I am happy to support it when I can.  I don’t know about you, but we have saved quite a bit during this epidemic through not dining out, not going to the theatre, not going on holiday, or not entertaining at home.  There is a lot of scope for boat improvement there, but I haven’t mentioned it to Jane as we haven’t received the last bill from our shipwright yet.  If you do not own a boat, then let me advise you that such a possession will give you a lot of pleasure, but take note of the acronym BOAT: Bring On Another Thousand.  Alternatively, restrict your ambitions to the variety that fits into a bath tub.

Now whatever happened to the OHMS brown envelope?  For the benefit of any non-British readers I should explain that OHMS stands for On Her Majesty’s Service and communications from HM government always came in a brown envelope with OHMS written across the top.  You never see these letters now, and I missed the demise, whenever it happened.  Such communication was rarely good news as, in my experience, it usually presaged a tax demand from HM Inspector of Taxes (as it then was) or took the form of that naval precursor of disturbance, the Appointment Letter from the Director of Naval Officers’ Appointments.  Unlike officers of the Army and RAF, who are posted to new jobs (though not in a brown envelope unless you count those in an army uniform), Royal Navy officers are appointed.  Since the time of Nelson, naval officers have had a degree of say in where they will go for the next job and – theoretically – can decline a certain appointment in favour of another, though such behaviour could well damage their career if exercised rashly (see my later paragraph).  The wise naval officer always researched the best appointments coming up before discussing his or her future with their Appointer so that a fruitful two-way exchange of ideas could take place, the needs of the Service always taking priority in the final outcome.  I always remember a friend of mine telling me that his Appointer had offered him the job of Dock Master of the floating dock at Faslane, in Scotland.  When my friend declined the job (I cannot imagine why), the Appointer remarked (in the manner of a used car salesman),
“It’s a good job…”,
to which my friend replied,
“Then you won’t have any difficulty in filling it, will you?”. 

Alas, the two way exchange and flexibility in the naval appointment process has not always been universally applied and, since the days of Admiral Byng (court-martialled and shot on his own quarterdeck for failing to stop the French from taking Minorca in 1757) the Royal Navy has been known to exact a harsh revenge on those who buck the system.  By the end of WWII, submarine commander Lieutenant Commander Alastair Mars DSO DSC and Bar Royal Navy was exhausted and bankrupt after six long years of war, based in the Mediterranean and the Far East.  He hoped for a spell ashore, or at least based near his home in Scotland, in order to sort out his personal affairs but – instead – was sent on the Staff Course in London.  Still having difficulty in managing on his naval pay (which was, at that time, very poor), he was then seconded to the New Zealand Navy for service in a cruiser.  Service in Hong Kong, followed.  Several times he tried to resign or retire, but his applications were refused.  I should, perhaps, explain that in those days (and when I served up to 2002) a naval officer could not resign his commission like you read in books or see in films (I cannot comment on the other two services); he could apply to retire, but approval was not guaranteed and there was no formal notice period laid down: release could be any time between 6 and 15 months, depending on Service needs, and that made obtaining a civilian job difficult (ratings could leave the Navy with 18 months notice which, although lengthy by civilian standards, at least gave them a firm release date).  Nowadays officers are on contracts with mutual decision points throughout their career, but then it was different.  Mentally exhausted and virtually destitute, with his wife ill, unable to resign or retire, Mars hit on the idea that he should simply decline his next appointment.  He also decided that the standard naval Appointment Letter that directed him to a new job was not, in fact, an order as defined by the Naval Discipline Act.  The Appointment Letter was invariably of the form,
“Sir, I am directed to inform you that the Admiralty Board have appointed you to Her Majesty’s Ship NONSUCH [or whatever] in the rank of …..You are to report for duty on….”
and it would end with a mimeographed signature of some civil servant or other; it was not signed by a Superior Officer as  defined by Queen’s Regulations for the Royal Navy.  For that reason, Mars decided that an Appointment Letter was not a formal order.  When he was duly appointed to a naval shore establishment in Portsmouth in 1952 (which he had declined), he decided that he simply would not go and he sat at home waiting to see what would happen.  After a few days, a police van drew up outside his flat and out stepped a policeman and two Lieutenant Commanders – the Naval Provosts-Marshal for Portsmouth and London – in full uniform, black gaiters and boots.  They arrested Mars for being absent without leave then, later, charged him with wilful disobedience.  To cut a long story short, he was tried by court martial onboard Nelson’s flagship, HMS VICTORY, found guilty, and dismissed the Service.  The national newspapers were up in arms about the treatment of this highly decorated submarine ace, and questions were asked in Parliament, but that cut no ice with their Lordships and the later Appeal was dismissed out of hand.  Still, as his solicitor pointed out at the time, Mars had at least managed to get out of the Navy.  Mars’ story is told in his autobiography, Court Martial, published by Frederick Muller Ltd in 1954. The moral of the story is that, yes, you as a naval officer can decline your appointment, but it is best not to push your luck.  Commander Mars died in 1985. Things are so much better now – I would assume that their Lordships learnt something from the experience.

2 April 2021