Beautiful
day out with my wife, daughter and the grand kids. Lunch at a café under the
railway arches in Southsea on the Hard. Bit dubious about eating here because
the sign on the wall didn’t look very welcoming for vegetarians. Noticed myself
not being able to read the menu very well. I think it was because I expected everything
to be burgers, so I was kind of distracted. As I settled a little, several
veggie options came into focus. They had been there all the time but my mind
wouldn’t see them. And it was a great lunch enjoyed by all, with the added
dimension of the low roar and bumpy vibrations of the trains going overhead!
Afterwards,
me and the kids went to the dockyard on the water in a little electric ‘nee-naw’
boat. My grandson calls anything with a flashing blue light a nee-naw, and this
was a Police boat. There was a wheel to steer and a switch to control the speed
of the engine and a switch for the light. Both kids wanted to steer, and I said
I would see how it went and then they could have a go. There were several other
little boats in the water basin, mostly being driven by grown-ups. It was
interesting! I felt pretty confident as we set off. ‘Steer….. steady, straight,
straight, steady, steady …….’turning a little’….. ‘out of control; out of
control’……‘Steer….. steady, straight, straight, steady, steady……‘ ‘turning a
little…… ‘out of control; out of control’. That’s how it went!! You had to have
the experience of a seasoned sea captain of a huge ocean-going tanker to be
able to anticipate what would actually happen when you steered a little to the left
or a little to the right, or put on or took off any speed or cut the engine
altogether. Oh and we did have reverse too, but we never tried reverse—everything
was a bit too hectic and too complicated for that.
On my own—he says
confidently—I’m sure I could have mastered it with some panache pretty quickly,
but with an 8 and a 2 and half year old, it was a little tricky to say the
least. Trying to avoid going into a wall or another family boat, or a buoy or a
blow-up tunnel was fun though—especially when we bumped into the lighthouse—they
thought that was hilarious. ‘Let me have a go Gaga!’, says Romily.’ ‘Let Romily
have a go’, says me to Dexter. ‘No!!’ says Dexter, ‘Don’t want to!’…… ‘OK then…..’After
a while, I went aft as it were, and got an agreement that we could work together
as a crew. Romily moved the engine lever up and down by clicks, and Dexter held
the wheel, with me trying to anticipate and turn it when we needed to. 
Amazingly, there were no upsets—I was
very mindful of the potential for upsets, and tried as best I could to prevent
things from kicking-off (and I didn’t get upset once!).
What I noticed mostly
was the strong urge I had to want to control everything and just do it all…… and
letting go of that, so I had the space to be mindful, and so they could see
what would happen when they did something or forgot to do things…. And I didn’t
turn it into a lesson either—it was just a bit of fun. We did get pretty smooth
running in the end and anyhow, now we’ve got our sea legs, I think we’ll do it
again! It is great fun and there is a lot to be mindful of in quite an amusing
way.
