la Foret - new home

The weather is off. Can't complain I suppose. It is November - the saddest month, they say hereabouts - but The Promise is settled in her new home for the winter, snug from Biscay's temperamental outbursts in the spacious marina at la Foret. There is a lot of plastic to camouflage our old woodwork but we still get admiring remarks from passers by on the footpath that winds up the river, over the lock sluices, past the golf club and into town. I've been here before but not so late in the year. The estuaries are placid in summer, drying out to flat sandiness and green with weeds, whereas now a dull muddy pallor over paints the landscape. trees are bare, save the pinewoods, and the light is low and shy. There is much to entertain though, restaurants and bars, lots to see and places to visit. I got myself a bike, real roadworthy one as opposed to one of those shiny yachty folding types and consequently can venture a bit further afield. I have to hoik it onboard as the captainerie advises petty theft is not unknown, especially by northern Europeans, Germans and Dutch. Strange when you'd think they had enough of their own. Under a cheap tarp' the bike resides quietly as I await a break in the weather.

It's damp now, 50% chance of rain but not cold. No frost to nip the fingers and harden the halyards. No ice in the lockers either. Cold is a damned thing. Canvas solidifies, as do ropes of all fibres. Handles stick to buckets and anything left in the bucket adheres to it with alacrity. The crew have abandoned me for the time. Off to Paris for the sights, as one has never been and is a bit of an artist. Its hard to recollect them scampering about all tanned as their lanky forms are now swathed in layers of polartech under their la Glazic smocks. The other was a dab hand in the galley too. Her clafoutis was a custardy triumph and my whiskey will miss the cold leftover slices.

Ah me. The boat is mine own for as long as they take, if they return at all. I've given the batteries a charge so I can curl up later with a decent book - Peter Pye's excellent omnibus - and put a little Elgar on the tiny stereo. If I don't end in tears it will be a miracle.

When I was a lad, I was introduced to the classics by an old man on a wandering yacht. It happened to be Grieg's piano concerto but ever since the sound of the open sea and full orchestra have been inseparable. He ended up on a reef in the caribbean but his influence lingers on. Funny how a chance meeting over fifty years ago can make such a difference on your life. Someone said something like give me a child until he is seven and I will give you the man. I know many people blessed and cursed by that one. Enough philosophy, the kettle is beginning to hum, lamps need to be lit and distant calls of farewell can be heard about the boatyards. Time for tea.