Dug out some old notes from the boat yard. Always meant to write them up but sorta like how they tumble about like a bad dream.
“Nights indistinguishable from days - the water has eroded the boundary. It used to be that my days were water-free, then at night I’d have the rust dreams, now I still have the dreams but my days are the same. Perfect entropy: water up the D-Bar, across the bad weld, into the boat and straight into my sleeping skull. Today we sat around the bleeding heart that is my three cylinder lister engine and tried to work out which of the gaskets had blown. Then someone brought up the topic of rust again and we went with that. I think we all knew we were really talking about death because Clacton Mick said he’s heading for the ‘dirt sleep’ - his lungs are on the way out (“when did I have that scan Russ?” “Bout two weeks ago Mick"). Sacrificial Mike’s heading to Hertford (“I’m on the H2H mate”). Can’t remember why we call him that. Only 4 miles but he doesn’t want to go. Always pushing upriver. He’s on/off with Kay. One night the storms were brewing, you could see the thunderheads on the horizon and you just knew they were about to have a massive argument… it always went with the weather. We’ve seen it before so everyone headed in early and sure enough 3am came and Mike was screaming… chucking stuff out of their boat and into the yard. Had moored next to them during lockdown but didn’t know them. He told me he’s so glad he chose this side of the river “that side is a trap” (that was the side with mortgages).. He moans about boats by day, but counts his blessings by night. I prefer him when the sun’s gone down. Pau the welderl: “I give up on boats. Doesn’t know how this didn’t sink.” We raised the gas locker holes. Why the hell are they down there? Just like the nightmare. List before. List after. Unknown unknowns. Why did I even bother making a list? Have I learnt nothing?? I really should just have gone there and said well let’s see what awfulness I discover when I poke around a bit. Another feller been hanging around, think I met him in the chandlery “Call me Moose, everyone does.” I went around asking for Moose who had the keys to the warehouse so I could lock up the pressure washer. “Moose? Moose? No one here by the name of Moose.” Apparently he’s called Dave. No one’s ever called him Moose. I found out today he steam-cooked his foot with a hot pressure washer and had to go to hospital. Oucha.”