I held a pigeon. A real life, fell-out-of-a-tree-wing-broken-pigeon. Scarier than holding a chicken, probably because I couldn't picture it in a bucket of KFC. Discovered 'goose grass' when Dan threw it at me. Forget Velcro, goose grass will stick to anything. Took 5 minutes to pick the damn stuff off of me. Saw three species of butterflies - Cabbage White, Tortoise Shell and Common Brown. And cows. Walking burgers from hell.
Dan's nephew called. He's 74. He asked is he's still with the 'dark girl'. That's one way of putting it. I've had this conversation a thousand times in 5 days. Black is an acceptable term. Stop calling me dark or coloured. I'm not black either, but explaining mixed race. Impossible.
More nature, and I'm getting less scared of it too. Saw damselflies, demoiselles and the dreaded dragonflies [still scared of those]. Really calming to watch skiting over the water.
We cruised up the river and I got to drive the boat! It was freaking awesome! I even got to sound the fog horn, even though there was no fog. One annoying thing about being on a boat, you must wave to passing boats, fishermen and people walking on the shore. After 2 hours I asked Dan to make me a hand, attached to a stick, with a lever. Never waved so much in my life. Boats drive on the wrong side of the river to cars. And you must give way to sail boats, even though most are arrogant and won't say thank-you. They tack up the river, zig-zagging like lunatics to travel 5 metres. Watching them duck under and pull the sail round is entertaining, but then it begs the question - why bother?
I'm apparently the best thing since sliced bread. The compliments are flowing faster than the river. And now to discuss swans. Giant white beasts of doom. They approach the boat, waiting for bread. Then they see the dog and they start hissing and 'standing up' in the water. Ummm, piss off. You came up to the boat. The dog was here first. Dan throws water on them and they leave. Horrible, horrible things. Weird that a lake bird doesn't like water. But good to know.
After getting bored of being the skipper [driver], I asked Dan to teach me some knots. I learnt the bowline, fisherman's, climbing, and the slip knot. He kept getting annoyed at me because I kept doing it the wrong way, but the end result was the same, and he couldn't understand it. He's another person, that's commented on my use of my left hand. I don't realise that I use it so often, but apparently I'm slightly ambidextrous. After testing my left hand writing ability, and his inability to even write his name, he was convinced I was a freak.
We arrived back on the boat yard and I hopped off to see Reg. First thing he said to me, was that I've been two timing him with Dan. Jesus merciful tuna. Who knew old men were so insecure. When I was gone people were talking about me helping to paint Paul's boat. Reg told them that I know what I'm doing, and I'm a practical young girl. He told them that he let me wire up the batteries on his boat. The others were shocked. Reg's response. "If she can't attach the black wire to the black wire, and the red wire to the red wire, we should put the bitch down". I love that man. If he wasn't 73 I'd have married him.
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