A watched kettle boils problematically
the wisdom of the ages has come upon me. Last sesh, you'll recall, in all humility i offered words to live by. This time, more sage epigrammatry. The title refers not only to our physical kettle, the little bastard, which keeps tripping fuses and leaving us in the dark, but also to metaphysical, noumenal kettles. Kettles in their ur-state, if you will.
Ok, alright. Y'know how when you're just being a twit, with nary a clue as to what you're doing? Turns out it can be ok, as you dont know what probs might crop up, so you go merrily on without much anxiety. Later, if a prob does occur, at least in the lead up to it there's been no psychic damage. Then you deal with the prob.
Tootling along
But when you start to become aware of potential problems, worries set in. So yesterday, we're tootling along in the boat, just leaving liege, and i notice the engine is overheating. This is the kind of thing last year wouldnt even have occurred to me to check for. So we stop to let her cool down, check oil levels etc -the overnight expert!- and then proceed cautiously. Happens again, so we park in a less than optimum place, then i remember to check for water in the cooling tank. Nearly empty, so i fill her up and everything seems fine.
But you get the drift? This is the kind of stuff i wouldnt have even been aware of before, and would have ignored. Ultimately healthier, because as it is, every step of the way i've become worried about every eventuality.
Self-fulfilling prophecy
Hence the connection to kettles, geddit? A watched kettle, a watched boat. So, having read jung on the concept of synchronicity this morning -oh the ideal life, scholarship in the morning, manly stuff in the afternoon, dithering in the evening and maybe watching de telly- where he talks about how the pshyche can have some effects on the physical world, later events were sadly inevitable. so i'm all but saying to dawn, there's gonna be more friggin problems, i can feel it in me water, and the engine starts banging and thumping like a, like a,... like a bollocks! We have to nose her in gently to the side and hold her tight while the big tankers are going by and try to stop her nudging rocks. A dutch couple gave us a tow to a nearby marina, where we are now. Mechanic due tomorrow.
Non-menopausal vessel
So this unduly quick followup post is therapy i suppose, cos i'm starting to have real doubts about the merits of this. Its a 40 or 50 year old engine, vastly underused for a decade, and its being asked to make the biggest trip of its life, mostly against the current. Its barely ever gone more than 200 kms without a problem, large or small. Wheres its desire to defy middle age, strike out for territories new? Wheres its attempt to fit into a pair of tight, buttock-clenching, waist-constricting, faded and torn denim slacks? Its not there, thats where!
Anyway, tomorrow we'll find out if its a solveable problem, or if the engine has finally given up the ghost. If its gone, thats very very very costly. We're discussing contingencies. We might get it trucked to paris, depending on price, and set her up to rent out there. It'd still be a good size live abord, so thats feasible. Later we could equip with an outboard as a runaround, no prob. So theres still possibilities. But it'll all cost.
If the engines ok, thank god, but still. Do we really want to go from one calamity to the next? Maybe we'll get her trucked anyway. What we lose on that, some of it we'll recoup on not having to buy fuel. So that might be the way to go, but its all up in the air.
It was nothing, really...
Just like me! You'll appreciate the completely unforced segue when i tell of the second dunking i just had in the meuse. We're doing our usual incompetent rope work prior to a lock, not helped at all by the crap positioning of bollards in belgium, and i have to hold on to two ropes. As dawn had advised me, i should have had them tied, but anyway, i'm relying on them for my balance, and the rest is easily-guessed history. So i have a moment when i think i can salvage the situation, pure panic, but the second i realise i'm going to go, no two ways about it, completely calm. Ever get that? So in freefall i remember thinking -and i do mean a complete thought process, compressed into about an eighth of a second- the fall will just take me down a metre and then i'll surface and climb back in. Sounds simple, unremarkable, but its deep, dark choppy water. Anyway, it was indeed simple. Plus i get to do the unfazed heroic thing, ample cover for the preceding idiocy.
Anyway, this ones been therapy for me, very unsure how things are gonna pan out now. What about someone else saying something?
Ps dawn says it was all her fault. She's a trooper!
'Largely' her fault
Correction, 'largely' her fault.
the wisdom of the ages has come upon me. Last sesh, you'll recall, in all humility i offered words to live by. This time, more sage epigrammatry. The title refers not only to our physical kettle, the little bastard, which keeps tripping fuses and leaving us in the dark, but also to metaphysical, noumenal kettles. Kettles in their ur-state, if you will.
Ok, alright. Y'know how when you're just being a twit, with nary a clue as to what you're doing? Turns out it can be ok, as you dont know what probs might crop up, so you go merrily on without much anxiety. Later, if a prob does occur, at least in the lead up to it there's been no psychic damage. Then you deal with the prob.
Tootling along
But when you start to become aware of potential problems, worries set in. So yesterday, we're tootling along in the boat, just leaving liege, and i notice the engine is overheating. This is the kind of thing last year wouldnt even have occurred to me to check for. So we stop to let her cool down, check oil levels etc -the overnight expert!- and then proceed cautiously. Happens again, so we park in a less than optimum place, then i remember to check for water in the cooling tank. Nearly empty, so i fill her up and everything seems fine.
But you get the drift? This is the kind of stuff i wouldnt have even been aware of before, and would have ignored. Ultimately healthier, because as it is, every step of the way i've become worried about every eventuality.
Self-fulfilling prophecy
Hence the connection to kettles, geddit? A watched kettle, a watched boat. So, having read jung on the concept of synchronicity this morning -oh the ideal life, scholarship in the morning, manly stuff in the afternoon, dithering in the evening and maybe watching de telly- where he talks about how the pshyche can have some effects on the physical world, later events were sadly inevitable. so i'm all but saying to dawn, there's gonna be more friggin problems, i can feel it in me water, and the engine starts banging and thumping like a, like a,... like a bollocks! We have to nose her in gently to the side and hold her tight while the big tankers are going by and try to stop her nudging rocks. A dutch couple gave us a tow to a nearby marina, where we are now. Mechanic due tomorrow.
Non-menopausal vessel
So this unduly quick followup post is therapy i suppose, cos i'm starting to have real doubts about the merits of this. Its a 40 or 50 year old engine, vastly underused for a decade, and its being asked to make the biggest trip of its life, mostly against the current. Its barely ever gone more than 200 kms without a problem, large or small. Wheres its desire to defy middle age, strike out for territories new? Wheres its attempt to fit into a pair of tight, buttock-clenching, waist-constricting, faded and torn denim slacks? Its not there, thats where!
Anyway, tomorrow we'll find out if its a solveable problem, or if the engine has finally given up the ghost. If its gone, thats very very very costly. We're discussing contingencies. We might get it trucked to paris, depending on price, and set her up to rent out there. It'd still be a good size live abord, so thats feasible. Later we could equip with an outboard as a runaround, no prob. So theres still possibilities. But it'll all cost.
If the engines ok, thank god, but still. Do we really want to go from one calamity to the next? Maybe we'll get her trucked anyway. What we lose on that, some of it we'll recoup on not having to buy fuel. So that might be the way to go, but its all up in the air.
It was nothing, really...
Just like me! You'll appreciate the completely unforced segue when i tell of the second dunking i just had in the meuse. We're doing our usual incompetent rope work prior to a lock, not helped at all by the crap positioning of bollards in belgium, and i have to hold on to two ropes. As dawn had advised me, i should have had them tied, but anyway, i'm relying on them for my balance, and the rest is easily-guessed history. So i have a moment when i think i can salvage the situation, pure panic, but the second i realise i'm going to go, no two ways about it, completely calm. Ever get that? So in freefall i remember thinking -and i do mean a complete thought process, compressed into about an eighth of a second- the fall will just take me down a metre and then i'll surface and climb back in. Sounds simple, unremarkable, but its deep, dark choppy water. Anyway, it was indeed simple. Plus i get to do the unfazed heroic thing, ample cover for the preceding idiocy.
Anyway, this ones been therapy for me, very unsure how things are gonna pan out now. What about someone else saying something?
Ps dawn says it was all her fault. She's a trooper!
'Largely' her fault
Correction, 'largely' her fault.
Posted by Dara
No comments:
Post a Comment