Hello on this bright and shining last day of summer! I know, I know, it’s not technically the last day of summer, but it feels like it here. Kids head back to school tomorrow, and September can’t be counted on for any warm weather, and the air show is screaming overhead for the last day of the CNE, and I’m about to head down to the boat for what will surely be one of our last sails, and all of this is a sure sign that summer is behind me, for the most part.
Yup, boat. Joe has always dreamed of having a sailboat. He was a sailing instructor in his youth, and being a Newfoundlander, has extensive and fond ideas about boats. Me, I’m from Ontario, and my ideas about boats are vague and nervous, and largely informed by movies like “The Perfect Storm” and the occasional terrified viewing of “The Deadliest Catch.” Canoes are more my style. I’m at home in them, and know how they work, and that’s the speed for me. This mismatch in our boating attitudes has never mattered. We didn’t have a sailboat, couldn’t afford a sailboat, and that wasn’t likely to change anytime soon, so when the topic of a boat came up I said things like “Wouldn’t that be nice” and waved a yarn wielding hand dismissively. Well, destiny wasn’t with me, and earlier this year, Joe suddenly and magically got his wish. A friend who had inherited a sailboat from another friend decided to part ways with the thing, and she called up Joe. She’s gotten the boat for free, she said, so he should get the boat for free too. The slip was paid up for a year, the boat was ours, if we wanted it, she said. There were only two catches. The first was that if we were ever done with the boat, we had to pass it on for free to someone else, to keep the good karma going, and second – the boat needed “some work.”
Joe’s eyes lit up, and he came to me asking (rather delightedly) if we could have a boat if it was a free boat? Here, I had a flash of brilliance. “There’s no such thing as a free boat.” I said, and I meant it. The term being bandied about to describe the free boat was “derelict” and there wasn’t even a guarantee that the thing would float, and it looked to me (and to Joe) like there was going to be a lot of work, if not money involved in getting the thing into the water. We had not a lot of time, and really not a lot of money, so the plan went onto the shelf, or so I thought. Joe, and I shouldn’t have thought otherwise, didn’t let it go. Ideas were swirling around in his head, and he was keen, and so a week later, he was back. What if, he said, what if we shared the boat? It turned out his dad was keen, and Kate and Carlos were keen, and a boat shared three ways was more than reasonable – he presented me with a budget, and by wool, it was reasonable.
That, my friends, was the last reasonable thing that has happened with the boat. I’ll tell you more about it tomorrow. Today, we sail. (We think.)
In the meantime, this pretty little skein of handspun became a pretty Fairy Snowcap, just about in the blink of an eye.
Fast, fun pattern, and the perfect knit to say goodbye to summer.
Someone will need it, soon enough.