“Roadkill” is a video production which is published on YouTube once a month. In that programme, the editor of Hot Rod Magazine and his assistant take some old car in sometimes vaguely working condition, and film their efforts in getting it more or less roadworthy before taking it on some sort of adventure. It is an unscripted show, and invariably starts with a deadline and a long list of things which need to be done. Just as invariably, as each deadline is missed, the list does not seem to diminish in length , fatigue sets in as working days become longer and longer, until eventually one or both of the “hosts” decide they must just get on with it. More often than not, some tiny detail which was never crossed off the list is a cause for some unplanned adventure.
Our life of late could very well make an episode of that show, except that instead of "car" we have "boat" and today was the day we looked at our never diminishing list and cried “enough”.
After manufacturing new brackets and connectors and pulling and unbolting and rebolting and fixing everything we could think of to make it go and steer, (at least in a boat we don't have to worry about brakes), we drew a line at the top of our list with a note that says “every thing below this line can be done later”, and thought seriously about just taking off sometime in the late afternoon. That would be about the same time that, in cleaning the boat to make our getaway, one of us, the one outside with the scrubbing brush not the one inside with the sewing machine, put his foot through an old poorly repaired soft spot in the deck that has been an itemon the list for five years now, and suddenly became something in need of urgent attention.
After a long day doubled over and inverted reaching full stretch to undo and redo bolts in the far flung corners of the engine bay, taking off into the cruising sunset seemed infinitely preferable to grinding out old fibreglass while crawling in the blige, but it was not to be.
Fortunately the delay gave us the opportunity to have one more farewell with Maggie and Jacques, and while we did have “clean up after ourselves” below the line on our list, one of us couldn’t help herself, so now there will be one less thing to do in the morning.
We will be on our way! Whatever will we do with ourselves?
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