Narrow Margins by Marie Browne Page B

and were nearly alongside. She looked up and nodded.
    â€˜You haven’t seen a stray man have you?’ she called back.
    Dave just raised an eyebrow ‘Have you lost one then?’ he enquired. In his gentle Warwickshire accent he actually managed to make the question sound sane.
    â€˜Oh yes,’ the woman put her hands into the pockets of her oversized, rainbow-striped woolly jumper and managed to look a little embarrassed. ‘He jumped off to walk for a bit and get some exercise but the tow path stopped and I sort of lost him, he said he was going cross country and I’m following him – I think.’
    Dave put his hand over his mouth and coughed slightly. ‘No, sorry, haven’t seen anyone walking.’
    She nodded philosophically and waved, returning to her search of both water and hedgerows. Dave waved back and watched her potter past us.
    â€˜Lesson to the wise,’ he mused, ‘this is the one thing that mobile phones are good for.’
    For the next six hours, Geoff and I took it in turns to face the ‘ normal’ day-to-day perils we would likely have thrown at us on the long journey down to Cambridge: locks (don’t stand on the gates and look down – makes you sick); winding holes (make sure that you actually have some wind and that it is going in the right direction before you try to turn round); straights (can get boring); curves (anything but boring, can’t see what’s coming the other way); tunnels (cold, dark, wet and just terrifying); open water turns (three attempts at this); what to do when you run aground (after the second attempt at an open water turn); mooring up (make sure you are actually close to the bank before you jump off with a rope) and casting off (make sure the boat is still within jumping distance when you try to get back on).
    We also took it in turns to try and engage Sam in the different aspects of the day and keep him company; sadly I think we just managed to irritate him, although he did enjoy going through the tunnel. However, as soon as we cleared the exit, he grabbed another handful of grapes and a yoghurt, bought some more ammo for his Morph Ray and went back to turning robots into chickens, giggling every time he did it. Kapow! Zap! Fizz!!! Cluck!!! Ho hum.
    We returned to Braunston at around four o’clock in a heroic frame of mind and moored up perfectly, without Dave’s assistance, just outside the marina on the canal tow path. We were qualified Inland Waterways Helmsmen and there was no peril, no danger that we couldn’t face.
    We said our goodbyes to Dave, thanking him profusely; it wasn’t so much the training, which, in itself was invaluable, but all the information and useful tips that he had also imparted. I can honestly say without that information we would have faced far more nasty surprises than we actually did.
    Geoff finished his post-training cup of tea and jumped to his feet. ‘Come on,’ he said, ‘we need to pump out and fill her up with water, let’s do it now.’
    We informed Sam what we were up to and he waved vaguely at us over his shoulder. He had now been on the game for six hours with only a few breaks and his eyes were beginning to glaze; I made a mental note that, as soon as we finished with pumping out, it would be a proper meal and a long walk along the tow path for him – just maybe we could anchor him in reality again.
    We fired up Happy’s engine and backed her carefully into mid stream to make the sharp right turn into the marina. Strangely, without Dave there, it seemed much more difficult. I pulled myself together. For goodness sake, I had been doing this all day and with my backbone firmly held together by willpower, I managed to get her around the corner and perfectly positioned by the pump-out for Geoff to step off and tie her up. I was still smugly congratulating myself 20 minutes later when Geoff shouted that we were full of water and all