The impossible dream of Isadora

I mentioned before that there’s a competition which requires entrants to write fifty words on a given topic; we’ve had apple, guitar, cinema, snowman – and more. This month it is ‘boat’. Boats played such an important part of my childhood and teenage years; living in Cambridge, the River Cam flowed through our city – its tributaries include the Granta, and it eventually joins the Great Ouse to flow out into the North Sea. My dad was a great oarsman and after he gave up rowing, he coached crews for the annual races each year. My best friend had a canoe when she was about twelve or thirteen and we spent so many hours on the river, countless hours! Moving to the west country, even though we live so near to the sea, I no longer have any connection to any boats  even though there is a gig rowing club started just down the road from us. Even is i was not too old, I would never have been able to keep in time with the other oarswomen!

Once, when we were in Ely with our cousins, we were walking by the river, the Great Ouse, or the Ely Ouse, we were passing a line of boats moored up along the bank. They were private launches, barges, cabin cruisers, small river-going vessels. and the Isadora… The Isadora was for sale and I fell in love. She was a small cabin cruiser, maybe only enough for two, a cream colour, with curtains closed so I couldn’t glimpse the interior, and a sweet, but sad, abandoned demeanour. She wasn’t in a poor condition, she looked neat and tidy, but slightly faded, slightly old and tired – I can see her now in my mind’s eye. She was for sale, and at that time, when I was working, I could have afforded her – at a pinch.

It was totally unrealistic, she was a river cruiser and I might have been able to manage that, but we live by the sea not by a river. It was impossible –  how could I get her moved from one side of the country to the other? It was totally unrealistic and impossible. If she had been on a canal then maybe I could have brought her across the country to Bristol but of course I was working. No, it was truly impossible. She was a dream, an impossible, unrealistic, imaginary adventure.

Can I compress my love story of the impossible dream of Isadora into fifty words? Maybe.

My featured image is of little fishing boats in Ballintoy Harbour, County Antrim.