Buckled Knees

Beez Neez now Chy Whella
Big Bear and Pepe Millard
Mon 9 Mar 2015 23:57
Buckled Knees Aboard Beez
Neez
![]() ![]() ![]() The week began on Tuesday with me
fighting off a cold, succumbed to it the following day. Meanwhile, the captain
was seen visibly gnashing his teeth – an electrickery problem of the highest
order. As you will recall dear reader, the satellite phone transformer burnt out
with a medicinal aroma rendering it defunct. Fearing we would have to buy a
whole new new set up, the currently rigid credit card threw itself into a very
out-of-the-way locker not to be seen again. I merely walked up and down the
kitchen muttering words about financial crisis and things being unfair.
You can always tell when there is heightened
tension on board, well proven when I found this roll of unusually weathered electrical tape in the bin, a rare,
rash and very sticky disposal from the captain.......
Emails back
and forth with Ed at Mailasail who kindly organised us a replacement transformer
from the USA.
![]() ![]() ![]() The new
part arrived but it looked totally different to our original - seen on
the right. More emails back and forth with Ed who suggested an operation, “chop
the connector off and add a ‘choc box’ “. Bear set up his theatre, taped down all the wires and found their individual voltages very lacking. Colour me happy that this
falls into the blue job list of ‘things and chores’. Joining the blue and white
still fell short of the magical five volts but then he had a brain wave – shorten the wires, came the cry, solder them together and after a sandwich and a bottle
of beer found hidden in the bilges - hey
presto......... I think I have it. YeeHa. Sat phone working,
position pings to blog, marvellous. Let’s try to
download a GRIB file – our means of getting weather at
sea............Now this is definitely a blue job executed with real
professionalism in any sea condition rough or smooth. How’s it going ? It’s not. Oh ????
Bear switched his laptop on, clearly
a rarity when not at sea to find it needed one hundred and six
updates......................................We don’t have a decent enough
connection aboard for that sort of business so a visit ashore to an internet
place has to be planned then......Sniffles from the skipper.
![]() ![]() ![]() My cold got
much worse to the point that I sounded like an old bronchitic on a park bench
rasping and gasping. I couldn’t face getting the sewing machine out of his loose
box and saddling him up. So I reduced myself to sitting at the lounge table and
sorting the many picture folders of ‘due to be done blogs’ that go back nearly a
year, OK I know, slapped calves and guilt wash over me. I can honestly say
sneezing has never been so often, loud or wet in my life. I went through a whole
box of ladies sized tissues during the morning. Kitchen roll makes my beak too
sore so I had to dig out a box of well hidden man-size. That was when the
coughing started. Far too much activity so back to my perch I went. Now as you
all know being married to a medic is the same ol’ story as the children of a
cobblers shoes being the scruffiest in the street............ Well strap me to
the main mast and sing a sea shanty out of tune............a few minutes of
rummaging and the skipper appeared with a bag of
penicillin. Compliance, with this level of pharmaceutical efficiency was
a must, clearly such a responsibility would have to be handed over and become a
blue responsibility.
Now sitting
around, especially sitting around feeling sorry for myself is not the way
forward, could I manage a simple domestic task. I know I’ll make some yoghurt.
Never done it before ever. Bear bought me the set up half price all the way back
during our land adventure on Mabel. I had muttered at the time but here goes.
Boil the kettle, fill the big pot half way. Half fill the little pot with cold
water, add the packet mix, shake, fill to the line, put the lid on, shake a bit
more and put it in its hot bath, big lid on and leave overnight. What a
surprise, the next morning we both stood like a couple of sad-oo’s. We clearly
need to go back to sea, soon. Off came the big lid, out of the bath stepped the
inner pot and amazed we both stuck our spoons into the semi-set purplish delight
of fruits of the forest. This could become quite a habit aboard chez Beez. Bear
began sneezing at this point. He usually manages those
three-or-four-on-the-trot-jobs you come to expect from a cat mid grooming –
little and quiet ne-aat, neee-at. No these new sneezes would have
impressed Nelly the elephant and quite shocked me every time they exploded the spots off a ladybird.
![]() Oh dear, oh dear. Bear fully succumbed. Took to his bed. I’m back to sleeping
in the shallow end of the bed dishing out headache pills like Smarties. We
manage breakfast and crawl back under the covers. Stumble out for a snack lunch
and stumble back to horizontal. I voted to do supper. Simple, open a can of
thick soup. Yes, I can manage that, just warm and serve. This was where I went
wrong. I had a romantic notion that if I added half a tin of sweet corn I would
be adding vitamins. All I had to do was pull the back corner cushion off the
settee, wedge up the bottom cushion with left shoulder, lift cover and stand
with right hand and shuffle in the tins for said can. Post said can under left
arm, putting it on the table. Reverse process and put occasional cushions back
in place, a well-oiled activity executed a thousand times. Somehow the tin fell
and hit the top of my foot perfectly catching the vein that sticks out
northward. Oh, I cannot describe the immediate swoosh of pain. I have to admit
to the use of several back-to-back expletives. Within seconds I had a perfect
half walnut standing proud and throbbing beautifully. I actually took a
photograph of it but sadly, it doesn’t show anything. Oh
it’ll either stay that way and slowly reabsorb or you’ll have a cracking, half
foot black-and-blue bruise in the morning, croaked the sick one.
Great. The feast was served and my foot throbbed in time to the muted applause
of the ailing skipper. Note to self one: don’t cross feet, it hurts. Note to
self two: don’t take the skippers dirty dish to the sink and manage to trip up
our only internal step as edge of carpet overlocked seam feels like a barbed
wire fence on injury. Note to self three: don’t do it again.
When I write the blog what is the
name of that vein ??? It doesn’t have one but you could
call it a dorsal. What do you think I am a cod with a dodgy fin. I
swear I heard him almost unheard utter the words more like a grouper but I’ll give him the
benefit of the doubt as he is so poorly..........
![]() Sunday. Nothing for it but to have
boiled eggs, after a few days in bed skipper threw himself to the task.
Ooo I think you better get the camera on standby, I feel
egg events coming on judging by the water. There I was looking over
his shoulder and I was ready to be impressed.
![]() ![]() Rare for me to be in receipt of an
egg event but you have to agree the one that was handed to me could only have
one comment - cute. The skippers, well.......... So, here we are, my foot looks
unimpressive, both our noses look like someone has polished them with sand paper
and we have sneezed our spots off.
![]() ALL IN ALL LOOKING FORWARD TO A NEW
WEEK
MAN-FLU IS NOT TO BE RECOMMENDED
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