Midpoint

It's funny how things get under your skin: Sailing was only supposed to be a temporary distraction, a replacement for gliding until the kids got a bit older and I could either trust them loose on an airfield or leave them at home without guilt whilst I got on with my flying.

That moment passed quite some time ago now. My youngest is almost seventeen. I still really miss gliding, especially on a day like today when I glance out of the window behind me and can see a glider out of nearby Aston Down sketching graceful, lazy circles at about 800' off the north side of the airfield, scratching for lift to carry him away. And his deft, dexterous efforts are being rewarded. He's slowly, steadily climbing the thermal beneath the billowing cumulus over-head. I remember that view, that feeling, that solitude. I do miss it.

It'll be nine years next month since I let go my wings. Nine years next month since I instead found my way out on to the water again, and realised I'd never left it. I grew up with boats, with rivers and seas, in or on or by the water, and the fifteen year stretch of my life where I seemed to forget that feels now like a strange, accidental wilderness. I miss gliding, but to not sail now I've remembered what it is to do so would be utterly unthinkable.

If I'm not afloat, I'm either planning the next opportunity or reflecting on the last. It can be quite a distraction. "Calstar" has opened up new horizons, new dreams and new possibilities but last night Ben and I raced "Buffy" on the lake at Frampton. For all the dreams and all the horizons, I wouldn't have wanted to have been anywhere else for that short hour on the water. There is a focus and a pleasure in making a small boat go fast and go where you want with nothing but the wind, her sails and your wit; a pleasure quite sublime.

photo: ken elsey

Sometimes, especially when I spot them carving their lazy circles in the sky, it only feels like yesterday since I last strapped myself into the cockpit of a glider, ran through the pre-flight checks, the mantra "CB SIFT CBE", and launched myself optimistically, opportunistically skyward to search out thermals of my own. But it's almost ten years ago.

I enjoy my work. The "day job" is in IT; intellectually challenging, often stressful, often satisfying. I'm fortunate to work in a good place of my own choosing with a small group of good people, all of whom I consider to be my friends. And I can so often see gliders dancing in the sky outside my office window, or trout turning in the mill-race below, or deer foraging in the field. Growing up, I wanted to be a writer or a musician. Out of school, I very nearly joined the Navy, but got distracted by the band. So this present now wasn't what I'd planned, but it's a good place to have ended up. A good place to live and a good place to work. I've no complaints and much to be grateful for.

Barring the unforeseens of ill fortune or ill heath, in another ten years I should have all but paid off our mortgage. A little more effort should see the other sundry debts we've gathered finally tamed, subdued, settled and put behind us. I'll be just shy of 55. The kids will by then, I hope and have faith, have all grown up and settled themselves into lives and dreams of their own. Most of the responsibilities that press and restrain me now will have been delivered to, all the promises I've owed will have been kept.

I could swap all this for the sea.