Midsummer Week

We put Whimbrel in the water on the Tuesday evening of midsummer week, at high tide, in front of far too many people.

Wilf Chalmers had said he would want her on the hard by four and the trailer down the slipway at six and nobody at all standing about watching, and by ten past six there were nineteen people on the quay, including a woman from the parish newsletter with a camera.

“Told you,” said Wilf.

“You knew,” I said.

“Course I knew.” He spat. “Norfolk.”

It did not go well, which Wilf had also known.

The trailer bearings had gone, which we discovered at the top of the slipway; the tractor was at Deepdale with a broken hydraulic line; and the whole thing was eventually accomplished at about twenty past seven, on a rising tide with twenty minutes of usable water left, by six adults, a rope, a…