Posted by Peter H on April 29, 2007 at 13:08:25 from 217.42.253.209 user Peter_H.
In Reply to: Re: Dreamlands (was affection for old Men in old boats) posted by Jock on April 29, 2007 at 08:37:13:
Apology accepted. My 'prosaic practical method' comment was not so much admonishment as exasperation!
This 'Mk I' and Mk II' stuff seems unduly complicated. I was merely responding to what I felt was a terrific post by Elizabeth which hit the spot as far as I was concerned. I particularly empathised with her comment:
And if I am lucky enough to spy one with a cabin, I immediately have all sorts of pictures of cozy evenings under a lantern, peeking out at the stars above.
Me too. The dream is out of reach because I will never be able to afford my own cabin cruiser and hired boats are nowhere near the same. But there's another deeper area here. The wistfulness which I detect in Elizabeth's posting is like that strange sad 'longing' feeling you have when you finish a Ransome book. You want it to go on and on. This is particularly poignant at the close of Picts & Martyrs when we are told that there are five whole weeks of the holiday still to go. Which of us has not longed to know what happened? But we are never going to know - the 'dream is out of reach'.
But it is good to express these deeper feelings on TarBoard occasionally. Blokeish 'plumbing' discussions have their place, as long as they don't crowd out those of us who want to chat about the more intangible elements in the stories of that wonderful author . . .