Wednesday 23 October 2013

A Paddle Steamer emerges from my dreams ...



I have never had the good fortune to board a paddle steamer - I imagine myself, dapper in a blazer, standing upon a pristine teak deck - bright paddles are churning through choppy waves - I could be one of the idle coves in Three Men in a Boat - I am devouring a vast ice cream -

A boyhood hero was Isambard Kingdom Brunel - I was fascinated by the iconic photograph - there he was, chomping upon his cigar, his boots and trousers spattered with clay, insouciant in front of immense chains - I gazed with awe upon engravings of The Great Eastern -

We were walking along the river, downstream from Wareham, when we came across The Monarch - it was late afternoon - all I saw was suffused with a sweet melancholy beauty -

Sea gulls flew overhead - a gentle wind barely stirred the reeds - the river flowed more swiftly with the ebbing tide - each side of the river there were silent wetlands - dark birds gathered upon the shallow pools -

The paddle steamer was moored to the bank opposite - it was as though she had just emerged from my dreams - small, elegant, shimmering with memory -

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