Three colors, six tenuous links

It was Christmas Eve last year that the car carrier, Tricolor, was issued with a wreck removal notice. Having been crashed into by a ship trying to overtake it, it has been lying there a wreck ever since. I know how it must have felt.

I was issued with a wreck removal notice on Christmas Eve also. I felt a wreck, that much is true. I’d been at that vodka the night before, the one that had made the local papers because it was dangerously wrong, overly strong and should you have any in the house, to take it straight back for a product recall scenario. Hmm …

So there’s me sorting out the tree, with the kids belting around the house and this letter of eviction comes through the door saying:

“I am sorry to have to inform you that the landlord has decided to sell the property in the spring and therefore will not be renewing your tenancy at the end of the initial six-month period.”

The letter went on, apologetically as the waves broke over my upturned bow… I never could wrap presents. That one about the bow was tenuous, I’ll grant you. Still, let’s press on, eh?

A couple more ships ran into this car carrier before the shipping lanes got the message and gave it a wide berth, so to speak. The second of these ships being a tanker carrying kerosene, a substance only marginally less dangerous than that vodka I’d been at. This tanker got itself rather ignominiously stuck on top. The kids caught sweetheart in a similar position but there we are. It was Christmas. I’m sure they’ll have forgotten by now.

Well, it would appear that at last holes are being drilled in the ships hull, with a view to its eventual removal sometime this coming autumn. And as I type this, I can hear drilling coming from the garage as my new landlord slowly gets my new accommodation finished.

It’s now June and we moved in on February 28th and still he drills away aimlessly, every other week, for a couple of hours and I think I know how that damn ship must feel.

The misery of eviction is bad enough. In my case, a solution has been found. As we waded through the flood that had appeared at our new front door on the wettest day of the year so far, the waves listlessly, muddily seeping round the front door, at least it’s a roof over the family’s head.

And of course there’s the white horses. From the back of the house we have them galloping around doing it all very well and gracefully but come October the Tricolor will remember the white horses as just a fond and distant memory.

(Never look these gift horses in the mouth. I had no idea how to tie this one up but I think that last bit just saved me.

And you.)