"to the sea" script on the ribs

The boat went out without me again on Tuesday, so I have been sat on the wall outside the chandlery with my feet dangling over the green water, writing this on the back of a chandlery invoice because the notepad your Christmas parcel came in is still in the drawer where you left it. Mr Pascoe says the Gull's Wing will be back at the slip by Friday if the wind holds, and he says it in the voice he uses for weather he has already decided about.

I went down to the net loft this morning to fetch the spare oilskins and found the old ledger your father kept, the one with the brass corners. Someone had written on the inside cover in pencil, faded almost to nothing: to the sea. I could not tell whose hand it was. Mum says it was Grandad, but Grandad could never spell anything longer than cod, so I think it was the Pascoe boy, who once tried to sail a bath tub round the breakwater and was not allowed near the harbour for a year afterwards.

I have decided I am going to ask Mr Pascoe to take me out on Friday, whether or not the wind holds. If you were here you would tell me to sit still and learn the knots first. I will learn them on the way. Tell Mum I have her good flask and I will bring it back full of tea that is no longer hot.

Your loving granddaughter, Morwenna