It’s World Book day today - a day for inspiring young and
old readers alike. Hopefully a significant amount of money will also be raised
to purchase books for schools in countries where books are a rare and valuable
resource.
My Mum taught me to read and both my parents instilled a
love of books which I have always been grateful for. The skipper has built
several book shelves into Tarquilla and the Kindles we bought at the start of
our adventure have been well used. I have to admit to not being keen on the
idea of them at first, I do like to hold a book but it has definitely grown on
me. The children like using them too; we’ve even had good picture books on them
for the youngest.
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| The all important and very well used pilot books and almanacs. |
We have a big collection of practical ‘know how’ books such
as engine repairs, wood repairs etc. When you are cruising you have to be able
to identify and remedy as much as possible yourself. The pilot books and
nautical almanacs are an essential part of the boat. They give us information
about the places we are visiting - tidal charts, obstructions, dangers and
specific details for each port. We are actually in the most recent edition of
Bloc marine, the French nautical almanac, pictured on a pontoon at Moulin Blanc
a couple of years ago. We also have a couple of really well thumbed birds and
animals books and other reference books which are frequently used to look up
different things that we see
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| Bulging bookshelves in the deckhands cabin. |
For us books are a very important part of our cruising; for
a long time before we left sitting and enjoying a book was something we just
did not have time for and really missed. We have all enjoyed working our way
through lots of fiction, biographies and tales of adventures. Our shelves
reflect a very eclectic mix of historical fiction, chick-lit, science fiction,
classics and many other genres. Often completely unlikely shelf fellows end up
next to each other.
So today on World book day we will be celebrating books and
reading and treasuring the opportunities we have to read and really enjoy
books. Our boys are avid readers and I hope that the love they have for books
now will stay with them all for the rest of their lives.
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| From first readers to classic Arthur Ransome, an eclectic mixture of books. |
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