A childhood memory concerning boats..

Suddenly I recall a book I had read as a child called The Wind in the Willows which was originally published in 1908. The same guy who wrote Mr Toads Great Adventure. Now in the public domain and freely downloadable from a number of sources as pdf or audiobook.

What's this got to do with the Grampian 26 or sailing?.. Nothing really, but for some reason a memory about the rat and the mole rowing down the river entered my mind, so I did a quick search and came across this quote from the book.. In the story, Mole and Rat are rowing up the river in the boat, when Rat explains:

"..Believe me, my young friend, there is nothing — absolutely nothing — half so much worth doing as simply messing about in boats. Simply messing... about in boats — or with boats. In or out of 'em, it doesn't matter. Nothing seems really to matter, that's the charm of it.

Whether you get away, or whether you don't; whether you arrive at your destination or whether you reach somewhere else, or whether you never get anywhere at all, you're always busy, you never do anything in particular; and when you've done it there's always something else to do, and you can do it if you like, but you'd much better not..."

What a great quote!