I didn’t know I wanted-or needed-a 76-year-old Lister JP2 in my life.
It wasn’t something I sought out. It simply came with the boat I fell in love with.
If I’m honest, it almost put me off buying her. The engine was huge, intimidating and completely outside my comfort zone. But everything else about the boat was so overwhelmingly in her favour that I decided I’d just have to live with it.
Four years later, I can safely say we’re no longer just living together… we’re cohabiting.
I sleep next door to her. She’s the first thing I see in the morning and the last thing I see at night. If I need the loo in the middle of the night, I have to negotiate my way around her in the dark. In those early days I regularly cracked my shin on some unforgiving lump of cast iron. Now I know her shape by memory.
She has good days and bad days.
I like to think we’ve become a team. I do my best to look after her, and in return she rewards me with reliability. Even so, every single time I press that starter button I still find myself holding my breath. For such an enormous, heavy piece of machinery, turning over always seems like such an effort… and then, almost reluctantly, she catches and settles into that unmistakable heartbeat.
I even think we know when it’s time to move on. After a few days in one place, there’s a feeling that it’s time to untie the ropes and head somewhere new.
She’s dirty. Oily. She smells.
Everything I own probably smells faintly of engine oil and diesel now.
I couldn’t tell you for certain though.
I can’t smell myself anymore.