Sheila Maxey takes a back seat

In May I spent a week on a canal boat exploring the Caldon Canal. The sun shone all week as I mostly sat at the front of the boat watching nature, hour after hour. It is a quiet canal with few locks, and we crept slowly (two miles an hour) through unmanaged woods, no human habitation in sight, and geese and goslings, ducks and ducklings, moorhens building nests, all going about their private business. I felt we were intruders.

My daughter, Mary, was the skipper, her daughter and a friend were the crew, and I was the passenger. Actually Mary called me the Special Adviser because of my long experience at the helm of canal boats and I did steer a little. I am wondering if one of the lessons of old age is how and when to move from the driving seat to the passenger seat – or even the back seat. It can be a difficult lesson if you have tended to be in the driving seat for most of your life…

Sheila Maxey is a member of Ingatestone United Reformed Church, Essex

___

This is an extract from an article published in the Issue 5 – 2025 edition of Reform

Subscribe to Reform