My Harry Potter boat.

Every year we pack all of our camping stuff in plastic crates to go on our Scottish kayaking holidays. Every crate packed for a specific hatch of the boat. So my boat will have sleep stuff and clothes in the front, foodstuff in the back and water and small food items in my small hatch right behind the cockpit.
And every year I take out the crates from the car and put them next to my boat and think, ‘This is never going to fit!’
And I am not alone in this thought. Alexander has the same thought as well as all the people that see us packing our boats. We are even commented on the unlikeliness that it is going to fit.

With a feeling of careful optimism, I sit down on my knees, praying that everything will fit and start shoving stuff in. Some stuff slides in really easy, some brute force is needed for other stuff. Especially the foodstuff is a bit difficult to fit. Everything has odd shapes and weights, some are easily squashed or bruised or needs a plastic bag. But I still find room to fit everything in, I must have an extendable kayak-interior like a magically enlarged Harry Potter car. It must be magic because after two hours of packing the crates are empty and the weight of the boat increased to 75 kg each.

With that kind of weight, it’s small wonder that the boats still float! It must be because my boat is a Nimbus. I’m not kidding, look…. Although mine is a ‘Nimbus 1995’. This word was already on my boat before the Harry Potter books! I know where JK Rowling gets her inspiration from. A broomstick or a kayak, I mean, what is the difference?

Charlotte Gannet.

PS. We just packed our boats for another adventure in Scotland. We will be writing stories instead of publishing them for a while….