First. I'd forgotten how soul-destroying paying rent is. No - I'd *never understood* how soul-destroying paying rent is. Because up until those four years in the Big Wupp, I had always been paying either rent or a mortgage, and I suppose just accepted that as part of the unfortunate fabric of life, like menstruation and the need for an oral hygiene regime. But those four years not doing that - well, financially, they were wonderful. The freedom of it! We were never really profligate but during those four years I simply didn't have to think about money, I didn't have to think about distinctions between wants and needs, I felt rich. I remember enjoying it at the time, but now, locked into a three-year rental contract, I don't think I appreciated it enough. Those years and the cash we could accumulate are what gave us the freedom to do what we're doing now - we're using that freedom - but my heavens. We're in one of the bleaker-case financial scenarios we'd planned for at the moment. Nothing desperate but certainly counting the euros. And every one of them that goes to our perfectly reasonable landlord who's charging a perfectly reasonable amount of rent is one I deeply regret.
Second. If you're in a rich country, the last bastion of really romantic or exciting travel is boats and ports. Rail has been tamed. Roads need someone to drive you on them. Air travel is half penitential, half existential crisis, all boring. But boats, well. The last time I literally jumped onto a departing mode of transport as it left was onto a boat. Try doing that with a train these days. And what can all the other modes offer as a thrill compared to seeing the pilot boat pull up alongside the big boat so it can be guided in and out of port? A cousin of mine changed my opinion on turbulence; he said he quite liked it because it was the one time he could actually appreciate that he was in an airplane, travelling through the air, rather than just sitting in a loud tube. Fair. But how does that compare to a big ship rolling queasily along for a few hours just to fall tranquil once Sardinia and Corsica are breaking the waves blowing in from the west, and then to start rolling queasily again once the islands are cleared?
And ports - ports, even more than railway stations, are such a fulcrum, such a precious but limited urban space. They're a constant work in progress, a little bit going up at a time, a little being overhauled at a time. And always a mess. Always a mess of people and cars and containers and bad signposting. The mess makes it human; you can't go on autopilot in a port, you need other people, you need guidance and questions and answers. And the view of a city coming in or out . . . well. More of that sort of thing, I think. Maybe it's worth paying all that rent for the benefit of living in a port town.
