Notes on Living Together in a Small Space

Putting my dinner dish in the sink tonight, I noticed the grime at the base of the splash board.  It's the kind of dirt that you don't notice - it just gradually accumulates - until suddenly you do notice it, and wonder when you started living in squalor.

"God, this galley is a mess", I muttered to myself after dinner.

I swear that I was just thinking about how I had great intentions of pulling out the stove and cleaning underneath it and generally giving the galley an annual inside-the-corners scrub once we reached Hobart, but had never gotten around to it.

But, what actually happened is that Alisa overheard me and has spent the hour and a half since the boys went to sleep scrubbing at the galley, a frown of concentration on her face.

I'm pretty sure that's not the outcome that I intended.

But then again, our own motives are often mysterious to us!  And nothing happens in a social vacuum on a family sailboat.  Every muttered comment and facial tick contributes to the tapestry of on-board communication.

Next time I'll keep my muttered comments to myself and just pick up a scrub brush.