Lee-Ho

"I was admiring your boat here," he said. "Very pretty."

"Thanks." She stepped into the cockpit, started arranging her things into a locker.

"What sort of boat is it? I mean, they don't make this type anymore, do they?"

"She's an old boat – maybe forty, fifty years old. I...I restored her." She was reluctant to go into explanations, give the impression that she was boasting about her skills.

"What? By yourself?"

"It was not that difficult. I did a boat restoration course..."

"How wonderful."

She smiled without saying anything.

"Lee-Ho," he went on, looking at the name painted white on the bows. "What's that? Chinese, I suppose?"

"Well, not exactly... It's more like a pun, you see..." (Again she found herself going into explanations.) "...It is actually lee like in the lee of something or lee shore. That's the side opposite to where the wind is blowing from. Lee-ho! is a command you sometimes give when you are sailing. But it sounds Chinese, so it goes with the rig, which is a Chinese junk rig... See?"

"Junk rig, so that's what it is. You don't see many of these around, do you?"

"No, they're quite rare in this part of the world."

He looked at the boat appreciatively: "I like the green colour. It's a sort of Owl and the Pussycat boat – pea green..."

She chuckled, climbing out of the boat again.

"I think I might enjoy sailing," he said. "Never done it before, never had the time to learn, but I think it might be just the right thing for me," he added, still looking at the boat. Then suddenly looking up at her, meeting her eyes for a second: "I mean...I don't mean to..." he trailed off.

She looked away: "Yeah, it can be a lot of fun," she said.