Multiple choice (longer text)

I grew up in a city two hours from the sea, and until last summer I had never been on a boat smaller than a ferry. So when my daughter gave me a sailing course for my forty-second birthday, I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. She said I had been talking about it for years. She was right, but talking is much easier than doing.

The course took place on a lake, not the sea, which was a relief. There were six of us in the group, and I was the oldest by about twenty years. On the first morning our instructor, Gareth, explained the parts of the boat so quickly that I wrote nothing down. I spent the whole lesson worrying that everyone else understood and I didn’t. Later I discovered that most of them had felt exactly the same.

The second day was the worst. The wind was stronger, and when I turned the boat too sharply, it went over and I fell into the cold water. We had practised this on land, but in real life it was a shock. Gareth stayed calm and talked me through getting the boat upright again. Afterwards he told me that falling in is part of learning, and that people who never fall in are usually not trying hard enough. I wasn’t sure I believed him at the time.

By the end of the week, something had changed. I could feel what the wind was doing before I saw it on the water, and I stopped holding the rope so tightly that my hands hurt. On the last afternoon, I sailed across the lake and back on my own. Nobody clapped, and I wasn’t fast, but I smiled all the way home in the car.

I’ve joined a sailing club near the lake now. I go twice a month, and I’ve even started reading books about boats. My daughter says she has created a monster.