Pages

Sunday, July 13, 2014

Toby Rees and big H - bedtime stories for outdoor folk

Near the coast somewhere very exciting live two brothers, Toby the youngest brother has the courage  and strength of a full grown Atlantic bull seal and was just as happy in the water. His big brother Harvey could move over rock like a ballet dancing Ibex, one day Toby and H were making their way down to the river for a swim, when they got there they saw quite a fuss. There was a big crowd of people shouting and pointing from the bank, what's going on asked Toby? "He's stuck!" Said a little girl at the back of the crowd. The brothers looked up stream to see a small boy stranded on a boulder in the middle of the river.
Toby stared through the boy at the features up stream, knowing that there had been a lot of rainfall in the night on the surrounding hills, meaning the boy on the rocks day, would get worse before it got better. Toby, even though he was very young had spent thousands of hours playing with purpose, in and around rivers whit his dad. He wouldn't just throw stones in, they would throw stones at Eddie lines and surf sticks in surface stoppers or rescue bottles from deep stoppers, so reading the river was never something he did on propose it just kind of happened.
He nodded to a noise stopper up stream of the little boy on the rock, H smiled knowing his little brother intended to body surf the stopper across to above the boy then float down feet first on to the boulder. "If you don't get out here, I will get you out there" said Harvey pointing at two eddies on their bank. Minuets later toby was approaching the boulder feet first just as he had visualised moments earlier. "Room for a small one?" Asked Toby as his feet touched the boulder. The little boy smiled he was very happy to see Toby, "are you going to help me?" Asked the little boy. "It's on my list of things to do" said Tobs nodding to his brother on the bank and establishing communication, he scans the river confirming both eddies (& his big brother) were in his line of sight, he chose a route to safety that should mean he would be able to avoid problems insted of having to cure them and his brother was clearly in the position of maximum usefulness to give assistance when needed. "Can you swim?" Asked Toby, the boy nodded "I'm just sceard ".
"That's fine, we are going to swim a bit, we are going to aim at that tree up river, we won't get there but keep swimming for it till I say stop, are you keen for that?" The boy nodded, after a nod to his brother Toby watched the boy jump in and unknowingly set a perfect ferry angle. Toby plopped in after him and began the job of shepherding him with his big powerful front crawl strokes. Moments later both boys felt the current disappear around them as the entered the first Eddie, "your such a show off" smiled Harvey as the brothers helped the little boy on to the bank where he could sit down and cheer up in the sun. Later that day, the boys got home soaking wet and covered in mud. "What on earth have you two been up to?" said their mum. "We saved a boy in the river mam" said the boys. "And what was this boys name?" Asked their mum "uummm.... We don't know mam" said the boys looking up and right, trying to remember if he had said his name. "Well, if you have to save a little boy again, then please don't do it in your new clothes" said their mother with raised eye brows and folded arms, "now, out of those wet clothes it time for your bath"