Why author Katie Fforde fell in love with the Crinan Canal

When we were introduced to the puffer she was in St Katherine’s Dock in London, surrounded by super yachts. The puffer, like those immortalised in Neil Munro's stories of Para Handy and the Vital Spark, is operated by steam and a screw propeller. The first time we set sail on the Thames with her was a nervous moment. Des and Nick were in the wheelhouse while Rachel and I hovered with fenders. Nick said to Des: "Take her out and don’t hit anything." I don’t think Des had ever steered anything quite like that before but, suffice to say, no super yachts were damaged in this manoeuvre onto the Thames.

The next trip was a bit more worrying as I was six months pregnant. Also, we were going to cross the English Channel. The French had no idea what to make of a motley crew of English people, especially when invited into the hold, where most people were sleeping. By the galley area was a huge mountain of vegetables, most of which were carrots. The French don’t believe carrots make you see in the dark, they think they make your bottom red.

When we were finally in sight of home in St Katherine’s Dock I was on fender duty again. I overheard someone on shore as we neared the mooring say in a very posh and horrified accent: "Look at her. She’s pregnant and she’s wearing pearls!" I was never sure what caused such outrage, the pregnancy or the pearls.

Not all my Scottish experiences involve the puffer. My writer friend Jo Thomas wanted someone to go husky racing with her in the Cairngorms so off we went to Aviemore in winter to learn how to drive a team of huskies. I have never laughed so much in my life, mostly because we were terrified.

We were terrified of the man in charge who obviously didn’t think much of us. We were terrified of the dogs, who barked constantly and we were terrified of somehow injuring ourselves (or far worse) damaging the dogs. However, my friend did manage to learn how to steer a pair of dogs while she clung onto a tiny chariot.

Another time the same friend wanted to write about oyster farming. The scenery in Argyll was wonderful and the man was charm itself. He took us out to his oyster beds, clinging onto his tractor. We gathered them, and then we sorted them. We spent the whole day getting wetter and colder by the minute but we loved it. The area was so beautiful, the sea was calm and the oyster farmer told us how he often started his day by seeing otters run along the sea shore. The atmosphere of where we sorted the oysters was what I had in mind when I wrote a novella called To Scotland with Love.

I also wrote Highland Fling. The springboard was an overheard snippet at choir. One of the basses is a keen climber and arrived for rehearsal looking unshaven and shaggy. He'd come straight from a climbing trip. What I’d caught on to were the words ‘we didn’t bother to put up a tent, we made a snow hole.’

Well, I couldn’t resist. I asked him if he’d tell me about it and he said: "I’m happy to but you couldn’t set a love scene in a snow hole."

I said: "Don’t worry about that, that’s my job."

I often take my characters to Scotland. In my first novel, Living Dangerously, there was a bothy, based on a hut where we camped on Loch Tay, where much of our early courting was done. My favourite photo is of my husband, pulling a rowing boat up the foreshore. In the boat, barely visible behind an oar is my second son. My three children all learnt to row there and now their children play where they played and light fires to boil billy cans where we lit them.

Summer at Sea is set in the Crinan area. I have been a bit cavalier with the exact geographical details and I’m sure locals will suck their teeth and say, ‘you couldn’t see that from there.’ I mean no disrespect though. I think that area is one of my favourite parts of Scotland. But on reflection, they are all favourite parts.

A Summer at Sea by Katie Fforde, Century £12.99 hardback