off to work

The office was alongside a railway line yet somehow looked out through the loading bay onto a peaceful blue sea and at the end of the day various canoes and boats were pulled across the shingle floor for night storage.
During the day time the room was full of solid oak desks, reasuringly jumbled with contraptions and apparatus that rightfully belonged in a Heath Robinson cartoon; four men worked there and gave off an air of contented-end-of-the-garden-shed and i was interested in a job.
I was old enough to replace the senior member but too old to start as an assistant and though applications were freely available it was unclear that they were recruiting, or if the perfect image would become boring as a daily routine, and after all what did i know about canoes?
Then the alarm rang and i woke.