Monday, October 31, 2011

Bye bye Snail

This morning at eight o'clock, the sun shining brightly in defiance of our feelings, we watched the Wandering Snail lifted out of the dock at Terneuzen and onto a 'convoi exceptionnel' low loading truck. Half an hour later, it left the yard by road instead of in its natural home, the water.

The Snail is going back. Back to England where it will stay for the next year, its wandering curtailed for a while. Snail's people, Anne and Oll have been obliged to return to England for a time, so it seemed sensible to take their home back with them. After all, that's the beauty of boat life. If you move, you can take your house with you - just like a snail.

It seems an age since we first saw the Snail, and then met up with them in Zelzate, but it's only just over two years ago. That was the memorable day they towed the Hennie H back to its mooring, and we've been friends ever since.

We shall miss them. They've become very very dear to us, but we hope we can visit them in the UK before too long. They are seeing this as just a gap year, and promise to be back. I think we'll hold them to that!












8 comments:

  1. It's a strange sight to see a barge on a truck but I bet it will be even stranger to be over taken by it on the M25

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  2. It is always sad when good friends move away. My 'best' friends moved to Moscow and then Cyprus We keep in touch by Skype, but when they do get home, we chat like there has never been a parting. Also,it's another place to visit! xxx

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  3. Oh, and to Citizen Stu - if you know when it is going to be on the motorway you can actually watch it on the internet via the motorway cameras. We watched our barge come down from Scotland and only lost sight of it when it turned off on to an A road x

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  4. Oh cool, if I see Snail sometime I will know who they are! Lovely looking boat, looks like many I used to see on the canals in London!

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  5. Hi Val,
    I didn't realize you could put barges on trucks for transport. I just assume they had to move via water. How silly of me.

    I know you will keep in touch with your dear friends. I always think of distant friends as a great excuse to visit and return to somewhere I liked.

    xx
    AM

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  6. It seems almost incongruous to see a narrow boat on a transporter, considering that it was the railways and the heavy goods vehicles that brought about the decline of commercial usage of the canals in the UK & Ireland!

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  7. kind of teary seeing a barge on a truck, and not in the water. It will be soon in England tho.

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  8. We're counting the weeks! Although the sight of hundreds of Whooper swans landing on a field here to rest after their migration from the north to overwinter on the Fens lifted our spirits.

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