First faring in fair wealther

I'm a bit late with posting these photos. I thought I'd be able to put them up last week, but life got in the way and so I can only add my somewhat belated report now of our first faring of the year. As with my last post, the photos tell their own story, and many of you will have seen these views before since we need to  travel quite a long way on the Ghent to Terneuzen Canal before we can branch off and go somewhere else. Thus it is that for a two hour 'spuddle', we can only see the same again...not that I mind! I love it, and I love seeing the great sea ships go past. I also enjoy faring past them. It feels so exciting even though it's probably the safest kind of faring we can do.

The weather was, as you can see, perfect, and my daughter joined us too. I particularly like the photos of her and Koos playing the fool. 

We headed north along the canal towards Terneuzen and then I got some manoeuvring practice in a side harbour. This was an interesting experience in how un-intuitive it all is for me...the wind didn't help either. I practised 'three point turns', but the wind only really let me reverse to the right. To achieve a left turn (with a left turning screw, which becomes right in reverse) is more difficult anyway, but with a strong wind blowing us broadsides, it was nigh on impossible. Add to that my lack of brain cells when it comes to how the steering behaves, and this didn't work all too well. At least I succeeded the other way!

Anyway, it was on the way back I suddenly had a light bulb moment. Driving a barge with a wheel is like driving a car. No one ever tells you this, but if you want to reverse to the right, you have to turn your wheel to the right...duh! I've spent years 'not getting' how to do it. If only someone had said how similar to a car it is I'd have been fine, but the books and instructors just don't make that connection. Odd, isn't it? Anyway, now I'll stop rabbiting and let the photos speak for themselves. Suffice to say we thoroughly enjoyed the first excursion of the year.

Heading out of the harbour

north...to Terneuzen

One of our routine sights - a cargo transporter

The whale to our minnow

My WOBs flag in full view too

Daughter and Koos seeking far horizons

And in more recent news, our sheeple have returned to the field next to the crumbly cottage. We love them for their characters and their company. Here are some close up pics. Don't you just love their expressions?

Have a great week, everyone. Have you had some good weather too?

Picture Post: A dash up to Deventer

One of Deventer's very charming streets 

Every now and then, I take a trip to the east of Amsterdam to visit Saxion University in Deventer. It's work, so most of the two day trip is spent indoors, but in the evenings, I can stroll round this exceptionally pretty Duch town and if the weather is fine, I can walk along the river Ijssel. It is a beautiful stretch of water - much more natural than the river in Rotterdam and it is wonderful to stretch my eyes over the fields beyond. On Tuesday evening, the sky was clear, and the sun warm. Like many others who were either walking, eating picnics or simply gazing at the water, I loved being there. The photos speak for themselves, so I hope you like them.

A water authorities boat patrolling

Heading towards the lock

Still and peaceful in the lock

Evening light over the harbour

A lovely old clipper lies at rest

A sweet sign for dogs that there is always water for them there

The following morning in the main square

Tomorrow, I'll do a post about our first faring of the year!

The meanness of cleanness

I know, I know. I mutter more than somewhat about cleaning the barges, but when you have one and a half boats to care for (don't ask), it can become a tad tedious. As I said elsewhere on social media, people who have boats and barges know that we do more scrubbing and scouring than a Victorian housemaid, and that's just for one.

Well to cut my mitherings short, since I posted last week about the new meaning of greening on the Vereeniging, I thought I'd tell you about the meanness of cleanness on the Hennie H this week. To clarify any confusion (if that's not a contradiction), my own barge is the Vereeniging in Rotterdam; it's where I live during the week when I'm at work. The Hennie H (pronounced Ha), which I share with Koos, is in a harbour at Sas van Gent on the Zeeuws Vlaanderen border with Belgium. Sas van Gent is about three and something kilometres from the crumbly cottage that I escape to at weekends. This is the holiday barge, the one that took us to France last year and will hopefully bear us east to Poland this year - although if we get that far remains to be seen. I only have three months, which is the absolute maximum time I can (not) afford not to work. That said, the Hennie H has been sitting twiddling its fenders since November, which was the last time we went out for a spuddle.

Our harbour at Sas

It will come as no surprise, then, that after such a long period of idle rest and despite a few wash downs throughout the colder months, the little barge was in much need of a spring clean. I started a couple of days ago, but I was dog-sitting and couldn't spend the time that I really needed as said pooch insisted on sitting on the hottest part of the deck. Not a good move for a small furry being. So since he went home, I've been able to spend more time on it and attack with some good Val verve and vigour. Fortunately, I don't have to climb any masts or hang myself over any precipitous sides with this one; it has those wonderful things called gunwales which allow me to walk with some dignity along the barge and mop down the sides rather than doing a fair impression of a vertically challenged spider as I do on the Vereeniging.

Factory backdrop

No the meanness of the cleanness on this barge is that everything visible is either white or cream. Add to that, the mooring is close to a number of factories that emit all sorts of noxious substances (well I might be exaggerating that a bit) that all end up as grime on my lovely gleaming roof (that part's true). And even worse, the fire brigade use the water next to us to clean out their tanks now and then. What I suspect strongly is that they also take gleeful pleasure in spraying all the surrounding boats and the Hennie H in particular with water dredged from the bottom of the canal when no one's there to catch them at it. The result is that now and then we arrive to find the barge covered in gritty black mud. Wonderful, isn't it? On a white barge. You can imagine how mean that makes me!

It's no wonder that barge skippers of yore always had brown sails and tarpaulins. It was probably in anticipation of this kind of meanness.

A nice clean HH

Anyway, after many hours graft today, this is how her roof looks! Doesn't that cleaning make it look gleaming ?

And just for fun, I've added a few extra photos of the surrounding countryside too. Have a great week everyone.

Looking over the fields on my walk

A fine old brick barn

Paddocks for the horses - there are a lot of them here

Spring in the trees