Transport with a difference

It's already nearly the end of September and this is only my second post this month. Mea culpa! Far from lacking the desire to write it, life has just had other priorities due to the fact it has been lovely weather for much of the month. With cooler nights and warm days (not always sunny, but very pleasant), the joy of being outside has been even greater when compared to August's crippling heat. As a result, that's where I've been as much of the time as possible.

In my last post, I wrote about how daughter #1 and I painted the hull of Vereeniging using our two rowing boats, Bluey and Little Grey. Since then, we've done other jobs on the barge, but I also had a lovely day with daughter #2 when she and her partner came down to go out for a bike ride with the dogs.

What prompted this initially was her acquisition of a dog trailer for her spaniel Mack, which meant she and Steven could go exploring by bike with Mack in the trailer. They've had some grand adventures and so much fun I was inspired to buy one for Zoe and see if we could do the same. After a search on our version of ebay, I found a suitable one for my little pooch, and the test run was promising. I can't say yet that she loves it, but she was good as gold when we tried it out and she definitely enjoyed the afternoon excursion we did with the family.

Ready for our test run. She was a very good girl.

So we decided on an excursion further afield than just around the village. Below are some photos of our 'grand day out' with Mo, Steven and Mack.

Mack is a bigger boy than Zoe so his carriage was
a couple of sizes larger

And here we are, out on an adventure. See Zoe's little face 
watching Mo out the back of her carriage.

Once we were off the main road, the pups had their freedom

That little face just slays me. :)

Since then, I've taken her over to Vereeniging in her trailer and I'll try and do more trips to get her used to it. Given that she's a lazy little tyke and finds street walks dull, I think it might come in very handy just to get her to the woods and the nature reserve where she enjoys running free. 

Anyway, after that adventure, it was back to work on the boats, but this time on our Hennie H whose roof badly needed attention. It took me four days to sand and paint it but I finally finished, barring the edges, which I'll have to do this week. She's not looking too bad for a shabby old lady, is she? I wish I could say the same for myself (says she studying her battered hands and fingernails).

The next job is going to be painting the hull, which also needs some TLC. For that, I needed our Little Grey which happened to be lying next to Vereeniging with Bluey in the historic harbour. The boats' two harbours are separated by around 750 metres of parkland and a huge road bridge. Of course, it would have been nice to row it around the island but the rules of the Gent-Terneuzen canal mean that rowing boats aren't permitted, so the only other way to move Little Grey was overland. 

Since he has rollers for that purpose, I decided to walk him from one harbour to the other and thanks to daughter #1, this proved to be as easily said as done. We received a few odd looks from passers by for using this novel method of transporting a boat but it really was fun in the sun.

#Daughter 1, Jodie, pulling Grey as well as leading her Lucy

And I did my bit too!

Little Grey is now 'parked' next to Hennie H ready for action, which I hope to be starting this week. Fingers crossed that the weather remains kind.

And now for a photo of my ridiculous dog for Rebecca Hislop. I honestly don't know what Zoe thinks she is sometimes but this position is quite a common one for her to adopt. She is definitely very sweet but also totally bonkers.

Have a lovely week allemaal and I'll try and catch up soon with the rest of the news from our corner of the flatlands.