Life before computers

Last week, my laptop died somewhat unexpectedly and quite dramatically since I'd only just managed to print out the first draft of a paper I had to submit for my university studies when it went grey, then black and then dead. Life looked pretty bleak as I pondered on what I'd lost (including the paper I'd written) and cursed myself for the fact that, as always, I hadn't done a recent backup...not for months, in fact. Anyway, in the midst of wallowing in my gloom and doom, Mo read me this poem. I suppose it's public domain, so I hope I'm not infringing someone's copyright, but acknowledgements aplenty to whoever wrote it in the first place. It gave me the first smile I'd had in days.

A computer was something on TV
From a science fiction show of note.
A window was something you hated to clean...
And ram was the cousin of a goat.....

Meg was the name of my girlfriend
And gig was a job for the nights
Now they all mean different things
And that really mega bytes

An application was for employment
A program was a TV show
A cursor used profanity
A keyboard was a piano

Memory was something that you lost with age
A CD was a bank account
And if you had a 3 1/2" floppy
You hoped nobody found out

Compress was something you did to the garbage
Not something you did to a file
And if you unzipped anything in public
You'd be in jail for a while

Log on was adding wood to the fire
Hard drive was a long trip on the road
A mouse pad was where a mouse lived
And a backup happened to your commode

Cut you did with a pocket knife
Paste you did with glue
A web was a spider's home
And a virus was the flu

I guess I'll stick to my pad and paper
And the memory in my head
I hear nobody's been killed in a computer crash
But when it happens they wish they were dead! 

What you can find in pursuit of the totally mundane

This lovely place is Maassluis. It is one of those enchanting fishing villages on the estuary that flows from Rotterdam out into the North Sea. Luckily, it is just inside the great flood gates that protect Rotterdam from sea surges and excessively high tides, so although there is no lock between the river and the main harbours, it is safe from extreme conditions.

I had to go there today as it is where my new bookkeeper has his offices, and despite the horrible weather that disrupted the entire country, I was really glad I had the chance to see it.

Visits to one's bookkeeper aren't exactly guaranteed to inspire enthusiasm, but what a little gem of a place Maassluis is. It is further from Rotterdam than would ever be convenient for us to live there, but it is one of those places where you kind of wish you could.

The snow doesn't often do much for this type of scenery, but today, it highlighted the colours, the yellows, the reds and the warm earthy bricks of the elegant 18th century Dutch houses that line the quays. The sky was pearly and the water glimmered with its sheen of ice. A lovely, lovely scene, even though my hands were shaking with cold as I took these photos.

It had taken me two hours to get there, courtesy of the snow, road and rail chaos - and longer than I have ever cared to wait on freezing draughty platforms. It should have been a twenty minute ride. Even so, I can honestly say I really enjoyed the ad...venture.

Hoovering the Roof 2

Isn't that a great title? I have this wonderful image in my head whenever I think of this. The joke is that I sometimes hoover my own roof, but that's on my barge and technically, I hoover the hatch boards, not the roof.

Anyhow, why 'hoovering the roof' and why '2'? Well, it's the title of a collection of short stories written by the East Dulwich Writers' group (in London, England), one of whom is my marvellously witty friend, Sue Lanzon. She and I were at school together more years ago than either of us cares to mention, and we 'met' again through Facebook, something I am inordinately chuffed about.

Anyhow, back to the book. It is a wonderfully eclectic mix of stories, styles and tales of the unexpected. The offerings by Sue are very consistent with her sophistry (is that a word? It sounds good, anyway) and wry and sometimes spicy humour. Her stories involve homeopathy among other things - not surprisingly as she's a homeopath - but there are also stories from a variety of talented authors about murder, corporate intrigue and strange friendships. I found  the whole collection great for my bed-time read. I could read one a night quite easily before dropping off over the pages (as is my wont these days) although a couple of them kept me awake rather longer than was comfortable - the tale of the man telling his story from his coffin was one such.

The short story has become a very popular genre now, and with the wealth of talent around, I can well see why. Hoovering the Roof 2 is a great example of this and it has won quite a prestigious Short Story writers award as a result. As for the 2, well you've probably already realised there is a 1 as well. Since I've always done things back to front, lets's not change a lifelong tradition...I shall now proceed to order the first edition, the cover of which would make me buy it  anyway! If you like short stories, these are really enjoyable and demonstrate the creative writing talent that is out there in abundance. Thanks a million to Sue and her friends at the EDWG.

PS Buy it at the Book Depository (dot com). Free delivery can't be a bad thing these days and it saves a heap of money! Alternatively, buy it directly from the source. The EDWG's website is: http://sites.google.com/site/eastdulwichwritersgroup/

What's in a name

Nearly three years ago, Mo and and her husband bought their gorgeous little tjalk, the Marion Aagje. I'd seen the advertisement for it on a local 'e-bay' type site. It looked lonely and neglected at its mooring in Diemen, near Amsterdam and very much in need of some TLC. Since then, my daughter and sin-in-law have lovingly converted it into their home and lavished care, hard work and an awful lot of paint on it. Now it lies proud and serene in a harbour here in Rotterdam.

During all this time, Mo has been trying to find out more about its history. At first, this was because they wanted to restore it, and to get a restoration place here in the Oude Haven where I have the Vereeniging. However, to do this you have to have a restoration plan meaning you have to know what your ship's conformation was originally. Sadly, in spite of all Mo's skills as a researcher, the information constantly evaded them and they were unable to get a place here, so they eventually settled for not restoring the ship, but for maintaining it as it was and keeping it in a commercial harbour across the river.

Mo kept on looking, though. The little ship sort of begged for it. And then a few weeks back, she found a reference to a book written by a descendent of the Muller family who used to own the Marion Aagje. It claimed to be about the barges and boats this family - a huge tugboat business now - had owned. So without really thinking, she ordered the book and then forgot about it.

Some days ago now, I picked up a parcel for her from the post, and also forgot about it. I assumed it was a study book and as we were all on holiday, it didn't seem that important, but then two days ago, Mo dropped in for coffee and I remembered the parcel. Mo opened it to find the most beautiful volume filled with illustrations, maps and photographs of the Muller family's binnenvaart history. In some excitement, we turned to the index page to look for the name of their ship. It was there, but not quite as we'd expected. The Marion Aagje was actually called the Maria Aagje. And this was - or had been the problem all along. Two small letters in its name. The intrusive 'n', as linguistic specialists would call it, probably the result of verbal misinterpretation somewhere along the way, ensured that the legal records were accidentally changed.

With this book, the floodgates of information have opened and we are now learning more and more about the exciting and sometimes swashbuckling adventures of Mo's little barge. It was the smallest sea-going sailing barge in the Netherlands in its time, and there is a lovely story about how a skipper overlooked it in the harbour where it now lies because he was looking for a zeeschip of much larger proportions.  Because of its rounded hull, it was also very fast and even won races over other, larger tjalken.

The Maria Aagje's skipper,  Janus Muller, was apparently a real rogue of a character who broke laws, managed to sink the barge at one time, hid it during the war and got himself arrested for carrying illegal goods. In true piratical tradition, he even wore rags around his head and succeeded in shooting his own eye out accidentally. The little barge ploughed the seas from Zeeuws Vlaanderen to Denmark and only after around seventy five years of loyal service to  the Muller family did they finally part with it in the 1950s.

Since discovering its real name Koos has posted it on a special website for people with an interest in tjalken and still more details are flowing in. It's been exciting, emotional and exhilarating, and all the more so because Mo has recently decided to sell the ship in favour of living on land. The effort is now on to find a buyer worthy of this barge with so much experience, so many stories and so much history. We all feel quite strongly it has to go to someone who will care for and do it justice. After all, now it has come to life again, it cannot simply be allowed to sink into oblivion, can it?

A few more interesting facts that tie this little barge to us all:
1. It is known to have spent time in the Binnenhaven in Rotterdam where Mo and Craig now have their mooring
2. Its first owner, Simon Muller was born in 1855, a hundred years before my birth and died in 1948, the year of Koos's birth.
3. The family Muller own a very large tugboat business, based in Dordrecht and seen daily on the waterways here in Rotterdam.
4. The Maria Aagje is noted as having been in Terneuzen, the closest sea port and just a few kilometres from our home in Zeeuws Vlaanderen.

It's no wonder we have always felt this barge was special, so now we know what's in its name.

HAPPY NEW YEAR TO ALL MY BLOGGING FRIENDS

As always during the very first days of each new year, Koos and I went to the coast for a walk. This year, Mo and Craig were with us, as were Charlie and Sindy. It was a beautiful morning, and exceptionally mild. I have to say that if this is global warming, I'm not against it :)

The dogs had fun playing on the beach and we walked along the big sea dyke until the cold wind got to us, but then given our lack of hats, gloves and real winter gear, a bit of a chill wind was enough to send us back to the car again.

That aside, I'd like to wish all my blogging friends a very wonderful new year. There are a lot of changes afoot for us, but I'll write more about that later on. For now, may the sun shine on you metaphorically and physically the whole year long! Love to you all, Val xxx

Happy Christmas to all from Charleville Mézières

I've not been a very good blogger this year. Life has got in the way of my creative output more than somewhat, and I feel sad about that. I am determined to remedy the situation next year and especially breed some more eccentrics quite a lot more often, but I do have to accept that this year's contribution to blogland has been a bit thin.

For the moment, though, I'd like to leave you with some thoughts on this last year's surprises. The biggest one for me is how very fond I've become of one particular group of students. Since September, I've been teaching Chinese students who have come to study in the Netherlands. One of these groups has become very special to me and we have 'clicked' in a way that doesn't always happen but when it does it makes up for all the stress and hard work that teaching Academic English to foreigners sometimes entails.

Yesterday, we had a little party after class as it was my last session of the year and I took in some snacks and drinks for my favourite students. The interesting - and surprising - thing is that they just seem to love Christmas and all it stands for, even though they come from a confuscian culture in which this particular festival has no real part. Maybe it is just the sheer joy of gift giving and decoration, but these students have made Christmas special for me again, and that was also a surprise.

This sweet card I received just says it all for me.

And here they all are - my very special "PCA2" group

It was quite an emotional occasion as I'll only see them for two more classes and then they will move on to their official study programme. I wish I could keep keep them all for another year!

Another unexpected thing is that I've realised the post graduate studies I'm doing myself are quite a disappointment. Earlier this year, I was awarded a Diploma in TESOL (teaching English to speakers of other languages) and I thoroughly enjoyed the course, even though it was all online. I then decided to continue my studies and do my Masters through a British university. I rather expected that because it was so much more expensive, it would be of a much higher quality, but in fact it's all a bit of a let down. The work we do is mainly assessed by fellow students; there is no feedback and although we are going to be doing assignments now, the instructions are so vague and badly explained, I'm having difficulty in dealing with it. I'm even wondering if I will see it through to the final MA.

The final surprise, though, has been that of having my first published book released. I never expected this to happen this year, or to happen so quickly, but it's been quite a thrill to have the Skipper's Child taken on by Sunpenny Publishing. I am looking forward to doing some book talks and going round a few schools to promote it next year. I might even manage to get over to England for some of the same, but whatever the case, I won't let it stop me from writing...no, I won't!

Right now, Koos and I are in France. We decided to go away for Christmas this year and in fact, we are finishing off our summer holiday by visiting Charleville Mézières, the town in Champagne Ardennes that we were heading for when our van broke down in August. We only arrived this evening, so we are not sightseeing until tomorrow, and as the hotel has free Internet...well, why not blog?

The absolute last thing I want to say, then, is no surprise at all: All our very very best from Charleville Mézières. I hope you all have a very very special festive season and an absolutely fantastic 2012.

Happy Christmas from France!

While I'm busy

The big and very exciting news this month is that my 'teens' or kidult (as I prefer to call it) book, The Skipper's Child is about to be released, published by Sunpenny Publishing. I'm told it will be available via various websites as of this weekend. It may take a bit longer to reach the bookshops, but it will eventually. The best deal is to order it through www.bookdepository.com as delivery is free worldwide. I'm really thrilled about that.

Still, what I'm not thrilled about is my lack of time to write anything, even a good blog post. So what I have done is put together some of the most popular posts I have done in the past and coupled them to my two children's stories and the one-off short short story (and yes I mean short short) I wrote a while back, and put them in a little volume with the grand total of 50 pages. I'm giving this as Christmas prezzies to my family. Lighthearted and nonsensical musings with something to read to the kids too.

I'll write something more meaningful soon...and I'll get on with breeding a few eccentrics, but for now, well, at least you'll know I'm still alive!

I hope all my blog friends are well and I send you much love until I can get back here properly.

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!