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The end of August. The end of summer. What summer?

Many of us in Europe are asking this at the moment. Throughout most of France, Germany, the Netherlands and Belgium, and eastern Europe too, we have had what is possibly the wettest, coldest summer in more than ten years (at least as long as I have been here). To make it worse, when it has been warmer, the humidity levels have been so high, it has been excruciatingly unpleasant. Add that to lack of sun and you get a stuffy, oppressive warmth that you cannot relieve because it's still raining and the doors and windows have to be closed. In one word..yuk!

We had the most glorious, dry spring with long days of sun and warmth, but it doesn't help because that's when we were all at still work. The two holiday months, July and August - those months when everyone with a family, or anyone who works in education, is obliged to take their time off - have been a complete washout.

We have, however, managed a few brief days of sunny escape. Sadly, both these interludes were cut short, but nonetheless, I have already posted the photos, so you can see that we made the most of them.

Northern France was a surprise I will not forget: its emptiness, space and stunning vistas reminded me so much of parts of South Africa. We were terribly disappointed when the clutch on the van packed up two days before we were due to head home, so we had to limp back to Zeeland early.

My trip to the south was also cut short. What was originally intended to be five days there plus one day returning dwindled to a weekend visit to my sister, including a mad dash to Toulouse and back. We then had to leave early on Monday for them (my sister and brother-in-law) to catch the ferry on Tuesday morning. A misunderstanding about dates that was wholly my fault, but disappointing all the same.

Still, I did at least have two days of sun, although even there it wasn't as hot as I was expecting or hoping for it to be, and it has certainly given me a desire to go back. What a beautiful land it is. I am also completely intrigued by the still medieval customs and habits of the rural French paysan. It feels like stepping back several centuries, and I love it. The sunflowers; the Bastide towns on the hilltops; the ancient, pale or golden stone farm houses and barns, and the sense of both a populace area but one with huge spaces as well.

The visit to my former employer, Roger, at his gorgeous old farmhouse in the department of l'Aude, gave me several new insights into the character of the place, the people and their customs, not to mention the canny (and sometimes downright fraudulent) way they turn the agriculture subsidy systems to their advantage.

This is a subject that often gets my blood up, as France receives as much as 80% of the EU's agricultural subsidies and has everything its own way. On the other side of the Channel, large numbers of English farmers have gone out of business and had to leave their farms due to EU agricutural policies that have killed their generations-old way of life. I love France, but on this subject, I can get very heated very quickly - especially when I see how they abuse it.

Anyhow, at least we have been able to get away, if only very briefly. In the interim, I've made desperate attempts to paint my barge between the downpours, only to have my work ruined by hail or heavy rain. All told, though, I don't really feel I've had a holiday, and now it's time to go back to business and prepare for the new school year. I think I'll try and go away at Christmas for a week or so. Perhaps that's a better idea!

For now, though, all the best to all of you, and apologies for the slightly jaded sounding post. I promise the next one will a return to my normal cheerful enthusiasm! I'll leave you with some photos of Zeeland last weekend, when we took a lovely walk between the showers.

The only way I could get both Koos and Sin in the same photo

Zeeland scenery in the evening light

The harvesters are out. Amazingly, they have had a great crop this year!

Luxury coffee Belgian style, accompanied by a glass of advocaat and cream on top of a small scoop of ice cream. Sinfully divine...

And now for the south

The lonely beauty of northern France

One car is enough

Straw medallions are everywhere at this time of year

I sit in the van on the crest of a hill. The window is open but it's raining softly. Ahead, the road sweeps away, plunging into a deep valley and then climbing to a vanishing point far, far in the distance. Golden fields stretch out on either side of me, dipping and rising in rolling waves. They are scattered with perfectly round bales of straw which gleam bright as coins as they catch odd rays of sun penetrating the clouds. Everything is still. Completely silent, except for the rain drops pattering on the windscreen.

Then I see car lights, just pin pricks for a while until they grow and take form. They charge down the hill, disappearing for a few seconds and then blast over the rise in front of me. Suddenly all is noise as the car rockets past. A huge whoosh of sound and the van shakes. And then all is silence again. There is nothing else here. No building, no sign of life other than these strange straw coins in the well tended fields. It has a haunting, lonely magnificence

This is France in the Picardy region - the department of Aisne to be exact. Koos and I are on a few days' break and are discovering the breathtaking beauty of the north. Neither of us has ever explored this part of the country before and we are both convinced that most others haven't either. There are few tourists here and we largely have the roads and the gorgeous villages to ourselves. Last night we were in Guise, a charming town dominated by the massive ruins of a medieval castle high on its hilltop. Today we spent the afternoon in Laon, a much larger and well known medieval city, famous for its superb gothic cathedral and ancient city buildings. It is a lovely place, shabby, but clean, gracious but lively and oozing history from every ancient stone.

A real french folly - a fantastic gateway in the middle of..well...nowhere

Then this evening brought the highlight of the day. We drove to a tiny village south of Laon called Braye en Laonnais where we saw the entrance to a two and a half kilometre tunnel on the Canal de L'Aisne à L'Oise. Yesterday we had seen the rather sad remains of a collapsed aqueduct on the Canal de la Sambre à L'Oise, so it was great to see this tunnel in good repair and clearly in use. Again, it was incredibly quiet and still and the evening sun cast a marvellous warm light over the hills and scenery around the canal.

The entrance to the 2.5 km tunnel on the Canal de L'Aisne à L'Oise

My phone photo doesn't do this scenery justice

We drove further and at the village of Bourg et Comin, we saw the canal cross the Oise again by means of another aqueduct. Standing on a bridge near the village, we watched a barge pass beneath us on its way to rest up for the night and a little further, we listened to the hushed talk of contented boaters enjoying the quiet of a French canal on a summer's eve.

It is food for my soul to experience this space, this beauty and this almost lonely silence, and what it tells me is that you don't need to go south to find France at its best. It is this, and it is here. It is and has everything I love about the country, and if I could I would settle here and let myself take root in this ancient land of hills and heavenly horizons.

PS I'll post more photos when I have a better connection. The first two are courtesy of Koos.

Post helling hiccoughs

I realise things have been rather quiet here, but there's a reason for that. It all has to do with the Marion Aagje. Mo and Craig's week on the slipway was long, hard work and they put in equally long hours to finish doing all the loud and dirty work that can only be done in the yard. The redundant mast was craned off, the mast foot unbolted, and lots of extraneous bits of steel were ground off by a determined Craig.

As I was still working, I could only help for limited amounts of time, but by the end of the week, most of the necessary welding, grinding, scraping and banging had been done. Then, the dreaded moment when they came off the slips. All seemed fine, until they got back to the mooring next to the Vereeniging. It was then the leak appeared. Water bubbled up and into the hold in rather worrisome quantities. Not sure of exactly where it was coming from, they covered every possible spot with quick drying cement, but the flow still kept flowing. Mo and I spent the best part of an afternoon excavating the now redundant and well solidified cement till we found the real source of the problem, but then, how to stop it? Well cement again did the trick - eventually - but not before I'd requested a return to the helling to pull it out of the water again. Mo managed to exert her will over the leak and pushed enough of the grey powdery stuff into it to finally halt the flow.

After that, well, the rain started, and it rained and it rained and it rained. Last Thursday, the 14th, poor Jodie came to visit for her birthday. It rained relentlessly the entire day, not just lightly, but torrentially, in fact so much that water leaked through my windows and into the bottom of the Vereeniging. Now I had a leak too, but this time from above, not below.

Anyhow, fortunately Friday dawned clear and bright. The sky was blissfully blue - the perfect day for painting. Mo, Craig and I set to it and spent the whole day painting the Marion Aagje from end to end and the results are in the photos above. I gave up around nine at night, but the kids went on and finally finished up at midnight. The barge looks gorgeous now, and I absolutely love the colours they have chosen. There's still loads for them to do, but the bulk of the work - outside at least - is done. What a job and what a week, but then that's life if you have a barge...as they say here 'koop een boot, werk je dood'...I don't think it's all too difficult to work out what that means....

A helling of a week

I fully intended to do this post a bit earlier, but what with one thing and another, the week has run away with us and I find it's already Friday with another of those helling weeks nearly over.

This time it was Mo and Craig's turn. Monday morning found us up with the lark helping them to move their barge, the Marion Aagje to the slipway (or helling, as it is known here in the Netherlands). We didn't really do all that much as friend and neighbour, Bas, who was coming off the slips, moored up his own barge and then promptly jumped into the little harbour tug and pulled the Marion Aagje skilfully to the bottom of the ramp. Our contribution in the end was mainly to lend moral support and to act as translators when orders were being barked from the helling crew to Mo and Craig on board.

In the end, it all went very smoothly, and since then, I've lent a hand (when I haven't been at work) with sanding, painting, and the dismantling of various items they wanted off the barge. We've also been official 'Charlie-the-spaniel sitters' when the need has arisen.

They have worked incredibly hard, but this is usual for a 'helling week', as we do it all ourselves in the Oude Haven. By Monday, I expect they will be ready to sleep for a week, or at least their limbs will be. Luckily, they'll be staying over our side for some days while they finish painting and working, so the pressure won't be quite so intense, and hopefully they can relax a little. As long as the weather is relatively kind, they should be able to get plenty done. In the meantime, I'll keep the pictures coming.

It's a K Day

Birthdays in Holland are famous, but not always for the right reasons. Mostly they are the subject of derision among non Dutch imports (like myself), who cannot quite grasp why this ritual needs to be endured every year. I'll admit that's what I used to think too, but yesterday, K Day as I have dubbed it, changed my opinion, and now, I think I could actually get to like these excuses for getting together in a family sort of way.

It was, as most of you already know from that most frenetic of social networks, Koos's birthday.

Why have I changed my mind, then? It helped that the weather was kind. In fact, it was lovely. It also helped that Koos's two sisters are real darlings, and they were the first to arrive with their respective husbands. We did the coffee, tea and apple gebak sitting on the foredeck of the Vereeniging in the sunshine. Koos held court for his family like one born to it - which of course he was.

Then Mo and Craig stepped across from the Marion Aagje which is now moored up next to us (more about that next time), followed by Koos's son, Sanne, and his wife, and not much later by Jodie and Barry. All three dogs, Sindy, Charlie and Beowulf joined the party too, and the conversation took on a noticeably more youthful tone. The tea was exchanged for beer and the apple cake for quiche and salad.

A little later still, Kasper, Koos's other son arrived and then the party was complete. The sun kept shining, the beer kept flowing and all was well with the world. By the time they all left, I realised I'd rather enjoyed the day after all. To see the whole family is always great, and birthdays are really the only occasions everyone manages to make the time to get together. Maybe these cloggies don't have such a bad thing going after all. Dutch birthdays? Just an excuse to get your nearest and dearest in the same place at the same time - something that is becoming increasingly difficult in this hectic world of ours. But well worth it when it happens, mostly anyway :)

Jodie and Beowulf

Kasper and Koos

Craig and Charlie

All and sundry

Mo and Charlie

Captain Scott

Up with the lark this morning. Off to Krimpen aan den IJssel to fetch a boat. Not with Koos this time, but with Mo and Craig. It feels horribly early for a Sunday morning and the world is still and hushed.

The previous owners are still in their dressing gowns, but smile cheerfully as they show us through their house and out onto their private jetty. Then it's busy, busy getting ready, checking fuel, ropes, safety measures and procedures. Never done this before, not without Koos, that is.

Mo untying ropes in readiness for our departure

The boat is a small cruiser of 7 metres. Neat, but a bit untended and unfinished inside. A nice price though. It has a large outboard motor and this is the 'fear point'. We don't know it, don't know if we can trust it, and are not sure whether it will run the distance. The former owner seems to know as much about boats as you could write on an aspirin with a pickaxe, so we are not inspired to have total confidence.

At last we are off. The ropes are cast and we ease out of the tiny harbour. We've been there for nearly an hour and not seen another craft, but Murphy pulls one out of the bag and we have to wait for a largish passenger vessel before crossing to the right bank and starting downstream.

The small private harbour where the little cruiser was moored

The waters of the IJssel are peaceful and it is millpond still. Marvellous. Craig is steering and going well. It is his boat, in fact, so he is the skipper today. Captain Scott sails again, or rather for the first time ever.

Craig at the wheel. Even his back view speaks his pride in the CMS Brutus. And justly so

Mo, steering well and with concentration

The last bridge before the Hollandse IJssel meets theNieuwe Maas

Then Mo takes a turn. She too steers well, focuses well. Then it is my turn. I am not a natural steerer. At first, I am all over the place with the unaccustomed weightlessness of the boat, and the steering has some play too - a sort of delayed action. Very unlike the positive and direct steering of the Vereeniging. But I get the hang of it in the end and take us out of the smaller Hollandse IJssel to join the wider super highway of the Nieuwe Maas. The water becomes choppy and we meet the waves caused by the bigger shipping: container barges, normal cargo craft, the Fast Ferry to Dordrecht and many more cruisers.

Moi

As we approach the monster Van Brienenoord bridge, I am alarmed by a fast ferry steaming up behind us and a stationary barge apparently blocking the opening I wanted to go through to avoid the fast ferry. One moment of panic.

But there is plenty of room for a small cruiser anyway, so we pull through the side section of the bridge and avoid the worst of the swell created by the ferry.

Over to Craig again, and Captain Scott ploughs on. We're into home territory now. "There's the tank station!" I send Koos an SMS. He calls back "I'm at the Tropicana" he says. Oh good, he is at the best point to watch to see if it's safe for us to cross. We have to power over the river , round the Noordereiland and into the south channel that leads to Mo and Craig's harbour.

As we approach, Koos calls again. A familiar barge is coming out of the exit from our own Oude Haven. "Wait for it to cross and then if it's clear, follow it over," says Koos. There is another fast ferry coming up behind us. In what seems like a coreographed manoeuvre, the pretty sailing barge, Linquenda, pulls across the river just before the ferry reaches us and they skirt round each other like well practised dancers. There is nothing more in sight, so Captain Scott powers up. "Follow that barge!" I say, and he does. We are soon safely across the river and with it the scariest part of the trip. Or almost.

Approaching the Hef Bridge

As we approach the Hef Bridge, we notice the water eddying and swirling around us. Mo has taken the wheel while Captain Scott calls the bridge keeper of their harbour, but soon passes the wheel back to the skipper to take us through the apparent maelstrom.

As we pass under the bridge, a curious sinking feeling strikes me and I see it does the same to Mo. Why does it feel as if we are being sucked into the water? It starts to be really alarming until I realise suddenly that we are not going down, it is the bridge that is going up. A small yacht with a tall mast needs to come through, and the bridge has to be raised for it. The optical illusion created by the rising section of bridge and the swirling of the waters causes a very strange physical feeling indeed.

But now we are there. We have made it, and we are safe. All that remains is for the bridge to be opened into Mo and Craig's harbour and we are told this may take a while. Captain Scott cruises round and round gently while Mo and I sit on the bows and enjoy the gentle slapping of quiet waters against the hull. The sun shines softly through the mist. This is it. This is what it's about. This is why I like boats and boating.

Finally the bridge is opened and Craig takes us slowly through. Their neighbours wave and nod approvingly at Craig's little cruiser. Up to the end of the harbour and with some helpful hands, the CMS Brutus fits snugly into its box. We are really there now, and it all went fine. No dramas, no crises have marred Craig and Mo's first ever voyage, unassisted by those with more experienced hands.

Well done Captain Scott. I think you're going to be good at this!

The drought - what drought?

Rotterdam in drier times

It already seems impossible we had those weeks and weeks of dry, sunny weather. Today it has rained unremittingly. Heavy, hard rain that soaks with every drop. It's the rain that floods are made of, that locks you inside physically and mentally and gives you a feeling of isolation. It doesn't take me long to hate it, even though I know we need it.

My poor little Coot, who has made a beautiful nest of recycled harbour rubbish, has sat firmly on her one and only egg throughout the deluge. She had two until yesterday, but either a heron has had one, or it got blown away in the wind. I wish I could protect her somehow, but she is strong and, I suppose, used to the rain. Her nest is on the cover of our friend's rowing boat. He's always telling us we can use it, but I haven't had the heart to tell him why we don't. The boat is serving a very important purpose as a nursery, but I fear he might not see it that way.

In a barge, the rain is much more 'present' in one's life. Not that it comes in. You just hear it so much more than you do in a house. It clatters on the tarpaulin that coves the hatch boards and pounds the water around you. The only other time I've been so aware of the rain outside was when I lived in a house with a corrugated iron roof, but that was in Africa where the rain was even more torrential. But much more condensed too. It only lasted half an hour a day mostly. Here, well, it just hasn't stopped. Today anyway.

So, what does one do on days like this? Most of the time, I have classes to go to and a Koos to come home to, but today, my classes were cancelled and there was no Koos. He is in Poland. My solution was to write another children's story in between the assignments I had to mark and taking Sindy for her constitutional 'dash and slash' sorties. This story is also based on a proverb (like Cleo the cloud) and it kept me busy when I might otherwise have become gloomy. I still have to edit it, but who knows, maybe it's the start of a series? How to familiarise children with our old English proverbs through stories. It feels like quite a good plan, and of course the writing is the fun part.

Jodie is coming tomorrow, so maybe she'll be inspired to do some more illustrating. All I can say for the moment is...watch this space....and I wish you all a sunny, dry weekend. I think that's probably real wishful thinking here, but it will be true for some people, somewhere. Enjoy it if you have it xx