A place of rest for the royalty of the rail tracks.

An old steamer resting in the African sun

This post is again a departure from my usual watery ways and looks back to my previous life in South Africa. I was reminded by the lovely Lynn Moorhouse of the wonders of steam train travel. Her recent blog is a beautifully evocative account of train journeys she has experienced on steam trains in both Africa and India, and she weaves this account around photos she has taken in both countries alongside quotes from her captivating novel, Aunt Coco and the Marionette Man (also set mainly in South Africa). I am reading her book at the moment and am completely immersed in the images, scents and atmosphere of South Africa again. It is a very special book.

On sidings for all the world as if they could belch out the steam
and  rumble into life again

Anyhow, back to the trains. When I lived in Krugersdorp, a town on the outskirts of Johannesburg, we were very close to the steam train graveyard and it was a place we visited a number of times. The last time was in 2006 when I took Koos there. He was equally smitten and saddened by this haunting place, for it is where hundreds of old and magnificent steam trains have been put to rest.

Their graveyard is mostly well maintained these days

We both took a heap of photos. Now I look at mine, I see flaws in the photos themselves, but even so, they are a fond reminder of a place I loved to wander round. It sparked my own imagination about stories of travel in the days when children used to spend several days on the school train from northern Zambia to Queenstown in South Africa at the beginning and end of each term. Back in the fifties and sixties and probably even before, children living in Zambia or Zimbabwe were often sent to boarding school in South Africa. The train took around five days in total, and friendships - often for life - were made on these journeys.

But this is the state of the train's maintenance - a rainbow
of rust

There are probably more than a hundred of them in this
highveld plain

Now when I see these wonderful stately old hulks lying at rest in the African highveld sun, I wonder what dreams and ambitions they have witnessed in the making. If they could only talk…

The photos above and below are most of those that I took on our last visit. For those of you who love old steamers, I hope you enjoy them.

Even old carriages are rested up here

The driver's cab. I wonder who was the last to sit here

What power these engines had - all those wheels to drive

Koos doing what Koos has always loved best

As if they had a future

How many dreams and ambitions have been formed in
these old carriages here,

Spoil yourself coffee - Verwen Koffie

The day job and the studies are keeping me very busy at the moment, so I don't have much time to post, blog, share, FB or tweet. All the same, there's something I've been wanting to blog about for ages, so I thought I'd do a quick post to show the flag.

Have you ever heard of spoil yourself coffee? If you've been to Belgium, you will have, but not otherwise, I suspect. It's something you can get at any café in Flanders, but I've never seen it anywhere else. It's called Verwen Koffie and it really is a treat.

If you order it, you get a little tray with a cup of black coffee, a biscuit and either a bowl or a small glass filled with Advocaat and topped with a scoop of ice cream and whipped cream. The combination is just divine and feels like truly sinful luxury. Amazingly, it's not very expensive (depending on where you go of course), but in Zelzate just across the Belgian border, we indulge in this heavenly concoction for a mere €2,50 each - which I think is pretty reasonable. Last time we went, Koos took a photo of his, so here it is:

The empty space on the little tray had another mini delight. A small chocolate wafer 'bowl' that was also filled with advocaat, but I think he must have eaten that before taking the photo. Looks good doesn't it? We've become quite conoisseurs of this unique regional speciality, and so far, the café where we imbibed or rather munched into this delicious sample has turned out to be both the best and the cheapest - what joy it is so close to our weekend getaway!

Enjoy the rest of your week, one and all and I'll be back soon with more news of watery ways during these watery days.

From Zeeland to Cambrai

We are very fortunate in where we live. The Netherlands is a small country and we are in the south, so it takes us very little time to cross a border or two and be in a different European country. Most of the time we confine ourselves to Belgium for day trips out, but every couple of months, we go to France, or sometimes to Germany. 

I was looking through the photos on my little pocket camera the other day and found a bunch that I'd forgotten about. They were taken on one of these days out we took, and this one was a trip just before Christmas when we went to Cambrai for the day.

For those who don't know it, Cambrai is a very charming town in northern France, quite famous historically for being the centre of the League of Cambrai during the sixteenth century, and in the twentieth century for one of World War 1's battles. These days, it maintains grace and charm, but is neither very big nor very important - except to us that is - for it is on a serious waterway route into France and is just one of those places Koos and I like to go to boat watch.

Zeeland Brug - 5kms long

 From Zeeland, where we spend most weekends (see the great Zeeland bridge above), it takes about two hours to drive to Cambrai. This is very do-able and an easy, pleasant trip. One of its main attractions is the restaurant on the canal side called the Jolly Sailor. This appealing hostelry is run by an Englishman and Frenchman partnership who own a lovely old Dutch barge that they keep moored up in the canal just outside the restaurant. David, the English partner, is an accomplished pianist and singer and loves to entertain the guests during their busy lunch times. Alain, the French side, runs the show, keeps the customers happy and is equally convivial and entertaining in his own way.

Alain from the Jolly Sailor and Koos

We love going there even though we rarely eat much, but it feels like such an occasion. Since we can also finish off with a lovely walk along the canal, there is nothing much more that can make us content. Below are some of the photos I took on our last visit when the sun was shining and the reflections on the water were particularly vivid. Just one of those special days that live on in the senses and sentiments.

Road and Rail bridges over the canal

Canalside walls are always covered in graffiti

A very 'des res'

Reflections are always appealing

I love roofscapes like this

The Hoop from my book Watery Ways: what it was really like (very cramped indeed!)

In the last few weeks, I've had two lovely reviews on my book Watery Ways, which really focused on my life as a tenant of The Hoop, the beautiful barge owned by our friend Philip (the teeth). In the next month or two, I'll probably be publishing Harbour Ways, which is the story of my own barge, the Vereeniging, and how I converted it to a live aboard home. Before that happens, though, I thought those of you who have read Watery Ways might like to see the tiny space I called home for a year and a half.

I moved on board in January 2001 and moved off in late August 2002. When I bought the Vereeniging in December 2001, it was in no state to live on (being an empty hull), and so I stayed on the Hoop until I had at least a floor and a bed on my own barge. I adored the Hoop, and really wanted to make my own home as close in style to it as possible. The pictures below are of the interior of the roef, the space in which I lived. I've also added a photo of the exterior of the wheelhouse and the whole barge. The ruim or the hold, as we call it in English, was unconverted on the Hoop when I lived on it. These days it has been fully restored, converted and, in some ways, improved beyond repair. The new owners wanted to replace rather than restore the old fittings - their barge, their choice, but it wouldn't have been mine.

My photos are very bad, but I hope you can get at least some impression of my living space as it was then. They are scanned from old analogue prints, and something went wrong with my flash, so I've had to crop out the bottom of each one. I've put descriptions below them just incase you can't really see it! If I find any more photos, I'll add them. I know I've got some others somewhere, but haven't been able to find them as yet.

This first image is one of the small box beds I had. If you look closely, you might see that Sindy is lying on it. I didn't even realise she was there until I upped the exposure. The other bed is identical but on the other side of the cupboard that you can just see to the right of the bed. They were built in to the shape  of the hull, so not completely rectangular. The white strip to the right of the image is the frame of the sliding door that I could close off for privacy (not that there was much need for that!)

The entrance to the roef is immediately to the right of this image and the bedroom is right on the left. As you can see, the space is pretty small. I loved these old cupboards which were built to the shape of the barge. Nothing was straight!

On the left of the fireplace here, you can just see the stairs up to the wheelhouse (the entrance). At the bottom of the stairs, there was a tiny cupboard sized space where I had my portapotti, but it had its own beautifully panelled sliding door. Note the screwed on tiles behind the old oil stove and the kettle on the stove itself. I remember Philip bringing the mirror and telling me every barge had to have its own mirror. He gave me one for the Vereeniging too. On the right is the kitchen.

Okay, everything was a squeeze! This was the kitchen. There's a bit you can't see that went behind the mantel piece of the stove and that was where I had the famous fridge with a two plate cooker on top.

Back to the bedroom. A photo of Sindy in her proper place on the floor, but you can also see that below the beds there were cupboards and drawers. Very useful! No space was wasted at all and there was a remarkable amount of storage room for such a tiny area.

And here is the wheelhouse that I loved so much and spent hours sitting in. It was also where the real toilet lived upside down on the bench. You can't see the roef so well from this angle, but it sits behind the wheelhouse. What you can see is the windows of the roef  on the barge next to the Hoop, which had a very similar accommodation area.

And finally a photo of the Hoop from the quayside. You can see my loopplank perched on the bows. This was the one I had to use to get the two big dogs (Polly and Daisy)  up and down to the quay, come rain or shine. I have photos of them too and also of Sisha, but I'm still a bit sensitive about them, so will not post them here. Maybe I'll do a post of my doggy paintings one day instead.

I had forgotten how cramped it all was and how basic. I had things crammed on every surface and I see the tiles behind the stove were quite stained. I spent hours cleaning them and in my memory everything is much brighter and shinier than it looks in these photos, but time tends to put a rosy tint on memories,  and it fades the colours in the photos (or makes everything yellow), so the truth is probably somewhere in the middle. Anyway, it was a heap better than when I found it as I painted everything.

As I said, I adored it and will always remember it with love. Everyone should have their Hoop at some time. If not a boat, somewhere else they cherish as a special place in their lives.

Happy New 2014 - and off to the beach we go

Some of you will know that every year at New Year, Koos, Sindy and I go to the coast or the beach - not to swim, I hasten to add, but to have a good walk. It's probably the one time of year I really enjoy the beaches here in the Netherlands, and the only time I would rather be on one than cruising the canals (although I've done that at New Year as well). If the weather is sunny, I don't even mind the cold, and that's something I find hard to cope with on the canal.

New Years Day - yesterday - was not nice at all, so we stayed at home, but today dawned sunny with scudding clouds, so we took full advantage of this break in the stormy weather and hot footed it to the Zeeuws Vlaanderen coast. There is a spot about ten kilometres west of the town of Breskens, where we can park by a café and get to the beach from behind the car park, so we headed for this. The idea was to have our walk and then go for coffee and gebak, a typically Dutch treat consisting of strong black coffee with warm apple pie and dollops of whipped cream. When we arrived, though, the café was shut. There was a notice on the door announcing that it would be closed on the first two days of the year. Never mind, we thought, we'll go somewhere else afterwards. And so we headed up the huge sea dike to the dunes on the other side and then down onto the beach.

It was stunning. The light was perfect: brilliant sunshine contrasting with dramatic dark clouds drifting up from the south. I took my trusty and very old Leica with me - it comes to the beach every year and never disappoints me - and took some photos for the blog. The wind was strong and chilly, which it has been for days, but there were dozens of people out walking, many with their dogs. There were also horse riders and cyclists in the dunes. Altogether, a lovely mix of people just out enjoying the sun and taking some good solid exercise. I think these photos show what I mean better than I can in words without going into writing mode and waxing lyrical.

The dune path at the top of the great sea dike

A great coastal cycling route for the whole family

Koos being stalked by a collie in herding mode

Shadow play on the sand creating brilliant contrasts

Whole families out for a walk

Cold, but if the sun's shining, who cares?

Koos stalking good photo material

After our walk, we drove back a different route trying to find our Dutch treat. However, it seemed that Zeeuws Vlaanderen takes two days off for New Year, and everywhere was closed - well almost everywhere. We eventually found a small café in the town of IJzendijke which provided us with our much sought after coffee and apple pie. Since it was the only place open in the whole town, I was surprised that we were the only couple in there, but then I suppose everyone else was still on the beach. I am still getting used to the different customs in every part of this small country, but I've learnt that Zeeuws Vlaanderen is really Belgium in disguise (although never tell the Zeeuws people that) and their customs are much more catholic than those of the more calvinist northern provinces. So... only one day to get over their New Year's hangovers? Nah, they think, we'll take two…and so they do.

And the regulation New Year's pic of me on the beach with Sindy

Proofreading pickles

I've been reading a lot this last year. But not only books that I've wanted to read for my own pleasure. I've also had to read an incredible amount of material for my studies and my job as an academic and business writing teacher. I've accumulated stacks of books about teaching writing to ESL students and researching on all manner of topics. My special interest is in peer review and self correction - mainly because I'm just a tad tired of doing all the marking myself and would love to hand some of it over to them! - but also because I'm interested in techniques for peer and self correction on my own behalf.

Actually, I notice that all the writers among us are very passionate about achieving quality in editing and production. Even so, errors slip through. I've seen it in my own books, not only the ones I've self-published and had readers proof-reading for me, but also those that have been professionally edited. It drives me to distraction and I threaten to go into deep depression when I hear of or see a mistake that hasn't been picked up after publication. But then I read my text books on academic research and journal papers on my chosen topic and I see the same types of errors cropping up in these supposedly erudite and high quality works too. This is when I have to ask what is the problem? And why is it so difficult to produce flawless books these days if even well-known publishers like Cambridge and Oxford University Press, Routledge or the renowned Michigan Press in the US cannot get it right?

I don't actually have the answer to this, but I have a suspicion it has to do with everything being digital these days. No longer do we have armies of proofreaders sitting with rulers and pens making proofreading marks on paper printouts of the books. Perhaps the style sheets of the past are no longer used by copyeditors and proofreaders. Maybe everything is done on screen with MS Word track changes and minor details just get overlooked. After all, we all know the screen is very different from the printed page, don't we? To make a personal observation, I don't think I've read a book in the past six months without a single error in it (except perhaps the Donna Leon novel I read a few months ago - big name, big budget?). It might only have been an extra space between a comma and a word, a misplaced speech mark, a missing preposition, or a fallen 'cap' at the beginning of a chapter, but there's always something. In my study books, there have been worse errors like fused clauses, unfinished sentences and seriously misspelt words. 

It doesn't trouble me in other people's books quite so much now because I've come to accept it as part of modern publishing. I'm certainly not in a position to criticise, but boy oh boy, I would so love to be totally sure my books were word and punctuation perfect, so it troubles me very much about my own work. A fault free manuscript is something I still aim for. That said, I now have my own wonderful group of proofreaders who being language teachers are justly critical, but I find it fascinating that barring a few overlaps, they all find different mistakes or points to comment on - a little worrying too. 

I'm currently nearing the end of my editing phases with Harbour Ways, the sequel to Watery Ways, so I'm praying we've got it right this time (I say 'we', because it really is a team effort). It's tricky as there's both Dutch and English to check in the book, but the 'girls' have been amazing as has Koos, who did the first read through. One final check from another proofreader friend, and then we'll see…but I do hope that in contrast with all my academic reading, and my previous books, this particular volume will be - well, if not perfect in all ways (what is that anyway?) at least consistent and finally fault free!

I don't have a release date for Harbour Ways yet, but I hope I'll be able to announce it soon. For those who don't know my books, it's the sequel to Watery Ways and recounts the story of how I convert my own barge, the Vereeniging, from an empty hull to a liveaboard 'faring' barge. The image above is the concept cover.

For now, though, Happy New Year to all, happy editing to my writing friends, and of course, lots of lovely good wishes to you all!

Season's Blessings

Just a shortie before Christmas. I thought readers might enjoy a break from my usual ramblings, so here are some images of the Oude Haven at Christmas time, when many of the boats are adorned with lights. I think you'll agree it's a pretty enough sight for anyone.

Here's wishing you a lovely festive season, whatever your persuasion, and a peaceful, positive and prosperous 2014. But most of all I hope you have heaps of fun and pleasure in whatever you are doing because that's what life's about, and if it isn't, it should be :-)

Christmas memories

As we approach the festive season, I start thinking of previous years and other Christmases spent in different parts of the world. Nelson Mandela's recent passing and the celebration of his life that was broadcast has of course reminded me of Christmas in South Africa, barbecuing in the sun while the Christmas tree with its fake snow twinkled inside the house. I hope Madiba himself, or Tati, as he came to be known, enjoyed many such Christmases after his release from Robben Island. He was a great human being with a deep faith. The world, and especially South Africa, will miss him greatly

Other Christmases I recall were those I spent as a child in London. We lived in an old Victorian house in St John's Wood. It had so much rising damp, I thought it was normal that we redecorated our basement every year to disguise the mouldy patches crawling up the walls. Imagine my surprise when later I discovered that only our house seemed to need this kind of regular smooshing! It was also cold and drafty and central heating was unheard of then, but fortunately we had coal fires in most of the rooms. At Christmas, we would have a massive Christmas tree in the hall, and the paper chains we used to make were hanging in every room. We always went to midnight mass in the centre of London too. There were churches where the services were just glorious with magnificent choirs and organ music. I remember loving these Christmas services, even when I was small. They were quite magical and very exciting when you were about eight and out so late.

Then there were Christmases in the west country, in the large and hopelessly impractical house my parents bought on the Dorset, Devon and Somerset borders. It was even draftier than the London house, and we rattled around in its voluminous space, but we all loved the oversized rabbit warren of rooms and wings it consisted of. Again, we had a huge Christmas tree in the hall that we ritually decked with all manner of baubles and homemade decorations every year. The house was really much too big and the ceilings too high for paper chains, but we did our best. We used to go to midnight mass there too - at our own church but also to the carol service at the village church. Breakfast after midnight mass was baked ham with homemade bread and jam we'd also made ourselves from the blackberries in the summer months, or marmalade my mother made from Seville oranges. We had no TV then, so we would play card games and roast chestnuts in the open fireplace. It was really lovely. I hated leaving London at first, but once I got used to living in the country, I was completely smitten.

The Ténacité at Anderlecht

But what about Christmas on my barge? That has been another kind of magic. I won't say much about Christmas on the Vereeniging here as it's part of my new book, Harbour Ways, and I don't want to spoil it for possible readers. Still, there was another boat, the Ténacité,  in another place - Belgium. I'll be writing about this too later on, but I can say at least something about it here. Some of you already know that for three years, I had a barge at a place called Anderlecht just outside Brussels. I've mentioned it in blog posts before, but what I haven't written about is the Christmas when we took the Ténacité to Clabecq in Wallonia - a Christmas I will always remember with fondness.

The towpath at Clabecq

There was a boating community on the canal between Brussels and Charleroi just past the lock at Lembeek and we knew a few of the people who lived there, so we slotted ourselves in between them for a few days to spend Christmas on our barge, in the country. It snowed while we were there and we went for long walks in the woods or along the towpath, I painted (pictures this time and not boats) and wrote. We made our own bread, and generally lived as I've always wanted to - on the water, but out in the country. We even went to a new year's party on one of the boats. There were no fireworks, there was no Wifi, there was no trite TV - there was just peace, snow, the rocking of the barge as the commercials sped past and a real feeling of a still winter's world at Christmas. I sold the Ténacité in 2006 for reasons I've also mentioned before. I still regret having to part with it as it was a lovely homely barge that gave us some wonderful times and treasured trips, but luckily the memories don't fade (in fact they probably get a bit brighter and shinier over time if I'm honest), and these are something I can always keep.

Another view of the Ténacité interior with my paintings on the wall

Happy Christmas to all my regular readers here and to anyone who happens by. I hope it's peaceful, joyful and blessed for you all.