The photograph was taken somewhere in Bruges last evening, but perhaps it looks enough like downtown Oudenburg to use in the brochure. We can’t be sure, because we didn’t actually leave the boat to find out. When we arrived the weather was that sort of windy mizzle that if we’d been paying attention when Dave and Ria took us for that walk along the beach all those years ago, we would have understood meant “Welcome to Belgium”, and the snug little cabin of our “Joyeux” seemed to be a far brighter alternative.
In any case we were a little fatigued from all the thumb twiddling we’d been doing during the day, while waiting for the lifting bridge operators to have morning tea, or lunch, or to return from their cousin’s wedding on another continent, or any other reasons which may have detained them, and therefore us on our passage.
There was no need to go ashore as it happens, as an elderly chap on a bike arrived to take our orders for fresh produce. He had potatoes he said he’d picked yesterday and eggs he’d laid today and jam that he’d make on the way home, and onions the he’d plant as soon as he got there. He wasn’t to know that one of us is a sucker for old chaps on bikes, so he left with an order for enough produce to fill a small supermarket and enough money to buy one, and the world remained in happy equilibrium.
1 comment
Belgium is wonderful, but yes, thumb twiddling goes with the territory as everything is operated by someone and not a telecommande, and those someones work normal office hours, including tea and lunch breaks. Lovely photo!
Post a Comment