THE BEAT GOES ON /br> - TUESDAY 24TH JUNE - PARIS TO BUITENBEENTJE DIKSMUIDE

 

It really didn’t seem like a week, perhaps because it was only six days, or perhaps it was because time flies when we are having fun.  

Either way, when we woke today it was time to hit the road once again, back to the wirING things we’d been avoiding, back to the hole in our hull where the toilet once was.

On days like to today, there’s a rhythm to travel, despite the apps and trains that glide at three hundred kilometres per hour or perhaps distorted by them.  One can tell the time of day by the passengers that join as at each change, workers at the end of rush hour on the Metro, seniors travelling cheaply after nine, young mums looking for coffee when Brussels arrives around lunchtime, and school children, rowdy and excited, our accompaniment on the final leg.  While I’m playing the old catch the train doing 300 on the phone gps trick, a modern day Jack Kerouac is pretending to read, no doubt writing a poem about us in his head, in time with the clicks from the telephone screen shots I’m taking to prove we were there.

And then it’s over, we walk the kilometre and a bit back to the boat to find Thijs invisible , hidden inside the vanity unit, wrestling with what in a day or two will be poo pipe.

That, ladies and gentlemen, is a day’s travel at its finest.

Done.

LOST IN TRANSLATION - MONDAY 23RD JUNE - PARIS

 

The artist Céleste Boursier-Mougenot has taken over the Rotunda of the Bourse de Commerce with an installation which according to his description transforms the Rotunda into a space conducive to reverie, and who are we to argue?

Those white ceramic bowls float across the blue surface, generating melodious, enchanting sounds as a light current pushes them along.

The title clinamen, according to the brochure, comes from Epicurean physics and refers to the random trajectory of atoms, a concept that resonates with the work’s inevitably changing and unpredictable nature.  We spent a very cordial few hours enjoying this unpredictability and immersing ourselves in those melodious sounds, pondering as we did, the meaning of life or anything else that came to mind.

It’s quite possibly a metaphor for our very existence we thought, or more specifically one for a visit to a bakery before breakfast.  Charming, melodious and not at all predictable.

I am no linguist, but usually I arrive home with the bakery items I’d ordered all present and accounted for.  

This morning’s nasty breakfast surprise came when the brown paper bag containing the croissants was opened revealing not one single croissant, but four pains chocolate in lieu.

What trickery was this, we wondered?

Perhaps my pronunciation is so appalling that “croissant” sounds for all the world like a plea for “pain chocolate” to the delicate ears of a native.

Or perhaps, more likely Epicurean physics was at play.

Whatever the case, the pain chocolate was not a terribly long lasting disappointment.

HANGOVER DAY - SUNDAY 22ND JUNE - VERSAILLES TO PARIS

The view down the Seine from the lock that leads up the St Denis canal says “home” for a number of reasons.   

That lock takes boats up from the river into the Arsenal Port itself, so for those living on boats in the Port it’s very much like turning off your street into your driveway.

Happily that view is also accessible via a small tunnel fewer than one hundred metres from where we are presently moored, so it's a simple pleasure to wander down in the evening and watch the sun set over Notre Dame.

Unhappily, today we discovered a much more convoluted route to enjoying it.  

Having managed a particularly late start to the day after last night’s shenanigans, and an even later breakfast, it was heading towards the hottest part of the early afternoon and well after the time that most of the cleanup had been completed, by the time we arrived back in Gare d’Austerlitz. With only eight hundred metres to walk to home, in retrospect it was probably exactly the wrong time of day for anyone to say “I think this is a shortcut” let alone for the others of us to go along with it, but go we did.

The term “death by misadventure” did cross at least one mind as we crossed the chain designed to keep (everyone else) out, and in retrospect perhaps the signs forbidding entry with warnings that life jackets and safety harnesses were required beyond that point might have been a clue.   

“Death by misadventure” on the face of it seems to be far more romantic than any other kind of death once one attains a certain age, so we plugged our way along the kilometre or so of narrow cobbled dock undeterred.   It was worth it for the view of course, even if the heat exacted a toll, and worn out knees began to complain incessantly, but disappointingly there was no way we could persuade the locked gate at the mouth of the lock to budge.

Reluctantly retracing our steps, the degree of difficulty in maintaining sure footing over the cobbles seemed to have grown proportionally with the increase in heat, which somehow, just at the spot we were, would have done an oven proud.

Even if it did take more than an hour and at least four times the original distance, we arrived home happy, and at least for half of our number, not sore enough to head out later in the day exploring certain retail precincts!

THE PARTY THAT CAN BE HEARD ON THE MOON - SATURDAY 21ST JUNE - PARIS TO VERSAILLES

 The summer solstice each year is the evening of one of the greatest events on earth - the fete de la musique.  Everyone in France who can play a musical instrument takes to the streets in his or her village or town or city, and plays music into the night.  The entire country becomes a cacophony of amazing sound.

In Paris where there are bands every few paces, playing in the streets and parks and bars and pretty much on any horizontal surface, special tickets are issued on public transport so that everyone has an opportunity to visit all corners of the city.  It’s fair to say the entire country is “pumping” with a melange of base sounds permeating every corner of every structure.

We’ve spent a few of these wondrous evenings in Paris, and a lot more in other places, so Pamela suggested that rather than merely exploring random bands on the streets, we should adopt a much more dignified approach to our evening. 

Perhaps, she suggested, (a week ago admittedly so we had time to purchase tickets) we should head to the Palace of Versailles and view the Royal Serenade, a kind of rolling Baroque music fest which would take us to performances in the forecourt of the Royal Apartments, the Royal Chapel, and in the incredible Hall of Mirrors.  

We could then round out the evening by visiting the night fountain show and finally the fireworks in the gardens themselves.  To add to the colour of the evening, we could even wear our finest Baroque evening wear if we chose  so to do.

Not wishing to look like tourists, and with a decided shortage of lace and silk in our kits, we thought we could blend in well enough in our shorts and shirts, much better suited to an airless evening with temperatures in the mid thirties.  

This turned out, given the weather, to be something of a sartorial masterstroke, although we would like to thank all of those who risked heatstroke and particularly those who collapsed from it, for their efforts in setting a scene which made our evening even more enjoyable.

A very fine time was had by all.

WHEN WINDOW SHOPPING TURNS INTO THE REAL THING - FRIDAY 20TH JUNE - PARIS

 

We were all a bit slow off the mark today, perhaps it is a little travel fatigue finally catching up.   

Perhaps we were just relaxed waking to a day when we had nowhere to go, no one to see, nothing to do.  

When we are at home, we don’t have a particular desire to race out and visit and revisit all of our local attractions and so it is when travelling without any particular schedule, unless there is something particularly compelling, we are content to just “be there”.

Mostly simply being in a place is enough, interactions with folk going about their day to day business offer far more opportunities to experience our present environment, than standing for hours in queues in the company of fellow visitors to any given location.  It’s not a case of snobbery, we have all the time in the world and they do not. Tomorrow we will be going to some effort to join them on a quest of our own, but today, let’s call it a “rest day”.

A little bit of maintenance and repair on La Belle Vie, some replenishment of basic necessities, like baguette and smoked duck, happily filled in our morning.  However while Chris and Annie obviously caught up on their own maintenance, romped off into the afternoon heat to take part in a guided tour of one district or another,  a gentle afternoon stroll through our neighbourhood in the afternoon heat would provide us with all the environmental stimulation we could handle.   

As is so often the case, our gentle window shopping evolved into something else as the air conditioned interior of a fabulous furniture store beckoned.  

Our host within, a super-attentive salesman who, while plying us with cool drinks, proved to be just as effective as a design knowledge base as he was salesman, did not seem at all disappointed when we left with only a tiny selection of stock on his list of things to deliver to Australia.

WE HAVE SEEN THE FUTURE - THURSDAY 19TH JUNE - PARIS

 

Around fifty years ago, Michael Leunig published a cartoon which was a sad ironic reflection of the times that were to come.

It depicted a small boy and his father sitting on a couch, watching a delightful sunset on a lonely television set in the corner of the room, while behind them, outdoors, framed in the window was the very same view.

Not long after that we visited the Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris, climbed its belfry with our two tiny children in tow and were rightly stunned by the architecture and the decorative detail.  ln the early 1980’s there were queues, but there was not the same pressure that today sees hundreds of visitors per minute file through, unable to appreciate , or experience, or dare I say it “feel” the things that take time and perhaps solitude or contemplation to discover.

Since then we’ve passed it many times, walked around and beside and marvelled at the impossibility of it all, but we’ve never since felt the need to join the throng of tourists of all descriptions baking in the summer queues..

Today was different.   

Just a few hundred metres from the real thing and that crowd, there is an exhibition in air conditioned virtual reality, a guided tour of the building from its inception to today.  We stood beside masons cutting the original stonework, marvelled at the carpenters as we climbed the scaffold to see their work, and stood with the crowds watching in horror as the cathedral burned just a few years ago.

As a spectacle it was astonishing.  

Even in this early iteration Virtual Reality provides a believable experience. As we climbed through the building, inspecting the corners not accessible to the throngs waiting in the queues outside, watching the reconstruction at an intimate distance we could not help but contemplate some interesting questions about the future of tourism.

If we can experience this one city block from reality, why can’t we experience it on the other side of the world?   Why in the not too distant future when we succumb to the ravages of advancing years, will we need to travel at all?

How long will it be until in our nursing home beds, we will be able to revisit today, be virtually present in any part of the world at any time?

Soon enough, we hope!

THREE GLORIOUS DAYS - WEDNESDAY 18TH JUNE - DIKSMUIDE TO PARIS

 

Subjectively, it may not be one of the best sunset views in the world with all the clutter of live-aboard boats and a footbridge marring it, but emotionally it could very well be the best cruising sunset view of them all.

The July Column in the place de la Bastille might have more symbolism attached to it than any other monument on the planet, its sixty tonnes of bronze and entombed victims, remembering or perhaps celebrating the “three glorious days” of the destruction of the Bastille, but for us it’s a sign that we are “home”.   

I suppose it’s just another one of lots of places we call home really, but there’s something magical about staying in the Arsenal, that little pleasure boat port where we have spent many long evenings with friends aboard, watching the sun glinting off the “Spirit of Freedom” atop the column, the Opera House reflecting an incandescent golden glow like some giant radiator fighting the inevitable cool of the evening.  It’s impossible to convey all that means to us with a simple snapshot.

That beacon is a constant reminder- “We are in Paris”.  

It’s been many years since we’ve been here on our boat, and the port basin isn’t big enough to hold all of the memories we have of our times in this place, so when Pamela and Pat invited us to stay for a time, to reminisce and to make some more, we felt it would be rude to say no. 

Meanwhile, back in Diksmuide Thijs and his merry band are occupied chopping new holes in our boat, and filling old ones, so it is a very good time to be as far away from the actual work being undertaken as “five glorious apps”, our hired car and a couple of trains, a metro ride  and a bit of a walk could take us.   

TECHNOLOGY ON TRIAL - TUESDAY 17TH JUNE - BUITENBEENTJE DIKSMUIDE TO DUNKIRK

 

Battery technology has changed over the past decade and a half, and a replacement battery costs more than twice the purchase price of the drill. 

Due to the miracle of EU standards, a new drill albeit of somewhat more dubious origin than the ones proudly offered for sale in Flanders, can be had for one tenth of the price in France.  Thanks also to that very same miracle, our gas bottles are French EU standard, not Belgian or Netherland EU standard so refills always involve an international transaction.

Since we needed both a drill and some gas a visit to France at lunch o’clock seemed like a sensible way to fill in the morning. The drive gave plenty of time to practice in approaching understandable French “Can I trade my old fourteen kilogram gas bottle in for a full one please?  No, a red and green one like this one in the photo.” .

Having mastered all the language prerequisites, imagine his dismay when it was brought to his attention that gas is sold by automat now, without the need for human intervention.  Just key in a few simple details, pay the machine, and it will open a little door to reveal exactly the size bottle you had intended to describe to the unhelpful attendant.   Disappointingly it all worked like clockwork but we were not to be disappointed by our attempt at lunch time parking.

“Payant” the sign said “fines apply”.  The meter did its utmost to ignore us. There’s an app you see to make it friendlier, but just like the one in the UK, you need to have your phone’s store set to this region to download it, rendering all the apps and subscriptions you rely on on useless.   Oh there is a credit card option - but  we're sorry, none of yours will work.  Actual money, yes there’s a slot there and we’re happy to keep your contribution, but it’s not linked to the computer so best be moving along.

So we drove on, foregoing lunch, forced to subsist on baguette and pate while on the run.

Back at the ranch, we did get the new dash fitted, and the instruments in place, and the old ipad navigation setup working. It was quite satisfying to see all our “first generation” instruments fitting tidily in one spot ready to go for another decade.  We need a few more days to sort out the wiring though, but that will have to wait, because over breakfast our train tickets miraculously appeared in our phone wallets, and it appears we’ll be in Paris tomorrow afternoon all being well.

Isn’t technology wonderful?

TERRIFYING - MONDAY 16TH JUNE - BUITENBEENTJE DIKSMUIDE

 

When we bought the boat there were many things on our list of “things to do - urgent”, and right at the very top was one word - “wiring”.  Around thirteen or fourteen or maybe more years ago, we spent a considerable time making things safe and mostly foolproof but didn't quite get finished, and that work has haunted us ever since.

Tucked behind the dashboard neatly out of site is a rat’s nest of cables, faulty connections, old zinc fuses on the point of failure and cracked insulation, but by the time we’d finished the rest of the job, we just couldn’t face it, so we screwed the covers back on and apart from the occasional revisit from time to time, left well enough alone, convincing ourselves that if it wasn’t broken it didn’t need fixing.   

Unfortunately the failure rate of some of those corrodes switches and fatigued cables has become such over recent years, that it’s really at the point where something should be done.  

Even today, while trial fitting the new dashboard, those cables just squirmed and hissed and looked threateningly my way as if to warn me not to dare touch them, but touch we must.  

I have spent hours in the past trying to come up with a logical way of attacking this problem, and the only one that makes sense is to cut them all off and start again, which I hasten to add requires knowledge that is a terrifyingly large distant galaxy away from my skillset.

Having spent what may well be the nicest summer day Belgium has ever experienced upside down with my head in a cable duct, and the boat in a shed,  it’s time as they say, to pee, or get off the pot.

Of course a sensible person would wait to do that until next week when the blackwater tank is connected.  That would prevent embarrassing puddles appearing on the shed floor beneath the boat.

On the other hand Paris does sound nice…

A QUICK VISIT - SUNDAY 15TH JUNE - BUITENBEENTJE DIKSMUIDE

 

And there she is.   

Tucked up in the shed with two or three other stragglers, looking somewhat forlorn between the tourist train and a pile of canoes.  Perhaps it was a sign that we’d been minding the grand-puppy for too long that we were almost disappointed that there was no sign of recognition, no wagging tail or even a blink of acknowledgement, but we were sure the happiness was mutual none the less.

Thijs was there too, working on a Sunday just for our sake.   We blame him in the nicest possible way for our change of plan, as it was during our conversation a few days ago that he advised he had a small window of time to allow us to fit a proper black water tank and sewer pump out-system.

Not everyone can get excited about  the prospect carrying one’s effluent around with them, but having lived for more than a decade and a half on a boat which gave no option than to dispose of said stuff directly into the very same body of water on which we were living, the ecological not to mention social benefits of a controlled disposal system, cannot be denied.

Having settled the details of that particular project, one of us set about her usual tasks of settling in aboard, unpacking bags of winterised gear and generally making things ship shape.  The other, something of a contrary force at the best of times, set about spreading tools and mess from one end of the ship to the other, in an attempt to get going on that well worn list marked “things to do - urgent”.

While in theory, a day of work on the boat seemed like a fun and certainly productive way of filling in a Sunday, the prospect of a nice lunch followed by a snooze seemed to be even more fun.

Besides, that would give us the opportunity of discussing just how me might fill in the next week or so in our current homeless state.

Paris looks nice…

A SHORT COMMUTE - SATURDAY 14TH JUNE - BRUSSELS TO DIKSMUIDE

 

While sitting in the darkened interior of the cafe overlooking the town square in Diksmuide, quietly enjoying our dinner while the world outside enjoyed its afternoon drinks in the glorious sunshine, we once again fell into that “pinch me” mode wondering if we really were here, or would we wake from our dream and find ourselves back half a world away.

Earlier in the day, with both of our brains still in what our phones so quaintly call “aeroplane mode” we forced ourselves to hang around in bed, enjoy a large, late breakfast, and check out of our hotel at exactly check-out time.

We can’t recall ever doing that before, and it was quite nice. In the process we have developed a new respect for our phones and their ability to pop in an out of “that mode” on demand, because it’s quite clear that we can’t.  

This, combined with our propensity for having no plan, found us standing in the hotel foyer at one minute past checkout time, wondering where we might go from there.

It wasn’t really the “where” as there was a rental car with our name on it waiting at the airport, but the “how” that consumed our wondering.   

The train would be easy enough, but it was raining a little, so in the interests of staying dry we opted for an Uber car.  Within minutes of making that decision a distant relative of Max Verstappen arrived, and whisked us entertainingly through downtown Brussels at the speed of light, apparently certain that in the event of a mishap, the discombobulated state of our sub-atomic particles would render us immune from harm.

The rest of our journey was significantly more sedate, and barring a few missed turns, entirely uneventful. 

Tomorrow no doubt, we'll wake up early and wonder how we came to be in a B&B two villages away, and not on the boat.

LIKE BEING DRUNK - FRIDAY 13TH JUNE - BRISBANE TO BRUSSELS

 

We have long held the view that a good flight is one that we walk away from.  

This holds particularly true on a day when only one person was able to do that from a tragic flight in India, and when anyone planning to fly to Tel Aviv, Baghdad, Tehran and any number of of destinations in that region discovered that walking was going to be their only means of getting home. 

We are more appreciative than it may sound for the temporary fog that presently overwhelms us and even slightly less grumpy about the two hour queue to get through immigration than we might have been.

For we are here, in the sanctuary of our hotel in Brussels, grateful for every one of those three stars hanging beside it’s door, ready to bounce  or whatever our aging bodies will do that will suffice for a “bounce” into life, when the new day dawns.  Our room does have us wondering why we wasted all that effort building cupboards around our televisions when a few minutes with a stick of chalk would easily have sufficed.

Our P2P time for this trip (Pillow to Pillow), from the time we left our beds on Thursday Morning, until the time we lay them down on our bed on Friday Evening on the other side of the world was astonishingly forty-seven hours and a few seconds.

If you have been reading this tome for a few years you will be tired of me paraphrasing this particular passage from the late Douglas Adams’ Hitch Hikers guide to the Galaxy but it does exactly describe the way we feel at this point in every journey of this length;

It’s a quite unpleasant feeling, it’s a little like being drunk.

“What’s wrong with being drunk?” you may ask…

Ask a glass of water.

Here’s one I prepared earlier.

 

If you can read this, it means that we are sitting in Brisbane Airport, wondering once again how it is that we are leaving again when it feels as though we have only just arrived.  Yes we’ve been busy, no we haven’t stopped but even when we take the time to think about what we’ve done, the intervening time seems impossibly short.

The photograph of course is not from today, nor even from this country although we do share a common sun, which, at the time of writing has long since retired. It’s close enough to the view we would have had from the lounge though, had there been any actual light outside.   

The view from Airports seems to be like the decor of international hotel chains, it’s always the same.  This is rather unhelpful if you are trying to work out whether you are coming or going, even the advertising is the same the world over.

It will have been nineteen hours since we rose this morning, when finally we board, and in the very probable event that we depart on time, another twenty-four or so before we are due to land in Brussels. 

Even though it will be Friday for the entire length of the journey and for at least six hours thereafter, the day will feel interminably long.

If only we could work out how to make the days between flights last as long as the flight itself.

The Monkey is finally off my back.

When COVID came, we decided that we'd have a bit of long service leave, putting aside all the projects we'd been working on to pursue new interests and dare I say "challenges".

It's true that there were only two pieces of joinery remaining to complete our ten year renovation project, both quite complicated, and that little break in construction momentum was ill-advised.  The "puppet cabinet" became such a stumbling block that it remained in the intervening years, a dark recess with a huge television set sitting on the wall, cabling hanging beneath like some kind of eviscerated electronic cadaver.

The puppets would have to wait, sleeping in their metal trunk where they had lived since my parents had retired them, having only seen the light of day on are occasions since the late 1950's.

Late last year, after weeks of wiring and making mounts and fitting odd shapes into even odder ones the cabinet was complete "before Christmas"… almost.  

The space where two doors missing, slightly mis-measured in the rush to complete,  haunted us through the following months of 'busy-ness", but they will haunt no more.

With one sleep to go until we leave, the thought of those openings staring at us on our return became too much, the packing could wait.

Things will work out.

They always do!

JUST IN TIME DELIVERY

 

It's impossible to describe the enormity of the space in our house which for the past sixty-four days (but who's counting) was entirely occupied by a tiny grand-dog, but, having returned her to her proper family yesterday, the place seems much emptier and quieter than it's ever been.

With three days until lift-off, we've got about six days worth of organising stuff to do, which seems about normal so why panic?  

While one of us charged about at her usual unstoppable pace readying the place for the "pest man", the other, confident that he'd timed his run to the finish with some precision, set about preparing the van for it's long winter break, to discover that it had, in a bout of the sulks no doubt due the to attention the small dog was getting instead of itself, spat it's bonnet release cable out, rendering the bonnet inoperable, and the battery inaccessible.

Instead of getting the paperwork together for the coming months, making last minute bookings, finishing the boat dashboard and the tv cupboards, the afternoon was spent in a cloud of hurt and rude words, slowly dissembling the engine bay from the bottom up until enough access had been gained for said catch could be released.

Things will all work out in the end.

They always do.