In the Shadow. Thursday 5th September - Diksmuide

It’s a lot easier to push the events of the past into some recess of the mind, to be brought out only on a particular day of remembrance when one is happily detached on the other side of the world, but we are not, we are once again in what was at one time “the thick of it”.

It may not be apparent in this photograph, but the the Peace Gate, the ruins of the first Yser Tower, and the current tower which houses a twenty-two storey high museum, are positioned in a way such that the Gate frames the inscription on the ruin, and the tower provides a perfectly aligned backdrop to both. We are moored exactly on this axis and no more than fifty metres away, so it is impossible to escape the shadow of the past.  Had we wanted to do that, perhaps we should have avoided Flanders altogether, particularly just two months before the centenary of the end of “The Great War”.

There will be more to say no doubt, as our journey continues, but for now the inscription that we read each time we look out of our window is enough to ponder; (loosely translated) “ Here they lie like seeds in the sand hoping for a harvest in Flanders.”

Home! Wednesday 4th September - Nieuwport to Diksmuide

The summer holiday finished last week, and it seems that the sun itself is now having a bit of a break, perhaps exhausted from its big effort, and is now sleeping late and generally not bothering to do much at all.  Technically it has a few more weeks of work to do before summer is officially over so perhaps its just catching forty winks before resuming its normal state of affairs for a bit.

That’s exactly what we are doing.  In a sense we have completed our journey, having arrived gently in Diksmuide without fuss or fanfare, on a day that was neither hot nor cold, not fine, but not raining, perfect for snuggling in to the place as we begin to make it our new wintering nest.

Now that we’re here, we’re not setting out madly to explore the district we’ve decided.  We’re going to absorb it.  When the time comes to leave a month from now we’ll be wearing it like an old sweater, which may turn out to be quite a comfort if the sun doesn’t get its act together shortly.

Everything Works In Belgium. Tuesday 4th September - Oudenburg to Nieuwport (the long way)

We are constantly being told that we’ll really like Belgium, that it’s not at all like France because EVERYTHING WORKS.  If we thought three hours yesterday waiting to go through bridges that did work was a long time, then imagine our wonder today when we arrived at the first bridge to find it didn’t,  nor did the second for that matter.

The nice man at the control centre confirmed that he would open the first at our appointed time and that he would let us through all the bridges on our route today.   Twenty minutes later when I called again, another nice man said that he was sure that the nice man who presses the bridge buttons would do it as soon as he “returned”.

Forty-five minutes after the appointed time, not wishing to appear anxious, I again enquired, to be told in a very friendly tone that there was a problem with a lock (several kilometres away) and if I thought this was bad, I should have been here the day before yesterday.

Eventually we were allowed to pass, and after a further fifteen minutes, arrived at the second bridge to find it out of order.  The nice man on the telephone told me that a man in yellow van would be there very soon.  We weren't sure exactly what the man in the yellow van was supposed to do, and as far as we can tell, neither was he, so after arriving very promptly indeed it appears that he immediately took long service leave.   

We cannot be sure if we will ever move again, but it does take our mind off the weather.

Oudenburg Looks Nice - Probably. Monday 3rd September - Bruges to Oudenburg

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.

Well that’s that then. Sunday 2nd September - Bruges

Life in a tourist town is different to that in a less salubrious location.  Even after almost a decade of travel in the manner that we do, we still occasionally need to suppress feelings of that particular kind of urgency that tourists have, to see everything all at once.

We have to reassure ourselves that we are living here, that we can take our time, that if we don’t see something today we may tomorrow, and if we don’t tomorrow our world quite possibly will not end as a result. 

Having suppressed the urge to get out and about, we settled in to occupy ourselves with the sorts of projects and Sunday tasks that no doubt most of the city’s actual residents were engaged in.  We were happy too and content, right up until the time we noticed the rosy glow downtown caused no doubt by the tourists slowly fading into the evening, and could no longer resist the urge for just one more twilight walk through its by then near-deserted streets.

Imagining a world without boats. Saturday 1st September - Bruges

We’ve long held the view that if mankind had been meant to go swimming, it wouldn’t have been given boats.

It is reassuring to see that people who are perhaps not quite as well off, are still able to navigate quite happily around the waterways of one of the most beautiful cities in the world with minimum financial outlay. This morning we happened upon members of the Canal Swimming Association of all things, whacking out a couple of k’s in the cities canals in the name of recreation.    

That they can do this and survive is a testament to the cleanliness of the waterways on which we live. Our own pre-digested contributions to it thankfully amount to a tiny drop in a very large waterway, but we are still more than a little squeamish at the thought of joining them should the boat for some extraordinary reason forget how to float.  

“Are they really swimming in this?” we wonder, “Or just going through the motions?” 

Complimentary Colours. Friday 31st August - Bruges

There’s an orange thing floating on the canal just the other side of the bridge from where we currently live, it’s an installation called simply “Pavilion”.  It’s clad in translucent orange plastic, but the light that shines through it is actually quite red in an orangey pinkish kind of way. Within its space our feeble little brains have no trouble discerning that it’s very much from the red end of the spectrum, but in trying to balance what they are seeing, they can’t quite come to terms with  looking out of it the world beyond, which takes on a disconcertingly green hue from exactly the opposite side of that same spectrum.

The lounge setup in the car rental place on the other hand, was green.   So when we stood in the queue more than thirty minutes before the appointed time of return, and the nice young man apologised that he would be quite a while with the customers before us and if we would like to just leave the keys all would be well, we were happy to wait, telling him that we would prefer to make sure that there were no problems with the account before leaving.  

He returned after forty minutes, apologised once more, checked the car in, then told us that technically we were ten minutes overdue, but he would over-ride that in the computer.  It must have been our brains adjusting to all that time we had spent in the green space, because for a second or two, we almost saw red.