Slow and steady Saturday 6th August - Geraardsbergen to Lessines

We should have known better.

This morning, while poring over our charts to work out what we would do today, we came up with a plan for the rest of the week and indeed all was going very much in accordance with that plan for five kilometres or so, until we arrived at our first lock of the day.  

There we discovered unsurprisingly that a telephone was not the most effective means of communicating in French after a three year lay-off.   Three or four years ago I did a test in basic french literacy and discovered I was “sixty percent fluent” which came as quite a surprise until it dawned that it followed that I was “forty percent effluent”.  After today’s test it’s fair to assume that the eflluency score has increased substantially, yet we still managed to determine that:

a) The next lock, was not in operation and it would possibly be two hours before anyone can come to let us through this one so therefore this one is not in operation either. 

b) Perhaps it will not be four hours (which I think was the telephone equivalent of a Gallic shrug).

c) We can stay in the lock if we like while we wait.

The latter could have been left unsaid given the complete absence of alternatives. We happily read and had morning tea, and lunch to the sound of water cascading through the decaying gates, and over the course of the next few hours became intimately familiar with every brick in the lock. We had been for a few more hours when two knights in a shining little white van arrived to sort out our predicament and take us a little further towards achieving our plan.  

Eventually having settled us in to a nice little spot just three more kilometres further down the waterway, because by then we had run out of day, they assured us they’d be back at ten thirty tomorrow to raise the bridge for us.   We wait in hope.

Split personalities. Friday 5th August - Ninove to Geraardsbergen

I’ve often wondered if I have a split personality, so I’ll be ‘Frank’ now:  Belgium certainly does!

We are just a kilometre or so from Wallonia at the moment, that rather large part of Belgium that is more French than Flemish, where the language is different, the rules are different and it’s already been quite a culture shock leaving manicured hedges and painted houses behind.    

This is not a complaint.  Just because the textures are different does not make the place any less interesting or desirable to visit.

None the less, it must be said that when we entered the lock at Geraardsbergen this afternoon, we did wonder if we’d taken a wrong turn and accidentally discovered an abandoned structure.  The complete absence of any bollard suitable for a small boat, and the large ship ones hidden in the undergrowth combined with the crumbling timber gates which gave no confidence in their ability to hold back a couple of metres of water even one more time, were more than a little disconcerting.   

As if to emphasise the multiple-personalities of the country, the service at the lock came with it’s usual friendly smile in a body clad in a Hawaiian shirt rather than the blue of the waterways authority, worn slightly dishevelled and a little too tightly around the midriff area.  In a slightly Eastern Bloc twinge to otherwise perfectly articulated English, a conversation informed us that the occupant of the non-uniform had travelled no fewer than twenty-five times to Australia as a member of a Russian cycling team competing in the Tour Down Under.  He wished us a farewell from Flanders and a good time in our travels.

How could we not be having a good time?

A shock to the system! Thursday 4th August - Aalst to Ninove

In the face of a forecast that predicted zero rainfall over the coming ten day period, I can’t imagine that anyone would have been in a hurry to reach for the toolbox to repair their non-functioning windscreen wiper.  In our case that little task sits happily on a growing list of things that might not need doing any time soon.  Therefore it came as a great shock to see little marks appear on the water and what appeared to be actual mist in the distance, as we drifted our way through a particularly lovely piece of forest today.

“Drifted” because we’ve been moving around twelve kilometres a day of late and sometimes even at walking pace the world just seems to rush by too quickly.

We had another kind of weather event as well, this time a massive, noisy whirlwind in the form of Juergen and Ele, who like almost everyone we know with a boat in France have found themselves unable to go anywhere in the face of a steadily declining water level across the country.  With the prospect of another week of high temperatures on its way, they had to face a choice between stewing on their boat or cooling in their pool in Wuppertal, (mentioned only because it’s the best sounding town name ever), and the boat didn’t win.

We were big winners though, because it’s only a large detour to get from where they were, to where they needed to be via where we are, and they took it!

It’s never quiet when we are together so we were a little grateful to have no neighbours for the night.  Yet again we were all astonished that no time had apparently passed since our adventures on the Somme three years ago.  Ele had attempted to send us a parcel on several occasions during our absence only to be told quite curiously, that Australia was closed.  Now we have even greater incentive to take a small road trip! 

I love the smell of two-stroke in the morning Wednesday 3rd August - Dendermonde to Aalst

It seems as though we were just getting to sleep after the gentle conversations of last night, when the sounds of two stroke engines of the garden weed-whacking variety burst through the stillness that usually heralds that six-fourteen has arrived.

In that stillness normally, that hour goes completely unnoticed unless one has to make a wee excursion before returning to blissful slumber for another hour or three.  If we ignored it, we thought it would go away, but by six-thirty the little thwacks and pings of twigs and clippings and extraneous garden excrement landing on our boat were beginning to annoy.

Then, from somewhere not far away added to the din was the unmistakable sound of someone shouting angrily in Flemish.   Flemish is such a cool language to be angry in, even for those of us who don’t understand a word of it the intent is very clear!   The poor young man guilty of nothing more than carrying out orders (without question), made things a degree or two worse when he attempted to make good by trying to blow off the great mountains of debris stuck to one of the boats by the morning dew with an even noisier two stroke blower.

Just why the manager of the waterways authority had dispatched two of his finest to denude a piece of river bank exactly three boats long at six in the morning was never completely explained.  Perhaps he correctly calculated that it give us time to clean the detritus off the boats before nine (just).  

I do hope his decision was worth the paperwork that he will now have to deal with given the number of emails, telephone calls and written complaints that were buzzing from our neighbours' devices.

Having completed just two thirds of our allotted sleep schedule for the night, there was a great temptation to photograph the debacle, but our memories of this mooring  will be from a time just six hours earlier, of a greener calmer place where the words “quite enjoyment” come to mind. 

Feel the Serenity Tuesday 2nd August - Gent to Dendermonde

By eight this morning we had decided to proceed with plan A: we’d run the gauntlet of the drought and attempt to cruise on the river Dender although even then we were still a bit flexible about which direction we were going to tackle it.  Since we needed to leave at nine to get where we needed to be if we wanted the tide to sweep us down towards Antwerp rather than back to where we started, some might think would be cutting things a little too fine, but between lock operating schedules and tide there were a few variables in play.  If we missed that magic combination, we’d simply go the other way.

As it turned out we were in ship shape, ready to roll, or whatever it is that boats do instead of rolling, at exactly the stroke of nine which we took as something of a hint, exchanged the fondest of farewells with our Harbour Master and turned left.

As the almanacs had predicted, we rode the tide from Ghent to Dendermonde reaching a speedy twelve kilometres per hour at times under the bridges and round the twists as we failed entirely to keep up with the ships and other pleasure boat that had left the lock with us.  By early afternoon we were on the Dender, at the beginning of what everyone tells us is a long, quiet and beautiful waterway.

We disappointed a couple of Belgian boats who thought they would be alone on the only mooring. They must have had some American friends staying with them for the last few days as well because they were just as  happy as we were to sit quietly in their own space in the calm of the evening.     That was until, with their permission we decided to launch our flying camera from our dining table, when in the nicest possible way, all Hell broke loose.

We spent a little time filling requests for photographs of other boats from odd angles and emailing them, before discovering that Belgians are quite capable of staying up even later than Americans!

Party Party Party. Monday 1st August - Gent

We may have been inadvertently giving the impression that our life of late has been one big party.

Be assured, there’s work to fit in between all those good times.   

Yesterday for instance, we had to visit the weekly flower markets, and the book markets as well, before wending our way through five levels of the Museum of Industry, and in the process didn’t get time to have lunch until afternoon tea time!  By then, if we had been keeping tabs on that sort of thing, our step count would have been well over sensible daily targets.   

Such is the intensity of our schedule that we didn’t even have time for a nap before finding ourselves back on Joel and Cindy’s party bus for another night of telling lies and general hilarity, not to mention quite enough food to make up had there been a shortfall during the course of the day.    Then of course we all happily backed up for a further dose today although by this evening the pace was starting to tell on us all.

We don’t know at the moment whether to be more grateful for the good times we are having or for the fact that we are going to leave tomorrow which will give us all some some respite.  

Another Sleepless Night. Sunday 31st July - Gent

 

One late night sitting on the dock downtown waiting for the “golden hour” which confusingly was only going to last twelve minutes had it materialised, and then the fifteen minutes or so of “blue hour” at about the time someone thought to flick the switch on the street lights, was bad enough, but we were sure we’d recover in a day or two.

Then Joel and Cindy breezed into town and we knew we were in trouble.

We hadn’t thought about it too much, but when we did we realised that we’ve known them before we actually owned a boat, so they must actually be statistically speaking our oldest “canal friends”.  That’s a meaningless statistic to all except us of course but once again as so often happens, we immediately caught the tails of conversations unfinished from four years ago and continued into the night.

Well into the night.  

So far into the night that we’d missed the golden hour, the blue hour, the switching on of street lights and we even wondered as they cycled back to their van parked quietly outside the city’s inner environmental zone, whether they were at risk of having the street lights turned off before they got there.

Happily, we didn’t even make it half way through the things we needed to reminisce about so we’re going to have to do it again tonight!