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.