Thursday 25th March 2004 Pommeroeul to Peronnes.
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| We moored next to the lock to the right of this photo (taken May 2011) |
A cold night, 0.5° C. Grey clouds, sunny spells,
showers. We took Bill with us and went shopping in Cora at Hornu. Some things
were decidedly more expensive than their French equivalent! When we returned to
the boat, Mike went to Peronnes with the moped in the car, left the car at the
boatyard after having had a chat with Majorie, then came back on the moped. We
set off at 2 p.m. waving to the keeper in Pommeroeul top lock as we left - he
waved back! It was chilly and we had several short showers of rain, but only
just a few drops. An empty German boat, Wartburg from Hamburg, came uphill in Peronnes lock one as we approached it. An hotel Luxemotor called Troubadour had taken up
the mooring along the wing wall where we’d been moored before, so we had to tie up
across the weir stream against the end dolphins. Luckily the end two were only about
16m apart (the others were 40m+) so we tied to them and Rosy came alongside. It
was 5.15 p.m.
Friday 26th March 2004 Peronnes to dock.
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| The chantier from the lake - photo taken in 2011 |
Another cold night 0.5° C. Sunny with white fluffy clouds.
The moored Luxemotor left first thing, so we moved over on to the wall so that
Mike could unload the moped off the roof (it would have been nigh on impossible
to get the bike from the roof to the concrete walkway between the dolphins). He
rode the bike down to the chantier (boatyard) and walked back. He came back
with the good news that the Luxe was off the trolley and it was ours as soon as
we liked. Peter sent an SMS to say he was having trouble getting us a spare
gearbox oil seal.
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| The trolley - photo taken in 2002 |
I grabbed the quittances and went across to the lock and told
the keepers that we would be ready to move off in about ten minutes. I’d
noticed a péniche heading uphill from lock two, so I thought we’d be able to
just drop down after he’d come up. No such luck! The keeper seated at the table
by the window said he’d got a commercial boat to come down. The other one
stamped all the documents and gave me all of them back. I walked back to the
boat to tell the others there was no rush to get untied yet. The boat that
arrived was an 80m x 10m loaded, called Viam, which almost filled the chamber,
no room left for us to fit in with it. We sat outside chatting in the sunshine
and watching the greenfinches in the trees alongside the mooring. Another
loaded boat came along, heading downhill.
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| On the trolley in 2002 - (new paint, ready to go back in the water) |
This one (called Belize) was only 55m
long, so we’d have no problems fitting in with him. To our amazement when the
lock refilled the loaded boat didn’t move straight away - narrowboat Santana
came out of the lock, chugging away in the direction of Mons. We waved and
shouted "where are you headed?", Julian waved back, but didn’t hear us so he didn't tell us where he was
going! (Julian boats single-handed like Bill, but unlike us, he travels a great
many locks and kilometres each year). We’d heard the woman on Belize screaming
at someone and thought murder was being done until we followed them into the
lock and went alongside. The boat was run by a young couple with a
blonde-haired live wire of a toddler. Now we understood why all the yelling -
he wouldn’t stay in the wheelhouse. Mum was steering, she smiled and spoke to
us. Dad was seeing to ropes and cleaning down with a hosepipe.
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| New paint - photo taken in 2002 |
Dad told Mum
that if the child wouldn’t stay in the cabin she’d have to restrain him - she
tried that and he was having none of it, he wanted to look at the funny boats
too! He hung on the rail at the top of the cabin steps and grinned while we
chatted to his Mum, who wanted to know all the usual things, where were we
going, how we had got here, etc. It was 12.30 p.m. by the time we left the lock
and started off across a windswept lake to the slip at Roelens-Maes. Majorie
had told Mike that the bloke off the Luxe had been asked to coil up the ropes
when he left the trolley, but he hadn’t done that, they were trailing in the
water - she said to watch out for them. At least they were floating and we
could see them. Bill took the uphill side of the trolley and we took the
lakeside view. He’d got two posts to tie to at the bows, while we’d just got one
and had to leave the boat wandering about, tied loosely until we were dragged
up the bank. It was lunchtime and so I made a sandwich. Bill was getting
tetchy. We later realised he’d never docked his boat before, so all this was a
new experience for him. We didn’t like to say too much as he’d earlier made
comment that too much information takes away the sense of discovery for him.
OK, but it’s difficult to know how much he knows and how much he needs to know!
Majorie’s Dad, André, came to see how we were doing and waved for Bill to move
forward as Rosy’s bows weren’t quite over the trolley. Water in the lake was sloshing back and
forth and the wind was gusting quite strongly, which didn’t make life easy. I
helped by taking Bill's side bow rope, then he undid his two bow ropes which were
still just looped around the posts and stood on the deck holding them, then he
tied the two ends together. I ended up pushing our bows away from the post
(we’d only got one post to tie to, so I had to keep us away from it as we came
out of the water in order to position the boat on the trolley) and trying to
keep Rosy’s bows central too with Bill’s side rope as we rattled up the slope.
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| A good map of Belgian waterways - from the lock keeper's cabin in Bosuit photo from Oct 2005 |
It’s a jolting, nerve-jangling experience, made worse by the fact that the
boats list (not a lot but enough to be slightly disconcerting) as the boats ground on the
trolley. Rosy was listing slightly to starboard and Temujin to port, each
leaning towards the middle of the trolley. It was 2.45 p.m. when Majorie
shouted “Stop” and André threw the switch to stop the winding motor. Let the
work commence! Mike was not happy about the fact that the previous occupant had
left a large steel wedge on the wooden top of the trolley and pointed out to
Majorie if there was one of those under the bottom of the boat it could
seriously dent the bottom! She looked very concerned about that - we thought the previous tennant would get a severe telling off. I went off to
the village to use the callbox to ‘phone M. Lemaire, our "expert" (surveyor), pausing on the
way to connect up the water hose so Mike could start work with the pressure
washer and clean the weed off the boat hull. He said later that their “new” Kärcher
was not as good as their old one, it didn’t fetch off all the weed growth. I
called Lemaire’s office, just down the road from the chantier, in Bléharies,
and the young lady (his daughter) who answered took details and said she would
ask him to ‘phone me back. When Mike finished, Bill took over with the Kärcher
and cleaned the gunge off Rosy. The weather changed around 5.30 p.m. and he had
a shower of rain to assist with the pressure washing! Mike started refilling
our water tank and when the tank was full I went over to the toilets to turn
the water off, disconnected it and recoiled the hosepipe, draping the loops
back where I’d had them from, over the bows of an elderly cruiser. Later there
was a lovely sunset and a clear cloudless sky.
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