Wednesday 21st April 2004 Panheel to Nederweert.

7.7° C overnight. Sunny spells with great grey clouds. Mike took Bill with him to collect our post from Heel. Bill’s post had arrived, so had Bill’s books from Peter, but ours from Glyn hadn’t arrived. Mike picked up some bread from the C1000 in Heel and came back to the boat to collect the moped, put it in the back of the car and went to check out the mooring in the passantenhaven in Nederweert. Meanwhile I got on with my chores and polished the parquet. He left the car at Nederweert, came back on the moped and we stowed it back on the roof. 

Passantenhaven Nederweert in 2013

Mike had tried ringing Glyn from a call box, but his ‘phone was engaged - on the ‘net? (he used dial-up way back then) Tried ringing him using our new ‘phone, this time he answered, so we gave him our new ‘phone number and asked when he’d posted our parcel - yesterday! Waah! He said he’d got Mike’s message so he had waited for the insurance to arrive (last Friday) and then, as there had been no call from us, he waited. He didn’t get Mike’s call when he cursed Glyn’s answerphone for taking all the money off his ‘phonecard. It would take a week to get here if Peter’s post was anything to go by. 

Passantenhaven Nederweert in 2013

Mike ‘phoned the lady at the post office in Heel and asked her to divert the parcel to Viannen for us. She was OK, understood what we wanted and wrote down where we wanted it to be sent to. She had told Bill earlier that she keeps poste restante mail for one month, as per the European norm (Mike said except for France! They send it back if it’s not collected within after seven days!) It was midday when we set off. I made a cuppa and tried sending a text to Peter to say thanks for sending the books for Bill. It failed and I lost the message four times, but succeeded on the fifth try! Had lunch on the move. Clouds of tiny black mossies were an irritating nuisance, but didn’t bite. Muck spreading on the adjacent fields was giving off some really bad smells in places, welcome to Holland! One empty commercial overtook us and we passed several boats going in the opposite direction on the summit pound. Where the canal widened just before the junction with the Zuid-Willemsvaart there were several tufted ducks. We turned into the passantenhaven at Nederweert, 

Duck and ducklings 2013

Bill followed us in and we’d got most of our ropes in place before the first empty went past like a train, with a small speed boat cruiser bouncing like a cork in its wash. It was 2.30 p.m. Mike went to get some petrol for the moped and paid 1,21€ (85p) a litre - that’s the most expensive yet. Not long ago (in France) it was less than a Euro. When he came back we went for a walk into Nederweert to use the ‘phonebox. Called Yvonne to give her the new number and then I called Mike Stimpson to see if the insurance quote he did for us in January was still good. Yes, and he said he would call us back later once he’d found our file. We spotted a camera shop which was selling birthday cards - five for 2 Euros, so we got ten. We’d been paying 2,50€ each! Checked the price of photocopying - the supermarkets charged 5c, so when we got back to the boat I gave Mike the sheet to copy for our proof of no claims bonus to send to Mike Stimpson. He came back with some tomatoes, a packet of oxtail soup and a tin of green pea and ham soup. Mike Stimpson ‘phoned back to say that all was OK; we could send him the paperwork, he’d ring us back next week with the price and we could pay by card over the ‘phone. Great! Told him our surveyor was a friend of David Blagrove’s.