Wednesday 9th & Thursday 10th June 2004 Nieuwolda - Termunterzijl - Nieuwolda.

Wednesday 9th June 2004 Nieuwolda - Termunterzijl - Nieuwolda.

Sheveklap liftbridge - photo by Wout van Groenestijn

15.7° C a warm night. Cloudy, hazy sunshine and muggy. There were a few spots of rain as we watered up from the tap at the bar, moving the boats closer to the bridge to do so. I walked up to the liftbridge, Hamrikkerklap - an all electric liftbridge, and raised it. The men brought the boats through then Mike picked me up from the landing on the far side, which had been taken over by the restaurant who had covered it with tables and chairs. Bill worked the next bridge, Scheveklap - a lift bridge with manual road barriers. He took Rosy through and we followed and went on to do the next bridge, Wartumerklap, which was almost in Termunterzijl. 

Old lock at Termunterzijl - photo by Bill Davies

Two fishermen were fishing from the landing, but they moved off to let me pass to work the bridge. Again it had manual road barriers, well one and a half - they must have modified the bridge and removed one part of the barrier and not replaced it. A young man in a pickup opened the barriers after I’d lowered the bridge back down. He was pleasant but he must have been in a hurry. Most of the boats on the mooring in Termunterzijl were residents, so we found gaps between them at 12.15 p.m. I made some lunch while Mike chatted with a young couple who had come to admire the boat and ask the usual questions. 

Old lock at Termunterzijl - photo by Bill Davies

We had lunch and then I put the finishing touches to my doormat. Bill went to take the dog for a walk and photograph the lock on to the Dollard. When he came back he said there were some children swimming in the mud, they were black - beats your tame sand castles, he said! The havenmaster came with his money bag. Told him we weren’t staying overnight and he went away again. It was 2.00 p.m. and Bill said he’d seen everything there was to see, so we winded and set off back to Nieuwolda. It was 3.45 p.m. when we tied up again in exactly the same place under the trees except we’d turned round.

Thursday 10th June 2004 Nieuwolda.

Old lock at Termunterzijl - photo by Anthonie Verburgh

15.1° C Murky hazy sunshine, warmer. Heavy rain showers. We went shopping in Winschoten taking Bill with us to get groceries. Shopped at the Albert Heijn as before. Back at the boat at 12.30 p.m. Packed the groceries away and made some lunch. The Bank of England put the interest rates up another quarter percent! Hooray! Now it’s 4.5%. That’s two months in a row that they’ve raised the rates. We might get back to decent returns on our investments if they keep that up! (A big fat HAH! to that one from 2014!!) Mike and Bill went in the library in the village to use the Internet. We’d had nothing back from PangIT, so I agreed with Mike that we should give up on them and register with World Wide Telecomm’s callback service (same as Bill uses). He did and they said they would e-mail us back in 48 hours to confirm our acceptance. I sent a text to Peter (and woke him!) to ask how life as a top exec was suiting him. He was still working nights and said he might be able to have a sked on HF at the weekend as he’d got lots to tell us. Mike went with Bill to look at Mervyn’s Cadillacs. That was the Scotsman who lives in the village, a bus driver married to a Dutch doctor, who has two Caddys - one restored, the other undergoing restoration. There was a very heavy shower of rain just before 7.00 p.m.