Thursday 17th June 2004 Veelerveen. More waiting....
11° C Sunny start, then a strong westerly wind brought
heavy showers for the rest of the day.
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| They have an excellent library - photo by tourist info |
Bill called round to say he’d got his
callback to work today. Mike told him ours wouldn’t work the previous evening
too, then he tried ringing Glyn via callback and got his answering service. A
few minutes later Yvonne called and while they were chatting another incoming
call made the ‘phone bleep. It was Glyn returning the call. Voicemail picked it
up. Mike tried ringing him back and got the engaged tone! Can’t win. I dialled
121 Voicemail and got charged 34c to receive the message which was to say that
he hadn’t had anything from our insurer. Mike refilled the water tank and
started the engine and Markon up. I helped recoil the water hose back into its
box just as the first heavy downpour of rain hit. I did some washing for Bill
and two loads for us. Bill came over to get some info from Mike to fill in the
blanks in his log where his GPS hadn’t given him the daily kilometres when we
were still in Belgium. Lunch while the washing continued. Mike put the Mac on
and composed an e-mail to our insurer querying the need for a BSS and a letter
to our “Expert” (French boat surveyor, Jean-Marie Lemaire) asking for his
advice. Then Mike and Bill went to do some e-mailing at the library in
Vlagtwedde. They called in at the farmer’s shop, Groen & Doen, on the way
back and Mike bought a bargain - a double hibatchi BBQ for 6,95 Eu (about
£4.50), and then he watched two more boring football matches on TV.
Friday 18th June 2004 Veelerveen. Waiting....
11.2° C Grey, overcast and showery. Thunderstorms later.
Glyn ‘phoned to say he’d got all the post and asked for an address to send it
to.
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| Vlagtwedde - photo by tourist info |
Mike asked him to send the stuff to Ter Apel. I did some book and magazine
sorting and chucking out. After lunch Mike and Bill went to the library in
Vlagtwedde. We’d had just one e-mail, from Glyn. Mike sent one to Mike S (our
insurer) and one to Jabsco about our new gearbox and engine manifold water
cooling pump, which is showing early signs of excessive wear. More football but
a thunderstorm took the picture off completely.
Saturday 19th June 2004 Veelerveen. More waiting....
Cooler 8.5° C. Sunny spells and more heavy showers. Put
the Markon on and washed Fanny’s bed and blanket for Bill. Then I did our
jeans. Making use of the electricity, I sanded the port side kitchen wall, then
did the ironing and vacuuming. After lunch I filled the holes in the woodwork.
After it had dried sufficiently I sanded it down and gave it a coat of grain
filler. I started checking through my (very) old boat logs and reconstituted
some missing sections from our trip on the K&A in 1991 using the engine
hours book and my diary. Rubbish on TV.
During the evening the temperature took a severe drop and we could hear distant
thunder.
Sunday 20th June 2004 Veelerveen. More waiting.....
7.9° C (the minimum which occurred last evening, not just
before dawn). Windy, sunny spells and showery. Mike watched the USA F1 qualy. I
put a layer of white undercoat on the kitchen wall. After lunch we had
discussions on how to make improvements by installing window blinds instead of
curtains, which would allow more light into the cabin. Cooked steak and chips
for dinner, we decided that the Dutch steak we’d bought was expensive and
tough. Mike didn’t watch any Euro 2004 football matches, but he watched the USA
F1 Grand Prix from Atlanta instead.
Monday 21st June 2004 Veelerveen. Still waiting .....
Cloudy, heavy showers. We needed groceries and we wanted
to see if they were actually ready yet to open the Haren-Rütenbrock kanal.
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| Ter Apel - photo by anaschnitfink |
We
took Bill with us and went to Ter Apel and drove down the canal as far as the
bridge they were rebuilding in Germany. We saw five cruisers going downhill and
eight more coming uphill, all of which were bunched up in lockfuls. The workmen
were still finishing off the new bridge, but it was working and the navigation
was open. Hooray for that! Back into Ter Apel and we shopped in Edah. The post
office didn’t open until 1.00 p.m. so in the meantime we had a look around a
cheapy shop, called Action, where I bought some notepads and Mike bought some
tins of red and black gloss paint for 4,50€ a tin. Then we went in the library
and went on the Internet. Mike had got a reply to his e-mail from Jabsco,
wanting more info. He composed a reply. Bill had collected his post and had
finally got it all, even the stuff that was previously returned to Veronica his
letterbox lady. Back on the boat for a late lunch. England played Croatia and
won 4 -2. I sorted out old photos, mainly ones taken by other people, to make
up a new album.
Tuesday 22nd June 2004 Veelerveen. Fanny has surgery.
8° C. Sunny and warmer. Mike took Bill and Fanny into
Vlagtwedde for Fanny’s operation to remove the lump under her chin. I stayed on
the boat to get on with painting the kitchen wall.
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The vet gave the dog
methadone, which made her dribble, and, while she was sitting on Bill’s lap, he
gave her an anaesthetic injection in her rump and she was soon asleep, they
took her off to do the operation, telling Bill to ‘phone at 1.00 p.m. Mike got
the sander going and sanded the back deck and the gas locker lid (useful to be
able to detach it since he replaced the welded-in pins with removable ones) and
fore deck. He did the green paint and sanded it and then the red paint and
sand. We had lunch then Mike took Bill to the vets to collect Fanny, who was
just about staggering around - the front end was walking OK, but the rear end
was having trouble following. Bill had had another text message from Jim Mc D.
who was now in Hildesheim (an arm off the Mittelland kanal) he said he was
meeting friends in Schwerin in July. I carried on with painting the kitchen
walls.
Did a second coat of cream emulsion and the first coat of green on the
dado rail. Poor Fanny looked really pathetic wearing her neck collar when Bill
took her for a short walk down the road alongside the mooring. Mike practised
changing the number with our callback service WWT. First he changed it to the
German ‘phone and then back to the Dutch one. Later we went out for a ride in
the car, just the two of us. Crossed the Ems near Dörpen and followed the
Küstenkanal on the 401 towards Oldenburg (the way Jim went with narrowboat Elizabeth).
The straight canal was just visible in places through the dense vegetation. It
was still quite busy with traffic, even that late into the evening. We left the
canal and ran into the town of Frieosythe. Mike navigated using the GPS, so I
did no map reading, just enjoyed the scenery - we even went up to a dizzy 41m
asl on a road through undulating farmland! We ran south through Markhausen to
Lindern, then west through Werlte and Sögel, crossing back over the Ems at
Lathen (just after we’d gone under the maglev test track) and back into
Holland. Back home via Bourtange.
Wednesday 23rd June 2004 Veelerveen.
12.5° C Sunshine and heavy thundery showers. Mike took
Bill and Fanny to Vlagtwedde for the vet to check her over.
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| Kusten kanal nr Dorpen in Germany - photo by Sjaak Kempe |
She was declared OK
and Bill was told to take out the drains from her neck in five days or when the
leaking stops and the stitches from the wound in about ten days’ time. I
painted the starboard cabin wall where I’d damaged the paintwork by using a
bleach cleaner to clean it, the bleach had made the emulsion paint go sticky.
Mike had scraped the paint off for me and I’d undercoated it the day before.
Mike took the deck lid off again to paint the pattern back on it (he’d covered
the whole lid with green paint), but it started raining heavily, so the lid
went back on still green. At this rate it will wash the sand off the back deck
before he gets chance to seal it with another layer of paint! Mike put the Mac on and started composing a
letter to Waterways World in response to the article written by Di Murrell
about boating in Europe in which she severely criticized narrowboats and a
picture of our boat was used as an
illustration!! He went to Vlagtwedde to use the internet in the library. Bill stayed
on Rosy as he didn’t want to leave Fanny on her own. We’d had one e-mail, a
reply from Cleghorn-Waring about our Jabsco pump. They said we were running it
too fast with a 10 mm bore pipe, which was too small. Mike sent a reply to say
that the 10 mm diameter pipe was recommended by them, as was the running
speed. Bill brought more magazines for
us to read. I told him Mike was writing to WW in protest at Di Murrell’s
article - he told me that was part two of her article, read part one and get
even more annoyed! Waah! He did, we all did! Narrowboats are OK for European waterways, we know we’ve done it! Fish and
chips for dinner for a nice change. Mike watched Germany get beaten at football
by the Czechs. I did some French word puzzles. The west wind picked up to gale
force and Mike went out and lashed down all the stuff on our roof – ladders, planks,
etc - and moved the car into a gap where there were no trees. It was blowing
very hard across the fields on the boat’s port side.
Thursday 24th June 2004 Veelerveen. Getting ready to
move....
11.7° C Gales and horizontal
rain. After being moored in a two day mooring for a week, we were intending to
move today, but decided not to go in such foul weather! Mike drafted a letter
to do an e-mail to Jabsco. After lunch I went with him to the library.
Vlagtwedde library was closed so we went to Ter Apel, which has longer opening
times. We had one and a half hours (3 €) on the Internet doing e-mails. I typed
while Mike dictated. Spent the last few minutes looking at a couple of web
sites from Bill’s Waterways World magazines. Back on the boat at 5.30 p.m. Mike
watched England get beaten (they lost on goal kicks) by Portugal. The
temperature dropped sharply down to 10.6° C
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