Sunday 11th April 2004 Houdeng to Ronquiéres (almost) and back.

The tower at Ronquieres. (photo from 1993)

Our son Peter, his girlfriend and her parents were visiting, so I had planned to do a roast which we would eat on board at lunchtime. We took our visitors for a boat trip to Ronquiéres to look at the inclined plane. Unfortunately, as the canal was closed, the Belgian waterways had dropped the stop gates for safety, so we couldn’t get within five kilometres of the boat lift. We turned round and headed back for the mooring at Houdeng, had some sandwiches for lunch and then went by car to Ronquiéres. The road through Manages was closed, as there was a fair in the main streets of the town, so we had to find our own diversion route. Luckily we’d brought our big Belgian waterways guidebook with us and I used that to navigate our way to the lift. We had a walk around, then discovered that the tower and visitor centre were open. 

The tower from beneath the twin tracks for the caissons
(Photo taken in 1993)

There was an audio-visual display set out in twelve rooms, showing the life of the Belgian bargees, we each donned a set of headphones to give us a running commentary in English as we toured the tableaux. The tower was open, so we rode the lift to the ninth floor and walked up the last two flights to see the panoramic view. On the ninth floor there was a cinema showing a short film of tourist information about the region. We returned to the boat on the motorway rather than try to backtrack through the villages. It was 6.30 p.m. when we got back to the boat. Too late to start cooking a roast. Peter said there was a Chinese restaurant right opposite the hotel where they were staying and we could get a meal there if they were open, so they drove back to hotel and we got ready and went to join them. The restaurant was very smart with a marble ceiling and patterned parquet walls, bonsais and curly bamboos adorned the bar and the window alcoves. A pretty young Chinese girl took our orders. Our five course meal was excellent, it cost 108 Euros (about £12.50 each) which wasn’t too bad, as that included several rounds of drinks. After we’d paid the bill, the girl came with presents, “portes bonheurs” she said, gifts to bring good luck - painted gourds for the men and china eggs for the ladies - wasn’t that nice? A special for Easter, perhaps! We went across the square to have a drink in the Italian bar. We said goodnight and drove back to the boat at 10.30 p.m.

Thursday 8th April 2004 Seneffe to Houdeng.

Lift No 1 Canal du Centrum (taken in 1993)

2.3° C overnight. Sunny spells and heavy showers. Did the last load of washing, some woollies, and had trouble with the heaters - thought it had finished heating, swopped to mains and the washer dropped the breaker by switching the heaters on again. Three times it did that, so I advanced the programme and then it carried on working. We set off at 9.30 a.m. as a shower of rain arrived. Teenagers were setting off from ADEPS in rowing skiffs, heading the same way as us. A large empty commercial had just gone past, heading for the Sambre, as we turned back towards the lifts. Saw green woodpeckers on the towpath, they were running up the railway embankment. Turned into the canal du Centrum and tried to moor on the quay immediately above lift one at Houdeng. It was too shallow, we were on the bottom. In the time that the lift had been closed (two years), the end of the quay had silted up. A large empty commercial left the scrap berth and was sucking water away from the lift, we went bump on the bottom. Tried nearer the lift, same problem - plus a friendly pit bull at the house which barked and wagged his tail. His owner came out and said we were OK to stay there, but the dog would bark all the time. Thanks, but it’s too shallow anyway. We went back to the quay and tried the end nearest the empty commercial and moored there. Success, the water was 2m deep! Bill came alongside. After lunch we unloaded the moped and Mike went back to Majorie’s to collect the car. It was 1.15 p.m.

Wednesday 7th April 2004 Ville-sur-Haine to Seneffe.

Waiting below the Strepy-Thieu boat lift

3.1° C overnight. Mike took the camera and tripod to take a photo of the humorous sign warning fishermen of the dangers of overhead power cables. Unfortunately the one he walked back to photograph had been vandalised. It was grey and pouring with rain when we set off at 9.30 a.m. We arrived below the lift at 10.10 a.m. and moored in front of a hotel Luxemotor called Peterborough to wait for the lift. The left hand caisson had green arrow lights showing, indicating that was the side to use, but beyond that red lights were illuminated as the caisson was at the top. Mike tried calling the keeper on VHF and got no reply. We waited. He took a walk to the lift. There was no access to any office and no one was around. The skipper off Peterborough came to chat. He called the lift, they answered him straight away to say that they were waiting for a downhill boat to arrive and then we could go up. I went inside and made tea and toast. Mike took still photos of the tank descending. I found the video camera out. The loaded péniche Arcadia left the tank and we got a green light. Threw ropes round bollards half way along the tank and the guillotine gate dropped down behind us. A 

Rosy in the tank

few minutes later a voice on a tannoy, sounding not unlike a railway station announcer, said that we must move forward as a 38m boat would be joining us. We moved forward, although there was more than enough room for them behind us. The gate reopened and Con Zelo, a loaded péniche concrete carrier, arrived and moored behind Rosy. Still we waited. The trip boat Scaldis, which had been moored below when we arrived, had loaded with passengers and was now ready to depart, so he came in behind us. The trip up the 73m lift took just seven minutes, after a two hour wait! We left the top at 12.30 p.m. The wind was howling across the high level canal. The two commercials soon overtook us. The new canal was lined with asphalt and had sloping concrete sides. 

The rest of the boats in the tank

Mike paused to have a look down on the road below from the long aqueduct. More heavy showers. I cooked our last packet of British bacon (from the freezer) to make a hot sandwich for our lunch. It was excellent with tomatoes. Mike had fried eggs too. We followed Bill into the arm of the old canal at Seneffe, now used as moorings by SNEF yachting. We followed him past the kids in sailing dinghies at the ADEPS outdoor centre and down the arm past his friend Mike Clarke’s 19m long, riveted, red oxide painted narrowboat. A chap came out on the deck of the first boat on the moorings to tell us we couldn’t moor in the arm as the moorings were private. The space Bill had dropped into was someone’s mooring, which they paid for, he said, and would be upset if they found someone else moored there. Bill rang Mike C, he had a few words with the Capitain then we moved back down the arm to moor just before the bridge on their visitor moorings. 9 Eu per night, including water and electricity. 

Going up

I made a chicken curry for dinner. Mike replied to an SMS from Peter and put the HF wire antenna up to try various frequencies. Meanwhile after a knock on the cabinside, I went to pay up at the club house taking “Ships papers” with me. I filled in the form, had a beer from Bill’s friend Mike, who also paid for our overnight mooring charges, which was very kind of him. I chatted to Pierre who was keen to know more about how we got to Europe and about travelling to Poland. Bill chatted away to Mike in English, while I answered Pierre’s questions in French. Then we went to have a look at Mike’s boat, which he had been fitting out for four years. Back cabin with range. Engine room with a vintage Ruston engine. Shower and toilet (over a holding tank) still under construction. Kitchen with diesel cooker. Then a dinette under construction, a space for more seating and a low cabin at the bows for the kids, which they had to enter by ducking under the front deck. It will be very nice once it’s finished. Pierre’s ‘phone rang - his missus from the house opposite, dinner ready. We wished him “au’voir” and went on Bill’s boat for a drink. Chatted about red diesel and boats, Europe and cruising until 11.30 p.m.

View from the top looking back to where we set off from

Tuesday 6th April 2004 Pommeroeul to Ville-sur-Haine.

Choppy water on the "large" (wide section) at Mons
photo taken in 1993

5.3°C overnight. Grey and windy. We set off at 9.00 a.m. I had a cold so I stayed inside as much as possible, dosing on honey and hot lemon with painkillers, head over a bowl of steaming hot water. A shower hit and Mike lost his cap in the cut as he put the brolly up, which had flapped in the wind and caught his hat. Luckily it floated, so I hooked it out with a short shaft, wrung it out and then gave it a good wash. At 11.30 a.m. 

Entering Havre lock. (photo taken in 1993)

I steered while Mike ‘phoned our bank again. They told him that their head office had told them that there had been lots of problems with cards in Belgium, probably due to the “chip and pin” system, so it was best to use major high street banks - our cards should work at any bank showing the Visa symbol. A hail storm hit. I started making a sandwich just before Obourg lock, then I had to clear the gunwale and canvases on the port side of the piles of ice from the hail storm. The five metre deep lock at Obourg had no floaters, so we went up the wall using ropes on the recessed bollards. A small white Belgian, cruiser, called Quiétude, had been kept waiting in the chamber - he’d overtaken us earlier. I took all our papers up to the cabin. We ate our lunch en route for the next lock, Havre, a deep chamber at 10m, but this one had floaters. 

Centre gates closing behind us to use half the lock
(photo taken in 1993)

The keeper called us forward into the front end of the lock and we came up in half the chamber. The cruiser had the floater (lots of which were missing in this lock) next to the lock cabin, so we went on the opposite wall and went alongside Rosy with Bill hanging on a floater at the front while I controlled the other rope from his centre roof stud. Another call for the quittances. As we were on the opposite side to the cabin the ladders didn’t get much use and were filthy with green gunge. My hands were disgusting. Fortunately the papers were in a zipper bag to keep them dry, so I unzipped the bag and one of the keepers took them out. They took pity on me and let me wash my hands, which was kind of them. Peter ‘phoned as we went along the new canal towards the towering structure of the new Strépy-Thieu lift. Later I checked our credit balance and found it had cost us £8 to receive his 15 minute call! Probably more than it cost him to make it! We moored next to a long cabin-high quay at Ville-sur-Haine, opposite the lift bridges on the old canal. It was 2.15 p.m. Mike tried ‘phoning the D2 operator and had trouble getting them to speak English. He tried a second time and the girl said her colleague would call us back. Mike was getting very annoyed. He gave up and went to find a post office to get a stamp to post a cheque for the car insurance and get a couple of ‘phonecards. Meanwhile the operator ‘phoned back - we couldn’t use our card to top up as it hadn’t been “registrated” - I said we’d done it before, she insisted there was nothing, no card “registrated” against our ‘phone number. 

Quay below new lock on to the old canal and boat lifts
(photo taken in 1993)

Did we know anyone in Germany who could send us a scratch card? Yes but it would take too long. Couldn’t we get a scratch card in Belgium? She checked. No, none in Belgium. In the Netherlands we could use Keritel. Well thank goodness for small mercies! Mike returned. He hadn’t found a post office, but a small shop had sold him stamps and ‘phonecards and he’d posted his letter in a dubious looking post box. We had a cracking thunderstorm and more hail. We could recharge our UK Vodaphone using a debit card, so why not use that instead. He ‘phoned the GB operator - we’d got a card “registrated” (that word will stick!) with them and topped up the £15 balance with another £15. We would still have to pay through the nose to receive calls. Sent Peter an SMS to tell him the change of number. Rain poured down. Although we’d kept the coal fire going all day the boat was getting chilly after dark, so Mike lit the central heating for overnight.

Still a dearth of photos from 2004 - these were taken way back in 1993

Monday 5th April 2004 Peronnes to Pommeroeul.

Overcast, windy with heavy showers. We paid Majorie 370 Eu (250 for the docking, 25 for the washer, 5 for electricity (first time she’d charged us for electricity!) and 90 for the pump) André came and shoved the trolley with the forklift. As usual it was reluctant to get moving and when it did move it charged faster than we’d ever done before down the slope - did Majorie forget the brakes? The boat floated off the trolley and stopped moving in the water but the trolley carried on with Rosy on it and pushed us with the posts, fetching off some of our nice new paint. 

I saw this and flicked the rope off to shove us off, completely forgetting that we hadn’t got the engine running because Mike had changed the fuel filters and hadn’t bled the system as he needed water for the Jabsco pump and couldn’t get that until we were afloat again! The wind was blowing the boat towards the end of the lake, so I was able to get the rope back on and hang on to it while Mike started the engine. Bill circled round with Rosy until we were away. I shouted across to Majorie and the gang on the bank that we were OK, that the engine had to be bled and then we’d be away - they waved “au’voir” and went off to get some lunch. Once we were moving, I tidied up - several items had fallen over in the cabin, but no damage had been done. One empty commercial vessel came down Peronne lock one, then we went up. Mike put our squidgy blue fenders out as the paint was still “soft” when Bill came alongside to go up the lock. 

He dropped his roof centre rope round our centre stud, but held the end and we chatted while the lock filled (our rope was round a floater) until the flow caught Rosy’s bows and blew the boat across the chamber. Bill couldn’t hang on to it and raced off to the stern, but the bows still hit the wall harder than he would have liked with new paint! I took the quittances up to the office and told the lone keeper that we would like to pause in the corner while Mike collected the moped from the chantier. No problems. A loaded péniche was coming down to the lock like a rocket, making us bob up and down as we tied up. Mike collected the bike and stowed it on the roof, then we set off again at 1.30 p.m. Bill had already carried on to Pommeroeul. The weather turned wet and windy as I finished making lunch. After lunch I steered while Mike pumped out the loo tank (no pump out stations here!). We passed just one boat, a 60m empty called Timoré near the junction with the Blaton-Ath canal. It was blowing a gale and the rain was horizontal when we tied up in front of Rosy at Pommeroeul at 4.30 p.m.

Pictures are from 2011 

sunny in late May not the howling gales and horizontal rain of April 2004

Thursday 1st April - Sunday 4th April 2004 Dock at Peronnes.

Thursday 1st April 2004 Dock at Peronnes.

Warmer 7.7° C. Grey with light, short showers of rain. It was raining when we got up at dawn. Tidied up and slung all the inflammable stuff out of the gas locker and engine room, plus the petrol generator, stowing them under the little tjalk behind us. M. Lemaire arrived on time at 8.00 a.m. Mike went to find him. A very modest, unassuming kind of a chap. He spoke very good English and told us he’d worked in a Wimpy bar in Blackpool during his teens in the sixties and he’d seen the Beatles perform live there. To assist him, Mike ground off small patches of paint where our expert had put chalk X’s and then he checked the thickness of the boat’s hull, using a little Baugh & Weedon ultrasonic thickness test meter (We used to use equipment made  by them in a former life). He did the same on Rosy, then came on board our boat to write up his notes and I made him a cup of tea while he had a look at our previous surveys. He didn’t want to look at anything else, he went to write up his notes on Rosy sitting in Bill’s back cabin. 

He was quite embarrassed about the article his friend David Blagrove had written about him in the March edition of “Waterways World” He’d asked if we’d contacted him after reading that. We said no, he’d been recommended to us by Helen who owns Floan. He said he would be back on Sunday with our reports, but Mike pointed out that the yard was closed on Sundays (remembering the problems Helen and Geoff had had getting out to get the train back to Gent the previous Sunday) so he said he would be round to see us on Saturday. Mike had just asked him how much he was going to charge us just as his ‘phone rang and he had to dash off. Never mind, he’d promised us a good price for the two after earlier quoting 250 Eu for just us. He was gone by 10.30 a.m. Mike and I went to get a gas bottle refilled at Tahon (33.3c per litre - a full bottle cost 9 Eu) then picked up a pack of briquettes (3 Eu - we’d been paying over 5 Eu at Bricomarché in France) from their other depot down by the canal. On the way back to the boat, Mike said we should have taken the quittances with us and booked our trip for Monday. 

Back at the yard we dropped off the gas and coal, collected ours and Bill’s quittances and went back to lock two. The chief keeper, a familiar face from the last time we were at the chantier, was chatting to two guys with a van - he said here comes a lady to give me a few sous (pennies). We went up into the lock cabin, where a party of schoolchildren were sitting on the floor having a lecture in Flemish and French about the workings of the lock by the other keeper. The chef shuffled the papers, did a couple of reprints and charged me 50c to extend both our trips from Blaton to Maastricht! Well, he said I was going to pay him a few sous! I said we’d see him again in a couple of years’ time, we were off to Poland. He replied that he had only got five years left to work before he too was retired. Back on the boat I tidied up and gave Mike a hand to put the petrol and the generator back on board - we needn’t have moved them as our expert didn’t do a by-the-British-book check. Mike had found that the reason we could smell gas earlier while the bottle was filling was because the soldered joint on his fitting had split. 

He also noted that a washer was missing and I got the blame as I had carried the pipes back to the boat. (I found it in the boot of the car - I hadn’t lost it at all it had fallen off) Made lunch then went back to painting. It took both of us all afternoon to give the sides another coat of Comastic. We had three quarters of a tin left over - not enough to do a third coat and Mike was in no mood to crawl underneath to give the bottom a second coat. I went in to cook a stirfry for dinner, Thai garlic pork with carrots, onions and noodles. As I was preparing it Mike remarked that the water filter pump, which had been squawking for a couple of days, would soon be packing up. Just as he said it, it stopped. He had to stop what he was doing to move the ‘fridge out and swop over pumps. Bill loaned us his copy of “Waterways World” with the article about our expert written by David Blagrove. It made for interesting reading. Didn’t realise that he owned the trading péniches Medway and Towcester, which work as a pushtow pair, plus Stoke Breune, England and Elvis. Helen had told us that he was responsible for naming those boats as he is a confirmed Anglophile.

Friday 2nd April 2004 Dock at Peronnes.

Even milder, 11.5° C, paid for by a grey and showery day. I went to find the washer I’d been accused of losing and found it in the boot of the car. The liquid gas is very cold and probably loosened the washer during filling, I was told, after I’d threatened to stuff it up his nose for saying it was my fault it was lost, that he hadn’t got another one. Mike went out to paint the fenders with creosote and I put the Mac on to catch up with the log, while he suggested all sorts of other little jobs I should be doing, which included washing the cabin down in the rain. It had started raining heavily, so after he’d finished doing the fenders he came in and warmed himself some soup for lunch then went for a nap. 

The rain had turned to light drizzle. At 3.15 p.m. there was a loud crash and a lot of yelling, which woke Mike from his slumbers, the forklift had run into something as it came to shove a Frenchman’s yacht (which was in the slings from the next trolley on the next set of rails towards the boat hangars). Later I spied a flattened set of aluminium ladders - at least it wasn’t his masts! The Frenchman told us he’d built the yacht himself ten years earlier and had spent a lot of time in the West Indies, where he was due to return, but he wasn’t retired he told us he worked for a French TV company. They shoved the trolley down the tracks and he motored down the lake to moor on the outside of two cruisers by the boatyard’s back gates. Mike read the article in Bill’s WW about Jean-Marie Lemaire, expert fluvial, written by David Blagrove. Next task, I cleaned the roof off (it always gets filthy from the grinding off of old paint), sweeping it with a brush first, then using two bowls of water being careful not to let any drip down the sides. Mike wire brushed the gaps in the paint on the gunwales, I brushed off the dust, then he painted them with Comastic and sanded them. When I went inside it was 6.25 p.m.

Saturday 3rd April 2004 Dock at Peronnes.

9.4° C overnight. Windy, grey and showery. Mike took Bill with him to get some bread and find a cash machine. Meanwhile I got on with the usual chores and cleaning up some of the debris. They didn’t get back until 1.00 p.m. I was starting to get a little concerned about how long they were away. They’d got the bread easily enough, but Belgian cash machines were proving to be a pain. They’d been into Tournai and tried Fortis, ING (which used to be BBL) and lots of Bancontact Mister Cash machines and none of them would give them any money from their Nationwide cards. A return to France had been the only solution and then they’d gone to the supermarket at Condé-sur-l’Escaut. Made some lunch. Mike moved the welder and put it away, changed the engine oil and filters then he reinstalled the echo sounder in its tube (he didn’t add a bracing strap as he had planned to do as the upheaval to get at the bottom of the boat from the inside would have been too much - like complete and utter chaos). Then he cleaned up the prop and filed the edges (which he forgot to do last time) and replaced the bearings in the rudder. He put the HF wire up expecting to get a call from Peter to play Amateur radio, but he must have been too busy. I’d got a sore throat again! A lot of rude words were said about the amount of sneezing and coughing that goes on in supermarkets!

Sunday 4th April 2004 Dock at Peronnes.

A milder day, but grey and showery. We spent the morning putting the first coat of antifouling around the hull as far as the waterline. Bill ran the hose out and refilled his water tank, then handed it over to refill ours. After lunch,  Mike watched the first Formula One Grand Prix of the year, from Bahrain. M. Lemaire ‘phoned, he was on his way and could we meet him at the gates. I grabbed Mike’s wallet and went to find Bill, encountering the horrible little brown horse on the way - he tried several times to bite me as I dodged round obstacles to keep him at bay! (I asked Majorie about him later - she said she’d won him in a Tombola - she loves and hates him as he is so naughty, she’d got bruises herself where he’d grabbed her midriff with his teeth!) Bill had been out with Fanny around the yard and we both went to see M. Lemaire. The horse galloped past and stood at the gates rearing up to kick out his back legs before having another race around the yard. Through the locked gates, our expert handed over our reports and we handed over 200 Eu each. He was off on holiday he said. When we asked where to, he replied Miami - but only for four weeks, he said shyly! The water tank was full on our return, so Bill turned it off and I coiled up the end of the pipe nearest the boat. Once the motor racing on TV was over we went back to painting the final coat of antifouling. The 2.5 litre tin of Plastimo antifouling (French, but bought in Britain for an exorbitant £50) ran out and we used part of a 3/4 litre tin of Belgian-bought Epiphanes left over from last time (it takes 3 litres to do two coats). Painting finished, we tidied up and put stuff away, stowing the gangplanks back on the roof. Ready for splashdown tomorrow!

Sorry about the repeated photos - 35mm photos were very costly back then so far less were taken, blogs were a thing of the future!

Saturday 27th - Wednesday 31st March 2004 Dock at Peronnes.

Saturday 27th March 2004 Dock at Peronnes.

On the trolley. 2002 photo

After that clear sky overnight, we had a freezing cold night, -1.4° C and a foggy morning. Mike set to work with an electric wire brush and I got my chores done. Bill handed over a pillowcase full of his washing and I went to find a hosepipe to redirect the waste water under the boat towards the lake, rather than have a soggy puddle under the boats. I found a long length of old hose in the grass and enlisted Bill’s aid with his pocketknife to hack off a length where it had rotted through. Then I cleared a channel across the concrete slabs to run the water into the grass by the lake. Once the pipe was sorted I started the machine off on a marathon session (we hadn’t been able to do much washing whilst we were waiting at Pommeroeul as there was no tap to refill the water tank). I got lunch ready and then joined Mike with the second small angle grinder equipped with a wire brush to clean off the loose Comastic layer on the hull. Once we’d finished wirebrushing, we immediately started the first coat of paint. Helen ‘phoned and said she had been chatting to Geoff, the chap who owns the English bookshop in Gent and is also a friend of Bill’s, who said he would like to join her to come and visit but could only come on the day the shop was shut - Sunday - Helen was apologetic about coming while we were in the throes of all the hard work. I said it was OK, we’d got plenty of time and Mike could collect them from the station. Then I went and warned Bill of the impending visit of his old chum. It started to get cold and dusk was falling as we had almost finished the starboard side. It was 7.00 p.m. when we packed up. I threw some chops and sausages in our grilling machine and microwaved some spuds for a late dinner, which we ate while watching TV. Knackered. 

Sunday 28th March 2004 Dock at Peronnes.

On the trolley. Photo from 2002 

Another cold one -3.5° C, sunny all day. Mike went to get some bread from the village by car. I started off some more washing, cleaned up in the cabin and cleared up much of the clutter. Mike went off to collect Helen and Geoff off the Gent-Mons train arriving at the station in Antoing at 11.34 a.m. meanwhile I started cooking some lunch. When they arrived they had a walk round looking at the boats and Geoff went to have a chat with Bill and look at Rosy’s new engine. Helen came on board and we had a chat. She’d brought us a box of teabags and a Belgian Almanac (useful with all sorts of info besides tide tables) she also left us a book she’d been reading (and hadn’t quite finished) about Captain Cook. Called the others over and we had lunch with an Italian flavour, salad for starters with mozzarella cheese, then chicken Marengo (in tomato sauce with basil, onions and mushrooms) with spuds and broccoli followed by peaches and mascarpone, washed down with an Alsace white Gewürztraminer wine. We chatted for a while then Helen went off to have a look at Bill’s new engine and we chatted with Geoff. He said when he got home he would have a look online for several books we’d been searching for recently. When they were ready to go and catch the 5.26 train back to Gent, Mike started up the car and I went to open the gate and found it was padlocked! Calamity! Called at the house, no one in - Helen then had a chance to have a look in the workshop (I’d told her what a large selection of machinery they’d got for doing all types of repairs) whilst searching for someone to open the gate. No luck, no one about. The gate next to the house was unlocked, but there was no way to get to it with the car - no one drives down the path between the chandlery and the workshops and boat hangars. Helen said they would walk as it wasn’t far. Mike gave her directions for a short cut path, it’s 5 kms by car but only about 3 kms on foot. Helen ‘phoned us at 6.10 p.m. to say they’d arrived and Mike’s directions had been spot on. I set to work washing up, while Mike made a start on fabricating a deflector for the end of the exhaust pipe. A small brown horse was wandering around the boatyard (part of the menagerie owned by the family and only let out once the gates are locked) it decided it was going to bite Mike’s arm and wouldn’t leave off. I threw it an apple, which it nibbled at instead of Mike, before getting bored and wandering off round the yard again.

Monday 29 March 2004 Dock at Peronnes.

Painting the name around the stern bands.
Photo from 2002

Another freezing cold night, -1.9° C. There was mist on the lake when we got up but it was sunny and warmer during the day. Mike welded the extra exhaust pipe on the stern while I held it in place. Then he re-aligned and welded the leading edge tab on the rudder. Continued with the painting just before lunchtime. Bill went to the chandlery and got four new anodes. He asked André about a prop as he wanted to swop his 20 x 13 for an 18 x 13. André hadn’t got one and his supplier couldn’t get one to the yard any quicker than ten days. André suggested cutting the 20” down to 18” and balancing it for him. Bill tried calling Norris’s, they hadn’t got one in stock and wouldn’t be casting that size until several days’ time. Midland Chandlers hadn’t got one in stock either. Bill agreed to let André chop his prop. We finished painting the port side, hooray for that! Mike helped get Bill’s prop off and André took it away to machine it. 

Tuesday 30th March 2004 Dock at Peronnes.

A milder night 2.7° C Sunny and warm all day. Started off by refilling the water tank. Mike started cleaning off the bottom - a job he hates but feels he has to do, it’s a waste of time painting the sides if we leave the bottom! Bill said he wasn’t keen on blacking Rosy’s bottom and so he didn’t clean or paint it. Although the bottom is made from 10mm plate, after 20 years of never having been painted it was starting to show signs of some serious corrosion. I painted the coloured bands around the stern. I put some woollies in the machine to wash, then continued painting. Mike welded Bill’s eight anodes where he indicated that he wanted them, two at the front, two at the back and two each side the midway point along the boat sides. When asked if they would get knocked off in locks, he said he would have to start using fenders. (We don't have annodes fitted as Mike believes they do more harm than good) The temperature was very mild so we didn’t light the central heating or the coal fire overnight.

Wednesday 31st March 2004 Dock at Peronnes.

Nearly finished - 2002 photo

A mild 2.1° C overnight. We took Bill with us to do some shopping, calling first at the post office in Antoing to get a new ‘phonecard on the way to Valenciennes. Mike had taken his tin of zylene thinners, Boiro N° 560 - used for rubberised swimming pool and tennis court paints - to see if they’d got any in Castorama (big French DIY hypermarket). They hadn’t and the bloke he spoke to was most unhelpful and couldn’t suggest anywhere else to try. We went in Auchan, next door to Casto, for groceries, etc. Back to the boat at 12.30 p.m. Lunch. Mike went back to painting the bottom. I did the second coat on the stern colours and the black, the wind whipping several tiny streams of paint across the yellow while I wobbled on the plank repainting the name and port and did the bands. I fried some fish (Estonian - or Russian - zander, bought from Auchan, which was very nice) and chips for dinner.