Over the years of travel I’ve always made time for writing.
At school I wrote, through jobs – I wrote. Then I started writing for myself – there’s much more motivation there!
Here are some of the places where I’ve made camp and tapped away (‘thumped’ Noel says) on the keyboard.
Isla de Cocos – note the wet trousers (from the knee down) we were anchored out and dinghied in avoiding the sharks nipping at our feet and stepped out of the dinghy too early!
Magdelana, Mexico
In a TSR (Travelling Stock Reserve) while trekking with our 5 adopted horses – just Noel, me, our 5 boys and the occasional bit of writing!
One of my favourite pictures – sailing (and writing) in my slippers along the NSW coast. On board our first boat Mariah II
Renovating our 1920 Dutch barge in France. In the background was welding, grinding, hammering etc – it was bedlam and very hard to work/live in the same room as the renovations! (Love the jim-jams!)
On board Mariah II again, traversing The Great Loop – a year long adventure through the USA and Canada that I still miss today!
On board our Dutch barge again – with Lily the cat who adopted us! And we’re still renovating.
In NSW, Australia – we are dismantling an American Barn. Part-way through the process…. I tap away!
This is a short story on travels, boats and horses from a fellow writer and friend, Alison Alderton.
It’s very special.
To find out why you’ll have to read to the end… Here’s Alison’s pretty barge ‘Lily’
Dutch barge Lily moored at Mustadfors
What do horse shoe nails and boating have in common? by Alison Alderton
“Not a lot” I hear you reply. Well at first glance perhaps not but recently I drifted into the small town of Mustadfors on Sweden’s Dalsland Canal and made a discovery as well as a link to a friend.
The horse shoe symbol on the side of the lift bridge
On the lift-bridge by the town’s lock is a horse shoe symbol, it reflects the town’s long association with the production of horse shoe nails. In conversation with the Lock Keeper, he told how the company, which no longer works out of the town, once specialised in light weight nails. These were made from aluminium and used in the race horse industry. With a little research of my own I later discovered these are also used with shoes specially designed for trotting horses.
The entrance to the former horse shoe nail manufacturers
Mustadfors lift bridge
Mustadfors lock on the Dalslands Canal
Horse-trotting has a long history in Sweden; people have competed with their horses since the 19th century and at the nearby Amal’s racetrack there are regular events from April through to September each year.
Home, 5 horses nearby and our tents
Friends
A boating friend, Jackie Parry recently published a book about her amazing adventures with five ex-trotting horses which she and her husband, Noel rescued from an unknown fate. “A Standard Journey” is an exciting read; about how they sold up and set off with their horses to hack Australia’s Bi-centennial National Trail and brings my visit to the pretty little canal-side town of Mustadfors full circle.
I am thankful for this most unusual discovery which triggered thoughts of a dear friend.
And why is this so special?
Well, Alison’s publisher is keen for her to finish her book on her life with a rather special companion. Yes, there’s Roger, her lovely husband, but there’s also Buster the Beagle.
Boating with Buster – The life & times of a barge beagle will be a story you’ll want to read. Follow Alison hereand/orhereand try to be patient, it is a work in progress.
What I can promise you, knowing the ethos behind the story, is that it will be a book that will stay with you forever – I can hardly wait!
We’re still buried in the bowels of our little ship – renovating away, only popping up for air when we need feeding.
Below are galley progress-pictures from a month or so back (where has the time gone?). Some people liked the painted cupboards, but we changed them for several reasons:
1) The photos looked so much better than the real thing.
2) My eyes couldn’t stand all the hectic patterns and clashing of colours, stripes and frills (frilly net-curtains, red curtains, striped curtains, and the stencilled flowers on the sky-hatch windows) – something had to give!
3) I like fresh, simple decor that creates the feeling of space.
4) We didn’t like them!
Getting ready to sand
Some of the paint was very thick (dobbed on!), I was glad we had the electric sander!
I couldn’t wait to lighten this lot up!
First coat – there were five coats in total!
Sitting on the stove top!
Much better! (Ignore the timber door on the right, we currently have a vagrant door just sitting there in the way!)
That’s better on the eyes!
This one?
Or, this one?
Currently, we are finishing off the front cabin and that is the end of the renovations for now.
Photos appearing soon-ish!
Of Foreign Build is for sale for just 1.99 cents for 24 hours! At Amazon.com (your location must be USA – you can set it there temporarily – wherever you are!)
We are loving Buzet sur Baise. We’ve perfect autumn weather, a safe and quiet port, nice friends just down the road, all within a wonderful quaint village.
With one week of good weather forecast, Noel and I are busily painting the top sides of Rouge Corsair. It’s so easy to forget how hard painting is, this morning every part of my body aches, including my fingers!
Sunday morning we took a break and cycled 5 kilometres (uphill) to a vide-greniers (garage sale). Although it was more like a huge market with just about everything you could ever want – good stuff too.
Image courtesy of federico stevanin at FreeDigitalPhotos.net
Within the bustling, friendly market we met, an Australian, an Irishman and an Englishman, who have invited Noel to play cricket, tennis and go cycling. Noel thought this was rather nice, but did wonder, ‘can’t we just sit under the shade of a tree and drink beer?’
Chestnuts! Image courtesy of jiggoja at FreeDigitalPhotos.net
While Noel tried to convince the locals that beer, shade and trees, really was the way to go, I had great fun searching for rugs to insulate our floor for the coming winter, some blankets and bits and pieces. We had great fun with Lorna and Kim from MV Sunflower and a great giggle coming home – thankfully it was downhill!
3 rugs on the back of Noel’s bike, our work-mate bench in Kim’s basket (as well as their stuff) – I had a full back-pack and panniers (as did Noel!)
To find out about the calendar of garage sales, flea markets and flea markets of France, Switzerland and Belgium, dial up: http://vide-greniers.org/
And if ‘coins’ are your thing, look up Richard Lytton. He is a numistatist (and a rather nice chap), www.gascogne-monnaie.com (Australian and world coins).
As we approach our winter mooring, we’re starting to focus on the next part of our adventure, and look back at what we’ve achieved so far. The journey has been a pleasure and, conversely, a bit like a Carry-On film too. After the ‘challenges’ of buying a boat in a country where we don’t speak the language, we are now reaping the rewards.
First: The challenges Hauling-out, survey and work in a foreign place, with an angry broker (the sellers’ broker) as the sellers had accepted our low offer (our fault?) – AND, secret ‘meetings’ between the yard and previous owners, where we could never figure out what was going on and always felt like we were being led up the garden path to rip-off-land – made a rather stressful time. But, it all worked out in the end – and rather well!
After we’d traversed the buying process, in order to get going Noel spent two-and-a-half days bent over like a crone in the engine room, he fixed umpteen leaks in the wheelhouse windows and we painted a 18.5 metre boat (“why’d you buy something so big?”) – hanging up-side-down to reach the hull or balancing in the leaking dinghy.
Jackie painting (cutting in – NOT fun!)
Meanwhile, a cat adopted us, which was nice until we found out she had at least one other home. We tried to convince the cat to go home and stopped feeding her, but there was a bountiful supply of field mice. The cat stayed and continued to leave a trail of gall bladders on the carpet and mats to denote her preferred nocturnal eating spots.
Lily sleeping!
When we set off, we tackled low bridges that caused palpitations. We fudged the drawing of the bridge curves, guessing the water height (after flood rains), and we considered several alternate suggestions from other nomadic-brained cruising folk, such as ourselves:
Load up the boat with passers-by at the feared bridges, offer free beer as an enticement.
Get close to the bridge and ‘GUN-IT-MATE’, which would indeed lower the roof height, as these barges do sink considerably at speed in shallow water (about 3″- 4″)
The problem with these ideas was:
How do I overcome Noel’s inherited Scottish antipathy to providing ‘free beer’?
We didn’t think we had the bottle to approach the offending 200 year old stone arches with 25 tonnes at 6 knots. “What could go wrong?”
We took a day off prior to tackling the low bridges, we had flood rain that night that really ensured the adrenaline reached peak levels…. with clenched teeth and other body parts…we made it – just.
Phew!
We made good time south and Noel swam in The Med, he said, “It was very nice, no surf, dead flat and I managed to avoid impaling my feet on the broken glass and syringes.” (I have trouble swimming in the sea, since my shark encounter…another story for another day!)
More recently, we have sacked the planning staff on board that we used on the current co-ordination of events. (Fancy coming so far south for warmer climes to head north again!) There are vacancies in the afore mentioned position. So far, no takers.
Now: The Rewards Each day we trickle along, accompanied by the ripple from our bow. Otters ruffle the silky surface, my favourites, the Kingfishers, flash bright blue and vivid orange within the canal’s banks.
The rewards! Pommevic put on a marvellous display of pink and yellow this morning – (see map below).
It’s a real feast for our eyes, as we putter through villages, rolling hills, and resplendent trees where horses frolic. The relaxed way of travel heightens our senses, the breeze picks up the tangy perfume of autumn, and in the evenings iridescent dragonflies flit in the fading light.
We hear the throaty calls of the dawn chorus, eerily hidden by heavy mist. We are enjoying the cool nights where we feel the pleasure of wearing warm clothes.
Puttering through pretty villages – Moissac.
We’re no longer sailing but we’re still weather watching. Wind is still to be respected and, now, rain too.
The journey is becoming etched on our skin, by way of smiles; created by new friends, passing acquaintances, helpful locals and friendly waves.
It’s been an honour to do this journey and we’re having the time of our lives. It’s all there for the taking, just waiting for us and anyone with a sense of adventure.
The next part of the adventure We plan to renovate below decks and enjoy living in a small, friendly village, Buzet sur Baise. It’s here we’ll re-acquaint with friends that we’ve made along the way, and hopefully make new friends (while creating a nice home too).
Pommevic is gorgeous – free, safe mooring with electric and water (48 hrs maximum) – so nice, we stayed today!
But we did make it. Ecluse number 56 de Fonseranes (K206.5), has six locks, one after the other. Fortunately, we were first in line, but two other boats where squished in with us, testing everyone’s skills and patience.
At the first lock, the lock-keeper swaggered over and managed to stop chatting on his mobile for a second. I naturally assumed he had come to take my line (as per every other lock-keeper). He took the line, slipped it over a bollard and then rapidly shot fast-French at me, ignoring my pleas to slow down. His disgust at handling our lines was evident.
He chatted on his phone more, watched the other boats come in and then said, in near perfect English, ‘you do your own lines.’
‘Of course,’ I said, ‘No problem.’
To which he replied with the most magnificent Gaelic shrug, that I would assume is usually reserved for vermin.
This was before they REALLY let the water in.
The hire boat was ordered to leave the first lock, first. While the crew gathered the lines the lock-keeper tutted, rolled his eyes and stood with hands on hips. Who knows what was going on in his tiny mind – but the phone rang and it was all smiles and back to chatting with buddies.
As we puttered in I wondered how I was going to get the lines on the bollards with the boat-hook, the lock walls were too high.
‘About a third-of-the-way-in are steps,’ I said to Noel, ‘You’ll have to get me near them.’ Noel nodded in his usual relaxed manor.
I’d climbed up many locks before in our sailboat. I know it is ‘not the done thing’, but we had no choice back then or here. Back then I was on a low boat, with no lock-keeper I had to get the lines on a bollard, so up I went. Here, with muscles some thirteen years older, I had to think carefully about what I was doing.
The dry steps, of course, the lower ones were underwater and covered in green slime.
I took my time but it was a little scary.
You could walk the boat through (and others did, keeping hold of the lines) but they had plenty of crew, shorter boats, lighter lines. But, they still couldn’t ‘walk the boat through’ when we all got to the bridge. Besides Noel was doing inch-by-inch manoeuvring (handled brilliantly), and I wanted to help him too.
What followed was a scary launch of my body out to the slippery, slime-ridden steps, a steady climb with a fore and aft line on each shoulder and crowd-pleasing success. Noel manoeuvred the boat’s bow and stern right up close to the wall, however the curved lock-wall still meant I had large leap. I received ‘whoops’, claps and admiration. Meanwhile, the lock-keeper straightened his sunnies and chatted on the phone.
There was plenty of cheering as I made my way up.
What resulted was me feeling alive, working the ropes, being independent, and being strong. I was thinking on my feet. On this trip, we’ve been hauling anchors, furling heavy ropes several times a day, climbing on deck, jumping ashore and shopping via bicycles. My muscles are becoming defined, my jeans are looser, I feel alive and yes, I am loving the whole thing!
The other amusing result I’ve noticed is that our precious paint is no longer precious. After six locks in what can only be described as ‘water-fall’ conditions, just inches (sometimes much less) between boats and walls, and all of a sudden you don’t give a flying fig about your paintwork – just surviving unscathed!
The climb.
In my opinion, as lock-keepers, there’s too much responsibility for surly youths, which results in an attitude. That said, apparently since their hazard pay has been taken away, the lock-keepers on the Midi will not take your lines. I am not sure what the hazard is of taking lines. Actually it created a hazard as we took a moment or two than usual to secure the boat, and the lock-keeper let the water in before we were ready! Not fun!
I noticed, also, that not one of the boats’ crew looked at, waved, said Merci or even acknowledged the lock-keepers.
Jackie Parry - author 