This is "Onbekommerd"!

Wednesday, September 28, 2011

On 'Onbekommerd' with Gwilym

Gwilym and I left early on Monday and travelled to Monnickendam where 'Onbekommerd' was waiting. All was fine, with the excption that the solar power controller had tripped and thus the batteries were not fully charged. I need to sort that out with the supplier.
We opened up the boat and did the shopping. Dutch bicycles were a novelty for Gwilym, but no problem of course. It rained a bit, so we did not do a lot to the boat outside.
Tuesday it was dry but still a bit of low cloud and haze. We first gave the outside of the boat a thorough clean, which was badly needed. Then we set course for Hoorn. There was very little wind and although a bit hazy / cloudy at times, it was a very nice crossing to Hoorn. There were many old charter sailing boats on the IJsselmeer (or Markermeer to be more correct). In Hoorn I got a new SIM card (lost the old one), with very good service from Vodafone (new card, same number, no cost and that for a simple prepaid card on which I load no more than 20 Euros every 2 months).
This morning it is bright and sunny and again no wind. We'll do some shopping and then cross to Lelystd for the engine service tomorrow. I have now charges the camera batteries so hopefully pictures next time!

In the meatime, Lyn is in London, working on the 'paperwork' (she now has all the documentation required for the police clearance and sent that off). Also working on the Maths module of the learning programme for children with developmental problems she is working on. We'll let you know a bit more about that in a few weeks time!

Sunday, September 25, 2011

Weekend report

I am sorry, this blog entry will again be without photos. We have some on Lyn's phone, but the logistics of getting those to my laptop are a bit to much right now.
Yesterday, we walked with member of the Central London Outdoor Group (called CLOG, which suits our 'Dutchness' quite well!) in the Chiltern Hills, about an hour bt train from St Pancras station. It was a nice 10 mile walk though rolling hills with one steep climb (but that was mostly steps). There was a stop for a pub lunch in a little village called Polloxhill. The weather was nice, quite sunny but not too hot and it was a nice experience overall: we'll be doing this more. The 'cloggies' have walks every weekend, so plenty of opportunity.
Today we had lunch with Sean in Greenwich. He has a busy life: went to the Arsenal-Bolton football match yesterday (invited by his boss). Has tickets for Red Hot Chilli Peppers AND for Bob Dylan in November. Has a breakfast with Bloomberg and a lunch with Investec in October. And was told that he is certain of a permanent position when his 4 month contract expires. So all in all, he is doing well, is enjoying London and is a happy chappy at the moment!
As reported earlier, Gwilym and I are off to Onbekommerd tomorrow. Lyn and Janine stay behind. I'll try to update the blog from the boat in the next few days.

Friday, September 23, 2011

Bits and pieces

Just a few odd notices for today:

We are 4 here at 'The Avenue' again! Janine and Gwilym came home from France on Tuesday. A flurry of activity in the garden was started: I had been cutting the lawn in their absence, but not being 'green fingered', Lyn and I were a bit reluctant to do much weeding as we feared we might remove plants and not weeds! Now that we know the drill a bit better, we can do more garden maintenance. Gwilym and I also removed the remains of a tree which had blown over a 2 weeks ago and took the remains to the recycling dump.
The weather, which has not really been bad at all, is predicted to be particularly sunny and mild over the next few days, so Lyn and I are planning to go on an organised 16KM walk tomorrow, in the Ciltern Hills. Sean has been invited by his boss to go to an Arsenal-Bolton football league game tomorrow, so that should be quite exciting. We plan to have lunch with him on Sunday.
On Monday, Gwilym and I are off to Holland to take 'Onbekommerd' to the winter storage. The long-term weather predictions are very good, so we hope for nice calm and sunny weather. On Thursday, we need to be in Lelystad for the engine service, on Friday we move to Amsterdam. On Saturday Gwilym flies back to London and my friend Hans will join me to take the boat to Alkmaar on Sunday (2 October by then). On 4 October she will come out of the water and I will have a few days to do some maintenance (our friend Ed, the previous owne,  has kindly offered to give advice and put me up at his house). Then on the next Saturday (the 8th), I also get back to London.
So those are the plans for the next few weeks, but I'll try to report here as we go along.
In Cape Town, my ex collegues from SANS still have their 6-weekly 'money table lunch', but without me of course. One of them remarked that he liked the blog but berated me for not mentioning the 'money table'. I asked for a picture of last Tuesday's lunch, but nothing has materialised so far....
So, sorry, no pictures today. Maybe I'll add some later. But there is a new picture in the previous entry, courtesy of John Eloff.

Saturday, September 17, 2011

Paperwork, paperwork, paperwork.... and a bit more playing tourist

It never ceases to amaze us how much paperwork we need to do what we set out to do!
Yesterday, we got a 'phone call from the Dutch embassy to say that they need a UK Police clearance for Lyn (in addition to the South African one they already have). No problem I say, we'll get one. On to the internet to download the forms. What do we need? Proof of address (not unreasonable), a bank statement would do fine... Lyn does not have a bank account here, because back in April when we were in 'bank account mode' she could not get one as she did not have a residency permit for 12 months or more. OK, so lets get a bank account opened now, after all, she has a 5 year residence card now. To the bank. For this type of acount, you need a passport with min 12 months residency AND a proof of South African address (its a special account for people with no 'UK History'). BUT, the proof of address must be less than 3 months old and all our stuff is from March, when we left RSA. So now we need to get a recent bank statement from Cape Town (with an address on it, so an Internet banking statement wont do). Then back to the bank, open an account, wait for the first statement. Send that off for the police clearance. Wait up to 40 days for it. Take the police clearance to the Embassy...... Slowly drives us mad.

On a more pleasant note, we spent yesterday afternoon with John and Cynthia on the South Bank and had a nice walk and a pub lunch. They are off home to Cape Town tonight. I had some requests for London landmark pictures, so here is quintessential London:



Tower bridge


And some more pictures of the afternoon:





Southwark Cathedral


A quiet moment inside the cathedral


The covered 'Burrough market' on the South Bank, lots of local and exotic fresh food!

Sunday, September 11, 2011

Busy weekend!

We had quite a bit to do, this weekend!
On Saturday morning, we arranged to have coffee with Rachel (Lyn's niece) and her husband (of 4 months) Mathew. Rachel and Mathew moved to England in July, Mathew has a job in the IT field in Cambridge and Rachel has just started her own massage practise there as well. We met them in the Natural History museum, which is one of our favorites in London and after spending some time chatting in the coffee shop we looked at some of the displays.  It was very nice to see them (we missed their wedding as we were already in Europe and had not yet had an opportunity to see them here). They are setting out in their new life and are full of confidence and happy to tackle anything that will come their way. We are sure they'll make it work and make it work well!




Rachel and Mathew


On Sunday, we aranged to meet our Cape Town friends John and Cynthia, as well as their son John and his partner Jane for lunch. John Jr and Jane live and work in London (John also went to University here) and father and son did a trans-alp mountainbiking tour together with a group of Capetonians. By all accounts it was quite a hectic event, so I guess a quiet lunch (on 'The Boat' restaurant at the Richmond waterfront) was called for. In spite of the rather dire predictions, the weather was very good so we sat outside on the top deck:



For the rest, not all that much to report. We had Sean for dinner on Thursday after he had been for a haircut here in Richmond. Tomorrow Lyn has an appointment with a company called EdPsych who 'supply' private Educational Psychologists to schools and individuals. It seems that this might be an ideal work opportunity as it would give us the flexibility we like for our future 'Onbekommerdness'. There are some administrative hurdles to pass before this can come to fruition, but we'll start by having that conversation with them tomorrow. As always: we'll keep you informed!

Sunday, September 4, 2011

Bursledon

Sorry we have not communicated a lot lately. Life is just proceeding and there was not a lot of excitement to report, except that we received Lyn's 'residence card', which means that she can stay here for 5 years, travel in and out without visa, all assuming she retains the status of EU spouse (but that's no problem!). We hope to also hear more about the progress of the naturalisation in the next few months and after that has been completed, the UK residency becomes a non-issue (i.e. we will both have it automatically as EU citizens, assuming we need it).
Anyway, this weekend we were invited by Severine (Gwilym and Janine's daugher) and Hamish (her partner) to come to the Bursledon regatta (see: http://www.bursledonregatta.co.uk/). They live in Titchfield, in a wonderfully restored old house. Titchfield is a 15 minute drive from Bursledon, which is on the river Hamble, which runs into the Southampton water, which in turn runs into the Solent, the water seperating the English mainland from the Isle of Wight. The 'regatta' consisted of may events, ranging from swimming and rowing to sailing dingies as well as big yachts, there was a 'parade' of boats dressed in Venetian style (the theme of this year's event), which promptly ended in a water fight and a very nice fireworks in the evening. All in all we had a wonderful weekend in this part of the country of which we had heard a lot but where we had neven been. The area is jusifiably famous for the amount of sailing that takes place and when seeing the amount of yachts moored in the river Hamble, Sean remarked that he could live there.
Here are a few pictures:


Many yachts ar moored in the river!


There is also a lot of history here, including old shipwrecks!


At the boatyard


Venetian theme!


Lyn and Sean watching the proceedings


There are also some very nice properties along the river!