Sean's first day at work - Lyn's birthday

Sean had his first day at work yesterday. We met up with him at the 'Railway' pub at Kew Gardens Underground station, also because he could not make it today for Lyn's birthday as he has a 'work dinner and drinks' tonight. He looked rather professional in suit and tie, the image fits him perfectly!

Today is Lyn's birtday, so we went to visit her favourite shop in London, Foyles bookstore. Five floors of books is heaven for Lyn and she bought a few 'birtday presents'. On our way there, we walked past Sean's office. Its in Jermyn street, which runs parallel to Picadilly. Its full of (expensive) mens outfitters and shirtmakers. Here are 2 pics.

Note the typical 'pillar box' (postbox) and phone booth (which is right in front of #54 where Sean works)

Back in London - Sean's news!

We are back in London. On Thursday last week, after some more varnishing, we treated ourselves to a quick visit to Amsterdam. After that the weather got worde again, fortunately a lot of the most pressing maintenance work was done (not all of it, there is always work to do on a boat).
The Saturday and Sunday saw increasingly bad weather, rain, cold and windy. We were wondering whether it was 24 July or 24 October when we closed up the boat and walked to the bus stop. For us not that big a deal: we had nine wonderful weeks on the boat, but if you have 2 weeks leave, spent a lot of money on renting a boat and then this weather.... that's 'not fair'. We did remark that, if given the 'Schengen days', we would have loved to stay and go South into Belgium and France. But we'll leave that for another year. I am going back later, probably late September, to 'put the boat to sleep' for the winter (and do or make arrangements for some more work, like anti-fouling).
The trip back to London was uneventful and it was nice to see the clouds disappear when we were crossing the North Sea and by the time we got out of the airport it was 24 degrees instead of 14 and sunny instead of rain!
We quickly contacted Sean and he met us in Richmond  for supper and then  spent the night with us. The really big news is that he has got a job! On Wednesday he starts at Pallinghurst, an investment company specialised in mining activities. They are in the centre of London, off Piccadilly. It seems to be a 4 month probationary contract, we'll learn more when we see him again on Wednesday evening, so we'll report back then. In the meantime, he is buying more shirts and an extra suit as that is the expecyed business wear here. Here is a picture of Lyn and Sean in front of 12 The Avenue, our current abode!

Maintenance day

Hurray! The weather was a lot better the last two days, so we got an opportunity to do some essential maintenance. Firstly we filled the tank with almost 300l of diesel yesterday. That was after 6 weeks of heavy cruising and itb was less than expected.
Today, I sanded and varnished the wood around the teak decks as well as the back handrail. It still needs an extra coat Maybe even two) but it already looks a lot beter. After that it was bilge-cleaning time, so that is also spick-and-span now. Lyn polished the wood inside the main cabin.
Still quite a bit to do but with a few more nice days we'll get there. Otherwise, if there is a lot left I'll come back here mid August. If it is a small amount, I'll do it at the end of September when the boat goes back to winter storage.

We spoke with the boys on Skype on Monday (and again with Sean today) and they seem to be doing well. Sean had a meeting with a Lord about investment job opportunities and got some very valuable advice (and possible further contacts) and also was shown round the Houses of Parliament by this Lord. He also has a job interview tomorrow, so life is exciting for him in London!

Back in Monnickendam

Yesterday we stayed in Baarn and got the opportunity to see family and friends in the area.
Firs we cycled to Soest, to see my uncle and aunt, Hans and Phlip. It was very nice to see them, especially as Lyn had never met Phlip. They were cheeful and optimistic, which is good when you are 92 and 87 respectively with the problems which come with old age. We had a good few hours of animated talk about the Thijsse family but also about curent events. Both Hans and Phlip are very alert at that age!
Then we also saw Hans and Jet for lunch and exchenged stories about our respective trips. After they had the problem with the 'Waterbufvel' in Zoutkamp, they had the boat fixed quickly and took a trip on the inland waters in Groningen and the West of Germany.
And in the evening we had Hoyte and Carien for coffee and a glass of wine and again had a cheerful chat, so all in all it was a good day for socialising!
This morning (Sunday), we left aropund 10am (after leaving an envelop with the harbour fees in the yacht club postbox as there was no harbour master) and set course down the river Eem, along the Eemmeer, Gooimeer, IJmeer and Markermeer to Monnickendam. By the time wegot into the Gouwzee, the weather got quite bad and we abandoned our plan to stop in Volendam for diesel and went straight to our box in Marina Monnickendam. Home after about 6 weeks. We'll get the diesel later this week, hopefully we'll get a long enough dry spell to go to Volendam and fill up, filling up when it is raining is not good practise as the tank must start as dry as humanly possible. I just read that the past three days there has been more rain than in a normal month of July!
We'll basically stay here until next week when we'll fly back to London. So only blog updates if someting interesting presents itself!

Uncle and nephew

Aunt and nephew!

As we approached the Gouwzee, there was a big storm brewing!

Elburg - Somewhere near Baarn

During our stay in Zwolle, the weather was really quite bad, rainy and cold. So we did not have a chance to look around properly, but from what we saw, Zwolle seems quite nice!
The following day, Thursday,  we moved to Elburg, again in wet and cool weather. The papers here talk about 'autumn weather' and I guess that's quite correct. From our contact with Greg its a lot better in Cape Town and it is mid-winter there! Not to worry, inside the boat it is comfortable (although we had the heater on in Zwolle). Elburg is nice, we had visited it a few years ago with a boat we chartered. A well preserved old fortified town. As the holidat season has started, it is getting more difficult to get nice places in the more popular towns and you need to get in early. We arrived in Elburg at around 2h30 and got one of the last places before having to 'double up'. Imagine in 2 weeks time when all the schools are off (now only in 2 of the 3 parts that the country is divided in for school holiday purposes) and especially if the weather improves!
We left Elburg earlyish this (Friday) morning and went up the little river 'Eem' as far as a place just before Baarn. The weather has presented a nice day, sunny from about midday, so that gave us an opportunity to get the boat dry. Tomorrow we'll cycle to Soest to visit my uncle Hans and aunt Phlip, we have arranged to go for coffee there. After that, on Sunday or maybe Monday its back to Monnickendam.

As Elburg is an old fishing town, you can get fresh smoked eel there!

No idea what bird this is.

Lots of birds on the 'Veluwemeer', we went straigh through a flock which had settled on the water!

Cycling and Zwolle

As reported, we cycled around Meppel yesterday. The weather was very good for cycling, quite sunny, not too hot and little wind. The surroundings of Meppel consist of nature reserves (we cycled through 'de Wieden') and small scale farmland (mainly dairy farming). We also went through Giethoorn, which is called the "Venice of the North' as the houses are built on islands and are only accessible by boat or on foot over little bridges. All in all we cycled about 35KM and really enjoyed it.
Today, the weather is very different. Cold and a persistent drizzle make it quite unpleasant outside, but after motoring the 3 hours to Zwolle we have time to do some work and catch up on emails etc.

Meppel: Nice spot right under the windmill!

Giethoorn

I thought storks were quite rare!

Waterlilies in 'de Wieden'

Meppel

The plan was to get up early this morning to get ahead of the 'crowd' of boats that we expected to go through the remaining locks to Meppel. The geting up early succeeded, but we had a bit of a delay due to some confusion with the instrumentation. A few minutes after we left, the motor temperature showed high and the oil pressure low. We immediately stopped and waited a bit to let the engine cooll down and tried again. No problem, everything fine... During the next hour or so, we deduced that there is an instrumentation glitch: as soon as you swith the navigation lights on (which we had, as it was very misty early on), the oil pressure shows (a bit) low and the motor temperature (a bit) high. As we had switched the nav lights off during the engine cooling delay, we at first did not understand what was wrong, but the problem is perfectly repeatable. So I need to check out the wiring when I get a chance. As we very very seldom use the nav lights, its no big deal at the moment.
In the end, there was not a lot of traffic and after 4 locks and a few bridges we tied up in Meppel which seems a nice place. We'll stay here tomorrow and get the bikes out as the surroundings are very pretty and suitable for cycling.

The promised pictures:

In a very quiet 'passantenhaven' in Assen

Saskia and Harrie came for dinner

Some of the locks on the Drenthse Hoofdvaart are manually operated