Armentieres

A day for chilling and watching the Formula 1 Grand Prix in Bahrain. 

I went for a walk early this morning in a rather chilly breeze, and took some photos in the old town centre.  Most of the town was badly damaged during both the wars and although some of the landmarks were rebuilt, the town does not give a feeling of history and antiquity.

The town hall

The cathedral

This building was built in 1883, a steel and iron structure that was destoyed in WW1.  It was rebuilt in 1924 as a covered market, now is a festival hall.

The back of the festival hall and church spire

A huge monument to the fallen soldiers of Armentieres....

...with interesting relief sculptures around the bases.  This one is the soldiers leaving to go to war

...soldiers suffering during the war...

...and the soldiers returning home at the end of the war.

The chilly morning turned into a really nice warm day and we thoroughly enjoyed the exciting race.

Armentieres

Another “lay day” as racing sailors call a day when you just rest up and don’t go racing.  Well, we are not doing any kind of racing but we do enjoy a day just resting.

Early morning mist

We went shopping today – yes, the credit card took a hammering again.  At the Carrefour supermarket (it must be the biggest one I have ever seen) we bought a shower curtain, four 3 litre boxes of wine (2 red, 2 rose), and a shopping trolley.  As in the trolleys with 2 wheels that old ladies pull behind them when they go shopping.  My mother had one!  Anyway, now that my doctor has told me that I must not carry heavy weights I have had to give up my trusty old back pack (which is falling apart anyway) and I have had to succumb to the ungainly and humiliating old lady’s shopping trolley!  I am not thrilled, but I must say it made hauling groceries a whole lot easier.

Meanwhile Ian went to check out what was on offer in Lidl and came home with a fold up work table ( as in Black and Decker Workmate but this one is not made by B&D) for 18.99.  What?  You can’t possibly go wrong with that.  Well, it has been pressed into service all afternoon as he has continued to work on the new battery installation.  I have no idea what he is doing, so don’t expect any erudite explanations.

Ian at work on the new battery installaion

Meanwhile, it was blazing hot today, full on summer with the temperature hovering around 24^o all afternoon.  Last year this time we were freezing our butts off!  The local canoe club took advantage of the good weather and there must have been 40 canoes out on the water.  

And a local clean-up group walked along the canal bank picking up litter.  

Not that there is much litter here because there is a rubbish bag at every park bench.

Disappearing into the distance, every park bench has a rubbish bag.

Menen to Armentieres

I didn’t post the blog last night, no excuses, just too lazy! 

Catch up:

We spent the day in Menen, watching the swans, ducks and geese, the barges going past on the canal, and mostly relaxing.

In the morning Ian took the bike trailer out from under our bunk (it breaks down into a “flat pack” trailer) and we rode to a fuel station close by to buy diesel for the boat.  Diesel is cheaper here than in France so Ian decided to fill up before we cross the border.

The trailer can carry two 20 litre jerry cans and we did 3 runs, putting 80 litres into the tank and carrying 40 litres in the jerry cans.

And that was it.

Today:

Thick mist early this morning and only 5^oC, one of the coldest days we have had so far.  But by 9.00 the mist had cleared and the temperature was already climbing.  I took a brisk stroll to the bakery (Patisserie de Paris) to buy a baguette and 2 Brioche a la crème.

23 kms, 3 locks

By 9.45 we were on our way, in bright sunshine with the temperature at 15 degs and still climbing.  

The first lock is just around the corner and when I called in it was immediately prepared for us, no waiting, and there we were, all 9m of Njord in a 195m by12.5m lock all by ourselves.  But this lock had a set of gates half way along and the lockie closed the half way gates behind us.  As we rose up we could see another barge entering the other half.  Now that’s efficient water usage.

At the next lock, same size and with half way gates, again we were all alone and we stopped well inside the first half of the lock but the lockie closed the gates all the way at the end. Wasting water!

The very impressive cathedral at Wervik

The old and the new

I'd love to know the story behind this statue...

...and this one just below it in the water

The wide Leie River joins up with the wide Canal de la Deule, but the Leie river continues in a sinuous route for another 48 km into France.  We turned into the curvaceous Lys river (as it is known in France). 

It is narrow and quite delightful.

We arrived at the lock at Armentieres shortly before 13.00 and it closes for lunch until 13.30.  No problem, we tied up to wait.  Way before 13.30 we saw a lock worker inspecting the gates and the pile of branches backed up against them.  

He got out a long hook and prodded away until they were free, got a rope around a particularly big branch and hauled it out of harm’s way with the help of another 2 lockies.  The gates opened, in we went, the chief lockie came out for a chat (all in French), gave us a telecommand for the next lock, and list of lock opening times.  Ever so friendly.

10 minutes later we tied up at the free pontoon in Armentieres.  

We had a lot of trouble getting our French sim card to recognise that we were now in France and didn’t need to be on roaming.  In the end Ian took the siim card out of my phone, put it in his phone, het presto all as it should be (with the Free sim card we get unlimited data in France and this weekend is a F1 race weekend – we need lots of data to follow all the practices, qualy and the race).  A few minutes later Ian spoke to Lynn and Shaun on Elle who told him all you need to do is switch the phone off and then switch it back on again – why didn’t we think of that!

While writing the blog we heard a knock on the hull – 3 young teenagers asked us if we could help them retrieve their football which had fallen into the canal and was floating past the boat. It was almost dark and they spoke no English but tried with their phones on translate and were so polite, so Ian said OK, come on board.  We cast off, 2 of them went onto the swim platform, Ian backed up to the ball and in no time at all they scooped it up.  They were thrilled to bits, ever so thankful, shook our hands and all.  Great kids.

Kortrijk to Menen

First thing this morning, bright and early, I took a quick walk into town to buy some fresh bread and take a few pics.  Kortrijk is such a lovely town and it must be just about the cleanest I have ever seen.

The pontoon on an arm of the Old Leie River that runs through Kortrijk

The Broeltoren, ancient city gates straddling the river

The Belfry

Detail at the top of the Belfry

The Town Hall

Detail of the Town Hall

I wonder where they got that name?

Then Ian took a walk to one of his favourite shops, Mediamarkt, a huge electronics and technology store (where he bought his drone a few years ago).  He came back with a new electric toothbrush (to replace the one we bought about 10 years ago, and not before time!) and a Karcher Window Vac, a rather expensive present for me because I moan every morning when I have to wipe the freezing cold condensation off the windows.  Yay, no more cold hands!

While he was away I took the opportunity to fill a bucket with fresh water and clean the windows (if I’d known he was coming back with a window vac I might have waited!).  That turned into cleaning the solar panels and coachroof and scrubbing all the green winter gunge out of the various nooks and crannies on the deck.  It was so warm I could work outside without layers of jackets, etc.

We left Kortrijk at 11.00 without ever seeing the harbour master (Ian went looking for him yesterday evening but never found him). 

Menen is only 12 km from Kortrijk and there are no lift bridges or locks between them so it is just a short 1.5 hour trip. 

The flowers of spring

Back under the bridge with bimini down, and Ian ducking his head

Ian's favourite statue

A rather impressive bridge cum work of art

A des-res riverside home

Shortly before arriving in Menen I saw something floating in the water, it was a Karcher Window Vac, so Ian turned round and we picked it up and I left it lying on the foredeck to dry out.

As we approached the dock a few minutes later I heard a buzzing noise from the foredeck – it had switched itself on and we couldn’t turn it off.  When we pushed the off button it stopped but started up again when you let go, so Ian got a clamp and held the switch in the closed position till he could deal with it after we tied up.  Then, expecting to find the motor full of water, he opened it up and everything was bone dry inside.  Amazing!  That window vac had not been in the water long.  A barge had passed us a few minutes before we found it and we can only think they had dropped it overboard.

Ian doing some surgery

Twin window vacs

So within the space of an hour or so we went from owning no window vacs to having two of them; only one charger though, fortunately they use the same one.

And here we are at the free quay at Menen, in Belgium. 

On the opposite side of the river there is an expensive marina which is in France.   From here for the next 34 kms or so the border between France and Belgium is demarcated by the old Leie River.

Deinze to Kortrijk

26 kms, 2 lift bridges, 2 locks

We were up early, beautiful sunshine, no wind, but we had to wait for a printing shop to open.  At the weekend we received, by email, the contract for the marina we want to leave the boat at when we go home in the summer.  We had to print it out, sign it, scan it and email it back.   We found a print shop that could do that but it was closed yesterday and only opened at 9.30 this morning.  It took all of 10 minutes; back on the boat I sent the email off to the marina in Roanne.  Hooray, our marina is all sorted till the end of May next year.

We set off at 9.50, through the lift bridge with a cheery wave from the lady lockie.

Out on the big wide Leie River it was not too warm (11^o) and we were well wrapped up.

It was a pleasure to be back in Big Commercials World, especially now that we have Boat Beacon so we can see them coming before the we can see them, if you know what I mean.  There certainly were a lot of them.

Boat Beacon shows us as purple and lots of green commercial barges

Two barges heading towards us, one overtaking the other, and a third disappearing around the bend.

2 locks today, both biggies. The first one was 136m long. As we approached the lock keeper called us to tell us to enter first and tie up right at the front, a barge would come in behind us.  Boat Beacon told us that the boat immediately behind us was 105m long and behind that was an 80m barge.  We tied up right in the very front, 5m at most from the lock gates, the longer barge stopped before entering the lock and the smaller one joined us.  Whew!

At the second lock we had to wait because it was already busy bringing a load of barges down.  It is 185m long but when the gates opened it might have been the Tardis, the barges just kept coming out of it.  There were 4 big barges (including a 105 footer) and a tug. 

And then there was just our little 9m Njord going upstream, we had the whole 185m all to ourselves.

We tied up in Kortrijk (under a low bridge, we had to drop the bimini and mast) at 14.20.  

There used to be a harbour master here but he died about a year ago.  Apparently there is a new harbour master but he lives on a barge at the opposite end of the town, and the local lady we spoke to said she is not sure if he is there now. Meanwhile the water and electricity was open, so we plugged in and took leisurely showers.  Let’s see if he comes by tomorrow morning to collect his dues.