Currently Carmen is moored at Deinze in Belgium.

Since leaving Carmen's winter mooring Flandria at Brugge, Belgium I have been cruising single handed in company with Piedaleau (think French) for the last month in western Belgium.  It has refined my single handed skills and has been great fun.  Jenny doing a blog has caused me to resolve to restart mine again.  Adrian's advice has helped me to considerably improve my internet connection.

It has been an interesting cruise so far staying two weeks in Ypres and visiting, among other towns, Diksmuide, Veurne and Nieuwpoort.  This area is of course the location of much of the trench bound fighting of the 1914/18 war.  It has been very interesting to look at the museums but it is quite horrific and I found I could only take so much of it in a short time.  Ypres buildings look old but are in fact all rebuilt after that war, it having been completely flattened during the fighting.  I had an uncle called Ypres Mons.  I wonder what his father went through?

My previous cruising experience of Belgium had been on the larger canals so I was pleasantly surprised to explore some of the smaller ones.   Single handing it has been great to meet up at the end of the day.  I will miss my pilot barge ahead, arranging the bridges and gathering up any stray plastic boats into the locks without delaying Carmen.  There has been considerable "lurking" though in front of some bridges.

Discussion of toilets is never far away with barge people.  Piedaleau has been dealing with an 'orchestral' toilet so Carmen not wanting to be left out after seventeen years of good service, flooded her front toilet.  This happened just after I had serviced it, when fortunately it was only full cleaning chemical and water.  Again fortunately the guy who sold us the toilets all those years ago, is now retired to his own barge 90 minutes car drive away in France and was able to diagnose, find the spares necessary and refurbish it.  It's ready to go another seventeen years even if I won't.  I wonder if thet do it for people?  Apparently I had cleaned out the calcium that was all that was keeping the shaft seal sealed.

Unfortunately the uncertainty of when cruising could resume lost me my next crew.  I have decided to profit from that to undertake some well needed maintenance work.   The most important being to paint, before they all go seriously rusty, the new emergency stern ladder and larger bollards that I had made and fitted last year at Vankerkoven's after the TRIWV recertification.