contentedsouls

It was clear that we wouldn’t reach Dinant until late in the afternoon and so, rather than pay for an expensive mooring that we wouldn’t get any use out of that day, I suggested that we moor short at Anseremme and then move into Dinant first thing in the morning so that we could get our money’s worth. At 8 pm there was a knock on the boat with someone calling for 24 euros of overnight mooring fees – the locks were closed by this time of day so we had no choice in the matter – it didn’t even include leccy or water (ironically, when we arrived at Dinant the next day, we not only found free mooring but also free Wi-Fi – I’m still not sure if that made it better or worse!). Wisely (for once) G managed not to make any comment.

On my usual walkabouts I found loads of men pulling up their trousers in the car park – this made me even more cross because, not only had I been fleeced over the mooring, I had also arrived too late for the orgy. The sight of two beautiful police horses being polished up for their role in the funeral of a local dignitary cheered me up a little.

The whole area turned out to be a massive cycling, canoeing, climbing centre which explained why men were putting clothes on having pulled off wet suits (my original thoughts on the subject were much more fun).

Leaving Anseremme in the morning, we were somewhat amazed to be joined in the first lock by another tjalk – not only that, it was owned by another Facebook friend of mine. Apart from the commercials which routinely trudge up and down on relatively short haul jobs, we have only seen one other boat heading North and that was a little sailboat – the phrase, ‘rats leaving the sinking Holland’ is one that has come to  mind quite a lot recently. The hooligans roared passed us as we pulled into Dinant, so it was to be a day or three before we were to meet up in person.