Deinze (17th May to 2nd June)
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We’ve had a few lovely relaxing weeks moored in Deinze just waiting for the time when restrictions are eased/lifted and we will be able to go through the locks and travel further afield.
We had lots of lazy days with some good dog walking along the river banks and in the almost deserted De Brielmeersen Urban Recreation Park, as well as chatting to the locals and the dog walking community. The weekly market still seemed to be running and was very well organised with masks handed out at the entrance, specific walking routes, distancing, etc.
We spent some time with Keith and Lucres, both on the boat and at their house. Nicki loves all their dogs, cat and chickens (plus chicks), and even their horses, and Keith managed to drag me out for a cycle ride which to my shame, was the only real exercise I had done in the last couple of weeks. Keith also kindly arranged for me to store our car in the barn of a local farm owner and hopefully we will not need it again until October.
One afternoon during our stay, the local fire brigade came along and kept us entertained as they performed rescue exercises. All was going well until they realised that they had dropped a handle (which lowered the front of the boat) into the river, and their diver then spent a couple of hours performing a low visibility search to recover it, sadly without success.
The team ended up rafting next to us for their search and funnily enough it turned out that the fireman in charge was someone we had previously spoken to on one of our many walks (doing his second job, maintaining the country park). Sadly I missed an opportunity to get them to do a (free) underwater survey of the boat.
The final weekend at the end of May turned out to be a public holiday weekend in the Belgium and everything seemed a lot busier on the water but hopefully/selfishly that will ease off again soon.
After a very lazy final day, we headed over to Keith and Lucres’ in the evening for a bbq – a great evening and a lovely way to spend our last evening in Deinze.
Next day, whilst I went off with Keith to park our car in his friend’s barn, Nicki had an interesting sheep encounter in the Brielmeersen park … she had come across a lamb that had sunk up to its neck in mud on the edge of a pond, and whilst wondering what to do about it a staff member arrived to save the poor creature and then after the rescue all the adult sheep rushed over and surrounded it, seemingly ensuring that it was safe and looking and sounding as though they were desperately pleased to have their baby back with them.
As it had been for all of our stay, our last day/night in Deinze was lovely and sunny -we had received all the solar input we needed and after two weeks we still had half a tank of water remaining. Moving on meant that we could easily top up the water elsewhere (there are no services on the public mooring).
