Pollare, Lessines and Ath – 1st to 6th August
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1st August – Pollare turned out to be a delight – free mooring just below an historic bridge, and next to a bar and of course, the all important dog walking areas which were perfect and provided Nicki with the opportunity to get up close and friendly with cows in the fields.
We ended up staying in Pollare for a very relaxing, stress-free three days – there was a local tennis club quite close by that served drinks, but that was as far as we walked (aside from Nicki’s dog walks with Casper of course.). But we couldn’t stay there indefinitely and on 4th we left, slowly wending our way back to Lessines along one of the most picturesque parts of the river so far, negotiating the many twists and turns on a beautiful, calm, sunny day.
4th August – As we approached the lock at Lessines we spotted our recent acquaintance, Andrew, moored next to his newly acquired plot of land at the edge of the town (which included authorised mooring, water and a postal address). He had stumbled on the plot (well two, side by side as it turned out) by accident, and with a little asking around found out who owned it and purchased it for a song. It will need a bit of work done to it, but he has lots of ideas to develop it over time. (I have to admit, I am pretty jealous, but I must remember that that sort of purchase would not be right for us.)
Anyway, to continue – one of our aims while in Lessines was to try and find a doctor to consult as the pain in my knee was starting to worsen yet again, and I wanted to see if I could get another cortisone injection to try and alleviate it. As we were waiting in the lock, Nicki got chatting to one of the local guys and during the conversation she mentioned that we would be looking for a doctor, which then ended up with him very kindly offering to show us where a local doctors surgery was once we had moored up in ‘our spot’. Unfortunately when we arrived there the surgery was closed but a phone call later that afternoon got me an appointment for that same evening. Amazing!
Nicki had also asked our ‘guide’ if/where there were any local recycling facilities, and at this point something got lost in translation and he took us to his own home to collect a sack for us to put our rubbish in, with the request that we dump all our rubbish in said bag outside his front door for collection the following day. A great gesture, and very unexpected.
Later on at 7pm I duly arrived at the doctor’s surgery to be ushered in by the (thankfully) English-speaking doctor himself, and he was happy to do the injection there and then! What awesome service and, I think, at a reasonable cost (30 euros). He promised to look out for us on our onward journey.
After all that excitement we were able to relax and stayed in Lessine for a couple of nights, incorporating a much needed food shopping trip, a couple of coffee stops and a visit to Andrew’s (and Freddy’s) boat/mooring.
6th August – On our last morning we were up and ready to leave by 10am, which is when we had told the bridge/lock keepers we would like to go, and then we were off and heading back to Ath once more.
