The last of the summer sunshine

Despite the cold nights and mornings we've been having, I have to admit the daytimes are just lovely at the moment. I probably shouldn't say that, should I? No doubt it will be perverse and change just because I've mentioned it. But we're enjoying it over the weekends and are having lovely walks now we can't go faring for a while, which brings me to the Hennie H.

Our lovely little barge will remain immobile until the spring, I'm afraid. What happened was that following the fitting of a new oil cooler, one of the connections began leaking while we were on the way to a weekend on the Moervaart in Belgium. Unfortunately, we have no 'dashboard' with gauges, so didn't see the oil pressure was dropping until a nasty tapping sound alerted us that all was not well. We stopped as soon as it started, but it seems the damage was done. According to the diesel mechanic who's promised to fix it for us, it's probably a piston ring problem, but of course it could be something else. We won't know until he's taken it further apart. Nevertheless, he's confident it's fixable (at least it still runs!) and as he's officially retired, he's also promised it won't break us (financially). It's been a depressing few weeks, but at least we know and have real hope we'll be up and running again by next summer. We're now consolidating and saving our pennies, which brings me back to our walks.

On Saturday, we did a rather circuitous but pleasant drive around until we reached the Moervaart at a bridge called Kalverbrug. From there we walked along the waterway for some distance. This was where we were heading when the Hennie H died, so it was a bit poignant, but very beautiful for all that. I think my photos speak for themselves as even though I took them with my phone, it still looks lovely. The colours aren't quite as rich as I really saw them, though, and I can't intensify them without giving them a phoney hue, but you get the idea.









On Sunday, we did some cleaning on the Hennie H. There is plenty of work to do still, so I hope the good weather lasts a bit longer! I also have heaps to do on the Vereeniging too....ah well, it keeps me off the streets. Have a great week, allemaal and I'll fill you in on the any new developments next week