More of a picture post – The Bookshelf Cafe News

I thought I’d catch up with a few photos I’ve taken lately that I haven’t used in other posts. Firstly, though, I thought readers here might like to see the finished kist (blanket chest) I started working on some weeks back. It’s been much more work than I anticipated and it’s still not as good as I’d like it to be, but I can’t afford to spend more time on it now. The scratches on the top were already there and try as I might, I cannot smooth them out, so I’m just calling it character. Here it is ready to be hauled into my bedroom.

Apart from the kist, I’ve also been assisting Koos with a project to enlarge our loo on the Hennie H. It’s been an annoyance for years because it was so small, there wasn’t even room to swing a mouse in it, let alone a cat, so Koos took the initiative, bit all sorts of bullets and started dismantling the part that needed expanding. We don’t have much room on the HH as it is, but the extra thirty odd centimetres will give us significantly more standing room.

The photo above was stage one with the back and side walls removed. That was a phenomenal job in itself as the construction was fit for a load-bearing wall in a house. Seeing as this is the smallest room on a boat, it seemed a bit extreme. The back wall had not one, but three layers, two of which were on each side of a frame sturdy enough to hold the entire roof up. Luckily, it didn’t or we might have had second thoughts. The tongue-and-groove ceiling also had to come out and we found two layers there as well. Rest assured, the new model will be far less complicated, and I’ll post some photos of the new construction soon. It’s halfway there.

In other news, I went for a real grey November walk the other day and came across this delightful sight.

It’s a row of little bee and insect hotels built by the locals along the edge of a field where they’re trying to encourage wild flowers to grow as well. Apologies for the dreary skies, but aren’t the tiny houses delightful? Seeing them there made my day and I’m so pleased to see our village folk getting involved in projects to nurture insect life.

Talking of insects, I saw my first giant Asian hornet the other day. It flew into the room where I was working on the kist, landed on my sander and then flew out again. It seemed very dopey, and I should probably have despatched it but I was so shocked it didn’t occur to me. In truth, I didn’t know what it was but when I looked it up, I realised they are definitely undesirable here. I hope we’re not going to have a plague of them next year.

And then last Friday, we did a bit of a diversion on our way to spend a few days on Vereeniging. I’d been nosing around to see if there’s somewhere new to take her and had read about a small historic harbour at Kamperland off the Veersemeer in Zeeland. It’s probably too far off the beaten track there for practical purposes, but we enjoyed our visit very much. The barges were gorgeously graceful and the environs were lovely. It could be tempting. Some of my readers here have seen the photos below on Facebook and a couple on Twitter, but I wanted to add them here as well.

The first three are of tjalks, the most commonly seen Dutch sailing barges here in the Netherlands. The last one is of motor barge. Lovely, aren’t they? I never get tired of seeing these beautiful craft.

And my last photo offerings for this week are of my beautiful old lady. We had to fill up the water tanks and turn her around, which of course was the perfect excuse for a short ‘spuddle’ to the end of the river arm and back.

There’s only one photo left on my phone that I haven’t shared, but I’ll save that one for next time because it will mark a rather special event for our family. For now, though, I’ll say have a great week allemaal. Keep warm if you’re in the north; stay cool for all you down south 🙂