What’s new in our year – The Bookshelf Cafe News

🎉HAPPY NEW YEAR TO YOU ALL!🎉

The past week has sped by and here we are at the 1st of January, 2023. Incredible! Actually, this is the first time I’ve written the new year as the date, so I hope I’ll get used to it soon. There’s nearly always an overlap period when I mistakenly write the old year on invoices and letters, but we’ve been looking forward to leaving 2022 behind so much, I have a feeling 2023 won’t take long to embed itself in my writing mind.

So what’s new so far? Well, we had a lovely time with the new grandpup over Christmas. He is such a sweetheart it’s impossible not to be soppy about him (sorry, if you’re not a dog person, feel free to skip this part!). He’s already settled in and is enjoying family life with my daughter and her boyfriend. Much to our pleasure and surprise, he’s getting on very well with Mini, their little cat who was so ill. She’s now recovered so well she’s twice the size she used to be and seems completely unafraid of puppy Mack, even encouraging him to play with her.

This, if you remember, is Mini

Mack, chewing Grandpa’s toes

Here’s Mack fast asleep under the table while we were having Christmas lunch.

And here he is sleeping over the toy bone my daughter crocheted for him. It was so sweet the way he’d play and then suddenly just fall asleep.

In other news, which my readers here are the first to know, we are moving the Vereeniging again. Suprised? Yes! So are we!

To explain, the mooring in Oudensbosch has been lovely and we’ve enjoyed being there, but I’m working less and less in Rotterdam and am increasingly working online. As a result, I have only occasional need of an overnight stop on the way to the city, and it is still quite a journey to reach her from the Crumbly Cottage, where I have my office set up. With fuel prices being so unpredictable and train travel costs escalating, keeping her there is becoming a financial burden I could do without. But what to do and where to take her has involved some intensive investigation.

As luck would have it, the answer lay much closer than I ever imagined. We have a historic harbour in Sas van Gent, and after quite a search to find the right person to approach, I applied for a mooring and the Vereeniging has been approved. I am delighted because it will be much more convenient for me (only a short run from the cottage) and it will allow me to spend time on her more easily. She will fit in very nicely, I think, as there are several very lovely sailing barges in the harbour already. Here’s a photo of the probable mooring. I love the super safe gangway!

And here are a couple more photos of the resident barges in the harbour. I may have posted them before, but I think they’re worth repeating.

So when are we going to be moving? Well, that will depend on the weather to a large degree. My contract at Oudenbosch expires at the end of March, so we’ll need to have left by then. It’s a trip of around 170 kilometres (I think), so it’ll take us a few days. From Rotterdam to Oudenbosch was 85 Kilometres and it took us two full days, so that’ll be four given good conditions. The days will also be a little longer in March, which will give us a bit more advantage, but whatever the case, we’ll be looking for a good weather window to make the trip.

As you can imagine, these are exciting times for us as we plan the journey. However, there are also other journeys coming up this year, which I’ll write more about later, so for now, allemaal, I’ll wish you all a wonderful start to 2023. I sincerely hope this year brings peace (especially in the troubled and war-torn regions of the world) and positive fulfilment for you all. Until next time, have a great week!