Taddy Tales

We have spent the last 2 weeks in mainly rural Belgium, climbing the River Dender/Dendre and then the Blaton-Ath canal.  This brings us from the heart of Flanders to just short of the French border.  Tomorrow, we will cross the unmarked border into France and journey through Picardy. But, in a week when Belgium celebrated its national day, we've been thinking about Belgium as a country.  This is our 3rd summer cruising in this surprisingly interesting country and we've been struck by its differences.  Flanders feels like the assertive part of Belgium.  Its people speak Dutch and often prefer to speak English rather than French.  They are largest part of Belgium.  With a per capita GDP of €35,300, they are (on average) 42% richer than their compatriots in Wallonia who have only €24,800.  And they seem to have a strong sense that the Flemish fund the Walloons.  The Walloons are a bit less than a third of the population and they feel comfortably...

It's July 2020 and we should have been cruising for 3 months now.  But it's 2020 and you don't need me to tell you that 2020 is different from anything we've experienced or planned.  I'm not going to say the C-word but 2020 will be remembered as the year that mucked things up! Three months at home without boarding a boat was tough and when it became possible to return to Bruges and get started again, we packed up and headed for the tunnel.  We think we can manage 3 months which rules out travelling too far south but that doesn't matter.  There's plenty of lovely water in Belgium and northern France.  And we'll avoid the drought which is already plaguing central France. I say drought because we seem to have missed the best of the weather and I'm writing this on a rainy Tuesday afternoon in Aalst.  I've been slow to start blogging again as I didn't want to complain about  . . . well, you know what about.  But this morning a fellow boater passed...