Week 30 Busy in Friesland

Week 30 in Wijnjewoude

Brother-in-law Gerard always has caravans, campers and tents for sale - these are set up for use by the greater Rozema family as a "Family Day" at our place - for as many as can make it.

Busy in Friesland

In the province of Friesland it has never been so busy with tourists. This is evident from a telephone survey of the provincial tourist offices. The average occupancy rate of hotels and campsites is 90 percent and all boats and holiday homes are rented out. The water sports areas are also well visited.

NRIT Media Leisure Platform.

There is the normal, nationwide "building industry holiday" and the top third of the country (us) has school holidays as well.

Janny is friends with the daughter of one of the larger campgrounds and she says they have never been so busy - they even asked for Janny's card for the gate to be returned. There are three major campgrounds in Bakkeveen - so we don't go to the local supermarket while it is so busy. (The people are all "from somewhere else"). We drive 5 kms to the next closest.

It is commonly reported that "most Nederlanders will not be travelling (abroad) this year for holidays". 

This is because of the Carona virus, of course, but there are still a few hot spots in the Netherlands. Rotterdam and the Province of Zeeland, in particular. Only two people were detected in Friesland last week - and they had just returned from holidays in Zeeland.

So, simply staying in the Netherlands may not be safe enough, after all. And, if everyone comes to Friesland...?

Our local newspaper had an article about "the busiest bridge in the country",

 at Woudsend (link)

The bridgekeeper at De Hellingbrege

He says that it is unusually busy at the moment - up to 1000 boats in a day! He has a counter to check just how many boats he lets through at one time - as the road traffic backs up.

De Hellingbrege

The The Marrekrite Organisation report that they are selling many more flags than usual (They provide and maintain around 3500 moorings in Friesland - people fly a flag to show that they have contributed). They normally sell about 12,000 per year but this year they think that they won't have enough (13,500).

We too, are content to stay at home - we have kids this weekend and adults during the week - but we have to do it alone for 3 weeks as Janny's sister is also on holidays!

Maybe next weekend a visit to the boat - I'm thinking about my next major project of pulling the salon floor out - just to see what is going on underneath. I'll be putting it back in the form of lift-out panels - the way it should have been done in the first place - the same as it is above the engine room.

I'm hoping that I can get it out without too much damage...(the striped bit is the floor)

Other things to do in "lockdown"

(We're not really in lockdown - just being extra cautious)

Paint my workbenches...

Clear my drains...

A long-overdue job - but I managed 6 days of it this week.

Just as an aside, I remember from a visit to the Delta Works - that farmers have to keep their ditches free - all part of the "greater water management" process - which used to be under the guidance of the church, centuries ago

I enlisted the help of a couple of our kids - it keeps them busy for an hour or two!

Our volunteer worker has been busy cutting back all the scrubby trees - there are more than 160 oak trees in this section - we're giving them more room to grow.

Taking the dogs for a walk...

I'm trying this out for future use on the boat...

Just a walk (link)

Our Solar Panels

Mum used to say "bide your time", so I did, as I was wondering about how we were going to be paid for our share of the electricity. It seems that they do the calculation once a year - our share for the first year was €2500 so that means the total for the participants was €12500,00 - which further means that there was far more electricity produced - they have it worked out in their favour, of course. But, in any case, not a bad return. Only 14 years before it all comes to us!

A Touch of Madness?

Anti-public health regulation group Viruswaanzin has lost a court case to force the government to scrap the coronavirus restrictions, including the 1.5 metre social distancing rule. The group, whose name means ‘virus madness’, argued that the rules were excessive given the low death rate from Covid-19 and questioned the government’s official death toll. Group leader Jeroen Pols told the court that the death figure included people who were infected with the virus while having other serious diseases such as cancer. ‘They want to drive up the statistics. They need a large number of deaths.’ But the court said the rules were based on professional advice by the Outbreak Management Team, made up of virologists and other public health experts, and legally sound. ‘There is a lot of popular and scientific debate over the nature, severity and approach to coronavirus. It doesn’t however follow that the approach chosen by the state is evidently wrong,’ the judge said in dismissing the application for an injunction. Viruswaanzin is in talks with the city council in The Hague in an attempt to organise a protest against the coronavirus rules on August 1. Two previous protests on June 21 and June 28 were banned, but restrictions on public gatherings have been eased since then.