Week 37 in Wijnjewoude

Week 37

From the writings of John P. Weiss

I mentioned last week that I like reading his stuff - and this week I was moved to reflect on this...

My personal experience is that (even more than passion), purpose, something that can impact the lives of others for the better, is even more energy-giving and revitalizing at every level.

It got me thinking about the work we are doing and just how much we love doing it. We had a stressful week with preparing for the Audit (and we have a lot of paperwork to catch up on as a result), but nonetheless, we're so glad to be doing it.

And yet, I am now writing this on a new laptop that I bought for the boat - as we lay in Dokkum on one of the inner canals. And just totally relaxing in the sheer joy of being on the boat. More joy perhaps for me, but I am now and then encouraged by purrs of delight from Janny (luckily!).

We stayed the first night on the edge of a National Park - plenty of other boats, but people on shore were all conscious of "social distancing".

Friday

We brought Boeke with us (that is his role, after all - to be a "boat dog"). He seems to be enjoying it much more than his previous outings. His goal was to "Discover Dokkum" - or at least every tree and other dog!

Saturday

We left for Dokkum early on Saturday morning - just before 0800hrs - it always suits me to get on the move early, if we can - without having to wait for bridge opening times, for example. In this case it was well worth it because we arrived in Dokkum at 1300hrs and had a few moorings to choose from. We went inside the bulwarks this time as there seemed to be more shelter from the stiff breeze.

We then shifted twice - once for better wifi! and again because of a faulty shore power connection.

Our mooring in Google Maps

Shortly after we settled, we went for a walk - Boeke encourages us to do a lot of that! - and we found that there was the Annual SUP board Elfstedentocht event coming to the end of the Dokkum leg.

There were quite a few spectators, a hotel ship, and we were just in time to see the arrival of 3 tall ships - to be used as accommodation for the contestants, we think.

It was quite a spectacle as they worked their way onto the mooring in the wind - not to mention all the other boats and SUP boarders.

Sunday

On Sunday we went for a  "Geocaching" walk around the bulwarks of Dokkum. 

We were moored opposite the Hotel Cafe 't Raedhuis.

We were warned to watch for "Crossing Mowing Robots" and I read nearly all of the tourist signs giving the history of Dokkum - including one about pirates in 1630.

One of the corners of the bulwarks has an old cemetery - this grave from 1627

Another sign had a story about the two (remaining) windmills - on two of the corners of the bulwarks. The other corners had lesser windmills, at least one of which was burnt down.

In the late 1800's the City decided it didn't need the bulwarks for defence any more, but (luckily) there was not enough money to pay for their removal. So they remain a feature of Dokkum - it's hard to imagine what it would be like without them. Many of the houses inside the bulwarks remain untouched. It would be a nice place to live, especially if we could find a mooring for the boat!

We found all the geocaches and met a couple who were on a 2 week "geocaching holiday".

They gave us a few tips, especially about a new form of geocaching that uses a mobile phone app to register the find automatically. 

The old way is that Janny writes the date and time on the supplied logbook and then registers her finds on her geocaching website.

This pole represents the gallows on the site where the pirates were hanged. (I missed the image of a crow on top). It is at the side of a bridge - the sign says that there were that many spectators for the hanging, that the bridge collapsed, which in turn caused a ship to sink - it remained there until it eventually rotted away.

One woman came from England to plea for the life of her son (one of the pirates) - but she arrived too late!

The non-boating side of the bulwarks...

The boating side provides good moorings...

Monday

This was a 5.5 hour trip - so we had to stop at Opiende to let Boeke out!

We hadn't been to the Kromme Ee (loosely "crooked waterway") for quite a few years, so we decided to overnight there...

Sunset

Sunrise

And Tuesday back home to Heerenveen...(just as I was getting used to it!)

I have the feeling that I took off just as much food as I took on board! - We don't seem to eat that much these days - noticeably less bread. 

Last week, I mentioned the housing shortage in relation to a Local Government "raised eyebrow" at the number of people living at our place.

This week in Dutch News.nl there was this story about the shortage....

National, provincial and local government have reached agreement on spending €620m to realise 51,000 new homes in the short term, housing minister Kajsa Ollongren has told MPs. The projects – 27 in total – could not be realised without subsidies because the building costs are too high in terms of preparing the land and public transport connections, the minister said. 

Some 14,000 of the properties are social housing, with a rent of below €730. Some 12,000 will have a rent of €700 to €1,000 and 6,000 will be cheap owner occupier properties. Most will target starters and seniors, but some will include student housing. In total, 32,000 of the new homes are in the category ‘affordable’. 

The government said projects had to be at least 50% affordable to qualify for financial help.

 Industrial sites 

Twelve of the projects involve redeveloping old industrial sites, such as the Binckhorst in The Hague. In Rijswijk an old shopping centre will be transformed into 1,400 homes plus working spaces and in Nijmegen, 670 homes will be built close to the railway station. National government is putting €290m into the projects, which will come from the €1bn fund established last year to boost the housing market. 

Experts say the Netherlands needs to build 845,000 homes before 2030 to keep pace with demand. Local authorities had put forward 52 plans for consideration, and some of which will be resubmitted in October after adaptations are made.


And this story about Coronavirus testing... (and over 8000 positive tests this week)

In total, 86 of the 100 coronavirus test centres in the Netherlands have no space for new appointments, as an increasing number of people queue up to get tested, the central public health board said on Thursday afternoon. Just four locations have sufficient availability in the coming 48 hours and a further 10 are virtually fully booked, the GGD is quoted as saying by public broadcaster NOS.

Places which do become free are being snapped up immediately, and there is more demand than supply, the local authority health agency said. The major hold up is in the laboratory end of the process, which means there is no point in carrying out more tests, the spokesman said. ‘We increased our capacity from 100,000 a day to 180,000 two weeks ago, but now we are being told we cannot scale up any more.

We can increase capacity at the drive in centres further, but that is not where the problem lies.’ The health ministry has admitted that the labs have capacity issues and health minister Hugo de Jonge said at the end of last month he is now striking agreements with commercial labs and a major laboratory group in Germany.