Spring, Boats, Campers and good people

Spring, a beautiful time of the year where your "blood itches" as we say in Holland.
The grass is green again, the trees blossom, the fish in the pont are back (all of them survived the winter!) and the duck is sitting on top of her eggs in the basket we put up last year.
She isn't bothered by the dogs and winks at us if we take a peep to say hello.

Living in the countryside, you do not only see Spring, you also smell it in all its facets and it feels great.

Tjep moved here from Hilversum and is enjoying every minute of his Frieslian life.
I live here since 1999 and still appreciate it tremendously.
The marvelous skies, we can see for miles and miles. Beautiful sunsets. Or as today, heavy clouds spitting rain. The wind is blowing. The garden is covered in blossom.
We keep our fingers crossed; the blossom was promising a lot of pears like last year. We'll see if they produce as much chutney, marmalade, pickled pears again.

Spring is also a good time for cleaning boats and campers and planning holidays. Our holiday was planned some while ago and soon we will be off with the camper to good old Yorkshire and beautiful Scotland.
But first we took care of our boat (for boat lovers: it is an "Oranjebloesem"). For many reasons it stayed ashore for 2 years and the first year uncovered.
We never managed to visit te boat in those two years.
The state it was in was quite a shock. Although the woodwork was taken care of, the rest of the boat was covered in a black and green substance (or what ever you may call it).

The inside was even worse, no ventilation made the ceiling drip. Brown stalactites, even the paint is hanging down!
The woodwork covered in moult. We had tears in our eyes but not for long; there was work to do!
We first cleaned the outside, this took us two days. We planned waxing on Saturday but unfortunately it was raining cats and dogs. It is now planned for next Friday.

We left on Thusrday evening because our camper, in which we stayed near the harbour, had to go for a few minor repairs and modernistations to get it ready for the big trip.
The company who is going to build in the LPG bottles (the ususal gas bottles can't be exchanged in every country and from now on we can get gas at every petrol station) is called Jasicamp (Leek - Groningen). They are also going to do the minor repairs.
Because it felt we are running out of time, I called them yesterday and received the shocking news that they could not move the camper due to a broken gearbox!! What a 'great' news with the Ferry booked, an invitation for a wedding in Edinborough and hardly any time to clean the camper!
Mr. Neef of Jasciamp understood our problem and promised to talk to his mechanics, getting back to us in half an hour.
So he did and told us that two of his mechanics don't mind doing overtime to help us out, starting tonight (Wednesday evening) and working all day Friday.
If all goes well (keep everything possible crossed!) we can collect the camper on Friday afternoon/everning.
Not only with a functional gearbox but also all other repairs and features done.

Super! There are still wonderful people! Hurray for Jasicamp!

England and Scotland, here we come.........