A quiet day on the canal, back in our boat house and house boat.

As a child I used to retell the joke “how did the houseboat owner die? They drowned, mowing the lawn”. But it turns out that our boat house does have some lawn! It’s a small strip on the dyke between our boat’s small wharf and the narrow brick paved road. You might notice some dirt mounts on the lawn – that’s from moles, which burrow in the dyke. The lawn has an embedded small noisemaker, which sounds like a rattlesnake, to deter the moles. It doesn’t seem to be working. It did make us take notice, however, the first time we heard it.

We make sure to look both ways when stepping through our gate into the shared road in the dyke. There are plenty of bikes, e-bikes, mopeds, pedestrians. The occasional car leaves room for nothing else.

Helen and Francis try to befriend every passing cat and dog. Tom marvels at the engineering of keeping the small canals functioning and clear. We spotted a few robot lawnmowers that dwarf Marvin.

More sugar sprinkles on bread as part of breakfast. But it’s okay – the label said “rich in glucose” 😉.

We drove towards Amsterdam for one of the larger food marts. Beautifully laid out with fresh food.

Charging:

I was surprised that there were no EV chargers at the large food mart. But, no problem, chargers are plentiful. We plugged in near our boat house, on one of the street EV chargers. This time, I managed to use the tap to pay pad that I had overlooked last time, on the back of the machine. Easy.