I never seem to be far from water in what ever I do, if I go out for a meal then I prefer if the venue is by water, if I had the choice I would live next to water and when I go on holiday I usually try and find somewhere by water, so this weekend I went for a short break to Amsterdam, I know what you are thinking, Drugs and prostitutes, well far from it, I went to see what their canal system was like, and I was amazed at just how many canals run through the city, its a fantastic place, there are some stunning boats, lots of traditional barges and tugs which have been converted to livaboards, and plenty of modern caravan style floating homes, the canals are pretty much lined with residential boats, they are crammed in to gaps everywhere, so many boats are residential apparently the authorities put a ban on any more residential boats taking up new moorings, but that was 30 years ago, I hate to imagine what the situation would be like if a restriction hadn't been imposed, I suspect that in time our waterways will be overrun by residential boats, the difference is here we have lots of marinas to house the boats.where Amsterdam seems to have none! Whilst there we went on a boat trip to see more of the canals and we came across the Kromhout museum, so before we left to catch the plane home we went for a visit, it is housed at a working boat yard with slips and workshops, similar I suppose to Norbury but on a bigger scale, I could see through the windows lots of old engines, lots of semi diesels, maybe a Bollinder, and definitely big semi diesel Kromhouts and Gardner Kromhouts and all sorts, but it was closed and wouldn't be open until today, I will now have to go back at some stage to see the sights I missed on this trip!!!
that's it from me for today
Simon
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