Going Clip-Clippety-Clop on the Stair

Goedenvond everybody

and in your face Tamas Lukas, Sabrine Zwitch and Booking.com.

Half term again and with the spirit of Ted Dicks upon us (Google him kids, he was very much the Ed Sheeran of his day) and a perennial quest to live for pleasure alone, we're just back from four days on house boat in old Amsterdam, where we may/may not have seen a little mouse with clogs on going clip clipety clop on some stairs.

Turns out that this second boat we booked was not some empty vessel floating about the ether, an online marie celeste if you will. But an actual genuine, bona-fide electrified, six car monorail,

What'd I say?

Monorail.

I appear to be increasingly distracted, now where were we,

Oh yes,

An actual house boat that exists in real form with hull, mast, brig and poop deck.

The tale of woe instigated by Tamas and Sabrine (You guys) continued throughout the first twenty four hours. Shorn/scammed of our billet on the canal ring, we were booked to stay on a boat in the docks a short ferry ride behind central station.

Arriving by rail at Amsterdam Centrum, we learned of a twenty four hour transport strike. The ferries and metro were not running and we could either swim for it or take a considerable taxi trip around the extremities of the port to our boat billet in Amsterdam Noord.

A thirty minute "High season" taxi trip later we pitched up at our boat. A comfortable craft, it was one of six moored in an old boat yard. Since our last visit five years ago, Amsterdam Noord has received the gift of a new metro link and a twenty four seven ferry service across the bay (strikes permitting) to Amsterdam central. Brimful of Hipsters, Cats and Dudes, we adapted with ease to pontoon society in the commune in which our boat was moored.

On a previous visit we'd had a memorable meal at a restaurant in the canal ring. It was a few steps away from our original phantom booking and a table was reserved many months ago. With ferries not flowing and the metro out of order a road tunnel under the Amstel had been designated as "bikes only"

The continuity guy has been on and pointed out that I have not mentioned that we had hired bikes.

We hired bikes.

Not all of these, just the two

Cycling in Amsterdam is a little different to cycling over here. It's a part of city life as opposed to a lycra cult.


Under the tunnel we went pedalling furiously in our evening finery.

I'll break off there to say that concern has been expressed regarding the previous film in which we are seen cycling sans helmets while using mobile phones on the road.

To which I'll counter - there was a glass and a half of rose on board the pilot of each bike, which I think trumps the previous concern regarding safety. We're living the lives of sailors with rum coarsing through our veins.

A thirty year old unopened bottle of bacardi at the back of our kitchen cupboard stands as testament to our dislike of rum so we went for another glass of grog beginning with the letter R

Up and out across Dam square, along many canals (mostly the wrong ones because google maps failed to keep up with our pace so furious was our peddling) to Seasons restaurant which was closed for the night.

I'd booked the table on "The Fork" three months prior

Note to self:

Additions to lists of websites to avoid using when living for pleasure alone

1.Booking. com
2. TheFork.com.

Booking.com are currently sponsoring the ICC world cup, which is the stuff of Stanford 20/20.

TheFork.com were not particularly concerned.

Booking.com don't seem to fussed about running a secure website, passed from pillar to post doesn't come closewhen registering a complaint.

Looking up, not down we clambered back on the bikes (cycling sans lycra can be a tremendously uplifting experience) and we pitched into a superb restaurant that chucked up three courses for a fair price, so we cycled home happy.

Back on the boat, we took late night pegs in the wheel house sans shoes to watch a superb sunset. On descent to our cosy cabin the crampons on my socks failed and I fell down the stairs, banging my head on a bulwark, breaking a part of my idiot proof camera and throwing red wine and glass all over the white wall/bulwark.

With a pulse detected, focus switched to the white wall and the problem of red wine stain. While in recovery I remember white wine being applied, to the wall not myself, and plans were briefly made to visit a paint shop and spend the day redecorating the barge, before the spirit of bleach was invoked and a cheap bottle of old alkaline sourced the next day.

The wall/bulwark was restored to its former glory, but then what to do with the bleach?

The commune in which we were moored was a wacky affair with pulses and craft beer very much the order of the day. Thomas Crappers were composters and all waste water was run through some elaborate eco treatment affair to which the addition of bleach would be the effluent equivalent of Chernobyl. So it was smuggled off site the following day and disposed off responsibly.

The next few days turned out to be free of incident and centred around exploring Amsterdam by Velocopede.

Which was tremendous fun particularly the cycle ferry that runs constantly across the river.

Boarding and disembarking was very much the stuff of the peloton.

With a nod to cultural guff, the Rijksmuseum was very busy with queues of over an hour for entry. We'd done most bits of it on previous winter trips. Vermeer's milk jug, Big Rembrandts and The Potato Eaters seem to stick in the memory, although that last one may have been the chips and mayonnaise I had for lunch.

So it was on down to the Stedelijk museum at the other end of the museumplein for two hours of excellent twentieth art.

Plenty of Picassos,

here's one of a lady friend (Pablo's not mine, never seen her before in my life) with a fish on her head and blue breasts.

Bacon,Chagall, Kandinsky, Mondrian, Rothko and a few by Van Gogh.

Bits of Bauhaus furniture and photos from Man Ray, Ansell Adams and others.


We've also visited the Van Gogh museum on previous trips and of the three on the plein, the Stedelijk is our favourite.

Back to base to meet Maisie and Callum who had come out to act as rear gunners in the cabin situated aft for a few days.

It was great to pipe them aboard.

We did our own thing during the day - they are of an age and level of physical fitness when a lot can be crammed into an hour. We have a requirement to sit down every so often (in your face fitbit) normally to ascertain where we are in relation to home or lunch.

We took breakfast together before regrouping for drinks and dinner in the evening which worked well and it was great to have them along.

Here we all are in an Eritrean restaurant.

You will note the elephants at the window.

The restaurant rates very highly on many websites as a place to eat in Amsterdam

A shared meal is served in an upside down dustbin lid and eaten sans cutlery with pancakes that could double up as napkins if required.




It was a tremendous repast that will live long in the memory, we hope to return one day.

Bothering the substantial Zander that inhabit the water in Amsterdam Noord with a fly proved unproductive so I targeted the silver fish by the boat with a float.




Returning home one evening we disturbed a twenty pound plus grass carp that was nibbling away at the algae on the pontoon.

In TV news we can reveal that Van der Valk is returning to our TV screens. Barry Foster hasn't aged a bit. Very much the Killing Eve of its day we caught a scene being filmed in which our hero is bludgeoned to the ground and flung in the canal.

Cycling everywhere was a particular highlight of the trip. A good bike that is safe and easy to ride came in at just under ten euros a day and we became quite attached to our steeds. Back home we are now considering seeking out a couple of Dutch bikes for use on local lanes.

There I said it, my name is Chris de Cani and I am considering a career in cycling.

And so despite the best efforts of those wretches Tamas Lukas and Sabine Zwitch et al we enjoyed a terrific four night break on a house boat in Amsterdam.

Up yours you no good lowlife deadbeats. A further thousand curses on your icy souls.

Apologies for the travel news, but at this age I do find I have to write things down.

River news to follow, and there is much to discuss.