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invasion, this time the invasion of the inevitable superbarges.
    We were now up on a plateau and since we had been through a series of lifts, I thought we should visit Belgium’s other hydraulic curiosity: the nearby lift at Ronquières which joins the canal from Brussels to the Meuse. This is really a huge bathtub on wheels into which the barges are driven and sealed. The whole apparatus is then allowed to slowly slide down the hill to the canal at the bottom. The bath is checked by a system of massive counterweights and safety devices, but I was nevertheless relieved when the
Leo
was back to the safety of more conventional means of lifting river traffic.
    Leaving Ronquières, we came upon a breakdown truck by the side of the canal and a boy with a flag waving at all the passing barges to slow them down. I decided to tie up and see what was going on. As I reached the boy a frogman appeared from the canal and flopped his way up the bank. Mr Van Damme had found himself a job for life clearing the canals of Belgium of ‘hot’ cars. His method was simple. He would drive down one side of the canal and his assistant would drive down the other, with a steel hawser running between the two vehicles. From time to time, the cable wouldsnag on a car and Mr Van Damme would slip into his wet suit. His first priority was to collect the number plates from the car (I think he was probably paid by the plates). Then he would plunge again, attach a cable around the chassis of the car and winch it up on to the canal bank. I watched him pull a very new looking BMW up on to the bank. He told me that it had probably been in the canal for about six months. I was surprised when he attached the winch cable to the boot of the car to prise it open. ‘What do you think is inside?’ I asked, thinking of swag, but he explained that the only things of interest that he ever found were live eels. Sadly when the lid of the boot sprung open, it was empty. However, within the hour he had a top-of-the-range Toyota up on the bank and this time the boot disgorged six eels for Mrs Van Damme to cope with. Because of its isolation, this part of the canal was a favourite dumping ground for car thieves, explained my diving friend, who was very proud of his job – though I must say it is not one that I should fancy, especially during the winter.
    Charleroi is, from the canal at least, an industrial nightmare. All one could see were huge buildings, chimneys belching clouds of noxious vapour, and bright points of light from molten metal being poured. Welders were repairing a conveyor belt high above and evil clankings and bangings deafened me. The fact that humans are persuaded to work in places like these, inhaling the grime in the air day after day, convinced me of how lucky I was to be merely passing through. Later, in a lock outside Charleroi, I asked the skipper of a tug that was towing a huge barge of liquid mud if there was anything of interest between where we were and Namur. ‘It is all very much the same,’ was his morose reply.
    We wound our way down the Sambre to the Meuse at Namur. Ray was making a little headway with his French and came back triumphantly with some eggs which he had purchased with the aid of the Paul Daniels ‘Learn a language by word association’ book which he had been studying while at the helm. He had bought the eggs to make one of his famous lighterman’s omelettes: none of the salmonella-inhabited, runny, French-style versions for Ray. His were solidly delicious and a real meal in themselves. Already the allure of meals in restaurants had begun to pall. The cost was one factor, but by far the most irksome element in restaurant eating was the time it took to order something and then to eat it. I suppose it is all part of good living, spending ages over a meal and savouring every aspect of its presentation, but the eternal inquiry as to what each dish contained and above all whether it