The piece of land I now rent to moor at is known in the vicinity as De Galg (The Gallows, Facebook Beesd Boek 26 August 2013). It used to be the judicial execution venue of Beesd. For long, it is covered with short grass, surrounded by tall trees, but still sports a certified toilet, indispensible for any convict ambitious to make a clean impression at exit. The Gallows has no address and is not connected to the utility supply networks. The "Waterschap" (local water authorities), have marked its shore red, indicating a motorboat is allowed, provided it is not wider than 4 m and not longer than 90% of the length of the land's shore. There is no gallows. This gap we shall fill in due time, concentrating more on the spatial statement than on historical accuracy. For a sailor, it is just another knot. We plan to give weekend courses "execution by hanging", low budget, but students should bring their own convicts. 

... The Gallows, my new mooring site ...

... The Gallows seen from across the Linge  ...

... starlings, someone took this one nearby here and put it on internet ...

... meet my neighbours all merely interested in Messiaen but after I accused them of being ornithologically bornated
Wouter, (see his body language on the picture) shows a lukewarm interest in jazz piano trios but only when they go modal ...

When still a cabin on wheels, the hut stood 70 meters downstream, so for more couleur locale click here.

... sun: warmth and solar power make the window for sanding ...

... copper barometer and clock, indispensible albeit as statements only:
the internet page of Herwijnen weather station at 8 km of course has all one could dream of ...

... I went into Late Antiquity, to find out why Christianity beat the competition. No clue yet ...

I went (again, click here) into Late Antiquity (starting from a hard copy of Peter Brown), this time to screen exactly why Christianity beat the ample religious competition of the time. But so far no clue as for the doctrines. It must have been organization (and may be doctrine smoothly geared to it). But how to keep up that excellent organization quality you need to gradually grab total power during three full centuries, that is 10 or 15 generations ? What strikes me most is the very good thinking of pagan Roman elite as opposed to the simplicity of Christians, who just enjoyed being groomed as "chosen people" and being read the bible stories which roughly have the causal and moral simplicity of what is on display in our modern mass media.
Latin aristocrats, not needing much time to manage their rural estates, had a lifestyle called otium, a bit like mine: sitting on a nice place studying books, writing about them to friends with no ambition at all to acquire recognition by publishing them. Hence from those circles you never read that kind of crap deep under which in our modern digital university libraries the good stuff is buried. But to them a place fit for thinking was a villa with a giant personal library, while my circumstances made me opt for a hut and leaving it to waterschap and municipality to keep my view tidy, take my reading from internet, occasionally, if not available there, scanning to file at a library.

... otium, but the masons, painters and gardeners working here, not allowed to Plato's rolls in that library,
had themselves read bible stories in some small Christian conventicle
Oh My God! what crap would the civil authorities slinking round my mooring here get fed on TV?
Fortunately, unlike a villa, my platform can go anywhere ...

Classical pagans generally did not waste their time studying Christian doctrine. The few who did, growing in numbers with the rise of the religion, point at its fake pretension that the bible can, as some sort of "shortcut", replace painstaking classical studies on the road to knowing and wisdom. True as it is, it obviously does nothing to reverse the process. Many pagan classical otium-aristocrats bore us with detail errors in the bible chiefly concerning the prophet in fashion. Neither that's how to prevent a spiritual derailment of Christian proportions. If any law ruled the process, it looks like Gresham's law: "bad money drives out good money": if good, valuable coins are in circulation together with lesser ones, people tend to keep the good ones at home, hence the quality coins will disappear from the market.
One step of progress my understanding did make: the ridiculous and unmarketable Christian disputes about the exact form of the incarnation of Christ, starting with Athanasian opposition to Arianism, got their hold on the Christian community only as late as the 4th and 5th century (Nicaea and Chalcedon being the best known councils), that is, only after the entire Empire had gone bananas. This is the familiar phenomenon of internal divisions quickly forming in a group the enemy of which has collapsed, as brilliantly illustrated in Frans de Waal's book about our closest relative: Chimpanzee Politics. On a council in Ephesus in 449, the bishop of Constantinople, later Saint, Flavian, got beaten to death at the altar. The number of Christian followers now had gotten worth a murder or two. Just as in earlier stages at the end of the year the Roman Empire, for example, could have the year's 4th emperor, and the preceding 3 would be dead [more]).
Not much later Christianity got divided, apart from a host of smaller groups, in three big ones: Trinitarians in the West up to Constantinople, Egypt (Alexandria) claiming that Jezus was God himself, and Nestorians in Asia minor and further East, teaching he was a human. So this doctrinal strife issue being relegated to the aftermath, how did this huge mass of followers get secured by the early Christian mission in the first place? No clue yet.

... solar parasol now simply rigged like a mizzen: 3 stays, allowing the mast to turn, and 3 sheets ...

I do plan for longer trips to wait for backish winds and use the solar parasol as a sail. The good thing for a boat with 20 cm draft is that the "sails" mast is 40 cm from the steering outboard engine. On arrival in Friesland we shall buy eel for the money saved on fuel.

... while rewiring you find that, in intricacy, philosophy is no match to your electric system ...

... we receive our first guests, though there's not always time to talk to them ...

... and celebrate change of year with my mother, the Pikmeer is a small lake in Friesland, where her family had a little wooden house only reachable by boat ...