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Valerie Poore
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Faring Forth Again on the Shoe: More tales of Barging through Belgium to France (Faring on The Shoe) Kindle Edition

by Valerie Poore (Author) Format: Kindle Edition
4.4 out of 5 stars 83 ratings
This travelogue is a sequel to Faring to France on a Shoe and is an account of Val Poore's further cruising adventures with her partner, Koos, on their Dutch Barge, Hennie Ha, aka the Shoe. Once again, Val and Koos set off for a summer of 'faring', the word they use to describe travelling by barge as distinguished from cruising and sailing. It is, after all, a very different experience to meander along the canals at a snail's pace and enjoy the waterside scenery, towns and encounters with local people. These are adventures of a gentle kind that take them along the lovely waterways of Belgium, through numerous locks of various shapes and sizes, and into France through a very beautiful back door.
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  1. Part of series
    Faring on The Shoe
  2. Print length
    218 pages
  3. Language
    English
  4. Accessibility
    Learn more
  5. Publication date
    April 26, 2021
  6. File size
    4.5 MB
  7. Page Flip
    Enabled
  8. Word Wise
    Enabled
  9. Enhanced typesetting
    Enabled
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Editorial Reviews

Review

Praise for Faring Forth Again on the Shoe:

J Burt, Essex, UK: What a pleasure and privilege it has been to read Faring Forth Again on the Shoe! I enjoyed every single word. I was riveted by the descriptions of places I know so well. The descriptions of the Sambre were delightful and have made me want to go there. The delights of 'faring' shine through your writing and made me feel as if I was a silent companion with you on the shoe. You capture the pleasure and the occasional fear (what ifs) that accompany each trip. The images of the countryside you passed through perfectly evoke those long hot summer days and I loved your recollections of the various people you met along the way.

T Bland, Bedford: I absolutely loved Faring Forth Again on the Shoe. I felt as if I was on the journey too, experiencing it all with Koos and Val.

Product details

  • ASIN ‏ : ‎ B093LRK88M
  • Accessibility ‏ : ‎ Learn more
  • Publication date ‏ : ‎ April 26, 2021
  • Edition ‏ : ‎ 1st
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • File size ‏ : ‎ 4.5 MB
  • Simultaneous device usage ‏ : ‎ Unlimited
  • Screen Reader ‏ : ‎ Supported
  • Enhanced typesetting ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • X-Ray ‏ : ‎ Not Enabled
  • Word Wise ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • Print length ‏ : ‎ 218 pages
  • Page Flip ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • Part of series ‏ : ‎ Faring on The Shoe
  • Customer Reviews:
    4.4 out of 5 stars 83 ratings

About the author

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Valerie Poore

Valerie Poore

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Val Poore was born in London, England, and grew up in both north London and the west of Dorset. After completing her degree in English, History and French at Bournemouth, she took a further course in the conservation and restoration of museum artefacts at Lincoln College of Art. She then spent two years smallholding, rearing Jacobs sheep and doing furniture restoration before going to South Africa in 1981 with her husband and small children.

Val left South Africa permanently in 2001 and has settled in the Netherlands, where she shares her time between a liveaboard barge in Rotterdam and a cottage in Zeeland. She has been writing since childhood and wrote stories, articles and radio plays for years before embarking on her first book in 2005. Val loves travelling on her barge, especially when it involves roughing it a bit. She feels that she has better adventures and more interesting experiences that way.

She has written twelve books altogether: three novels and nine memoirs, three of which are about her life in South Africa, a country she grew to love deeply. The others are all about her experiences of living and cruising on her barge. The latest is being published in May, 2021. Then it'll be back to writing some more fiction. Val writes under her full name Valerie Poore.

For more about Val's daily life on board her barge in Rotterdam, go to https://rivergirlrotterdam.blogspot.nl

Customer reviews

4.4 out of 5 stars
83 global ratings

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Customers say

Customers find the book enjoyable to read. The writing quality receives positive feedback, with one customer noting how it appeals to all five senses and vividly describes what the author saw.

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3 customers mention "Readability"3 positive0 negative

Customers find the book readable, with one describing it as an immensely enjoyable read.

"Liked it all. Valerie has a way of writing that puts you right there beside her. I love everything about her books!..." Read more

"...This was an immensely enjoyable read...." Read more

"...Her stories are worth savoring. This book was no exception...." Read more

3 customers mention "Writing quality"3 positive0 negative

Customers praise the writing quality of the book, with one review noting how it appeals to all five senses and vividly describes what the author saw.

"Liked it all. Valerie has a way of writing that puts you right there beside her. I love everything about her books!..." Read more

"...they meet, their walks, their visits to the shops are all clear and concise. I felt as if I was right there on the deck quietly taking it all in...." Read more

"...This book was no exception. Each page vividly describes what she saw, how she felt, the atmosphere and, the scents & sounds of her trip...." Read more

Top reviews from the United States

  • Kindle Customer
    5.0 out of 5 stars Review
    Reviewed in the United States on January 10, 2025
    Verified Purchase
    Liked it all. Valerie has a way of writing that puts you right there beside her. I love everything about her books! Since I would never be able to do this faring way, it's great to be on the boat with her vicariously. Thank you, ma'am!
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  • SueB
    4.0 out of 5 stars A delightful trip by barge through Belgium to France
    Reviewed in the United States on January 6, 2022
    Faring Forth Again on the Shoe is the story of a trip along the canals of Belgium made by the author, Valerie Poore and her partner, Koos in their Dutch house barge, the Hennie Ha, which is shaped like a clog and affectionately known by them as the ‘Shoe’.

    The trip follows a route on these waterways:
    The Scheldt
    The Dender – The Flemish Section
    The Dender – The Walloon Section
    The Canal du Centre
    The Brussels-Charleroi Canal
    The Sambre Thuin France
    Return to Belgium
    Ronquières, Brussels and beyond

    I have never been on a barge but have often gazed wistfully at them when in Amsterdam and Bruges – there is something very romantic about the idea of living aboard one of these floating homes! However, in reality I do not think I would be able to live with the insecurity and vulnerability involved with life on a barge. At one point, when moored by a run down part of a city, and almost boarded by a local at night, Val tells us:

    “It’s not unheard of for local youths to untie a boat leaving the sleeping occupants drifting in midstream, especially in these urban moorings.”

    The down-to-earth descriptions of (lack of) showering facilities and the sheer physical labour involved with maintaining the barge would also put me off this lifestyle! Val herself had never been on a barge until her forties but has embraced the hard work and physical challenges involved and her love for this unconventional lifestyle shines through her warm descriptions of events which take place on their journey.

    The book is peppered with historical information and local tall tales – I particularly enjoyed the amusing origin story for how the locals of Ninove became known as wortels, or carrots when they forgot to lock their city gates properly and used a carrot instead!

    Val’s goal is to make it to the historic landmark of the ‘Great Lift’ at Strépy and travel up it – an impressive 73 metre rise for the barge:

    “We’re sitting in a huge bath suspended in mid-air, and the only thing between us and eternity is a collection of steel cables.”

    The added maps and accompanying photo website help to bring alive the journey and there is even a recipe for a one pot meal included in the book, which sounds delicious.

    I thoroughly enjoyed my time traveling through Belgium on the Shoe, even if it was only a virtual trip, brought to life by the vivid travelogue-style descriptions of passing countryside and local towns!
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  • Lizzy
    5.0 out of 5 stars A DELIGHTFUL AND COLORFUL JOURNEY
    Reviewed in the United States on June 26, 2021
    Verified Purchase
    This is the fourth book I’ve read by this author, and no matter what she writes, I am enchanted.

    When I was a mere teenager, I was visiting people in New Orleans, Louisiana, and there, on a riverboat, I was absolutely riveted as my host explained what river locks were as our vessel paused to pass through them. Unfortunately, I’ve never experienced any since. But somehow, the fascination has remained with me all of these years. And so, reading about author Valerie Poore’s journey with her partner, Koos, and her descriptions of the many locks they encountered through Belgium and France, fascinated me anew.

    This was an immensely enjoyable read. I learned so much about what it is like to live on their boat, the Hennie Ha, what amenities they enjoyed, and which ones were a bit more difficult to come by. I was especially interested in what it takes in some places just to have a shower. And even though I’m not a coffee drinker, I loved reading about how different it is in various locales.

    I loved all of the local color … from the waitress in her 80s to the one in her 90s … to the ephemeral friendships … to the story about a donkey and a carrot. (You’ll have to read the book to completely enjoy this one.)

    The author has a wonderful way of bringing the reader onboard. In one place, from the boat, she was admiring a beautiful white house on the land. But then she writes: “Envy floods me for a moment and then ebbs away. While it must be wonderful to have such a home, here on the water I feel I am the lucky one.” I felt that passage really summed up so much about her life and her love of living on the water. I was very touched by it.

    There are links throughout the book to the author’s Flickr page with photos covering much of what was described in each chapter. That was absolutely wonderful to see, and I really appreciated the maps showing both the routes both coming and going.

    I highly recommend the book: a terrific armchair journey or perhaps a guide book for a future trip.
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  • Lynn M.
    5.0 out of 5 stars The Journey!
    Reviewed in the United States on June 7, 2021
    Verified Purchase
    Reading Val Poore’s Faring Forth Again on the Shoe has inspired me to write a blog post and to add an extra tab on my website. Traveling along on the Hennie-Ha which she affectionately calls The Shoe has given me a great kick-off for summer reading. She and her traveling companion leave from the Netherlands and travel down to France. When they finally reach France, I think it may have been the highlight of her trip to her.

    But for me as an observer, it was the journey itself that I found most intriguing. I could see all the towns and villages along the way. Her colorful descriptions of the landscape, the people they meet, their walks, their visits to the shops are all clear and concise. I felt as if I was right there on the deck quietly taking it all in. I can see them taking out their fold-up bikes when they chose to ride, and I could imagine how the Great Lift at Strepy (Belgium) looked or how her daughter’s amiable dog Charlie may have looked as well.

    But Val goes one further as she delights her readers by adding beautiful photography to further seal the readers’ imagination. She even adds maps with the drawn-out routes they took each way showing the towns, villages, and countries. Her writing appeals to all five senses. Her intuitive and inspirational sides are revealed by her silent captivation of pictures of beautiful églises or churches from several stops. Her writings never disappoint and again she has taken me to lands that I would not otherwise see nor experience. A humble thanks, Val.
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Top reviews from other countries

  • Stephen Powell
    5.0 out of 5 stars A beautiful account of contentment
    Reviewed in the United Kingdom on June 18, 2021
    Verified Purchase
    Valerie Poore’s “Faring Forth Again on the Shoe” is the best book on a summer holiday that I’ve ever read or expect to read. I experienced it as a master class on how to write light, conversational prose while handling a great range of matters with skill and acuity. The book is a lovely account of a six-week holiday spent on the waterways of Belgium and a little corner of northeastern France. Valerie and her partner Koos travelled on the Dutch barge Hennie Ha and in a lively present tense narrative she introduces the reader to the sights, sounds, colours and smells encountered on their odyssey. It is hard to do justice to this book in a short review, but there is skill here of a high order. The balance is right. We learn why it is important to travel with a boathook. We learn too the stupendous dimensions of the great lift at Strépy, which raises boats to the height of the clock on London’s Big Ben. But there is so much in this book that goes beyond boating lore.

    Books like this make theoretical self-help books on how to be happy seem rather redundant. I read it as an authentic account of human beings in flow. At one point Koos is asleep on the barge and the author takes the helm. She writes: “A sensation of lightness washes over me which I recognise as total contentment.” This is glorious stuff! The author is not always in this state of mind. She is nervous as they approach Charleroi which is “high on my list of unpleasantly creepy places”. But the mood is generally happy and she writes about moving through “a benign, relaxed and gentle pastoral world”.

    For the student of travel literature, this book is an interesting example in the category of authors writing about travels with a companion. It is in sharp contrast to Graham Greene’s “Journey without Maps”. In that book, Greene went through the interior of Liberia with an unnamed cousin who remains without form or identity. If I remember correctly, Greene never even troubles to tell the reader that the cousin is a woman. Valerie Poore, on the other hand, tells us a lot about her travelling companion, Koos, the Dutchman in her life. He is the son of a commercial barge skipper, with profound intuitive knowledge of faring. He is also a keen photographer, a train buff and a man with an amazing grasp of English idiom. He comes alive on the page and the interactions between him and Valerie are recounted with affection and humour. All in all, this is a delicious book.
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  • Cathie
    5.0 out of 5 stars Farlez-vous en Francais
    Reviewed in Canada on January 26, 2022
    Verified Purchase
    This is the perfect memoir, just enough detail to be interesting but not so much as to be boring. The descriptions are so vivid that once I put the book down, I quite forget I am reading; more like watching a video.
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  • Margaret Hobbs
    5.0 out of 5 stars Another wonderful book from Val Poore
    Reviewed in Spain on March 12, 2022
    Verified Purchase
    I was so excited when I heard Val had written this sequel and it didn't disappoint. Interesting ,exciting ,learning about the history of the different places .
    After reading Vals wonderful descriptions and feeling as though I was there seeing the lovely scenery ,living through all their emotions ,and the 'what ifs 'making me laugh🙂.I felt the need to prolong reading this so when Koos and Val started their return
    Journey on a different route ,I read the first half again in case I missed something in my eagerness to find out what happened next.
    Now I can't wait to read another of Vals books.
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  • Terry Tyler
    5.0 out of 5 stars A delightful book
    Reviewed in the United Kingdom on June 7, 2021
    Verified Purchase
    I read a big chunk of this book yesterday, in the bath and then whilst drying my hair (it's a long task). When I'd finished, I stood up and realised that I had been completely immersed in Val Poore's world for the past couple of hours. To the extent that I just wanted to get back there.

    This is a lovely book, detailing a trip from the Netherlands, where Val and her partner Koos live, through Flemish Belgium and then Val's beloved Wallonia, into France and back again. As ever, I adored reading the snippets of historical interest, hearing about the people she meets, the simplicity of their life on board, her outlook about life in general (which I totally relate to), and her contentment just from being on her boat and enjoying the beauty of her surroundings. Though it's not all bliss and country idylls; Val is a self-confessed worrier, especially when faced with the possibility of having to moor up too near a rough town. There are many moments of humour, like when she went into a shop to buy sheets, not realising that, in her less-than-fluent French, she had asked the shopkeeper for flags. 😄

    At the end of sections of the book there are links to Val's photos on Flickr; they took to long to load on my tablet, so I looked them up afterwards instead. The link is HERE (yes, Val, he does look like a young Gerard Depardieu!). I was most interested to see the enormous Strépy-Thieu Boat Lift - on the cover - as I couldn't imagine it, and also the enomous white scifi guillotine thing (you need to read the book!).

    The only downside was that (again, as ever), reading this made me long to be on the Hennie Ha, too, faring through rural Belgium, on a sunny afternoon that lasts forever. Thank you again, Val, for allowing us to enter your world for a while.
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  • Diana D
    4.0 out of 5 stars Pleasant
    Reviewed in the United Kingdom on November 21, 2021
    Verified Purchase
    Wonderful to be on a barge again with Val and Koos, although a shame Val gets so anxious. Maybe too much strong coffee? Lovely descriptions of the scenery and the places they visit, as well as the canals and locks they go through in Belgium and France. A very pleasant way to travel.
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