Early morning awakenings
This morning (Sunday) I
woke up in a foul mood. The dog had woken me at about 4.30am wanting
to get on the bed with us. Now this is no longer allowed because as
an old lady she had problems with her waterworks. This has been
going on for a little while now, but it is getting worse and she
needs some HRT which we will get sorted when we get to Spain. So
having sent her back to her own bed I was now awake.
Well in the words of
the Lighthouse Family - “You can't always be happy all the time”.
The reason for my bad
mood, well, we're on the road again and that is always stressful for
me. I just don't have the wanderlust that Iain has, I like to know
where I am going, where I can get my groceries, how easy it is to get
washing done, what the roads are going to be like. I can get really
wound up when driving but I know I'd be worse if I was a passenger.
The rain was beating down, I'd nearly run over a couple on a zebra
crossing and I didn't like the campsite we'd just arrived (well
nearly arrived) at. It was very close to the “It's all your
fault” stage yesterday but the words didn't quite come out, but the
“I want to go home” did. Woops – this is home, wherever you
park it and at that time it was parked on the side of a road,
somewhere I didn't want to be, with the rain beating down – again -
while we frantically looked for another camp site.
In my defence the zebra
crossing incident wasn't all my fault, but of course if you hit
someone on a zebra crossing it is immediately your fault in law.
Anyway it happened because I was approaching the crossing and looking
at the couple on my right side, they were dithering near to the
crossing and I was waiting to see if they were going to cross or not.
They dithered enough that I decided they weren't getting onto the
crossing and were going to wait for me to go past. However, because
my attention was on them, I hadn't seen the couple on the left-hand
side who had decided to cross and make me stop. Well by the time I
saw them it was “anchors on”, hard on the brakes, Iain nearly
shot into the windscreen and the noise of loads of stuff
reverberating around in the lockers was like shaking pebbles in a
tin. The guy looked just like the frozen rabbit in the headlights,
but hey if you saw a great big truck coming towards the crossing,
wouldn't you make sure it was going to stop before you stepped in
front of it? No harm done, except it probably raised a few people's
blood pressure through the roof.
This was one of those
bad travelling days – not as bad as the San Sebastian one, but
pretty bad and this is why I didn't want to be where we were.
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| Down there? You cannot be serious!!!!! |
The book said, lovely
campsite suitable for large motorhomes. They're having a laugh!!!!
This was the entrance. We stopped behind another motorhome who
obviously had the same idea as us. Iain got out and walked down the
lane, he came back with that look on his face of “mmm, don't think
you are going to like this. At this point the other motorhome drove
off as they'd obviously decided that they didn't like the look of it
either. So I then got out (in the rain) and had a look. Yes it was
DOWN the lane; DOWN to a level crossing with a tight bend, DOWN
another single lane track and finally arriving at the campsite.
I considered it for a
while. I thought that we would get the van down there, after all it
does say suitable for larger motorhomes, but then maybe if it wasn't
raining, I might have a go; maybe if I didn't have this innate fear
of level crossings (I think it was all those silent movies that my
dad had when we were kids, where the damsel in distress would always
be tied to the railway tracks and be rescued, screaming just as the
train came along), I might have a go; maybe if it wasn't so narrow
that there was no passing place, I might have a go; maybe if once
getting down there I didn't have to think about getting back up, I
might have a go. Iain offered to drive down there and I said "You must be joking, you haven't driven in the last 5000 miles, do you really think it's a good time to practice?"
Then I calmed down and saw sense – I
remembered the terraced site in Costa Blanca last winter where we got
onto the pitch ok but then grounded trying to get off again and
although I thought I could do it, I just wasn't prepared to spend 4
days worrying about getting out again!!!!!!
So there we were –
and now we're somewhere else. But before I move on to where we have
been, as I said I'm up early and I've just taken the dog out. It was
about 6.30am when I took this picture.
The weather is feeling
pretty autumnal even though we haven't got to the end of August yet. However cold it is here, I've just heard on the news that it was -2C in Northern Ireland last night, so that's made me feel smug. The mist was rising above the river and forming in little tufty
clouds as they floated their way up the gorge into the trees and
beyond. It reminded me of my rowing days on the Thames at Twickenham
when we would be on the river by 8am, Saturdays and Sundays, rain or
shine, summer or winter. Those early mornings were wonderful.
Still, crisp and you knew that soon you would hear the lovely splish
of the blades as they entered the water and propelled you down the
river. So now the world is all right with me and I know it's going
to be a lovely day – who sang that? I just love the water and as
long as I'm near water, I'm happy. It must be because I'm a pisces.
Ostende
So getting back to our
trip. In my last post we had just arrived in Ostende – which seems
like ages ago. There's really not much to “write home about”
Ostende. The campsite was ok, the internet was expensive and not very
good – I had to go to the toilets to get a decent signal which
seemed miles away. They were full up when we arrived and we had to
stay on a bit of grass in the middle which was obviously saved for
“drop in's” . The area had a nice beach – and allowed dogs on
it early morning and evening. There were a few shops around so we
could get groceries, but we didn't eat out at all. We didn't even go
out for a beer!!!!!! Mainly because nowhere did free wifi. It did
give us a chance to get our washing done so at least we left clean
and with all clean clothing. The weather was a bit hit and miss as we
got the tail end of hurricane Bertha but hey, you got worse in
England. It was a bit of Margate across the sea though. So that's
about all I've got to say about Ostende, I didn't find it very
inspiring and don't think I got my camera out once – so I'll move
on.
Breda
Leaving Ostende we
travelled some 2 hours
The lanes around the
campsite were pretty small so we had to go slowly. As we turned
around one corner, some children were playing in the lane. One girl
about 12 years old suddenly looked up and exclaimed “Oh My God!,
mama, mama, come see”. They don't get many vans like ours around
here then.
The first day we just
chilled and took a wander around the area. This took us up the lane
and past this really vicious dog. Now I'm pretty cool around dogs
but this one scared me, even our dog didn't do her normal dancing
around. I'm so glad that he was behind a metal fence, although you
could see loads of places where he'd tried to gnaw his way out, which
you might be able to see in the picture. I scooted past his place
several times.
Along the end of the
lane we found the smallest church I'd ever seen, it was really
quaint, with only 4 pews, worth I picture I thought.
The weather forecast
was ok for the following day so we decided to cycle the 5 miles or so
into Breda. As you can imagine, cycling around Holland is a doddle.
It's just so flat and there are cycle lanes everywhere, even though
with the dog on the back it's like peddling uphill all the time for
me.
Breda itself is a bit
disappointing, it's pretty but a bit run-down with loads of closed
shops. So here's a couple of token pictures of Breda.
We actually decided to
have lunch so we stopped in a street cafe. Luckily we chose one with
umbrellas as not long after we sat down the heavens opened. We
couldn't go inside because of the dog so we just sat it out. It was
so heavy that the dog was shaking because the sky was falling down
and we even needed our waterproofs, under the umbrella.
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| It was just a shower - not |
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| August in Breda |
We didn't wait that
long, unlike in France a couple of years ago when we got caught in
the rain and ended up leaving 70 euros lighter. We weren't going to
make that mistake again.
So the 5 mile cycle
ride back home – in the rain. Luckily before leaving Ostende, we
had visited the nearby supermarket and I had stocked up for about 5
days of food. Unfortunately Iain hadn't done the same with his really
essential supplies - booze. So we just had to find a supermarket on
the way back in case we were confined to barracks for a few days.
This was when I thought that Dutch people don't eat. Can you find a
supermarket? No! All the way in and all the way out – no
supermarket to be seen. We cycled onto a huge retail park where we
were convinced we might at least find the equivalent of an M&S
food hall and there was nothing. A young couple gave us some general
directions to a supermarket but they said it wasn't very near to
where we were. So off we went – this time with Iain in front. As
we cycled round a residential area, I could see a church over to our
left and that's usually a pretty good indicator of a town centre, and
civilisation but we had gone past and he was too far ahead for me to
shout. Finally I got him to stop and made the decision to find the
church. Yes, there was not only one, but two supermarkets. We chose
one and did our shopping – then went to the “Cards only” lane,
only to find that it didn't take our cards. Only Dutch ones. How
stupid is that? So after some discussions we were able to pay in cash
at another till. Luckily we had some. That is one tip for people
travelling to Holland – it is nearly all Maestro cards, many places
just don't accept Visa, cash machines are generally ok though. Also
supermarkets don't sell spirits!!!
So essential supplies
replenished we headed off back to the campsite. We were pretty wet
when we got back but hey – we are English, we are used to it.
The following day, the
weather forecast wasn't too good so we decided to have a day indoors.
This would give me a chance to make a start on my re-upholstery of
the settee. So we got the sofa-bed out to see how everything was
attached. We established that this job didn't have to be done in one
go and that we could still use the settee during the process – so I
got out the snips and made a start. The weather was overcast but I
could get outside so I unpicked one of the seat cushions, got my
empty cow outside onto the ground and made a plan.
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| Measure twice, cut once |
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| Beer cans make great weights to stop the leather blowing away |
That was enough for the
first day – sewing to start tomorrow. Then next day I did manage
to complete one cushion but the before and after pictures to follow
when I've finished.
After 5 nights in Breda it was off to Ermelo
After 5 nights in Breda it was off to Ermelo
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