Health n Safety, my Arse!
Cycling around Holland in the sun is much like being in a real life St Trinians holiday camp. If there’s a canal then there’s dozens of kids swimming unsupervised from age 6 or 7 up, kids desperately trying to touch the side of passing 3000 tonne ships by belly boarding at them sideways like torpedoes and if there’s a bridge over the canal then the kids are jumping off it playing their own version of pooh sticks scaring the hell out of the passing holiday cruisers. In the boats the kids stand and lie about and even get towed behind them clinging on to a rope, and sometimes...
Read MoreOf Cricket, Americans and God
Holland are one of the better non test match playing teams and Ireland are the best. As they were due to play an international in Amstelveen we headed north to just outside Amsterdam to have a day with our feet up, drinking wine and commenting “Good shot old chap” in between naps and sandwiches. The game itself was entertaining – and live on the Internet with a full crew of cameramen etc and live commentary, the around 100 spectators barely outnumbered the ICC Officials and TV crew. Ireland eventually won comfortably and we returned to taffy via a lovely cycle through the...
Read MoreSaddle sore and sunburnt…
When we usually set off instead of the excitement of getting on our way we usually have a couple of days of being absolutely exhausted, so we’ve learnt to allow for this (3 days this year as we’re grandparents) and head from the Hook of Holland straight to Klein Amerika car park in the centre of Gouda and chill out on cheese fondue, champagne sundaes and chips ( not together, though that does sound scrummy) We happily filled up with diesel en route at the bargain price of £1.10 and navigated the roadworks in Gouda to arrive at a disaster zone reminiscent of a world war 2 bomb...
Read MoreT minus 4 and counting…
With only a few days to go to departure, our house now looks like we’ve been burgled by particularly fussy kleptomaniac, there are boxes everywhere piles of stuff to go to the dump, others to the charity shop and some bound for the cellar. The pool house floor is bare concrete and the boiler has a computer attached to it trying to figure out what’s wrong with it, still, not ones to be easily put off (except for anything with mushrooms) we’ve now moved out of the house and are in Taffy in the drive, mainly because you can no longer find our bed under the piles of...
Read MoreFarewell to the intrepid Bikers
Jacques and Mandy recently departed for another trip – this time to Eastern Europe, still on a bike, only this time it has a rather large engine!
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