London to Hilden
This is MBLOG!
A note of explanation: three weeks ago Yvonne and Gwyn took their first proper holiday in a little over four years. When we used to go on holiday every year we used to (OK, Gwyn used to) keep a journal in which we meticulously recorded the non-events that happened to us, simply as a record, purely for us, of where we went, what we did and what we saw.
As one of our earliest holidays was in Greece, I bought a stout pad in which to record these precious pearls of wisdom. Emblazoned on the cover in the Greek version of Rockwell Ultra Bold was the word MPLOK.
As the modern Greeks don’t have a functional letter ‘B’ (beta is a ‘v’) the only way they can reproduce the sound needed to say ‘BLOCK’ — their name for a pad of paper — is to use ‘MP’. So our journal became known as MPLOK. In this digital age it was quickly converted to MBLOG, so here, for no other reason than we can, is What We Did This Summer, a day-by-day account posted three weeks late. Comments, as always, are welcome.
THURSDAY 16 JUNE
London – Dover – Seafrance to Calais – Dunkirk – Adinkerke – Gent – Antwerp – Turnhout – Aalst – Venlo – Mönchengladbach – Düsseldorf – Hilden. 582km / 361 miles.
Early morning is not my best time of day. Up at 5, leave at 6:10. Already knackered. Gwyn driving.
Arrive at Dover at 07:40. Drive straight on the boat, no waiting.
Why does Milo have to be left in the car on the ferry? For that we pay £20 extra. He is uninterested in the tempting bone we leave for him.
Boat leaves 5 mins early, arrives 10 mins early. As a result we miss the onboard shop and fail to buy perfume for the Swiss maids.
Type Ray Davies blog on boat. Must remember to publish it.
Stop for Milo pee at Aire on road to Dunkirk. His first steps in France!
Milo inspects a French Aire
Stop at Adinkerke for nasty little Café Crèmes and Jim Beam — 1L €15.
Stop in Ghent for chocolate. Milo’s first steps in Belgium!
Flash of naked bum in window walking down Belgrade Straat. I was startled. Then I noticed many women of varying attractions sitting on white plastic seats in windows and smiling at me. One black lady had ‘ganz Holz vor der Hütte’ as our German friends say — I was amazed she could stand up unaided. I do declare, I took no comfort there.
Find Van Hoorebeke, very chic and expensive pralinerie. 1 kilo of pralines, €44. But yum yum.
The Importance of Eating Chocolate — van Hoorebeke in Ghent
Baguette and beer for lunch in Sint Baafsplein, the main square. Cloudy and threatening to rain.
On towards Venlo. Von driving. Pee stop in Netherlands. Milo’s first steps in the Netherlands!
Gwyn takes over in Germany. Arrive at the Etap in Hilden. Buried in an industrial estate. Milo’s first steps in Germany! He pees in the car park. The hotel is clean but utterly, utterly lifeless. What do you expect for €50 for 2? Monoglot receptionist. WiFi can just about receive, can’t send.
Go for a beer in old Hilden centre. Lovely evening. Strange rustling sound. Sudden high wind. Look up, and we can see the rain coming down in one single black block. Two or three seconds later it hits, bouncing 4 feet back up from the cobbles and we run uselessly for the car. We are soaked before we get 20 yards. Hailstones pepper the roof so loudly we can’t hear each other. Driving is impossible. We wait it out for 10 minutes, then set off along the river that once was the road. Branches all over the place, blown down by the force of the rain.
Dinner with Barbara at her flat. Tagliatelle with pfifferlinge. Delicious. Milo is well-behaved. Guilio and his girlfriend Cory arrive. Giulio now as tall as me. Hugs all round. He is teaching special needs first year primary children. Superb work. I mutter something inappropriate about no male teachers in primary schools in the UK because of sexual allegations and compound it by blundering into the story of Bob getting sacked for slapping a 14 year old harridan on a school trip to France. He stares at me politely.
Jutte, Siegfried and Chris arrive for pudding. More big hugs. We sit and talk and drink Sicilian wine made by a friend of Ba’s. I glance at Von and see she is as zonked as me. We leave, too late, and crash out in the shack.
