Photoset is here.
We got back from our holiday at about 10.00 Sunday night. Tomorrow we’re off to Edinburgh for business stuff, and then on Saturday we’re going to Wales for my father-in-law’s birthday. To be honest I’ve just about had enough of travelling for a while. Last night I woke up in the middle of the night with absolutely no clue where I was. I had to turn the light on to reassure myself I was in my own bed.
This is probably because we spent nearly every night last week somewhere different: we did end up in Bruges and Haarlem for two consecutive nights, but the rest of the time we were checking out and finding a new hotel every day, which sounds free-spirited and bohemian on paper but is very tiring in practice. Literally so, as apparently every single two-star hotel in Northern Europe only offers rooms at the top of eight winding flights of stairs, with no lift.
Also, sat nav? Is sometimes not all it’s cracked up to be. We managed to park in Ghent (no small feat: the ticket machine was more puzzlingly complex than a nuclear reactor. Seriously, it made Freemasonry seem logical) and then managed to find a hotel with secure parking. Back of the net! All we needed to do was to get the car from one side of the main square to the other – about five minutes’ walking distance. We programmed in the hotel’s address and set off. Unfortunately one of the roads leading to the hotel was blocked for road works. We turned around and drove some distance in another direction, hoping the sat nav would plot an alternative route. No dice. It kept leading us back to that one blocked road (keep in mind that SiC is driving a right-hand-drive car on the wrong side of the road in a mediaeval European city with narrow twisty streets, swarms of apparently suicidal pedestrians, and tangled junctions with cryptic markings and unclear priorities. There was some swearing involved, is what I’m saying). We tried to use the tiny map on the sat nav to figure out a route ourselves, but it doesn’t show any street names and whenever you turn a corner the map shifts to accommodate the change in direction, making it impossible to keep track of a single location. We spent an hour and a half driving aimlessly around central Ghent, swearing liberally at the sat nav and each other. Eventually we got out to the ring road and went three-quarters of the way around the city, then approached the hotel from a different angle completely. I tell you, I have never been so happy to see the inside of a car park.
Other minor mishaps: being unable to find a single hotel with a free room anywhere in the vaguest vicinity of Utrecht despite two hours of online searching and phoning around (apparently there is some sort of festival in Utrecht in early September? Make a note of it); being locked out of our car WHILE ON THE FERRY (apparently a ferry’s signalling devices can temporarily interfere with a car’s electronic lock? Make a note of it, preferably before you spend a frantic hour on your mobile phone halfway across the English Channel trying to get roadside assistance to meet you at a ferry port in another country); and getting food poisoning (apparently when eating fondue you should make sure everything is properly cooked or else spend half the night on the bathroom floor chucking up your guts. Make a fucking note of it).
But all in all it was a good trip. We especially liked Utrecht, and the Dutch in general. I’ve never had so many people in a row be enthusiastically nice to me. Holland itself was pretty much exactly as you’d imagine: very flat with lots of windmills, rows of beautiful old trees, canals, and groups of gorgeous blonde women gliding around on bicycles. (SiC especially liked that last bit.) I saw a few Vermeers and Ruisdaels and banged on a lot about “the quality of the light” because I am a wanker; and SiC got really stoned one night on some lovely hash and made a speech about using seals as secret assassins. Don’t ask, because I don’t know. More to follow when I get back from the next bout of trying to scrounge clean knickers from the bottom of a suitcase.
P.S. Most irritating experience of this week so far: listening to the American commentators during an LA Galaxy football match. NOTE TO COMMENTATORS: it is not called the ‘end line’. Nor is it called a ‘hand throw-in’ (what else is he going to throw it with, pray?). It is not conventional to announce players’ per-game goal averages. And pointing out that ‘the main object is not to let the opponent get the ball’ makes you sound like a complete fucking retard. Stick to baseball.