YesBut its so so flat.

Holland is so boring! No bumps lumps, no need a hill or mountain - just flat. And so uniform - the Dutch do not close their curtains so you see into their tidy neat houses. If they have a potted plant on the right side of their windowsill they must have an identical plant on the left. Tall vase on the right, tall vase on the left. And the little gardens in front of their houses are laid out in geometric patterns of shrubs and heathers. Streets and streets of boring uniform sameness. Even when they look different, they give the impression of conformity.

The small towns look so clinical, as if they are reconstructed every night. Perhaps as a reaction to their inherent uniformity, they indulge in nonconformity. It is jarring to see the streets of the prim little towns polluted with dollops of dog shit. The Dutch make no effort to stop their dogs fouling the pavements, and wouldn’t dream of cleaning up the disgusting mess.

And their Capital city - well which is it Amsterdam or De Hague? How could the good Burghers of Amsterdam allow their city to degenerate into Europe’s brothel, overrun by drunken British hen and stag parties - they leer at the prostitutes flaunting themselves in red lit brothel windows, and ogle, like children at a sweet shop, at the videos and toys in the sex shops.

You have no idea how difficult it has been postin this blog. The computer thinks I'm Dutch and I'm faced with the choice of Archief, Wijzig, Weergave and a lot more words i have no idea what they mean.

I have learnt the hard way, verwijder means delete!

YseBut this is the country that gave the world: Rembrandt, Vincent Van Gogh and Gouda cheese.

Click here to see today’s image - an apple a day

YesBut what a journey.

I think Eurolines must have a group of highly trained individuals whose sole reason for existence is to make my life a misery.

Mrs YesBut and myself left London by coach last night to travel to Holland. As soon as the coach moved off from Victoria Coach Station, the woman seated in front of us started a series of phone conversations. I don’t know why she used a phone, because she was speaking so loud her relatives in the North of Scotland could have heard her. It was incessant yak yak until we reached the Channel Tunnel. Thank goodness phones don’t work in the tunnel.

I don’t particularly like travelling through the tunnel. It’s like being broiled in a cigar tube. I prefer when the coach crosses by ferry from Dover. OK sometimes the crossing can be rough, and in really bad conditions sailings are delayed. But at least on the ferry you can walk around, have a cup of tea, wander around the duty free shop and go to the toilet. But going by the Eurotunnel you just have to sit on the bus as it is transported by train.

As soon as we got into the tunnel, the snorers started. Why is it ever time we travel, there is a World Champion Snorer on the bus? They are normally fat men whose snore starts at their toes and gains in volume as it resonates up through their body, until it is finally expelled with gusto out of their cavernous wobbling foul smelling breath flabby mouth. The one we had on last nights coach was a real champion, he could simultaneously snore and whistle.

I sat there getting more annoyed devising ingenious plans to shut up the snorting pig. I could tap him on his shoulder to wake him up, and ask him politely not to snore. Or I could stuff an orange in his mouth, (I’ll have to remember to add an orange onto my list of essential requisites). Perhaps I could shout “stop”, the driver would break, and the snorer would be catapulted out of the bus.

Absolute torment sitting there for six hours feeling wretched, exhausted but unable to sleep because of that ##### snorer. What a relief when he got off the coach at Breda.

But would you believe it, the coach stopping at Breda woke up the woman in the seat before us. Suffering from withdrawal symptoms having not made a phone call for eight hours, she was immediately on the phone.

What dastardly act did I commit in the past that I am punished now?

For the return journey, as well as an orange I’ll need to put ear plugs on my must get list.

Click here to see today’s image - please sit here

YesBut pack up

Mrs YesBut and I are going to Holland tonight.

For a week Mrs YesBut has been rehearsing her packing. Every time we travel, she goes through the same ritual. Mrs YesBut collects, on the spare bedroom bed, all the cloths and things she thinks she will require. She then packs all the items. Then unpacks. Then repacks all the items in another case. Then unpacks. This cycle of activity continues until she is satisfied she has selected the most appropriate bag.

Then she asks me to put on the bed, all the things I want to take, with strict instructions to keep them to a minimum. Then she goes through the process of deciding whether one bag will be sufficient or whether we should have to take two separate cases. All very time consuming, that’s why she has to start a week before the departure date.

After she has finished I have a rummage through what she has packed. “Why do you want to take a box of salt?”. “And what’s this jar of Lemon Pickle doing here?”. ”Bananas!?”. All the contraband is removed.

After the final pack is completed I add the essentials: a box of Twinings Chai teabags, a jar of honey to sweeten my chai, a container of drinking chocolate for my bedtime drink, a box of coffee mate for the chocolate drink and finally a jar of peanut butter for breakfast - the absolute minimum essentials.


Click here to see today’s image - memories of wetter days