Back to Oostvoorne for the car and more parties!

Sat 14th July, Bastille day.

As we are off from Reims to Oostvoorne in Holland to pick up the car, we ( Max) decided to purchase a padlock and chain to fix the boat to the bollard as some mongrels may  release your boat at night and you float away. !!

Caught train from Reims to Rotterdam which took 4.25 hrs with change in Paris—Cost 150 euros one way each!!!  First time we have seen VINEYARDS and it was from a train.!!

Weather also crap in Holland. Thank-god for merino thermals. Bill picked us up from the metro and we are staying on his beautiful boat Kaprikorn 1.

Had a good catch up with John and Maureen from Yorkshire and Bill and Min from Portsmouth at the old marina then off to the Mariner Bar. It all felt a bit like coming home as we has stayed there for 5 weeks at the beginning of our adventures.

Went clay shooting again as a treat for Johns birthday and I am afraid to say I was not so good this time.

Had good few days staying on Bills boat and had JOHNS BIRTHDAY PARTY on the Monday. It was meant to be on a island off the marina with deck chairs, tent and BBQ. Instead it was a large tent in the even larger boat shed as its was pissing down with a force 7 wind!!!.

Left on tues and went to catch up with our friends Bart and Lia in Brussels for a night. Good food and times again!!!  Marc ( the camera man, who got us tickets to the WTCC in Valencia last year)  and Liddie arrived for a drink as well.

On the way back to the boat just outside Brussels, we visited Waterloo where the memorial is for the battle that took place between Duke of Wellington and Napoleon in 1815. Very graffic pictures of the battle ..amazing. We climbed the 425 stairs to the top of the hill, built to commemorate the 300,000 men from 7 nations that fought against each other.  Here the huge bronze Lion stands proud, with his paw protecting the world, and was supposed to bring lasting piece to Europe.(.shame Hilter didn’t see it.)

The boat was still where we left it in Reims,( luckily Max had pad-locked and chained it to the bollard), but we found a children’s festival in the setting up stages which will run for the next  9 days. It starts on Saturday so we will only suffer one night, and it will be quieter than the cars speeding along the road after 8pm. The only real worry is that they are having pedillos on the canal right next to our boat..so maybe we should put some more fenders out.

Spent friday finding my Uncles ( Mums brother ) grave from when he was shot down over France in 1944 in a Lancaster. Driving through the countryside towards Suippes, with kms and kms of corn, maize and barley growing you suddenly come across military Cemeteries of  their fallen of the 1914-1918 war, with a French flag flying proudly. Some had graves for over 15,000 and some larger at over 40,000 men. They even had areas for the fallen Germans. Hard to imagine so many men disappearing from the local communities in such short time.

Germans…………………………and ….French………………………………………

We found James Stanley Calder’s grave in Souain,30 mins outside Reims. The grave was with the other 6 of his crew, who were all British. The graves were very tidy and looked well kept in the small village communal cemetery. It felt good to find him and honour him. We left a kiwi flag and picked some wild red poppies from the next door field and left them on his grave.

We then drove on  for 2.5 hrs to see where our winter mooring might be in Migennes, on the river Yonne ,just south of Paris. Looks Ok so will book in there. Its run by an English guy so language will not be a problem. (hehe) and only 4 and a bit hours from Calais by Tom Tom.!!! . We can leave her out of the water, polish and clean her and check for damage before we finally leave her tucked up in her winter tent.