A minor rant.

So I didn't post anything yesterday since I didn't really have bugger all to say.
We had our second evening of Dutch lessons. Nico came with actual workbooks, and I now have homework.

*sigh*


I know I said I didn't mind having homework, but there's still something about that word that sort of gives me the shivers.
Shouldn't be a big deal, and I'll most likely knock it off later today.

And no, that's not what's bugging me.

Here's the thing:

As is the case with most days, I rode in to town to pick up a few things, came back home, put everything away, threw a few things in the Wonder Machine and decided to tackle an issue with the old cruiser that had been left behind by the owners.

You may recall that we had to wait a little while (like two months) for our shipment from Canada to arrive, and that I had in the mean while been pedalling my arse around on the old single speed "gazelle" that was here in the garage.
It's a perfectly serviceable bike, except that the back tire needs to be pumped up just about every day.

Such fun.

(and...my compressor is safe and sound...back in Canada)

So I thought, "well, I can replace an inner tube, right?" and picked one up a few weeks back.

Well, no...this thing has more contraptions on it than a street walker in Times Square, and after taking a good long look at the situation I realised that, I might get the back wheel off, but I might never get it put back on!

Hey, I even started undoing stuff and chickened out.

I mean, there's a carrier, a chain guard...and some mystery contraption that looks like some sort of torsion bar.
I couldn't even begin to figure out how to get the chain guard off. It looks like it was wired on.

So I figured fine, I may as well bite the bullet and pedal it up to the bike shop on the other side of town, drop it off and walk home.
It's not like I need the bike any time soon, but the next time we have visitors, I'm sure it will come in handy.

So after an eye-watering ride uptown, I got to this bike shop at around 1:15 I guess it was, only to discover that all the doors were locked!

Huh?

I'm thinking, "what am I missing here?" It's Friday, not the Monday when they do in fact stay closed....did I miss an air raid?

While I do realise that in the case of a small outfit where the owner has to step out for a few minutes, or even for the whole lunch period, there might be a case for locking the joint up, but they have quite a number of people working there. There were two mechanics on the last time I went there. (Well, not sure if you can call someone who fixes a bicycle an actual "mechanic", but you know what I mean.)

There was no such thing as a sign on the door, only the one that said that, they were at that very moment, in fact...open.

Ever feel like you're in some other dimension?

I did see someone sitting in the office eating his sandwich, and I guess it must have been a really good one, 'cause he didn't look too interested in customers.
and no, I didn't knock on the door. I mean, how futile is that?
(this just came to mind....someone once said, "it's like wrestling with a pig, you're gonna both get dirty, but the pig will enjoy it")

Fascinating really, since there doesn't seem to be any thing like an economic downturn when it comes to bicycle repair.

Maybe the "work council" has some sort of choke hold on lunch. Who knows?

The only conclusion that I can come to is, they have all the money they need and certainly don't need anything I might have to offer.

Seems perfectly reasonable to me, judging by the number of bikes sitting outside (at least a dozen) waiting to be picked up by customers.

I'm guessing these would be people who don't have a car, since it will be the car that I'll be using to take the bike to the shop in Hengelo.


Maybe not tomorrow.

Maybe not for a few weeks.

Doesn't matter.

Ain't goin' back there.


All I know is, as much of a nuisance as it will be to cart the bike in the trunk all the way to Hengelo, I won't mind, 'cause when I get there, I know they'll be open.
My impression of the bike shop in Hengelo is, they're actually working in this century and not the last one, when people used to close up shop for several hours in the day time and go home for lunch.

We'll see how it goes.

It's come to this

Not being one to present a problem without at least offering one or two solutions, I'd like to present my solutions to a minor irritation.

First of all my guess is, that the collective Dutch engineering consciousness has so single mindedly been tied up with the problems of water management over the last centuries, that some issues with house design have fallen by the wayside.
Let me emphasize that, they have indeed come to grips with the whole water management issue.
I mean, there are canals, dikes, tunnels.....roads on dikes, tunnels under canals.

Fabulous, really.

Not only that, but the upkeep is constant. I'm forever seeing machines busy clearing out waterways to make sure everything flows as it should.
Certainly not like when we were in Puerto Rico where, I'm pretty sure if you left your lawn sprinkler on too long, there would be have been a road closure due to a flood. Even if they had drainage, it would have been clogged with trash.

Oh, and you had to always back your car into a parking spot on Eaton property in case of a flash flood.
Really.

But I digress.

Here's the thing. (yes, the problem)

The kitchen in this place is the warmest room in the house.
That's clever now isn't it?

I realise that the kitchen we had in Puerto Rico (sorry to bring it up again) would get up into the high 80s by late afternoon but hey, I could cook outdoors on the BBQ just fine, and drying one's clothes anywhere your little heart desired was not a problem.




See, it would be oh so nice to have a little of that heat upstairs. Apparently heating the upstairs was a bit of an afterthought, since there's really only the one forced air vent in the bathroom, in the shower of all places, along with one puny little floor vent in the otherwise unheated room over the garage.

Since the dryer is in stiff competition with the washing machine for the "piece of crap of the year" award, the preference is to remove the clothes from the washing machine at the end of the day (since that's how long it takes to do a load most days) and hang it where ever I can in the house.


Starting way back when, I initially used whatever means I could to dry clothes throughout the house, including a set of four wicker chairs, two of which we use in the kitchen, along with the railing upstairs or the built in clothes line in the room over the garage.

That was when it was a bit warmer.

With the change in the seasons, and the dropping of the outside temperature (read: the temperature upstairs) it can take the better part of a week for stuff to dry anywhere except the kitchen.



So this is where we're at.....

By the time I got home from shopping this morning at 11:30, that fitted sheet was completely dry and had only been there for a couple hours.

Pretty close to a miracle.

I've heard tell of contraptions they have in the UK that one can lower from the ceiling. Kinda makes sense to me, but this ain't my house....Not sure I want to start drilling holes in the guy's ceiling.
So we'll just muddle along with this system, putting the "long term drying" up in the cold room...


This stuff has been there since Monday. It might be dry. Not sure.
I prefer not to check too often to avoid disappointment.

So....if the laundry does better in the kitchen, does that mean I can keep the bread fresh upstairs in the walk-in closet?

Or, as Gabe calls it, "the torture chamber"?


Hey, maybe we could go into the "fur storage" business!!
*snort*!

Fun with technology.

This is more like an apology to readers, since I was unhappy with the dates on the entries that I was adding on Sunday, and managed to completely bollocks up the order. Until I fix this, you have to go to the previous week to get to Friday's side trip.
So try not to miss it, because it was a pretty good one.
The fear is that (as quite often is the case) the more I go in and mess around, the worse I make it.

Please be patient.

I'm sorry.



Here, I'll make it simple....

just click here

As it was I had to change the title of one of the entries to "Back to Cologne", since the html that I had used didn't seem to work in the links on the side of the page, so it ended up looking like "k&#246ln" instead of Köln. And since our brains aren't really equipped to instantly translate code into actual words, I had to revert to English.
See? I didn't just switch the name to English on a whim.

Got one step closer to figuring out my new cell phone, so there's a chance that I might actually be able to call Gabe's mobile at some point when I really need to. Could not for the life of me figure out how to switch it to English, and managed to lock myself out of the thing.
What's with the pin code cr*p?
Geez!!
Managed to evaporate some time on the phone trying to get through to an actual person and gave up on that, so I pedalled my arse up to the Bas Baake where I bought the thing and the guy at the counter had no problems.

I mean, of course.

Turns out the pin code was not the problem....

It's kind of like when you've been rooting around in the snow for a couple hours looking for an important little nut or bolt and your significant other comes out and within a couple seconds sez, "is this it?"

A relief, but slightly annoying just the same. And there's nobody to get annoyed at except yerself.

So I guess there was one menu that I didn't find or something, since the word I should have been looking for was "taal"...which they used instead of "spraak", both of which mean "speach".
I have a notion as to what the subtle difference is, but chances are I would have dialed in to "spraak" a whole lot quicker than "taal".

I asked him to switch everything over to English, which has helped considerably. I've at least now put in a couple important phone numbers.
Please understand, it's not like I have some aversion to using the phone in Dutch, but being so technologically challenged means I need all the help I can get.

That's all.

Since I was up at that end of town anyway, stopped into C1000 for the daily shop. Normally wouldn't venture that far in 2° weather, since the wind chill on the bike takes it down into the eye watering range.

It's refreshing, I'll give you that.

So there you have it. That in a nutshell is how I manage to fritter away my time.

Pitiful.

Hitch up the team.

Took the car on Sunday to get it washed and to refuel.
We went 735 km on one tank and it was 55.85 litres to fill up. Haven't done the math on that, but that's not too shabby.
Besides, there were a couple times when I realised I was doing 160 k.p.h. Can't be all that good for fuel economy, not that that would be a real consideration.

We did manage to get out for a brief bike ride, but the temperature was hovering around +2 and it just wasn't a good day for tooling around on two wheels.

The car wash program was pretty much a bust, since it started snowing in the afternoon, and snowed pretty much all night.


This is what we woke up to....
I just better not have to buy a snow shovel is all I'll say.
As it was there was well over two inches of snow on the car this morning. Glad I picked up a corn broom back in August. Just wanted one, didn't think I'd need it for snow removal.

Oh, and that "hitch up the team" thing......well, that's in reference to another blog....since I think we got the tail end of the snow they had in Nova Scotia (well, not really, but you get my point) but since I have neither a team of Percherons nor a set of sleds, we'll be sticking with vehicles with wheels.

Which brings me to this observation:

I used to look in awe at guys who would ride bikes in this kind of weather and think they were insane.

Turns out that's a fairly reasonable prognosis.

It's not so much the cold that's the problem, it's the snow flakes that fly into yer eyeballs that is really annoying....and quite uncomfortable.
Not only that, but I had a bit of a head wind coming home from the store this morning, and that's when I could feel the cold coming in right through the top of my ever balding head.

I have to go back out again to get to the bank for an Amex payment, but at least the sun is trying to poke through at this point.

Keep yer sticks on the ice.

Back from Bonn.

Awfully sorry that I didn't do any entries from the hotel, but there was just no way I was going to pony up the extra dough for the Internet connection. I don't recall exactly what it was, but it was too much is all I'll say. One never quite knows what to expect, since the hotel in Brussels had free Internet....for however long as you wanted..
So I'll try and break this up into a couple posts so as to not be so long winded.

Left Delden Thursday morning at around 10:30 I think it was and got to the Moeller location in Bonn at around one or so. I know it took us longer than is should have since the stupid GPS (sorry, but this is going to be the new name for this thing) took us right through Essen to avoid some supposed traffic problem. Mind you, we might not have been that much further ahead, but I know it was a useless detour, since we passed the same motorhome once again when we got back on the Autobahn. It's a weakness of mine, but I tend to notice these things, and had even said to Gabe when we passed that particular "caravan" that it looked like he hadn't completely lowered his tv antenna...so I know it was the same one.

Whatever.

Found Moeller with no problem, since they do have a bit of a presence in Bonn, even though this particular picture has little to do with them, and nobody could tell me why they had a sign on that building.

I could see this place from our hotel room, which I checked into after dropping off Gabe. Again, stupid GPS couldn't find that address either, but I managed.
We were at the Hilton, which is right on Oxfordstrasse next to the Kennedy Bridge, which goes over the Rhine...
Here's another view..
As neat as it was to be able to look out to the Rhine, it was a bit of a mixed blessing, since the room did get rather stuffy at night and there was no way around it but to open the window, which also let in a certain amount of traffic noise.
I did take a picture from the bridge looking upstream....the tour boats are idle.

Very nice room I must say, and you could indeed open the windows....

So as to make sure that I wasn't too forgetful about some details, I did write out a few things in a word document which I'll paste here....



Notes for the next entry.

Nov. 20/08

It would seem that I must have some sort of friendly face, since I was approached on the street by some students looking for particular landmarks. Looked to be some sort of class project, since they all had clipboards...there were at least a half dozen in the group.
I explained that I was from Canada and that I'd only been in Bonn a few hours, so I had no idea where to direct them.

Had a sub at Subway. I guess it was similar. It was tasty enough at least, and everything was fresh. I don't really eat all that much at Subway back home, so it's hard to compare.

I was tempted by the smell of coffee from the local McDonalds, but was able to resist that temptation. Had to take a picture though, since there always seems to be one of those places. Handy if you have to go for a McSh*t or a McP*ss, as I had to on the way in. (ok...it was a Burger King, but the concept is the same....)
In a way it's kind of like domestic animals, they don't eat where they crap either.

Just got the first call on the new phone. Good thing the little buttons are colour coded, since I can't see a blessed thing without the glasses to help.

Seems I'll be going to dinner tonight after all. Wouldn't have mattered too much, that's why I had the snack earlier. At least I won't be ravenously hungry like I usually am by supper time.
Good thing I brought along some decent clothes. The jeans and "Cutler-Hammer Canada" shirt wouldn't have cut it I don't think. Same goes for the running shoes.

......../.......

(I have to add at this point that I've just wasted a load of time just now trying to figure out why Blogger doesn't like my Word document. Never did figure it out, and had to save it as plain text, and then recopy it....
Going online didn't help either...)




Here's the McDonalds.....(they're sort of like a virus)


I find the contrast somewhat noteworthy.
(the theme of the buildings I mean)

A farewell dinner was in the works for the outgoing Director of Operations, since he's taken over the Moeller deal after Eaton acquired them. We went to the Bonner Brauhaus which at first wasn't all that easy to find, but we did manage. The brew that they serve is their own of course, which they serve in those goofy little glasses. Seems we had over fifty of them...(egad!)
(Ya gotta click on the link!)

The problem is usually one of parking, and the initial plan was to walk, but it had started to rain, so I offered to get the car. Well, there was still some walking involved, and I just ended up parking the car half way back to the hotel in an underground lot. Mind you, it was only one Euro for the whole time I was there, but I always have that nagging feeling that I'm going to completely forget where I've parked.
Haven't done it yet. Probably because I'm really vigilant.

Ended up getting back at the Hilton pretty darned close to midnight, and the wake up call was going to be for six, so it was unfortunate that neither of us really slept all that well.

On to Köln

As it was Saturday we did manage to snooze a little bit in the morning, but got out and about to have a little look around first Bonn, and then on up the road to Köln.

It had turned decidedly cool, and we did wander around in the market area for a bit, but there was nothing that was jumping out at us.
Gabe was about to make a small purchase in one store (after what I thought was a painfully long time) but when she came out empty handed she explained that they not only didn't take American Express, but only "German cards". Huh??
She left her purchase on the counter.

Most of these market areas all look the same, with the only difference being the decorations used, and the cold.
If I look cold, it's 'cause I am.


Not sure what caught my interest here. But you can see they have their Christmas trees out and on sale.
I just realised that I never did look at a price.






Just more examples of really cool old architecture. I took no pictures in this particular church, as it didn't seem appropriate. (hey, sometimes it just doesn't feel right)

Skaters in the town square is probably another fairly typical thing...




So....headed to Köln, because we definitely wanted to see the cathedral.
Didn't seem like a long drive, no more than maybe 30 to 40 minutes. Didn't really need stupid GPS, but it's reassuring to get the voice prompts at the intersections.

I mean, you could see the spires from well outside of town.



You read about how huge it is, but then up close and personal, it's a little overwhelming.
I now get why it took six hundred years to complete. And it looks like they're still working on it. (ok that's not fair, I'm sure maintenance is never ending)


I couldn't resist including that other well known landmark in most cities all over the world...



....wait for it.....

There ya go.....and yes, I had to go in for a....well, I won't repeat that. Let's just say I didn't buy anything, but did part with some dough.


Such "relief" when I see those golden arches.


I'm going to throw in some random pics, just to try and convey the grandeur of the inside.
...and , even though it was not the best weather, there were many tourists, quite a few of whom were German, judging by the number of tour groups getting the mini lectures.




The twelve apostles came out a little blurry, since I was taking all photos without flash, and once in a while that doesn't quite work.







A person could stay there for hours reading and wandering around, but the day was passing us by so it was time to get home.
Darkness comes pretty quickly these days, and muggins here isn't overly keen on coming home too late at night.
As it was there were a couple more snow squalls, and I see on the news that there were a few traffic mishaps.
We didn't see any of that, thankfully.

A woodworker's dream

Got jolted out of bed by the six a.m. wake up call on Friday morning, had a cup of coffee at the restaurant in the lower level of the hotel and set off for Moeller.
After dropping off Gabe and one passenger, I was off to pursue my mission for the day.
You see, a few months back, I decided to look into the exact location of a company that makes a particular wooden hand plane (amoung other things) called E.C. Emmerich.
I currently own a couple examples of these really fabulous hand planes, one of which I bought from Lee Valley Tools, while the other one was a gift from my sister that she purchased from Garrett-Wade.
Suffice to say, I'm certainly willing and interested in adding to the collection, even though I wasn't all that sure that the "factory" would also have a retail site.
Just the same, I left Bonn for the 50 or so km trip up to Remsheid.
Got there probably around nine or so....raining like crazy the whole time.
Stupid GPS couldn't actually find the address, and the nearest I could come was a Post Code, so I asked a postal employee where the street was, and did manage to get a little closer, but ended up getting directions from a customer at a gas station who looked to be right around my age.

In other words, an older gentleman.

It was still a few kilometers away, but he gave good directions....

...and found it with no trouble.

Now, the reason I say "factory", is because there's really not that much to the place. On the left is the original house in which Herr Emmerich started making hand planes 150 years ago.


That's Hans-Jörg Emmerich there on the right. He's the fifth generation of Emmerich's, and the current owner.
Let me just say....a very nice fellow who, even though he didn't know me from a hole in the wall, gave me the complete tour, which he suggested after first inviting me in to his office.
(I mean, I was prepared to be on my way and really didn't have the gall to ask to be shown around.)


If you look up above his head, there's a picture of his Dad, who is now gone.
Oh, and I met his Mom, although I didn't get a pic of her. She had brought in the mail, and we struck up a brief conversation.
I was left to sit in his office for a few minutes in awe of the tools that were out on display...




You don't have to be a woodworker to appreciate the beauty of these things.


I can't quite make out the inscription on this trophy, but it looks like a commemoration of their 150 years in business.



Here we are in the main area of production. Hans is holding a blank from which the "gent's plane" (I think) is made.


Cool huh?

The soles of these things are made of lignum vitae, which is the hardest wood you can find. They have stacks of it.
This was actually up in the drying room....




They also stack the blanks of pearwood, rosewood ("very expensive" sez Hans...."no sh*t", sez I )


That's the dark stuff in the middle there.


He also took me up to the aforementioned drying room, which is not a true kiln in the "let's get this stuff dry as quickly as possible" sense, but just felt comfortable. They leave this stuff in there for as long as it takes.
Often over a year.
Which explains why these wooden products never crack or check....

Pretty sure he said the lighter stuff was ash, which they use for a mallet that they make. Not all that exotic I realise....but pretty neat just the same.


In hindsight perhaps I should have taken more pictures of the machinery, but then there would no longer be a mystery about these tools anymore, now would there? Plus, now that I think on it, I'm sure there are some proprietary reasons for not being too intrusive.

All in all, not a very large operation, with only a couple office staff, his wife was sorting out a couple issues in shipping, and I only saw one other employee the whole time I was there.

So I left over an hour later a very happy fellow, complete with a new catalogue (which you can see online anyway, but still) along with the name of a supplier up in Nordhorn, just inside the German border, which is only about a twenty minute drive from here in Delden.

My heart rate did get back to normal after a little while.

The rest of the day was pretty much a let down by comparison.
The temperature dropped substantially, and we did get a few snow squalls...

yuck...
I tried to capture the sense of dread that I tend to get when the snow comes down in big gobs like that....but with mixed results.

Went off to fetch Gabe at around five I guess it was, to be met by complete gridlock. Since the cab hadn't arrived yet to take some folks to the airport, I was pressed into service. Hey, I don't mind except that stupid GPS took me back through Bonn to avoid some aparent traffic problem.

Honestly!

Of course I don't know the area well enough to second guess the wretched thing, so we didn't make it there until after the cab got there. That's the same cab that had been stuck in traffic earlier.
In the car ride everyone had called and made alternate flight arangements, so they were all able to get back to the UK with little problem.
I think there was a bit of a learning experience involved there, and the "friday afternoon" program might be taken into consideration for future visits to Bonn, or certainly any time there are flights involved.

Next day.....Köln.

A Milestone.

I've been meaning to set up the PC for some time now, but it seemed like one of those less than rewarding chores that would be fraught with frustration. (oohh, some alliteration for the plebs)
Turns out that the PC can be switched to 220, and the screen and the printer will run on 220 or 110.

Cool.

I had already made that discovery about the printer a while back when I needed to print something or other, but was surprised to see that the screen could simply be plugged directly into the wall as well.
The dilemma is having enough of the little adapter thingies to go around. As it is I had to use an extension cord contraption that I found in the utility room, since one of the outlets feels like the guts are worn out.
There's no surge protection involved here, but these puppies are not going to be left on and unattended under any circumstances.
I was pleased to see that a particular recording that I was missing (shipped an empty cd jacket) is on this computer, now I just have to go out and pony up the dough for a spindle of cds, since I left all mine at home, (dummy) burn a copy and put it in it's proper spot.

Either that, or go out and get an Ipod adapter for the car....

Speaking of laying out a little dough, it might be a good idea to spring for a wireless adapter for this thing since, for me anyway, a computer without an Internet connection is pretty much a glorified word processor.
The screen saver is nice though, isn't it? It was taken in the Dominican Republic coming up on a year ago.
Here's a slightly different view.

I'm sure you care.
At first I thought the speakers had somehow been damaged in shipping, but it turns out that dim wit here had plugged the jack into the wrong spot. A combination of poor eyesight and well, did I mention...dim wit?

This is why these activities can sometimes be frustrating.

Oh, speaking of frustration.....today on my daily foraging for food (see alliteration above) I found pine nuts! Wasn't even looking for them either!
...and we looked and looked on Saturday!
So now Gabe can make pesto. We had bought some in a jar, but I was a bit overwrought and bought the pine nuts anyway.
Couldn't help myself.

Now, in keeping with the milestone theme, tonight we'll be starting our Dutch language lessons. We get an hour each. The company is footing the bill for a 100 hours of instruction for each of us. I haven't worked out how many weeks it will take at an hour a week for us to go through 100 hours, but we might be back in Canada by the time we get 'er done.
We do get time off (for what? good behavior?) as long as we give the guy a couple days notice.

Oh....and his name?


Wait for it.





Nico Klumpers




I'm not sure exactly why it is that we find that name just so amusing, but I somehow have this image of some guy who looks like Steven Seagal showing up in wooden shoes*!
......


Bwaa!!


And did you count the number of times I had to use the word "adapter"?


Sheesh!


*and yes, I know that would be "klompen", but still.

Another weekend

Didn't have any huge plans for the Saturday, but after a little time on line, Gabe found a place in Enschede that had some used sewing machines for sale.
Off we went.
Foolishly I didn't take the camera, since there was at least one area where Black Pete was making a visit and the kids were in full war paint.
For some reason if you're going to visit Black Pete, you need to blacken your face as well. (hey, just reporting what I saw)

Along with the appearance of Black Pete, we did get a glimpse of Sinterklaas, as he came down one of the streets to see the kids.

(man I wish I could do these hyperlinks without my cheat sheet, but even when I'm very careful, it doesn't always work)

Like I say....should have taken the camera, but our mission was to pick up a sewing machine and possibly a serger.
I should say that, even though we had shipped Gabe's sewing equipment over, we didn't feel we wanted to take the risk of running them with a converter, since the sewing machine is a little sophisticated, and when plugged in, made a sound that didn't make either of us feel all that comfortable.
Turns out, we ended up buying both a sewing machine and a serger (used) and Gabe is doing her best to figure out the sewing machine.
She's referring to the manual.
It's in Dutch of course.


She wasn't really all too happy that I took her pic at the controls since, at that particular moment, things were not going well. The upper thread was just in the wrong place, and I'm pretty sure all is well at this point. (I haven't heard any banging, crashing or any hint of a temper flaring....
oh wait, that would be me)

When we got home with out booty, we dutifully got on our bikes and went in to Delden to finish the grocery shopping. We had already bought some cheese in Enschede, but needed the usual stuff.

See, we're learning.

Anyhoo, even though the sun is out right at this moment we went out earlier today for our now usual Sunday bike ride.
Figured we'd go down by the canal for a ways.

Didn't see a lot of people out, since it's a road that is only open to people who live there, unless you're on bike, and then you can go anywhere you like. I like that system.

There were a few rowers and, although I didn't get this in the picture, some of them were being coached from the shore. Again, the coaches were on bike since, if the cops stop you in your car and you can't prove you live there....you get a fine.



It was actually perfect weather for bike riding, since there's no chance of getting over heated.
You'll notice there are some mittens involved.

That overpass (or as the Brits call it...."flyover") that you see down there in the distance is the A35, and that was our turning around point. We can now say we finally rode to Hengelo, since that's the edge of town.


It's rather peaceful along the canal, with only the rowers, the odd jogger and the domestic animals.

Other than that the only other excitement was to go out and vacuum out the car, since we had messed it up a bit on the last trip.

Rivetting stuff.