Back on the Ferry
It’s now 9:15 UK Time and I’m back on the Norfolk Line ferry to Dover.
This time I had the cricket all the way from Holland until I went past Antwerp. But this time it wasn’t so good. England contrived to go from 196 for no wicket to 364 for 6, by means of some sloppy batting. You can never trust an Aussie cricket team until they’re beaten.
We just gave them too many breaks.
But it was quicker to take the route through Bergen op Zoom and the tunnels at Antwerp and then down the parallel motorway almost to Bruges. I didn’t see much traffic and the lights on the latter part of the journey weren’t too unkind.
I made the ferry with firty-five minutes to spare, despite taking nearly an hour to get round Rotterdam. We may complain about the M25, but it seems everyone has the same problem.
On the down side, the Maerske Dover has a rather bad vibration.
Roaming the Netherlands
In July, I wandered around the Netherlands.
I learned a little bit about the Water Line and some of the fortifications are shown in the pictures. There are also pictures of the famous installations at Kinderdijk-Elshout.
Both are Dutch World Heritage Sites, although the Water Line is only on the tentative list.
Euro v UK Plugs and Sockets
I travel to Europe a lot and it annoys me that I have to carry various adapters, so that I can charge my camera or run this laptop, that I am using to post this.
The UK uses a system, based on BS 1363, where plugs are fused because they are all on a ring main. This system was brought in after the Second World War to save copper. As an electrical engineer, I feel that it is a better system, for lots of other reasons too, such as safety and ease of wiring. But we’ll never convince Europe to have our system!
One problem is that the adapters and the leads weigh about 0.2Kg each and as I have to have two, then this means I have a lot of excess baggage. The leads are long too and take up a lot of space, when I’m travelling light.
So I cut both leads in two and fitted Europlugs on each with sockets to take them on the remaining part of the mains lead.
Plugs and Sockets
So when I now travel in Europe, I don’t need to take the heavy UK 13 amp plugs and I also leave most of the cable behind. I reckon it will save me about 0.3Kg and all the packing of the long cables.
That weight saving means I can take two more sets of shirts, socks and knickers!
Waiting for Apollo 11 – Part 3
The Tuesday was a day of waiting. They broke the waters in mid-morning and nothing happened. And then in mid-afternoon, contractions started.
Now my late wife wasn’t a lady with a large frame. Although she was nearly 5ft 5in, she was really only a size 8, so getting the baby out, when he finally arrived after midnight, was a bit of a messy business. Our first son was also about 8lb 5oz, so he was not small and she had quite a few stitches. Luckily, the student doctor , who was nicknamed Smooth Hugh, was very very good.
So that night I got back to Barnet about three in the morning, with mother and son doing well.
In other words exactly forty years ago.
But the time in the hospital was not without tragedy. The lady in the next bed with the unusual ring, lost her baby. Her son was born with a hole in the diaphragm, which meant he was unable to breathe.
But in those days of no ultrasound, it was impossible to diagnose the condition. Six years ago, my granddaughter had the same condition. It was diagnosed before birth and she was operated on at two days old. She is now a bouncing ad very normal girl, with no after effects from her ordeal.
So medical science can solve our problems.
But just as my wife was helped through a difficult birth by Smooth Hugh, good surgery helped in a much worse case to enable my granddaughter to survive.
We must train our surgeons to be the best.
Later that day, Apollo 11 blasted off to the moon. My wife told me later that evening, that everyone was gripped as they watched the huge Saturn rocket take off from Florida.
And there was still a shortage of babies in the hospital. They’d even resorted to ringing round hospitals and the message was the same. Everybody must be waiting for the moon landing.
The Anonymous Widower 