Another Bloody Friday
The television is bad again, just like it was the last Friday I was in England.
At least there’s QI on Dave. What a weird name for a television channel!
Albert Heijn
Albert Heijn is a supermarket chain in Holland.
Their stores seem to be everywhere and they mark all of the gluten-free products with the correct symbol. I’ve never had any problems with anything in their stores. Last night I had some salami and goat’s cheese thingies that were ideal for eating on the move.
Their stores are also in a lot of railway stations, so you can just pop-in and buy a salad for lunch.
The Spoiler
I was searching for the story about all Manchester City players being given £168,000 watches, when I came across the article about it in the Spoiler. The watches are by Franck Muller and from what I’ve seen they are not to my taste.
They made the point, that as footballers like to outdo each other in cars, houses, watches and tattoos, then they wouldn’t be happy to all have the same ones.
The web site looks a nice place for football gossip. I might check it out in the future.
Feedback for Norfolk Line
I’ve now done three round trips on Norfolk Line between Dover and Dunkirk and all of them were done in the VIP class.
I filled in their form on the web site and this is my only complaint.
I am a coeliac and the one thing that is poor on the ferries is the availability of gluten-free snacks. In the VIP lounge, there is fruit which is good, but except for one trip there were no nuts, which would be great. Also, crisps were not gluten-free, but by careful selection, these can be gluten-free without costing any more.
As I travel from Newmarket to Den Haag regularly, it would be nice to eat a meal on board, but all of your offerings are not gluten-free, so I actually time the journey, so that I eat before I leave and then again at the other end.
The interesting point, is that your staff know about coeliacs and gluten-free, so your training is working.
Other than that everything is fine. But at least you don’t have a notice up like one of your competitors, which says that people with allegies are not welcome in the restaurants.
This was what the notice said on P&O.
Food Allergy Advice – Whilst every effort is made to maintain the integrity of all food served onboard, we regret that due to the complexity of our operations, we are unable to guarantee that any food will be free of food allergens.
It probably illustrates the usual failure of those in charge of catering to take account of allergies. Newmarket racecourse used to ignore it and now everybody knows about gluten-free meals.
Can we do anything about it? Yes, complain in a nice manner!
Ragwort
To anybody who keeps horse or cattle, ragwort is a curse. It can kill, although there are various people, who say that it is not as dangerous as we think. That is an interesting attitiude, but what happens if an expensive horse, cow or other animal is poisoned and dies?
So I just don’t like it.
They’ve even got lots of it in Holland.
Ragwort in Holland
But as it says on the DEFRA web site.
Over 90% of complaints that Defra receives about injurious weeds concern ragwort.
To me there is only one thing to do. Make sure it isn’t there! We all need something to hate occassionally and ragwort is a good place to start!
Windmills and Ferries
We spent an enjoyable day meandering down the Waal, after viewing the Water Line and the castle at Loevenstein. We crossed it three times on an assortment of ferries.
Ferry Across The Waal
The ferries were of a similar design to those that you get in London at Woolwich. But those are free, as opposed to the Dutch ones which were a couple of euros. I don’t think I’ve ever used three ferries in one day! But here in the heart of Holland, you can do it a lot more than that!
We finally ended up at Kinderdijk, which is a World Heritage Site. If you see pictures of windmills on a Dutch tourist poster, it is usually a picture from this area.
Kinderdijk
Close by the windmills are some of the largest Archemedean screw pumps, I’ve ever seen.
Archemedean Screw Pump at Kinderdijk
This is just one of four sets of these enormous pumps.
The Waal is not the sort of place that tourists would normally go. But they should!
It’s All in the Article
The Sunday Times always tries to make the business pages more interesting by putting a lady on the front page, who is showing herself off. Last Sunday’s article about how Lord St. John of Bletso hosted a party in 2004 and 2005 for Ross Mandell, who is now charged with fraud in New York, was accompanied by one with Lady Bletso in a dress that to say it was low-cut would be an understatement. She was described in the article as a former Miss England.
Now, I have no knowledge of the couple except what I read in the media, but I don’t think I would be very happy with the article if I was them. After all they would appear to have been married since 1994, have four children and that Lady Helen is a doctor of medicine according to Wikipedia. She is also in her early forties and if nothing else, she certainly doesn’t show her age.
Luckily, I’ve never been described in the Press in anything but a complete and proper way, but I can understand how clipping out a few words and missing a few facts, can give a totally different view.
Home Safely
On this trip I took my Jaguar Estate rather than the Lotus Elan.
I’m glad I did, as I drove from Dover to home in heavy rain, thunder and a lot of lightning. Not that the Lotus is bad in that type of weather conditions, but all Elans leak a bit!
But I made Dover to home in an hour and three-quarters. Something you can’t do at any sane time of day. At least though the Dartford Crossing is free between ten at night and six in the morning, so I didn’t have to find any money.
The Anonymous Widower 