Hare on the Dock at the Hook of Holland
No! I hadn’t been drinking, but I do know a hare when I see one.
As I got off the boat this morning on a wet day at the Hook of Holland, I could not believe my eyes. There wandering up the dock, whilst I waited for passport control, was a rather large brown hare.
Comments to easyJet
I was asked to comment on my latest flight by easyJet. Here’s my main comment.
I took the one flight home from Amsterdam and although you’ve called it outbound it was inbound for me, as I live half-an-hour north of Stansted.
I try to avoid Schipol, despite visiting Den Haag fairly often.
Lately though, I have been driving using Norfolk Line, as I usually go for four to five days and bring all sorts of goodies that Holland doesn’t have. I’m also a coeliac and stock up with things like Dr. Schar’s bread-mix which are unavailable in the UK. This is much easier in a car.
But it is Schipol that really annoys me. The easyJet gate at Schipol is a long walk and is distinctly unfriendly with no seats. I also always take a laptop and find the security annoying.
So there is nothing wrong with easyJet, it is just Schipol, which compared to Stansted is distinctly passenger unfriendly. Especially for people like me, who never buy anything in the shops.
I should also add, that your new big box crisps looked nice, but nowhere in the guide did it say whether they were gluten free or not. If you said what was, you might sell more. As it is I only just buy a coffee and no food.
Looking at my travel folder, I notice that I haven’t used easyJet from Schipol since April the eleventh. I think in that time, I’ve perhaps driven about four times, so the flight experience must be bad. But I have flown easyJet elsewhere for a holiday.
Scheveningen
I took these pictures just as the sun went down at Scheveningen in Holland.
The interesting pictures are those of the LED streetlight. So why is this light so good?
- The light appears to have fifteen sets of three rows of four 1-watt LEDs. They look like they are the same LEDs as in my floodlights here.
- These lights have a total power consumption of perhaps 200 watts, but then nearly all of this energy ends up as light. A typical halogen light would use between five and ten times more energy.
- You can also see that each of the individual banks of four lights are angled to give an even light on the ground. This is exactly the same way that the lights in floodlight towers at a football ground are arranged so that the pitch is evenly lit.
- LEDs have a life of many years, so how much will be saved on maintenance. I suspect that these lights might even just need a wash every year or so.
- One subsidiary benefit of these lights is that the light goes where it is needed and not up in the sky. Astronomers will be very pleased.
But these lights are just the start. As LEDs are dimmable, low-voltage, easily controlled and have a low energy consumption all sorts of tricks can be played to make them even better. In a country with enough sun, you could even have the lights solar-powered. But perhaps in Holland or the UK, by using a light profile, which dimmed them in the middle of a night, it might even be possible.
It may be quite a mundane piece of street furniture, but in a few years time, all street-lighting will be based on these principles.
If it isn’t, it’ll be a disgrace.
Feelings at a Wedding
This was the first wedding I’d been to since my wife died. Or perhaps should I say that it was the first wedding between young people, as I’d been to another involving one of my ex-business partners, who like me had been widowed. That was different, as it showed me a lot of hope for the future. It was also a nice touch, that the groom was having the same best man fifty years later.
But this one was a full wedding, with both a civil and a church ceremony. They do it that way in Holland.
As to the wedding itself, everything went well and except for a few small glitches, it seemed to go smoothly. But then what wedding goes absolutely perfectly. If they did Robert Altman’s film wouldn’t be so funny!
But it was the details that brought me to tears. Just words, but many times in the past at a wedding, my wife and I would smile at each other and repeat our vows and perhaps sometimes joke at some inappropriateness or funny memory. Not that I can seem to remember much of our marriage at all. Perhaps having only a couple of photos or videos doesn’t help. I’ve still got her wedding dress though and perhaps one day, it’ll fit a granddaughter.
Those memories made me sad and I was pleased that I’d hidden away at the back of the church.
A Curious and Tragic Fact About Women Cyclists
I just spotted this on the BBC’s web site.
Men do about three times more journeys by bicycle than women, but in accidents causing deaths with lorries in London last year, seven out of the eight victims were women.
I’m writing this in Holland, where I suspect that the ratio of women cyclists to men is not as low as in the UK. I wonder if the Dutch have the same anomaly with their accidents? The figures in Holland would probably shed some light on those for the UK.
I do wonder though, whether a lot of the difference is due to the fact that the average man rides a bicycle much more aggressively than does the average woman. I’m also constantly looking out for traffic on the lanes where I ride around Suffolk and make sure that when I meet a lorry, I either get them to slow down or I time it to meet them in a safe and obvious place. I’m also pretty fit, so I can get out of the saddle to sprint to get out of the way.
But this is only conjecture.
None of the researchers in the article seem to have a clue. And it’s not for want of trying.
Pleasures of NOT Flying
I have come to Utrecht for a weekend away at a wedding.
I did think about flying, but although the drive would take nearly ten hours, I thought it would be the best way to do it. It has its compensations in that I can get the suits I’ll need and the smart jacket in the car without cramming them into a suitcase. And I can get my Brompton in the boot of the Jaguar estate.
I’ve just been for a ride around the city. It seems much like most Dutch cities; water, bicycles and windmills.
Utrecht
As to cost, well because I couldn’t be sure that I’d ever get here, I couldn’t book until a few days ago. Norfolk Line cost me about sixty pounds one way and easyJet would have been over a hundred and twenty because of the late booking and the luggage. So on balance the drive was a little bit more expensive, but it was certainly hassle free and I had the bike.
The only hassle was the difficulty of getting diesel at Total garages on the Belgian motorway. You had to pay first and I think they keep the card. I’m not doing that, because if someone skims it, it’s my fault, as I gave the card to someone else.
Safety Fast
This morning I was up at a quarter to three and on the road to Dover by twenty past. The road was dry, the weather was clear, the full moon was shining, the hood on the Lotus was down and there was little traffic. Except for the road works on the M25 between the M11 and the A12, there was nothing to hold me up. Even the tolls at the Dartford Crossing were free! Is there another crossing in the world, with a bridge one way and a tunnel the other?
So I pulled in to the docks at Dover at five past five after just one hour forty five minutes of travelling. The car may be seventeen years old, but it hasn’t lost its verve and long legs.
The title of this topic is the old slogan that MG used to use with their sports cars and saloons for many years. It is still the name of the MG enthusiast’s magazine. My father had many MGs in his time from pre-war Midgets to mid-fifties Magnettes and thought it was a slogan that suited the now-gone marque. I like to think that I drove the Lotus that way both to Dover and afterwards on the three hour trip to Holland.
The ferry was half-an-hour late due to a mechanical problem, which was a first for Norfolk Line, and the captain apologised, but I still had visions of hairy and oily mechanics trying to replace big-ends or something even more serious. But they did make up some of the time and I left Dunkirk exactly on half-past-nine by European Time.
In front of me on the ferry was an AC Cobra. Not a copy, but a genuine one from the 1970s and we started off in convoy towards Ostend. He was going to the Nurburgring, to see a classic Grand Prix. One day, I’ll take the Lotus there on one of their experience days. Sadly it won’t be this year, as someone has a wedding on that day.
One thing that was a bit wrong, was that the couple in the Cobra were using a Sat-Nav. Surely that is wrong!
But is it wrong that Colin Chapman named his car after a flower, with names that showed spirit, like Elan, Esprit and Elite? Not for him Cobra, Miura, Panther or Thunderbird, which exudes power, but something that is more about class and agility.
A word of warning here. If you are taking a ferry to Dunkirk, don’t do it with an almost-empty tank, as filling stations are some way over the Belgian border. The Cobra stopped in the first one and I carried on to Ostend. The fuel also seemed expensive at €1.41 a litre. So perhaps fill up at Tesco at Dover.
At Ostend the fun started.
The traffic along the coast had been light and generally proceeding at about 120-130 kph. But after the Ostend traffic joined the road was very busy and Mercedes and others were storming about at well over the legal limit. It is in traffic like this that the agile Lotus comes into its own.
With the top down, you have perfect vision in all directions and because the road-holding is so good, you can almost drive sideways to avoid someone who isn’t looking. In one instant a big 4×4 pulled out on me and I’m sure he was looking right over the top. And the Lotus is bright yellow! Norfolk mustard is the actual name.
Gent and Antwerp followed in succession without any holdup and I was quickly through the latter city and on the road to Breda and Rotterdam. And just as the road had got angry at Ostend, it calmed at Antwerp. It must be the Belgians.
And whilst on the subject of the Belgians.
Can they please use consistent road signs with the same name for the same city throughout the country? I don’t care if they call Bruxelles, Timbuktoo, but please be consistent. I wish the Welsh would do the same too. I don’t care what name, but every town and village in Europe should only have one name. To make things fair it should be chosen by those that live there.
The last part of the journey past Breda, Dordrecht and Rotterdam was busy, but again my speed was well-up and I finally arrived in Den Haag (Note the Dutch name!) just three hours and five minutes after leaving Dunkirk and eight hours fifteen minutes from home. I could have gone quicker by easyJet from Stansted, but I couldn’t have taken as much luggage and especially my Brompton. The difference is probably three hours.
Incidentally for most of the last part of the journey I was listening to the late great Dusty Springfield on the CD player. Wonderful! Especially, as through the Drechttunnel, with the top down, I was playing one of her songs at full blast and it was reverberating off the walls.
I did get slowed on entering Den Haag, so I turned off the motorway and followed the signs to Scheveningen. If you ask the locals how you pronounce that town, the answer is now very non politically correct, as it refers to shaving someone described by an N-word. But it is linguistically correct.
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.
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!
The Anonymous Widower 