Bob Holland is in holland!

Day 15, Monday, Someren, 16^th May.

Bob Holland is in Holland.

Francis wasn’t around this morning while we were packing away. We had one mouthful of sultana bran with gone off soya milk for breakfast and discovered that the back legs of the caravan are slightly skew whiff. We realised a while ago that we are going to need to do some work on our home. The day before we left England we discovered some rotting wood to the front right hand side, the shower room needs to be re-sealed and now its the back legs. We need to seal the shower room to stop further rot as some campsites charge 1 euro for a shower, it may not seem like much, but could be 14 euro a week just to shower! 14 euro to us is quite a good food shop or, in France, 16 bottles of wine! We also need to think about getting the European gas bottles filled as our English on has been going strong for 2 weeks now, but new to the caravanning way of life we are unsure of how much longer it will last, and don’t want to be caught short in the oven one evening, or worse, in the shower one morning.

We are heading to Venlo still, it was raining all morning and I didn’t want to think about repairs we couldn’t afford. So off to try and work on the tomato’s it is. We hit the road, my 3 hour rule is in place again today, even though so far, it has been broken, probably every time we have moved. After just one hour Bob wanted to stop. He wanted an easy day. Okay. We found a campsite with a frog as a logo, thankfully it was too expensive, so we moved on, found another campsite in some woods, the sun shone through the trees in such a way that the bark appeared purple, this would have been a great place to camp. The reception feels strange, it smells like school dinners and there appeared to be a class being taught, were we in a school? They told us that caravans were not allowed on site, although really wanting to camp in the woods, the caravan ban true or not, it was probably best not to camp near 40 8 year olds and we moved on.

Suddenly we were in Holland. Bob Holland is in Holland I sang as we crossed the border and continue onto the flat and well kept roads, with signs, many signs, signs for everything. So we were in Holland, unexpected, but good. We found a campsite in Someren, a farming town. It is very clean, there are many caravans with double awning here which all look exactly the same and a riding school. And many flies. Without even taking the legs down on the caravan we headed for the supermarket. Jumbo we found nestled in the town centre, small and sweet with hundreds of cyclists. We needed to stock up on butter, soya milk and Bob was still gagging for a bbq, so chicken. I also managed to buy hair conditioner in a pharmacy close by, so I can now have nice hair again instead of the bail of hay which has been propped on my head for the last week. Jumbo is no Aldi, its like the equivalent of Boothes in the UK, so just the essential were bought. Bob’s chicken, butter, soya milk, a huge block of Gouda (its just east of here) and some salad. The campsite was still when we returned to our dumped caravan. Legs, wonky or not barely wound down and Bob had the bbq lit! While he bbq’d happily in the rain I spoke to Nigel on the phone. I had rice salad for tea and Bob had the same with the addition of chicken. I spent the evening typing outside in the chilly but now dry weather as the sun went down as Bob set up the recording studio again. The recording didn’t seem to go well and after about an hour I found him rather drunk playing game boy. He then ate 4 rounds of gouda on toast and is now asleep with flies buzzing around his slumbering body.

We heard there could be some work on an Aserges (Asparagus) farm as it is the right season so we are going to investigate tomorrow as Venlo and the tomato’s seem now to be in the wrong direction.

Goodnight Holland, goodbye haystack hair, x.