Reuniting With Molly

Reuniting With Molly.

Got the Virgin Train tickets sorted, but had to go in to Euston rail station with all our bags at rush hour! We must have missed the escalators again as we had to do the old double team on the bags. I take the top of both cases and Cathie grabs the bottom so we carry them up the stairs together with our back-packs hung all over us. It works but is awkward if there are people wanting to pass.

Changed trains in Birmingham and finished up in Telford on time. Taxi to the storage facility and there she was! Molly! It had been nearly 6 months since we left her forlornly in the yard with all the other smart looking campers. Some rust was poking through in places, but she was pretty much the same as we had left her. Our local mechanic, Dave, had given her an MOT and an oil change, fitted a new headlight unit and done some chassis welding. All good to go: after a quick trip to the post office to do the Tax that is. Weather looked a bit threatening and we had to clear out the bikes, fold away the cover, unpack our cases, make up the bed and generally check her over, so we got to it.

We arranged with the chap that we could stay in Molly in the yard overnight and leave for the farm the next morning. He suggested we move beside a porta cabin so we could use the shower and toilet, which was nice of him. He also gave us a dozen free range eggs! We had just finished folding the cover up and got it in the bag when the rain came. Close call as we didn’t want it stored wet up in the roof top box. Molly started first pop too. J Happy…. And the bed was as comfortable as we remembered too.

Next morning we got the Tax sorted at a really quaint country Post Office, where the Post mistress called everyone by their surname with a Miss, Mister or a Misses before it. So old fashioned. Anyway she was a big help to us and we had a few laughs. Next stop Market Drayton and Morrisons Supermarket. Stocked up on food and booze and went out to Carols place to catch up with her and Ali and Andy. We hadn’t planned to stay but were convinced to stop over. We stayed two nights in the end before we started off on our next 12 months adventures.

A stop in a campsite near Cambridge allowed us to revisit Cathie’s old stamping ground. We found her house where she lived from age 2 to 10, and after speaking to some locals in the street and visiting the church next door, we knocked on the door of the oldest lady in the street. What a sweetie she was. I think we made her day. She kept asking us in but we stood on the doorstep and asked lots of questions. Cathie was enjoying going down memory lane and it was good to be able to share it with her. Nothing is what we remember from the past, it all changes and sometimes not for the better, so the memories you hold in your heart and mind are more important than the actual event. Next morning we journeyed to the Harwich ferry port where we stayed overnight in the car park. We were pretty much first in line next morning for the Ferry to Hook of Holland.

It was a nice, well-appointed ferry with all the usual features; restaurants, bar, duty free shop etc.. and the hours went quickly. The call for all drivers to return to their vehicles came and we were lined up with all the massive trucks. We planned to just get on the motorway and hightail it to Amsterdam which was about 3 hours drive. Ok, no sweat. Traffic was heavy and my brain was still in English mode, but with guidance at every roundabout and intersection from Cathie, we were out of the city and the GPS had us en-route to the infamous Amsterdam. Driving on the right will soon become second nature. We arrived at a Stellplatz behind a wire fence with security gating and a self-serve payment system. Luckily there was a young man looking after the place who helped make it an easy process, although it was really expensive for a piece of gravel with power supply beside 40 others all in a row. The bonus, and the reason I chose it of course, was that if we walked 500meters there was a free ferry right into the middle of Amsterdam. This we took advantage of after a nights rest on this expensive piece of gravel where we can’t even sit outside.

Next morning we were getting ready for the ferry trip when the bench top fell down on the set of plastic taps and broke them! Long story short, we were lucky to find a camping supplies shop 1km away and after 3 trips down there we had a new set of metal taps and a borrowed set of cutters to make the holes bigger. The right tools would have helped but it was a number 8 wire job, and by 3.00pm it was all fixed and off to town we went.

The ferry trip was short and almost everyone had a bike with them. On one end and off the other. A short walk through the rail station and we were headed to the Damrak, a pedestrian street of shops and restaurants. Not quite as I remembered it from 20 years ago, but there had been some changes. After a long walk over the canal system and asking a few people for directions, we found ourselves at Ann Franks House. (The young girl who hid with her family from the Germans during the war and wrote a diary of her experiences.) The queues were horrendous! We decided to go and have something to eat and come back after 8:00pm. The meal was nice sitting on a boat by the canal, but on our return to the house the queues were even longer! I had already visited the house so I just told Cathie about it and only charged her half of the usual entry fee! J

As it was getting late I thought there would be some action in the red light district just off the Damrak. We wandered round and eventually stumbled on the heart of it. We saw lots of girls standing in windows at street level, posing in not much, inviting men to join them for some fun. One had nothing at all on her ample bottom half but when she thought Cathie was taking her photo she whipped a curtain across and gave a rude sign. Cathie was only taking a picture of the canal! We followed the crowd through a narrow walk-way with more girls in windows but this time Cathie was attempting to take pictures and one pulled the curtain across and thumped the window so hard it sounded like it might break. Naughty girl Cathie! I was too busy gawping to take photos.

We reversed the process to get home and next morning took off for Denmark with a little bit of Germany thrown in.