So much to blog, so little time

Tomorrow (June 30, 2008) I'll be 60 and I must admit it shows in the pace that time passes. Yes and also in my face. So although I have lots of time it seems like there is very little of it.

Quickly on to the current affairs then: what started so well ended in elimination of the Dutch football team. Too bad, very sad, better next time.

But that's yesterday's news isn't it?
VallyP has given her report of the first half of the trip. I did the second half alone, which also meant half the fun. Much of that second leg was over wider waters, which I now know are not my cup of tea. You've seen one mile you've seen them all, when the waters are wider than say 500 meters.

Luckily de river Vecht more than made up for it. That is a stunning little meandering gem of a river from IJsselmeer to Utrecht, a city you cross through old canals like those in Amsterdam'.


Like Amsterdam, Utrecht has an elaborate red light district, not in houses, however, but in houseboats. Here are a few of them, neatly and uniformly arranged along the quayside of the river. And 'to keep the customers satisfied' they all have air conditioning units on the roof.

All the photos I took on that part of the journey can be seen in this Slide Show.

Back in the house Westdorpe I decided I needed some real photographic input, so I spent Saturday on my motorscooter for a visit to my beloved Maubeuge, a former industrial town on the river Sambre in northern France.

Here an example of the 180 photos I took there.

The rest of them can be seen here in a slideshow.