When last we were here, not quite a year ago one of us saw nothing of her surrounds, the other was perhaps slightly pre-occupied with things other than his immediate surroundings.
Strangely this time we were both a little shell-shocked. Perhaps because we were weeks ahead of where we thought we might be, perhaps partly because we were really retracing that evacuation journey, the one that had promised almost no hope of us being here twelve months hence, yet here we were.
During that last visit Ron was convinced that many years ago, they had moored beside a windmill, which, given the lack of any hint of the presence of one on the skyline, and the lack of inclination on the part of any on board to go exploring, seemed unlikely.
With nothing to do but settle into something of a cruising routine we struck out in search of that mythical beast. At least in our limited experience, there are a few of these things in the Netherlands, and they are usually not particularly hidden from view, so it was almost a surprise to find the subject of the first windmill photo of the year almost hidden in a little copse on what was once the moat of the old fortified town. It was fully kitted out with sails and we’d guess it’s probably a pump rather than a mill, but that level of investigation was beyond the scope of our day’s outing.
It could be that harbour works since Ron and Robin’s first visit have blocked access for boats, or it might be that twenty years of successive travel memories have merged into one glorious idyllic postcard and they didn’t really moor in front of it after all, but in the absence of any other mill, even though it’s not exactly as described, we’ll count this as mission accomplished.
No comments
Post a Comment