Counting miles before we set

It’s always good to be home. The Coles have been engaged in holiday frolics for almost a fortnight. Holland was the destination, specifically a Keycamp (“This is the life!”) site in the pleasing coastal town of Wassenaar. There were swimming pools, an amusement park and numerous other distractions. We hired Dutch bicycles that require one to peddle backwards in order to brake and, in convoy formation, used said two-wheeled devices to propel ourselves to the nearby beach at pleasant Katwijk. We also spent a day in Amsterdam, another in Dan Haag (it’ll be nice when it’s finished) and, luckily, visited Delft on the day of the wondrous floating flower parade in which the canal banks of this quaint town were packed for a carnival style procession of small boats bedecked in all manner of vegetation. Lively characters – many in clogs – danced and sang without a hint of self-consciousness amid the tulips and other vegetable matter. It was rather lovely. Here is a fairly typical craft. Well, the time whizzed by – ever a good sign – but it is reassuring to be back in Merrie Gloucester and in one’s own bedchamber.