With the team

We are here. We arrived in Venray around mid afternoon and immediately settled in with the group who had also travelled independently. We sat around a table and waited for our friends - the rest of the choir - to arrive. I had woken at 4.30 am this morning and thought of them, just setting off from Minchinhampton at the crack of dawn. Here they were so many hours later feeling frazzled from a long coach journey and ready for a bit of tlc.

We had packed up and set off earlier in the day. We left all the Electronic Music Convention delegates still snoozing in their beds and collected the car we’d not seen in quite a few days.

For the first time, we sat in reception and looked at the eclectic assortment of artworks around the lobby.

I took a closer look at the painting on the wall, smiling at the “repair” - surely all part of the effect?

We drove out along the canalside, keeping an eye open for cyclists, pedestrians and anything else likely to impede our progress along the narrow road. My hero kept his nerve.

Last time I was here, we’d visited the Anne Frank House and though I knew it was only a short distance along the canal from our hotel, I had failed to recognised it on this trip. No wonder, for the house that I had remembered was now overtaken by a huge visitor centre and extension. We wouldn’t have known it.

We were equipped, Nederlands-style for our journey, with a fresh pack of stroop waffel and a bag of liquorice-menthol sweets to keep us going.

The Autumn colours are spectacular and this tree in particular caught my eye set against the pale blue wall.

We stopped in Amersfoort for a break and a look around this rather lovely historic city. We parked the car and came right up into a modern shopping centre.

Thankfully, there was a friendly woman in the visitor centre who gave us a good idea of where to see the best bits of the old city. We set off in the direction she sent us.

Thanks to her expert advice, we found the city gate!

Wandering around, we enjoyed a few of the old streets, though every so often, we looked up and saw the dark skies overhead.

We almost made it. We’d identified a place to stop and have a cup of tea with a few locals in the marketplace when the heavens opened and our ourdoor seating suddenly proved a no-go.

We retreated inside until it eased off a bit, when we took a look around the best stalls in the market. Fish anyone?

It was time to move on, to drive towards Venray, where we’ll be for the next few days with the Stuart Singers. The road was nicely rural though we were never really far from the built environment.

The windmill was such a cliched image but I couldn’t help but grab my camera when we came upon it. Lovely, isn’t it?

Sometime, mid afternoon, we were getting there. Venray is in Limburg, near the river Maas and our journey involved a crossing of the Rhine at Nijmegen too. We were so glad to arrive, to sit with our friends and look forward to a weekend of singing, remembrance and camaraderie.

And yes, this blog post was written in the company of friends, fuelled by several Weissbiers and any errors or omissions might be attributed to either (or both) of those.