Morning entertainment was a trip to the supermarket. I was soaked within ten minutes, and like a drowned rat I slid into what appeared to be a supermarket on Voorstraat by Stadhuisplein. It contained every bit of junk other than food. After a brief curse, I guessed the Statenplein must contain a supermarket. I arrived there to find the square full of market stalls, but no food shop in sight.
I resorted to using my phone to locate an Albert Hijn - ideal. Taking a circuitous route via one of the concentric canals, I duly arrived and discovered it was the same supermarket I had used a decade earlier. Small world! Why oh why are eggs and cereals always so difficult to find in Dutch supermarkets?
After another soaking on the way back to Duonita, I found Rex up to his neck spring cleaning the boat. It was spotless, as was his pinny.
As the morning progressed, we noticed groups of people walking across the Lange IJzerenbrugstraat, some of whom were wearing black top hats, and obviously on self-guided walking tours. A chap in a top hat from one of these groups joked to me about Scotland losing the football match the previous evening (he probably spotted our ensign flying).
"Why are you wearing those black hats?" I asked one of two men wearing black, top-hats from another group as they passed by overhead on the bridge.
"Do you want to buy it?", he chirped back.
"No, but why the black hats?" I asked again.
"Because we are all going to a funeral, that's why the hats are black," he joked. "We are all happy that the person has died. That is why we are all drinking beer." Both men and their wives laughed, waved their cans of beer in the air, and walked on.
Other guided groups passed by on their self-guided tours, with men and some women wearing the occasional black, top-hat. A few stopped to admire the plucky, little Duonita that had sailed across the treacherous North Sea to reach this remote location on the planet. I refrained from getting into conversation with them.
Then, a single couple passing by seemed content to just stand and stare at the boat. I detected an English voice. I popped my head out.
"Are you English?" asked the woman in a squeaky voice.
"Yes, we sailed into Dordrecht a few days ago," I answered.
"Are you from Yorkshire?" she enquired.
"No, I live in Ipswich, but you may be detecting a trace of my Cumbrian accent."
"We're from Dorset," she replied. Her husband couldn't get a word in edgeways. "We are cruising. We used to sail a Dragonfly out of Poole, but, as we got older, we found that sailing that was getting a bit too much for us." The couple were well aware of the dangers of sailing in adverse weather conditions, and while discussing their adventures, the conversation was occasionally interrupted by interjections of, "Oh, look at that grebe!" as the woman went into raptures about a grebe paddling up and down the haven. I was relieved when they resumed their discovery of the town, the woman still in ecstasies over the grebe.
 A Rather Damp Grebe |
"We're hoping to get to Denmark," said the chap on board filling the water tank. "At the end of August, we will leave the boat there for the winter."
"Are you travelling up the outside and through the Kiel Canal?" I asked. "The weather will be against you," I added.
"Yes, the weather is a tricky one," he replied. "We'll probably head up to Den Helder, then across to Harlingen and through Friesland. Eventually we'll travel up the Kiel Canal."
They had sailed these waters many times, visiting all the Frisian islands. I wished them luck and fair winds.
Meanwhile, for most of the day, the carillon in the Grote Kerk played selections of Classical music all day long.
After much more rain, Rex and I headed out at 6pm to have an early meal, anticipating many folk would be eating out on a Saturday evening. We visited a string of restaurants, all fully booked, some offering a place at the bar to eat.
However, we did find a Dutch restaurant in the Scheffersplein, the Dordts Genoegen, that could just squeeze us in. I tried to tell the waitress in my best Dutch that we'd like a beer first and then order food later (Rex is always insistent that he needs drinks inside him before he even considers food). My Dutch was woefully inadequate, and Dutch families around us were in fits of laughter. Amazingly, by 7pm the restaurant was thinning out, and almost empty by 7:30pm.
We had an interesting chat with the waitress who was serving us. Rex joked with her about my Dutch, and then piped up with, "Do you detect a difference in accent between us two? I speak in a refined, well-spoken way, but he speaks totally differently."
"No, I can't really tell the difference," she replied. A bit of a blow for the refined gent sitting next to me.
"Dave can detect various Dutch accents. We find the Fries accent fascinating," uttered Rex in an extremely sophisticated way.
We learned that she had never heard the Fries accent before, indeed had never travelled to Friesland before.
"Where in Holland do you come from?," I asked.
"In the south, near Germany."
"Limburg?," I asked.
"Yes. We have to speak German there. The Germans expect us to speak German with them, and they refuse to speak Dutch. All my family, indeed everyone near the German border has to speak German. It is no problem; we all travel across the border to buy petrol and other commodities."
She warned us that most of Holland, particularly Dordrecht, shuts on Sundays and Mondays, but the restaurant would remain open for most of the day. We thanked the young woman for that information.
We returned back to Duonita for more instalments of Peter Cook and Dudley Moore, plus The Wit of Cricket, stories from cricket's best-loved personalities: Brian Johnston, Henry Blofeld and Dickie Bird.