As promised, here is an account of my weekend trip to Holland.
Mods, would you be so kind as to leave this on the general forum until a week after I have completed it, we can then move it to the lifestyle forum. Thanks in advance.

Most of you know that earlier this year, a group of Beoworlders, including myself, paid a visit to Bang and Olufsen's headquarters in Struer, Denmark. Whilst there, I cemented a friendship with Ed(uard) who lives in Holland.
Very kindly, Ed invited me to visit his humble abode later on in the year. After numerous PMs between each other, this trip was realised  last weekend.
I had planned to leave my home early on Friday morning, drive down to Dover and catch the ferry to Dunkirk. After a short detour into Adinkirk, nearby to buy a years worth of cigarettes, I would drive up to Ed's and arrive at 22.15 Dutch time.
To be quite honest, I nearly cancelled, as I had spent nearly the whole of Thursday on the loo! (Germ picked up from one of my pupils)
Anyway, I had a bath on Thursday evening and went to bed early. I had to leave the house at 7.00 in the morning, so set my clock for 5.30.
Friday morning, I rose and found that I didn't have to pay a visit to the little mens room in a rush, so decided to make the trip after all.
My tummy still felt as though it had molten lava in it so I first went into our local 24hr Tesco and bought some Gaviscon. Bliss!
Feeling much better, I entered 'Dover' as the destination in my TomTom (GPS) and hit the road.
Traffic was incredibly good to say it was Friday and I ran through the Birmingham area without hardly backing off at all!
In about three hours, I had passed Coventry and pulled into Corley services for a quick coffe and to syphon the python.
You'll notice that I am a bit of a skinflint so took my own coffee.

After a 15 minute break I set off again and was pleasantly supprised to see traffic was still running smoothly all the way down to the dreaded M25, the outer ring road for London. Even that was hardly holding me up, in fact the first major traffic hold-up was the queue for the toll to use the QE2 bridge over the River Thames.

This is the view from near the top, looking West up the Thames toward London. Don't have a go at me for taking photo's whilst driving, as I was stationary at the time, the toll is paid after leaving the bridge.
By the way, left-click on any picture to see it bigger.

After leaving the bridge, another clear run all the way down the M20 to the South East coast and in no time at all I was going over the last hill before the drop down into Dover.
Lovely blue sky, eight minutes ahead of schedule, ahh, the world's my lobster.
Don't know how this picture got taken, I appear to be in the overtaking lane (We drive on the left in England)

I have Ozzy Osbourne's voice downloaded into my TomTom and the last ten minutes of the  journey into Dover was spent listenig to Ozzy saying repeatedly
"Straight ahead at the f ckin' roundabout then straight ahead at the f ckin' roundabout then straight ahead at the.......etc.
There are about seven roundabouts close together. His voice was begining to jarre

I gave the pretty young lady at the check-in, my printout of my booking but she didn't want it, just my passport!
She checked me in at 14.22 for the sailing at 16.00 and told me to go and wait in lane 49 for the ship.
Can you see my little car?

The next hour was extremely boring as the fascilities were very limited, but hey, here comes my ship, or is it? (There's a clue in the picture)

Well, the cars were loaded in no time at all and dead on time at 16.00 we were off
It's goodbye to Blighty and, of course the famous white cliffs of Dover.

Come on Andy, I enjoy your yarns!

Yeah! Get posting again Andy

Should've come and visit me while you were on the way!

Gosh! You lot are gluttons for punishment.

As the boat (or is it ship? see addendum) left the quay, the captain announced over the tannoy that the sailing time was two hours and that we would arrive in Dunkirk at 19.00 French time.
This was not as I expected, the website had suggested a sailing time of one and a half hours. I had already told Ed to expect me at 22.15 and now it was going to be quarter to eleven. What kind of uneartly time is that to arrive as a guest.
On the trip over the Channel, I ruminated over the visit to Holland. Ed had told me in a PM that his wife, Monique did not speak very good english, and that his 8 year old daughter, Romy spoke none. Would I be able to make myself understood?
What if they try to feed me with slugs or snails or frogs legs or even sheeps brains?
Would they make me ride a bicycle as I am led to believe everyone cycles everywhere in Holland.
Would they mind me nipping out every now and then for a f ag?
What if they don't like me?
All these thoughts were racing through my mind as we approached the breakwater at the entrance to Dunkerque harbour.
The sun was setting and I just had to take this photo'.

BTW, you can put a boat on a ship, but you can't put a ship on a boat!     Arghh! Where's me Geek smilie?

After taking that photo', it suddenly dawned on me that the rest of my journey would be in darkness. I had bought some headlight benders to correct the beam of my lights to suit continental driving but had not stuck them on yet. As the ship was floundering around in the harbour, I went down to my car to stick them on. Amazingly, the doors were open to the car deck! I thought that since the "Herald of Free Enterprise" disaster, all doors would be locked until the ship was stationary.
I set the TomTom to Adinkerque, where I was going to by my years worth of tobacco and cigarettes. They are about half the UK price in Belgium.
Disembarked dead on time, and fifteen minutes later was in the f ag shop in Belgium. No problem for me to drive on the wrong side of the road as I had driven lorries on the continent for a few years.
A pleasant surprise for me was noting the speed limit on the belgian motorway. 130 kph! That equates to 81 miles per hour. In England the maximum speed anywhere is just 70 mph.
As I left Adinkerque, the TomTom told me that my estimated time of arrival at Ed's would be 22.44 pm. Once I set my cruise control to 130 kph the eta started dropping less and less. If it continued like this all the way, I would arrive at the original planned time 22.15.
In no time at all, I was turning into Ed's street. It was pitch black so I couldn't take a photo but here is one I took the day after.
No prizes for guessing which is Ed's house!

Great writing Andy. Your attention to the little details bring the whole thing to life!

I can't wait for the 'Ed meeting' post! Oh and where did you get the flag from Ed?

I am also very eager to hear the next installment from Andy, will I have to wait for tomorrow ?

Seven minutes late, on a fifteen hour trip!! Not bad, eh? As I was pulling into the parking space outside his house, Ed came out to greet me. How nice it was to see him again. We engaged in a 15 second bear hug, I last saw Ed in May and he made me feel really welcome. We grabbed my overnight bag and a Tesco bag full of CDs, then Ed took me into his home to meet Monique. Now it would be totally rude to meet a complete stranger then ask her to pose for photo's. I took no more photo's that evening. We had a coffee and I was shown around their house. Yes, it's true, there is B&O in every room except the downstairs loo! Monique is a lovely lady and her command over the english language is nowhere near as bad as Ed had made out. The kind of person that makes you feel at home, and a good listener. Absolutely knackered, I made my way up to my room, Ed's office where they had provided a blow-up doll for me. Next morning, I came down to meet the family properly around 8.00 am This is Monique and Romy.

Shhhh! I just managed to give my own thread five stars!

Andy T.

It sounds like you were having an excellent time.

Toby and his pictures are back!

Wish I'd taken pictures of our (Lee and I) trip(s) to see Ed!! Especially the classic "up nostril" shot of Lee asleep on a Rotterdam subway train....

Ha!
Nobody seems to have spotted my deliberate mistake on the text with the photo' of Monique and Romy!
Romy does not speak english yet so I bought her a book on horses with loads of photo's and not much writing. I knew she had an interest in horses as Ed had bought her a model one in Struer and also in one of Ed's photo's on the gallery, I had noticed horsey wallpaper on Romy's room. Seems it was a good choice, she loved it.
Here is Ed checking the Beoworld forum before we had breakfast.

It appears that in Holland, it is quite normal to have just bread for breakfast. Monique asked what I would like and I pointed out that at home I usually have cereal with milk on. She went in the cupboard and managedto rustle up some chocolate flavoured cornflakes which was just perfect although a little unusual for me.
After breakfast, Ed told me he had planned a trip to his dealer in Houten, about an hours drive away. In the evening, we were going to have Leon and his new lovely wife, Tonni (don't know if that's spelled correctly)
Regular Beoworlders will remember that Leon was the very first Beoworld first prize winner.
Ed and I left Monique and Romy to prepare the evening meal and set off up to Houten.
The Bang and Olufsen dealer in Houten is called Ed Baak though it seems to be mainly run by his son Fred Baak.
In about an hour we turned into a small street and arrived at the shop.

As soon as we enterd, I looked to the left and was pleasantly surprised to see a familiar face!
I'd seen his face on Beoworld, it was Leon!
We had not planned to meet there, it was just a coincidence. Leon looked just as he does in his photo and he was with his bride of one month Tonni (Please correct me Leon if I have spelled her name wrong)