A week last Monday I did a 3.25 mile run in the evening and quite enjoyed it apart from getting cramp in my right calf.
On the Wednesday I would normally have gone to aquafit if I wasn't working but I was on a mission to get a special cake for a special person who I 'know' through another forum. So I also had a nice afternoon trawling around the charity shops in Ilkley (that's a fairly upmarket town a few miles from where I live). Didn't get anything though as they had fairly upmarket prices as well.
On the Thursday I would normally go swimming and circuit training but Peter and I had a trip to Amsterdam booked as I won the trip with DFDS Seaways. We set off a bit later than planned and we nearly had a fit as we got to the check in desk about 2 minutes before it closed, phew! Unfortunately that meant we had nothing to eat before boarding the ferry and once you are on board you are a trapped person. You have to eat their food. 22 Euros for a burger and chips and a warm chicken sandwich and chips, ouch! That was the cheapest option we could find.
We bought some cokes and settled in the club area to listen to the band and I had a game of bingo too. One number from a full house, darn! The band were called The Energy Band and they were brilliant. The diminutive girl singer certainly was full of energy and she really could sing. They covered everything from The Beatles to Katy Perry.
Thank goodness we had paid for breakfasts both ways. When we got up we went down to the restaurant and we had a beanfeast. We filled up and literally didn't need anything else until 7pm that night.
Peter is struggling with his 2.5 slipped discs and cannot walk very far or very fast but he did his best. We visited a lot of shops on the way down to Dam Square in Amsterdam. I managed to find a bright red scarf which I had been hunting for to liven up a blue and white spotted top. We also got Isobel a pair of pink faux suede cowboy boots for 10 Euro, bargain! How many people do you know who go to visit a foreign capital and purchase bin bags? We did!
DFDS has several disadvantages over P & O for us. The former takes 2 hours to get to, the latter one hour. The former is a 16 hour sailing whereas the latter is a 9 hour trip and last but not least the time in Amsterdam with DFDS is only around 4.5 hours whereas P & O it's around 8 hours. So time went to quickly while we were there.
We did however find a couple of quirky places. One was a doorway with some interesting stonework above it and I didn't take a photo of it. Peter headed for the doorway despite not knowing where it lead to. The door was open and people were coming and going in dribs and drabs. We could see a nice tiled floor and some steps so we went down them. It opened into a square of houses with a church in the middle. Reading the info it was a place where devout catholic women who didn't want to take the vows and become nuns lived. They did good deeds and lived in this area which was an enclave in the middle of a protestant area. It was a serene area in the middle of the hustle and bustle of a capital city.
The other place was a restaurant but had originally been a photographic studio. The exterior was a beautiful mosaic in Art Nouveau styling.
Anyway the crossing going was like a mill pond and the return journey wasn't too bad at all.
Setting off from Ijmuiden
When we got back we went to visit my brother as he lives in Newcastle. He was at work but his girlfriend, Roberta was there. My younger brother Francis and his girlfriend and her daughter Erin were staying the weekend so when everyone arrived back there was only my eldest brother missing.
Speaking of whom, it was his birthday that night so once I got home Isobel and I went over to visit him. He was sat in the lounge of his sheltered accommodation alone eating Ritz crackers and drinking cider. For a change he wasn't drunk though and we had a nice chat. One of the other residents came in. She was in a wheelchair and told me she had the big C. Having said that she seemed to be a very positive person. We had a lot of laughs, listened to some music, I danced and she was good company.
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