Was hoping to spend some days in the peace and quiet that is the village of my childhood. Parents are on holiday and we stay over in the weekends to chill out and swim and cycle and read. A bit like having our own second home, without the extra mortgage (not that we have the first mortgage...).
The first couple of days were great - nice and quiet, glorious weather, Polly and i went for a cycle out to the small harbour with the winched footbridge that moves over some rails to cross the lock where the many boats go through. The bridge used to be hand-winched, but is now mechanically drawn, whenever a button is pressed by one of the many cyclists that use that route.
Polly and i sat down by the water to watch the boats, waved at some people, but noticed that boat-folks aren't the most friendly... Nobody waved back, most looked grumpy...
Sitting there made me think back a little about the times when we went out there years back (mid-eighties), when the house across the water, that is now beautifully restored and surrounded by a lovely garden, was close to being pulled down, due to it resembling rubble more than anything else... The bridge watcher's house now looks pretty and very attractive, but was considered a wreck back then. It was used in a famous Dutch series in the 80's, and still gets talked about (as i heard when two couples who hadn't met before then - and were waiting for the bridge to be drawn - were contemplating the various places that they had come across along their cycling route).
This morning, i was hoping to have a lie-in, after watching telly for way too long (yes, i could have been at the Pinkpop festival, celebrating our 40th birthdays, living it large, but instead I'm following it on telly...). You know when things are going on when you sleep, and you are vaguely aware that they shouldn't be happening, but they are anyway? You know something is not right, but you're buggered if you're going to figure out what it is? That's how i woke up, with an amplified voice, shouting stuff, like a megaphone but louder, and music playing, coming from the village square presumably... I could have coped with this if the clock by the bed had said '8', or even '7', but '5.20'??!!! On a Bank Holiday Monday????!!??!!! The duvet went back over my head and i tried to ignore the racket for another three hours, but gave up and looked for the local paper to see if i could find an explanation for this dawn pandemonium... And there was, on the front page - apparently some charity relay-marathon-run thing from Paris to Rotterdam (or the other way around...) was coming through the village, and the organising committee had figured that it would be great to have someone hollering stuff from real early in the morning... Also there was a bouncy castle and a fire engine that played a very annoying little tune every minute, and rubbish music....
Quiet reading and chilling was out of the question for the rest of the day, but the noise became somthing we got used to after a while.
Next weekend, i will make sure to spell out the local paper first, just to be sure there's no more little surprises like that one...
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