Five countries in as many days (England, France, Belgium, Holland and Germany)! On 13th October we find a good campsite near Sommeren, Holland, a feast of rurality with the smells to match (it’s a working farm). Then up at dawn (Ok, then, just after…) and we head through Juggernaut Heaven up towards Osnabruck, Germany – Ladbergen, to be precise. Wendy becomes annoyed with us because we keep missing the turns she is advocating – largely due to a large dollop of cowardice on our part when we see the narrowness of the streets she is suggesting.

“Doesn’t she realise we’re in a campervan,” I screech, “and not a Smart Car?”

However, eventually she browbeats us into submission and we arrive at the Wohnmobil Stellplatz. Nothing wrong with this aire for a free night’s stay, and peaceful apart from the tuneful, or otherwise, notes of flute and oboe emanating from the nearby music school. Everything within a stone’s throw, too…

…shops, pubs, police station, but not a toilet in sight. Wendy tells us the nearest one is 22 km  away. Well, I reckon if I start walking, I might just get there in time for a middle-of-the-night-pee. Thank goodness for our van and its compact facilities…

Next day, we travel to a town named Zeven. Not a bad little town, though Wendy omits to mention the road closure on the main route in. There’s a museum, good cycle routes, plenty of lovely woodland walking and public art…

We wake on the morning of the 16th to watch a vee of wild geese flying overhead, their direction southward, and a thick crust of frost on the grass. Time for us to head south too, we think, but we have one more call to make beforehand, and that’s further north…