Vinnie’s Maiden Trip.

Now that the ship has been sold, we are heeding the call of the land. Let me introduce to you the one and only Vinnie the Van ! He’s on his maiden trip, ploughing through clay, mud, and sludge like a modern-day tank. He’s a fully insulated, four-wheel-drive German/Swedish muscle mobile home, showing off his Dovra power and attracting appreciative comments wherever we settle for the night , and that despite his (temporary !)German license plates.

From La Baie de la Somme, to Cap Blanc Nez and all the way to Passchendaele, we joined British schoolchildren in being shocked all over again by the ruthless ravaging of young men’s lives, especially in Flanders’ Fields. Indeed, we went on a “Lest We Forget” pilgrimage, painfully befitting these warmongering times that we are living in now.

Apart from the Northern European winter blues — with fever spikes up to 40 degrees and stubborn, spine-rattling coughs that shatter all reasonable decibel levels — there’s also the minor detail of an upcoming left hip replacement that will pin us down until early spring. The surgeon has promised that the new hip will allow for at least another fifteen years of happily hip-hopping across the globe, as long as there is no squatting, lest the pink ceramic ball escape its shiny titanium socket. This, at least, for the first half-year, until muscle and bone have grown over the artificial hip inserts to forge a fortified, bionic super-joint, and one that will carry Luc the Driver up mountains and down valleys again like a young deer at a trot. Let’s hope my old creaking joints will manage to keep up.