Phew what a scorcher! It’s official, the hottest and driest Summer since the drought of 1976, which as we are old folk, we remember well. The croquet lawn has been like the Serengeti, and most plants are either droopy or crispy but as we head into the Bank Holiday the heavens are finally opening. It’s been great weather for ice cream!

Gimme all your…..frites!

Neil had the idea that Brussels would be a good place to spend a couple of days.  He went there a lot on business and the last time we were there was for his 50^th birthday…..which was quite some time ago…………..  There was another reason and that was to see some live music from one of the all time greats, ZZ Top.  Travel times we’re difficult to fit in with our other ‘stuff’ so we used Avios to fly out with BA and used Eurostar to come back by train.

We did our bits of sightseeing and, as it would be rude not to, trying out a few Belgian Beers.

The venue for ZZ Top was Forest National which was fairly easy to get to by tram and a gentle walk through the suburbs. We planned to have some food before but the place we booked turned out to be a bit of a dud and we eventually found ourselves outside the stadium with hundreds of other ZZ fans drinking beer and eating surprisingly good pizza.

Once we got into the stadium, we realised that we didn’t have allocated seating, just seats in a zone which turned out to be fine, however, once the warm up band came on we quickly realised that the sound was poor and we couldn’t really hear her singing.  By then it was clear that the air handling system wasn’t even poor, it was dreadful.  Neil was leaking profusely but that brought a cloud with a silver lining – lots of beer.  To be fair, we were in the middle of an unprecedented European heatwave. Then the band came on and the sound system continued to disappoint but they gave a great performance.

On our last evening we met up with Andrea from our wine group and Twinning Association.  She spent around 20 years living and working in Brussels and happened to be visiting friends at the same time.  All those years ago we thought we had found the bars to be ‘discovered’ but Andrea and her long-time friend and husband took us to some very unassuming bars as well as old favourites that had a great history and décor.  Thank you very much.

Well, all in, we had a great weekend, superb weather, good sightseeing, copious amounts of different beers, moule and frites by the bucket load, great company and we did see a legendary band before they all meet their maker.

Sun Sun Sun

Time for visits from old friends Ian from our Couch Surfing days and Chris & Viv our friends from Sydney. Great days out on the tram and walking the coast paths.

Birthday Boy

August is that special time for Neil and this year we decided to get away, taking flights which we said we would never do in August.  We booked a river cruise with Saga, aggghhh yes we know, Saga, wheelchairs and zimmers!  We can’t be old enough, we hear you say! Well, we’re a long way past 50, and the walking holiday we did with them was great so thought that we would give it a go. If it turned out to be a disaster, it is fully inclusive so we could just spend the cruise in the bar annoying all the wrinklies. 

However, as we were having an unprecedentedly hot and dry summer, we anticipated our cruise may be cancelled or amended and we got a call a few days before departure.  Instead, of going west to east on The Moselle and The Rhine we were offered a week on the River Main. Our options were cancel and get a refund or accept the changes with a 20% discount. The compromise was that as the changes were last minute the excursions were limited to mainly city walks with guides.

Day 1 – Fly to Frankfurt & Transfer to Werzberg to board the boat. What we didn’t expect was the rave at the quayside venue directly opposite the boat – we joined in from the deck!

Day 2 Visit to The Residence Palace & City Tour – here we had a young and extremely funny German guide who educated us on German sayings, and about Bridching – drinking wine on the old stone bridge and judging passers by.

It was also the Big Day with dinner in the speciality restaurant. Yes – he had to wear the banner all day!

Day 3 – Wertheim, a small picturesque town with another excellent guide with many tales of his life in the town.

Day 4 – Morning visit to Mespelbrun a small castle in the forest. This was a new excursion for SAGA and hopefully won’t become part of their normal itinerary. It was a rainy day and the interior was gloomy and depressing. Rooms full of weapons, sad looking family portraits, hunting pictures of animals being ripped apart by dogs and a creepy room with black walls, plates and samurai warriors which would have been an ideal set for an episode of The Traitors. Luckily for you we were not allowed to photograph the interior.

Day 5 Miltenburg – back to Hansel & Gretel architecture. Another hilarious guide who filled us in on what we needed to know about Bavaria and Wallonians, and the rules of German gossip. A beautiful town tour and castle ruins.

Day 6 Aschaffenberg – Much larger town and this time a very dull guide.

Scenic cruising on the way to Frankfurt

Day 7 – Frankfurt. Great mooring right in the heart of town and another fun guide for a morning city tour. The old town was fascinating as most of it was bombed out and has been rebuilt and restored to create a new ‘old town’.

Overall we had a great time. The ship was only a year old and beautifully appointed, the food was exceptional and the evening entertainment was much better than expected.

Once we had ‘negotiated’ what was and was not fully inclusive on the drinks package we had several party nights.  We also drifted towards a great social group and all we can say is that it was good that nobody was driving on the morning we left the boat!

Back to The Future

Back home we had a couple of days to prepare for Neil’s surgery on the issue with his back.  It’s weird, he can walk for the world, we love to dance but there is one of his favourite pastimes that he is struggling with – standing at the bar, or anywhere else for that matter.  Standing or just shuffling along is a recipe for pain.

He had decompressions on vertebrae 3,4 and 5 plus a fusion of 4 and 5. It’s less than a week and he still has the staples (stitches) which will be removed in 5 days.  He’s finding it tough; the pain is light but constant and the meds are giving him heavy sweats at night.  We just hope that it will be pain and gain – not an experience to be relived.

Sadly, we must report that Neil’s brother Bill had a stroke a few weeks ago.  He is making good progress and is waiting to get into a specialist stroke rehab centre rather than an NHS hospital.  On the bright side, he hasn’t lost his wicked sense of humour which does seem to get him into trouble sometimes with the staff.

And Finally – a word from our sponsors, and the usual disclaimer that we didn’t get any reward for our generous help in giving free help in their quest to become viral………..cheapskates!!