In the final couple of hours before I get on the Saturday night ferry into Easter Day from Harwich to Hook of Holland, I bid farewell to England for the next six months with images of the most beautiful Cambridgeshire and Suffolk countryside and villages, reminding me why I so love this country and living here.

Loving also the serendipity of long-distance cycling. You’re bowling gently along, musing about memory and family and how often to blog and how  (relatively) well the neck and the knees are doing, when – WHAM, BANG – there’s Flatford Mill just a mile off to the right.

Cycling is like that – you never know what’s going to happen next. An upturned Cessna. Stumbling completely unexpectedly across the view that inspired the Constable painting that captures as well as any other that old England that was still within grasp as I grew up not far to the north of here, in Norfolk

Last hours in England therefore sitting in a very loud but friendly working men’s pub (with WiFi – another moment of serendipity) a couple of hundred yards from the ferry terminal, having negotiated cycle tracks today (60 easy miles at an average of 10mph, which looks like my standard speed as I get rapidly and pleasantly fitter) that make me VERY much look forward to Dutch cycling superhighways tomorrow.

A couple of points today before I go.

While not blogging here every day, I will aim to keep relevant observations and pictures rolling a little more frequently on the Twitter feed, which you can follow on right hand side of these pages.

So, onwards. Feeling a tad melancholy at this moment, but it will pass. A big trip, and a long time away.

Stay well, friends.