Yes, our first puncture. Albeit in the UK before the Harwich ferry (the surfaces and roads here in NL are already dramatically cleaner and safer).

Sorted in 20 minutes, which is a good augury – and reminder that while for the next three months to Gdansk and back, scenery, history, people, countries, cultures and conversations will be our central experience, none of it will happen without the tech working.

Which includes, here in the basement of old friends Tiffany’s and Greg’s home in Amsterdam, our first overnight stop in mainland Europe, a bedside table of batteries and cabling, for bike, mobiles, Garmin GPS bike computer and Aftershokz headphones (got to keep up with The Archers)..

The tall black ones are Daisy’s two Pendix batteries, each powering us for 60 km or so on the flat, hopefully more when the weather warms up (heavens, it’s been cold – climate change and a newly-meandering jetstream at work.)

And then there are two smaller power banks, the Garmin Edge hiding behind left battery (with thanks to my EMDR Focus colleagues whose 70th birthday gift of cash three years ago financed its purchase), and a UK-plugged extension cable to connect them all up to the mains.

Will be a challenge when we camp, finding a safe space to recharge while we’re asleep in the tent, but this is civilised Europe so all will be well – noting indeed how much tidier, self-confident, at ease with itself the Netherlands, as Europe/EU, already feels after Brexit-blighted Britain.

After taking us round that grassy headland before Orford on Tuesday, Garmin/Google/Ride-with-GPS continued to give us dodgy advice yesterday, telling us there was a bike/pedestrian ferry across from Felixstowe.

There wasn’t, at least not till the summer season, but with help from our batteries on Smart setting rather than Eco, we made it comfortably (via Sutton Hoo and the spectacular Anglo-Saxon royal burial grounds with their king’s helmet) to Harwich in time for the 2300 ferry.

Yesterday Thursday, as post-ferry we cycled the 80 km or so from The Hook, was Kings Day in NL, with everyone out in the national colours and the national flag.

Even down to our waiter, resplendent in Dutch orange with a cake-of-the-day complete with national flag.

Needless to say, Holland is flat, with flowers, natural and agricultural, and overflowing with cyclists – encouraged out onto a beautiful network of well-maintained, helpfully-signposted and welcoming cycle tracks which – yes – put the UK to shame.

So, continuing this log (and getting the hang of how to do it, with both the hard-and software that I have) in the spirit it will continue, thanks for your interest in this crazy journey of ours, and appreciating that a personal account of this kind isn’t every EMDR therapist’s cup of tea, with no hard feelings for those who’ve chosen to unsubscribe.

Our daughter Katharine (who by the way needs her own profile by now on our EMDR Focus website) is keeping things going professionally as we travel, and for those wanting to keep up to date with the EMDR and Attahment-Informed side of things, she and we will be posting appropriately on the blog there.)

Tomorrow Saturday we head out East towards friends in Menden, close to Moehne dam of Dambusters fame – another opportunity perhaps to contrast our post-imperial Brexit-driving British grandiosity with the largely sensible grown-up-ness of our former friends and partners in the EU.