Gosh, what can I say. Talk about lucky with the weather. If today’s weather had been anywhere important to the trip it would have been a wash out. I think we are getting a taste of Amy! It started very, very wet from Bremen to the Dutch border and from there two things changed. We got occasional sunny periods and the wind built and built until I nearly got blown over in Noordwyk. It was just under 300 miles and with all day and a bit of evening it did allow a couple of diversions for a little sight seeing. The route was taking me by Groningen and after a check to see if it was worth a visit the answer was not really but lo and behold there are adjacent historic Poldenmolen. They are wind pumps used to manage water level on the polders. Windmills to you and I. There were three within a couple of kilometres and I even saw the first one briefly in sunshine. The other diversion was to Noordwyk where I have spent a few evenings at the Het Hot Van Holland, a restaurant with rooms while visiting ESTEC the European Space Agency Technical centre including once to present a paper at an international conference. Visiting there was strange as nothing seemed familiar. Memory fades and it was 25 years ago! On the road I had a couple of musical moments. Not far out of Bremen the road conditions were atrocious which did not seem to deter the drivers of large, mainly German cars from flying along the Autobahn. Bruce Springsteen’s “wreck on the highway” was playing on my music when one of the speedsters nearly replicated the song. A car some way ahead indicated and pulled out to overtake a truck. The speedster flew by me and did not seem to slow down. Suddenly the anchors were on as he closed to what from my range seemed a couple of metres from the back of the overtaking car. As I reached and overtook the truck the BMW was long gone back up to speed. The other moment was a little surreal. One of my favourite all time songs is Cyndi Lauper’s “Sally’s Pigeons”. I don’t really completely get the story but it always makes me melancholy and think back on my childhood. This morning it brought a long buried memory to life. We lived in Elgin Place in Edinburgh and the flat looked over a railway line. My dad had a large chest with a domed top by a window and I remembered sitting on it with Marion Brown who was in my class at primary school watching the trains. The brain is a strange organ for sure and music certainly has the ability to move us. Anyway enough of this lets get on to the photos. The headline and a few below are of the Poldenmolen near Groningen and where they pump the water to. There is nothing usable from the stretch of road to the “Poort of Groningen” where I stopped for a coffee. There are a few on the road below and a photo that demonstrates I was definitely in Holland. I’ll finish with one of the churches and the Het Hof Van Holland in Noordwyk.