Who let the dog out?

A big surprise was in store for me this morning. The hotel in Felixstowe was actually around 45 minutes from the port of Harwich and not 14 as I thought. I guess if you were to swim it might be 14 minutes but, given it’s on a peninsular, you have to drive back and around to get there.

Of course, this meant an early start in order to get to the port in time for check in. Fortunately, the very loud dog barking a few rooms away, ensured that everyone woke up as we left.

Given it was a Sunday morning and there were no traffic works, we made it easily and joined the thousands of caravans also making the trip across the north sea.

And the ferry was really crowded. There was one family living under the stairs, it was so bad.

During the crossing there were more announcements than we’re used to hearing.

There was the escape from a kennel announcement, alerting the owner that it was loose. Sadly it wasn’t in the ship, just the room where the kennels are.

Then there were the pair of children who were presumably running round the ship. And lots of announcements for people to report to the front desk. The journey is very different this time of year.

Oh, and Emma disgraced herself on the ferry yet again by pissing on the carpet in a corridor while we were headed for the dog toilet. I don’t think anyone saw it.

When we arrived at the Hook of Holland there was another ferry in the dock. In yet another announcement we were told that due to a technical error, the ferry had to do a u-turn in the harbour. This caused a delay of many minutes. The error was never explained.

There were long queues at passport control, mostly containing caravans. But, after a cheery chat with the passport guy who complimented my beard and congratulated us on having Swedish residency, we were off and on the road to Hengelo.

We checked into the marvelous Valk Hotel and collapsed. We recovered long enough to go for a drink in the bar but then, back in the room we collapsed again.

Tomorrow, Germany.