my journey as a civil war novel writer

Saturday 25th april Finally it was the elf weekend. Especially saturday started with glorious sunshine. I was going by public transport with the train letting me down a little by being late so it was already 9.50 when I came to Breukelen station to get the shuttlebus. Huge crowds there, in luck to get sitting room in one of the 3 busses, but it took forever for them to lea ve. Coming to the castle g ate was another shock, the queu even for people with tickets started on the public road and it was another half hour before I was through the gates and only at eleven was I o n the grounds! Glad I will be going by car the second day. First stop were booksignings. Robyn Young who writes about the templars and Adam Greenwood, who writes a bout Robin Hood and faeries. Him I had already 'met' on facebook and he is a really, really nice guy. Also Raven Dane, who writes novels about vampires. I decide d against buying her book already as they are really heavy Trade paperbacks, but we ch

We are coming to the end of my holiday. Friday was the last day of sightseeing and we had selected Porthsmouth. Again not too far a drive from Winchester. Here you can see two great historic ships. The first is HMS Victory, Nelson's flagship at Trafalgar. Last time I was here you went in with a guided tour, now it was selfguided. And I remem bered correctly how hard it is on us who are a bit taller. With 1.84 it is not fun. And the poor captain of the boat was 1.93. While would anyone of that length want to enter the navy of that time is beyond me. We all enjoyed the tour very much and after this one we went to the Mary Rose museum. She is a Tudor royal ship, named after Henry VIII's favorite sister. There is about half of the ship left and it is still being sprayed with a solution to save her. Amazing that it sunk almost 500 years ago. This year in September she will be dry and then they will preserve her and build a new museum that will open in 2012. I do want to come bac

Decided to write another one today so it won't take too long to finish this. On thursday we stayed in Winchester itself, this is a very old town, capital of the old saxon kingdom and very important still the first years of the norman rule. We started by walking past the guildhall to have a look at King Alfred's statue. The greatest king the saxons ever had, he brought them together and for his time he was a vey lear ned man. Next stop was the cathedral this one was st arted soon after the norman conquest and even before 10 66 there was a saxon church on this site. We were able to join a tour of 50 minutes. A very enthusiastic guide who kep t adding stories and making the tour longer then 50 minutes. We saw Jane Austen's grave, the many stages in build of the cathedral a very worthwhile tour. Next to the cathedral were the ruins of the old bishop's castle. Not much more then ruins remain now, yet it must have been a huge place, these priests certainly did not believe in

Back to total sightseeing today. I wanted the boys to see some of the beautiful ancient monuments Britain has to offer today and we were not located too far away from them. First stop was not exactly my favorite but at least with my british heritage pass I could get in free. Stonehenge is a lot smaller in real life and they still haven't built the tunnel for the A303 which doesn't help. The last factor that detracts are the ropes that keep you well away from the stones. You just have to follow the rest of t he tourists and watch from a distance, it is nice to see but no more then that for me. Stop number two is more my cup of tea. In fact I love the stonecircle at Avebury. Some say it has a feminine feel were Stonehenge feels masculine. Could be, It is also a way bigger circle and you can move freely amongst the st ones and touch them feeling their energy. A lovely place! We had lunch in a local restaurant and then drove on to Silbury hill. This hill is manmade and they still

I had never been to Southampton before, but doing my research beforehand on the internet it seemed like the best option in the area to go shopping, the only town that had all the shops I was looking f or and a few days before I left Borders was kind enough to send me a coupon for 20% off in one of their shops, that offer lasted until tuesday. So that automati cally made tuesday the shopping day. It was only a short drive to Southampton from Winchester and we could park pretty close to the Borders. With three book addicts and a coupon we we re pretty sure we would have to return there after just one shop. And we were right. When the lady at the till saw us coming the first thing she did was ask for backup and open up another one for the customers behind us. It was also heavy and yeah we did need to go back to the car before resuming shopping. Second stop was for clothes. And again I was pretty succesful, came away with some nice tops, in this weather I can alre ady start wearing them!

Waking up on sunday morning was not a nice experience nor did I sleep well that night. The heavy drum obviously did not agree with me. And I did not feel up to going to the field today. So as I promised myself I would listen to my body I told the boys that I would stay at home and to go on without me. I relaxed that morning and around one I was feeling better. As I did want to see the battle but from the civilian side I decided to go to Basingstoke after all. I had already found out by walking the ground that walking to a busstop would be too dangerous. countryroads there are not made f or pedestrians or cyclists. We are so spoiled in the Nethe rlands. Because we had wireless internet I was able to find the phonenumber for a local taxi company and traintimes t o Basingstoke. Ordering the taxi was no problem and the trains ran frequently enough. As I expected it was no problem to find a taxi again at t he station in Basingstoke. So I made it to Basing House with over half an hour to spa

The holiday started on Thursday the 9th of april in the evening. The first stage was Martin picking me up and driving to Belgium to spend the night with Koen. I still wasn't feeling that well and had an emergency fysio session in the afternoon to make sure I had do everything I could. In Belgium we spend the night on airbeds and that was not too uncomfortable. Up early the next day driving to Dunkirk. The sailing was smooth and so was the first part of the drive to Basingstoke. We learnt of a traffic jam on the M3 and decided to take detour on the A3. Of course we missed a few turns and ended up in Basingstoke itself and not the hotel as planned. So we decided to visit our friends at Basing House first. Dru unfortunately was ill, but Robert, Chris and Sarah were there. As they were organising the event they were pretty busy however and we didn't spend too long with them. We promised to be back at ten the next morning and drove to find the hotel. It was an amazing location. Some

Still pretty tired after the trip, so not in a mood to blog. But I will try to do some later in the week. The trip was great, I had so much fun and did a lot.

Just a short scribble to let you all know that I will be on holiday starting tomorrow and getting back late on saturday the 18th. Going to England again, the easter weekend re-enacting at basing house and then a few days of siteseeing and shopping. The pound has lost so much to the euro that it is very interresting at the moment. And I will blog about the highlights when I get back. Just hope that I will feel a bit better then the last couple of days. One big headache since monday and very tired. This is not my best time of year. So hopefully the tension will drop from me when we leave tomorrow evening. It does help that I know my IRO is approved. And I am keeping my dissabilitymoney, they will just subscract my earnings from my disability money. That is great news for me, no pressure! So I had hoped that would help my headache when I heard yesterday but I think the stress was so big that it will take a little longer. :) I have some books with me as well, so expect little reviews when

Yes I really did it this weekend! Both days I went out on the bike and cycled for a bit. I did decide not to start too wild. Both days were 45 minute trips about 10 km. And I made sure I had the windy bit first, at least I did on saturday. After a couple of really nice days it was a lot colder again this weekend. Saturday I started on the dyke to Gouderak. Not as comfortable as I would have liked, no cyclepath and lots of cars. I wasn't sure how to get over the Go uwe here. If there would be a bridge. No pe no bridge but a small ferry. Wha t a nice experience. There was room enough for two cars and a couple of cyclists or pedestrians. The cars had to turn first on a small stretch of road and the go ba ckwards onto the small ferry. I was very glad I was not there by car. Luckily I did have some money on me. Not very expensive though. And then along the other side of the water over a cyclepa th this time back to Gouda. This was nicer as there was a cyclepath and I had the wind at

I have been on the quiet side lately but life feels like a bit of a strugle at the moment. For two weeks now my jaw muscles have been giving me hell. At first I thought it was a toothache but two trips to the dentist confirmed nothing wrong there. Photo's taken and teeth examined, nothing. So.... it is the old devil jaw clenching again! I thought I was dealing with my stress in a constructive method and was really very proud of myself. But deep down having to deal with the UWV to get permission to get back to work slowly has stressed me out. I am so afraid they will take my money away all at once. And dealing with them is such a joy anyway. Takes them 4 weeks to figure out who my contact person is, then they lose the papers the first time we send them. Now I know they have the papers and will decide within the next 2 weeks. Scary! I am left with so much pain that it is hard to sleep and it radiates into headaches half the time as well. Postive in this is that it does motivate me to