my journey as a civil war novel writer

A bit of a backpost really. But I want to do some blogs about my recent holiday in Normandy and Agincourt. I am going to start with the last weeken d, the one we spend in Agincourt. To be honest there is nothing left of the origin al battlefield. Just one informationtablet and a small monument. It was such a long time ago of course, 1415. And because it was such a huge French defeat , the French don't really flock there. T he museum in the village however is very nicely done. Lot's of information and nice displays. The next day was the day of the reenactments and we made sure we were early as we wanted our car up front as in the evening we had to drive back home. I was amazed at how many Dutch stands there were, but then again it is not that far. The reenactors kept us busy the whole day and that was very nicely done. We also met up with a facebook friend of mine who was on e of the reena ctors and it was very nice meeting him. It gave the day certainly something extra. The ...

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...

Getting ready for another busy day, the last in a row now so I can use wednesday to friday to relax and get ready for the weekend in Belgium. Tonight is kaarsjesavond in Gouda. I will tell you more about it later in the week and share some pics hopefully. Finished reading the english heritage handbook, it was more setting a cross on almost eve ry page about things I would like to see. Hopefully I will get the chance to see some of them next year. Starting a new book tomorrow. Living in the past, a book about historic reenactment. It is about time that I read some more about that. Next year I am probably going to participate in my first. I have of course been a spectator at a few. I also need to read up on the english civil war, a time period that I don't know too much about. It is in April so I had better get a move on! I haven't said anything about my studyday on saturday yet. I was frustrated that I wasn't feeling any better but I did manage to go for most of the day. And...

So last week I talked a little bit about the upcoming trip to Britain. I am really addicted to Britain and the US. And this year I am lucky enough to be able to visit both. Went to the East coast of the US this summer for the Gettysburg reenactments, and thursday ev ening leaving for Britain to see a play with Kenneth Branagh in London. Ivanov at the donmar warehouse. Looking forward to that hugely. I have seen him on stage before but that was more then 20 years ago. On holiday in Denmark I saw him play Hamlet next to castle Kronborg, that was really amazing. But the reviews for this play are pretty good as well. And yes next to books I am a theatre addict. I have seen some pretty great names on the London stage over the years. I am most proud of seeing John Gielgud on stage during the last play he did. That was one of the times I came over especially to see an actor and I never regretted it. Another one of my favorites was Antony and Cleopatra with Judi Dench and Anthony Hopkins. This...