On our spare day in Canterbury the good old British weather did it’s best to give us a send off. It was only 6°C and it rained on and off, all day long. Sarah has come down with the nasty cold I had a week ago and so she didn’t feel like exploring. Fair enough. We met as students in Canterbury 44 years ago, so she’s seen plenty of the city.

I nipped in on the Park and Ride bus which comes with the £4 a night charge at the Canterbury aire and mooched around, bemoaning the fact that our visits to Canterbury are nearly always in early spring and it is inevitably freezing.

I had not been into the Cathedral for years and so stumped up the entrance fee only to find that the guided tours, which I had been looking forward to, had already finished for the day. I had a wander around, and although the architecture does not, in my opinion, match some other medieval Cathedrals, such as Durham, Ely and Lincoln, to name but three, it is enormous in scale and has special significance as the mother church for all Anglicans.

There is much debate in the UK at the moment about how the country should confront its colonial past. Not least what to do with all the memorials to empire. Canterbury Cathedral has a big problem in this respect in that there are dozens of memorials to men (they mostly are men) who gave their lives in service of their country in various parts of the globe.

The next morning we were up bright and early(ish) to get the Eurotunnel to France. For the first time (thanks Brexit), Skye had to show documents to be allowed out of the country, but other than that our crossing was smooth. We immediately drove the one and a half hours to Bruges and settled in on one of the best, and most expensive, aires on which we have ever stayed. It is €25, but for that we get free electricity and a beautifully maintained area, with dividing hedges, a children’s playground and more.

Sarah was still under the weather so I took Skye for a minor exploration, not least to scout out possible locations for having a Belgian beer later on. By the evening Sarah was feeling a bit better and so we returned to a previously investigated restaurant. The evening was surprisingly warm and so we sat outside and had a light meal and a couple beers. Once I had finished my draft beer I asked for a recommendation for a small bottled beer in which Belgium excels. The waitress brought me two to choose from: a 9% alcohol or a lower 8% alcohol beer. I, of course, went for the healthy low alcohol variety!

Today we first trekked off to the Belgian vet who was going to provide Skye with a European Pet Passport. The process was painless, for Sarah and I at least. Skye was none too impressed with the rabies vaccination. So now, for anyone who asks, Skye is a Citizen of Europe. An option, unfortunately, not available to Sarah or I. What I would give to get all my rights back in exchange for an injection!

For the rest of the day we moseyed around Bruges, which have visited several times before. It’s a beautiful city, full of canals and brick gothic buildings. The Grote Markt (town square) is usually a highlight with its magnificent town hall, but today it was full of scaffolding and barriers as Bruges gears up for a marathon this weekend. We still sat at one of the numerous cafés around the square and had a leisurely coffee.

Tomorrow we go to Brussels to visit my brother and his family. We hope to be there until next Monday morning, when we will start our long trek south.