Practically all the way across the Netherlands today: train from Arnhem to Dordrecht, waterbus to Rotterdam and cycling to Vlaardingen, where we are right beside the river. (I’ve given up trying to distinguish between the Maas, the Lek and the Waal. Oh, and the Scheur.) Completely different backdrop to previous riverside stays: Emmerich has only green fields on the other side whereas Vlaardingen has oil refineries. But watching barges float by is the same restful occupation.

The end of the holiday. I suppose I ought to have seen enough to offer a few insights, but I’m not sure they’re worth anything.

There are staff shortages: every shop, every back of loo door, every van invites you to come and work for them. Hotel room cleaning during a multi-day stay is unusual. The hotel in Meppen used a robot vacuum cleaner, which politely stopped to let us pass in the corridor.

I may as well use machines to buy train tickets: I can’t make a worse job than trained staff. The tickets I bought in the ticket office for today’s train journey were the wrong kind. Fortunately the guard let us off: it was obviously an unwitting mistake. (He wasn’t so sympathetic to the young brown man who was attempting to travel on yesterday’s ticket and turfed him off at the next station. I wondered how to interpret this. Ageing white people are seen as making honest mistakes but young brown migrants are seen as trying to pull a fast one?)

I’m fitter now than a fortnight ago, but mounting and dismounting my bicycle is not as effortless as it once was (sigh).