It’s raining when we get up and the forecast for the day is not good. We haven’t had a rest day for a while so we decide to hang around in Meppel and take things easy. There is plenty of boat activity on the canal to watch between our various pastimes of reading, scrapbooking, jigsaws and knitting. Ali goes for a walk during one of the short sunny spells. In the evening we have a roast chicken dinner.

We leave the little island at Musseslkanaal and head south and west towards Meppel. This area of the Netherlands has more woodland and trees than any other part, mostly beech and larch, tinged green by spring buds. The soil is very fine clay and much of it recently tilled. We see a few alpaca but most of the animals are horses, lean thoroughbred types, in large herds. Last night we learned the Omleidingen signs we keep seeing mean 'diversion'. When we reach ...