"Herald, read the accusation!"

I'm just back from a stroll over nightly campus to collect a book from temporary reserve (only to be borrowed from 8.20pm until 10 tomorrow morning, so I'll have to hurry up). I've never seen so much light pollution in my life, but God, isn't it stunning. Of course, I din't bring my camera, so I can't share this experience... perhaps some other night.

But let us continue our story.

Surrounded by British cars we entered the ferry, cheerfully named Pride of Kent or something along those lines. No French to be seen. (Either you must be crazy to change France for England, or the French are even less adventurous than the English. Possibly both. But please don't let me be misunderstood: I did come here of my own free will. Draw your conclusions.) Fourth floor, red stairs. Or something similar. After long deliberations about the indispensibility of certain nutrimental and communicational articles during our stay in this hazardous place, we mounted the stairway, to find our passage obstructed by some painstakingly placed CAUTION DO NOT ENTER barricade tape (to be purchased from www.lindensafety.com). Followed by my first offence against English law (which seems to be rather more flexible than Dutch law, but that might not apply to its enforcers. But I'm not an expert.). For all you predators: I'll tell about the other cases of offence next week, if everything will have turned out well...

So we sneaked into the Horizon Lounge. A horizon was indeed what we got. The lounge was filled with disconsolate British (clearly married) couples silently staring at the horizon or thereabouts. We ate a banana, ordered a coffee (I was surprised to find our boat only employed native English speakers - perhaps all those French I missed were in fact travelling with a French(speaking) company? Everything suddenly started to make much more sense); we made ourselves suspicious by talking and laughing and looking happy in general, and then decided to go and see whether we could find some place more suitable. We passed the bureau de change - but we had no money to change. We passed the ballenbak, but we had not toddlers to dispose of. We passed the sad arcade hall - again, no money. We passed the even sadder Designated Area - but even Harry's appetite vanished by the smell of it. We passed the drinkers, the dancers, the sleepers. And finally, after taking many stairs and tracing many untraceable signs, we found a place to stay.

You know the place. It's where the cool people go. It's where you would go. It's where the wind takes your shawl. It's where you are blinded by the light when you travel West and it's morning. It's where seagulls eat your chips. It's where your lips taste salty. It's where taking an hour's ferry to the other side of a narrow is an adventure. It's where you go to await Your New Life in style.

En o o o wat is die Zee toch mooi. Wie gut sie riecht. Et oh lala les roches de Dover! Comme elles sont blanches, comme elles sont claires.

Just before we entered the harbour a small boat treated us to an impressive show of water squirting at least forty feet up in the air, creating a shifting pattern of broken and reflected light. No doubt its crew had some perfectly practical and unromantic reason to do so (although it seems to me a funny sort of way of cleaning your keel), but to us journeyers it was sheer spectacle. I was sorry to leave the boat.