Oh dear what can the matter be?

To paraphrase the old folk song/children’s rhyme:

Oh dear what can the matter be

Kerriann is locked in the lavatory

She’s been there from Monday to Saturday (well it seemed like a long time)

Nobody knew she was there.

I can now tick ‘being locked in a toilet stall in a public place’ off my list.

The day started well and I was actually thinking that it would be a bit of a quite blog day. The motorway via Rotterdam was a little challenging to say the least – it makes Spaghetti junction look rather straight by comparison so I would recommend avoiding it if possible. To assist our recovery from the stressful journey we decided to have a quick stopover at a garden centre.

‘I’ll just have a quick slash while I’m here’ I thought and left Mr Fluffy perusing the hose pipes while I popped off to the loo. I noticed a ‘DEFUNKT’ sign on one of the doors so went in to the next loo and locked the door. As I tried to exit the stall the nightmare began…no amount of turning of handle or lock would get the door to open so I proceeded to knock loudly on the door yelling ‘Graham’ in a ‘not very frenzied at all’ screech. As Graham is totally deaf to high pitched noises (he has no trouble hearing farts though) I imagined him wandering around for hours wondering what the hell I was doing in the loo.

Happily, after several minutes of barely contained panic, I heard some dulcet Dutch tones issuing instructions to me in a totally incomprehensible language and a familiar chortle emanating from Mr Fluffy who had come over to check out what all the fuss was about. After much banging with hammers and removing of door furniture it still would not budge and I thought I’d be there for hours, but around twenty minutes later the door was yanked off its hinges and I was liberated to the sight of two very apologetic Dutchmen, a couple of ladies who were there to see the outcome, and a broadly smiling Mr Fluffy, camera phone at the ready, snapping away at the whole incident.

out come the hinge pins

last resort - a big crowbar!

Phew!

It was totally hilarious and the chaps said ‘This has never happened before’. Typical!

We are now at a rather gorgeous campsite at Bloemandaal aan Zee called De Lakens. It is 21 euros a night but tomorrow, as it’s holiday season, it goes up to 64 euros so we will be moving on. It’s a shame as it would be great to stay longer, it’s right near the beach and some lovely bars on the front. It’s absolutely pouring down outside now so we’ve got the tele on and are feeling rather cozy in Dickie. Heading further north tomorrow.