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Where's Lemmer? The town of Balk was about three kilometers north. Following signs we headed south to Lemmer. In five kilometers we arrived in Balk! We again headed south again and came to Stolke. Where was Lemmer? It was time for lunch. Lemmer would have to wait. I bought sweet bread and discovered there were actual lumps of sugar in it. The clerk asked me if I had come all the way from England just to buy it. A group of high school kayakers paddled past prompting me to think that would be a neat way to see the old towns. A duck waddled over. I casually threw it some whole wheat bread. A flock gathered but I was out of crumbs. Diminutive black and white birds arrived to beg. One little brown bird flew up to my face and tried to hover. I held out some bread. It flew up to take it, but she couldn't hover at the same time. I felt her tiny feet as she momentarily perched on my finger tips. It tickled my fingers -- and soul. A tot transported a good-natured cat around by its armpits. The cat's four paws stuck straight out -- obviously enjoying itself immensely. The scene reminded me of the cat and the little girl in Tiny Tunes. Asking directions for Lemmer we received conflicting reports. Apparently the locals were just as confused to its whereabouts as we were. We headed in the direction we thought it should be. At a signpost we discovered we were farther away from Lemmer than when we had begun. I carefully followed the bike route's markers to Lemmer and ended up in a town with a concrete sign pointing to Lemmer in the opposite direction. We were five kilometers from where we had started that morning. We were going nowhere fast. Buying a liter of Vanilla ice cream I poured cherry jam on top to drown my sorrows. We turned around and headed back in the direction we came from. I was extra careful to watch for the concrete blobs that marked the way. I found out why they called the route markers "mushrooms". They were low and hidden in the grass. Luckily the scenery was good and the weather fine so we didn't mind meandering around the back lanes. As we passed houses we had passed an hour before people waved and called hello. They must have thought we were locals. On the outskirts of Lemmer we couldn't resist getting "mislocated" once again and ended up on a dead-end with no way across the canal. A bridge was above us. A cyclist stopped and peered over. He pointed that we had to go back and around to get on the road leading to the bridge, over the canal, and into Lemmer. We took a short cut and pushed our bikes up the steep embankment to the bridge. I reached the top as an old woman cycled past. "See?" Sharon said. "When you follow the signs you don't even have to pedal fast." We had passed her back in some meadow half an hour ago. When Sharon went in to buy groceries I took out my book bag to read. I was carrying a small library and thought I had better read some of them so I could dispose of the weight. Turning my front wheel sideways I noticed my tire's sidewall was coming apart. I pretended not to notice the bulge as I let air out to reduce the pressure. I found a bike shop and bought a made in Holland tire with a blackwall and reflective strip: the only twenty-seven inch tire in the shop. I also bought new batteries for my altimeter cycling meter. Strange -- it had gone dead in a country where it didn't have to do any work. Heading out of town I turned sharply, kicked my front fender and broke it in two. Some days. Hordes of bugs were out for an evening fly. I didn't know how people could cycle without glasses. We passed an elderly couple taking a breather beside a route marker. Shouting hello we flew past. Two hundred meters farther we abruptly skidded to a halt and decided to go back and check that marker. Sure enough we were supposed to turn left onto a single-lane crushed-rock cow path. We spoke to the old couple for a couple of minutes. I noticed he had a bug in his eye. "Are you students," he inquired. "No. We're teachers," we replied. "How old are you?" he asked. "Sixteen or seventeen?" His wife elbowed him in the ribs. Maybe it was that bug in his eye? |
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