More singing then ensued further to the front of Grave, at dentist Dick van Kuppevelt's practice, who's a former commando and friend of Jan's. Jan thought it would be a nice idea to go there for a cup of coffee, and so did we. But it turned out that the good man was, at that point in time, nowhere near his practice, but at home. And home, of all places, turned out to be in Gassel.

Double the reason, therefore, to storm the long road from Grave to Beers. This long bit, usually hot, dusty and endless during the Four Day Marches, not only was a pleasant stroll, this time, but it was also wonderfully broken, by the pastime in Dick's garden. He and his wife received us with great hospitality, and we told them stories about us, and played with their two sons.



A cordial goodbye later (during which Dick expressed the possibility of his partaking, shortly, in one of our endeavours) we found ourselves on the road to Beers again. On which, to the joy of the former commandoes, just before we hung a left for Beers, we ran into their so aptly chosen mascot: the donkey, threefoldly present on a lawn by its side.



On entering Beers, then, Henk tried to take me for a ride by, instead of turning left as one should, walking straight on with the folk behind me, and having me turn around because of it. This yielded him a beating and abuse, but once inside the Beers' Arms we nonetheless brotherly posed for a picture in the barroom, normally the salvatory harbour at the end of a long and painful road.



Outside, at the terrace, we then terrorized the waitress, the fellow terracians, and Beers as a whole, by loudly singing and joking. Barend, for instance, sang 'Jezus had genoeg aan wijn' ('Jesus made do with wine', a Dutch cabaret song) with Schelden. And, following a similar joke about sex with pregnant women (Albert, to Jan, after he'd said that he didn't like it: "Oh, well, if you ever run into it again, give me a heads up, because I appreciate it", whereupon Jan said "You like that extra little hand of course, yeah") a joke Jan made under his breath ("There's no cunt as tight as your own paw") was mercilessly spread around Beers by Schelden, loudly going: "Precisely! That's what I always keep saying! There-IS-no-cunt-as-tight-as-your-own-paw!".



When everyone then hid inside his own collar for vicarious shame, Schelden, bewildered, shouted: "Well, it's true, innit?" Weehee. This was followed by a succesful imitation of the half-mongoloid Rambo-at-the-end-of-First-Blood.

And when a long procession of people passed, on its way back from the church-on-the-corner, it took Schelden little time to find out that this was a christening, and to seduce us into singing a loud 'Long may Roy live' for the freshly baptized boy.



The gesture was even appreciated, and so we contentedly set out for the next rest in the Four Day Marches' course: Café De Bond, in Cuijk.

The road there, though it is short, even now, in a non-Four Day Marches period, turned out to seem long, due to its monotonousness. Café De Bond, gorgeously unchanging, turned out to be Café De Bond as usual, where, true to tradition, we stuffed ourselves with croquette rolls and tried to work our way through the supply of rehydraters.



We naturally didn't succeed in this, but it was all very inspiring. So inspiring in fact, that Albert got a splendid idea here, and so made us a proposition. "I know a guy called Dré Driessen, and he appears to run a hotel close to here, I just inquired inside. Shall we walk over there for a bit?" "How far off is that then?" "Mwoah, some ten minutes or so" "...Well okay then".



And so we set off for Dré. We should have known better of course. The road to Dré turned out not to take ten minutes, but at least half an hour. This, thankfully, was not all bad, because at three quarters of the way, we were feasted on whisky by Albert. That he forgot to mention that, the day before, it had been his birthday (with which he had me in a bad way, because, dammit, I'd diligently jotted down all members' birthdays into my agenda, but had nonetheless forgotten this one), marks the man's witty character.



And then the joke became complete, even though he himself had not intended it thusly. For once we reached the Dré-who-ran-the-hotel, and were drinking beer there, he turned out to be the wrong Dré. "Look, Dré, here comes your friend." "Is that my friend? I don't know him at all!" Abundant hilarity. "You must be looking for Dré Driessen, yes? He always comes here, as a patron, but he's not here right now."



The Dré-of-the-hotel did, however, turn out to own a Four Day Marches Cross, with '38' on it, and so couldn't do any wrong with Schelden (for the rest of us, this was already the case, since he sold beer). He therefore had himself photographed with him, Albert and Peter, in order to improperly crank up his own Four Day Marches achievement by way of their combined number of 83 Four Day Marches.

Then, discussion arose about the rest of this leg. For because it was already late, there weren't many willing to complete our original plan, a trek through the Milsbeek Hook via Plasmolen.

Because we would have dinner in Plasmolen, at a Chinese restaurant by repeated request of Marco Neumann's, instead of at the pancake-restaurant-with-the-lovely-waitress there, it was eventually decided that those who wanted to would walk to it, via the ferry at Cuijk, and the others would go there by car, via a combination drive to be conducted by Lydia and Neumann.



No sooner said than done, and so, with Peter, Jan, Albert, Marco van Zijntergen, Ronald, Toon and Bart (the fireman ìs no sissy) I made for Plasmolen marching. Very strange, to have to miss that pontoon bridge, and to instead, but in the same spot, make that crossing on a small ferry boat.

Once in Plasmolen, we swiftly peopled wokrestaurant 'De Chinese Muur' (The Chinese Wall). It's the kind of place where, from different bowls and dishes, you compose your own meal, which you then hand across the counter to a cook, who woks it for you. Not entirely what Neumann had in mind, I reckon.

But tasty, I thought, although there were those among us who felt the food might have been more fresh and varied. Big fun there was too, thankfully: an unfortunate waiter, having his first day on the job today, had the unpleasant experience of accidentally chucking a glass of beer all over Jan, and then a tonic over Mrs. Neumann.



He wasn't to be blamed for that last incident, by the way. Mrs. Neumann namely made an utterly uncontrolled sudden elbowthrusty move backwards, which entirely surprised him. The poor man nonetheless shamedfacedly slinked away homewards, and I seriously wonder wether he has found further employment in Plasmolen.

His girlfriend, waiting too, has though, I'm convinced of it. Until today, I fail to understand why, just before they both left the building, she proceeded to just about sit on my lap and seriously touch me up, but it sure wasn't unpleasant.



Anyway. Following a few quiet rounds of drink, we cheerfully set out back to Haarlem, and all other destinations colouring the Wandelsoc.-list of addresses by now. Nice ending, to a wonderful day, although Toon was right when he complained that there'd been a lot of resting, and not much marching.

Good thing then, that we know this isn't the normal way of things.

To your health gentlemen, excellent walking there. Aken awaits. But now, first: Diekirch.