Food! Friends! Flanders!

Hello Blipfriends!
Dolly reporting!  From East Flanders!

If you've been reading our blips from the last two days you will know that Mum has had problems finding food because of it being a holiday yesterday and Sunday before that. I was perfectly happy with two days of McDonalds but Mum seems to have a problem with that!  So...We were very glad to find an open grocery store today!  Mum got quite a stash - how long are we staying, anyway??

(Mum wanted to add an extra photo - she got all excited about finding something she'd never seen before - a vending machine - for BREAD!  Are these common? Not near the shops, just along a normal residential street!  Of course she HAD to try it out!  Even though she had already bought bread!)

As well as grocery shopping we also drove around looking for a VET!!!  Aargh!!  Why?  I feel fine!  It seems that the UK has this funny rule about me having to have a tapeworm pill between 24-120 hours before returning home. (Does MUM need a special pill before they let HER return?? No, I thought not!). Anyway, we found a vet - an amazing vet - in what looked like a space-age building. We've never seen anything like it! After some poking and prodding (was that REALLY necessary?) I was given the pill and now I have a new stamp and signature in my passport!  It's official!   What was REALLY amazing is that the 'pill' wasn't really a pill after all!  It was like a yummy chewy tasty treat. Why can't ALL medicine be like that? The tick treatment I had a few days ago was like that too. (see blip on May 13th) Those scientists are getting SOMETHING right!  

All this driving around looking for food, looking for vets. Thank goodness for our Sat Nav/GPS!  We've driven around in so many circles around Maldegem that we think everyone must be wondering who is that crazy woman and poodle in the English car?  What ARE they looking for??

Anyway, after we got home and had a bit of a rest, Mum said we were going to go for a walk, through the village and along the canal and back to the village.  So off we went!  We met some goats (we can HEAR them from our cottage) who were a bit scared of me, and later we met some cows - they even followed us a bit while we were walking along the canal.  They were a little TOO friendly!  I was glad of the fence!

If you read yesterday's blip, you will know that we are staying in a small wedge shaped area in between two canals - yesterday's picture was from the Leopold Canal to the north. Today we walked along the Schipdonk Canal just south of us. The two canals meet just west of here and run parallel for another 20km to the coast.

These canal bridges are not like anything we see in England!  Even though this bridge is obviously a draw-bridge, we haven't seen ANY boats going down the canals. We wonder why?  Canal boats are big business in the UK. Not for industry anymore but for pleasure boating. (Watch this space for next week's blips!)

The walk was very beautiful - in between the rows of trees. BUT - Mum didn't realise how long the walk would be.  Almost 6km / 4 miles.  Mum!  I'm an old lady!  I'm not sure I can walk that far anymore!!  I was glad when we got 'home'. Looking forward to my bed!