Ypres

Walking around the lake in Ypres while
waiting for the rugby to finish!

A wet Monday evening after a lovely long weekend away in Ypres - just the two of us and just what I needed after what has been a relatively stressful few months of decision making. The decision is now made however and on Monday I resigned my job in order to join a new company in January. This will be the same role, but a company that hopefully offers more long term stability than my current one. It's been hard going through the initial round of telling people.Despite only being there for 7 months I've made some good friends and very quickly become established and everybody who I've told has been happy for me but very sad that I'm going - it hasn't made it easy. I do feel like I've been through the mill a bit this year - what with leaving EY, ramping up to a big new role, finding out it probably didn't have the longevity I was looking for and then going through the process of finding something better suited - thank goodness for the fact that I have a strong network and and even stronger family to support me! Anyway,  now it's a case of trying to get some balance in between now and Christmas, before ramping up again. At least I now what I'm doing now and I hope that will stand me in good stead as I go into my new role.

So we left on Friday and had a good run down to the Tunnel. The beauty of choosing Ypres was it's proximity - it's only an hour or so once you get to Calais, and the fact that there is plenty there that Glenn wanted to do. The plan was to go to the Flanders Field museum having not made it there last time, then see what else took our fancy. Of course we also had the rugby world cup to fit in (with an England game of course), so despite Glenn saying it didn't matter and he could always watch it later, I factored this into the plans. On Friday afternoon we had a very late lunch and then a mooch around the town, after which we went back to the lovely apartment we had rented with the intent of watching a bit of the athletics world cup, only for me to fall asleep on the sofa for an hour - probably needed that! We ditched the idea of another meal out and instead had a lovely picnic of fresh bread, cheese and Belgium chocolates - mmmm!

Menin Gate, where so many passed on their way to the Front

On Saturday after a lie in until 8:30 (woo hoo!) I left Glenn to the rugby and went for a beautiful long walk in the sunshine, past the Menin Gate and then around the lake and back into the town. The weather was perfect - mile, dry and just a hint of sunshine - I couldn't have asked for a nicer way to pass the time. I came back in through the small city centre to the sound of the cathedral bells and the end of the Saturday market before heading back to see what the score was. Fortuitously it was a good game so I picked up a very happy husband and we headed out again, this time together, to go to the museum.

Tyne Cot

It is amazingly well done, with some incredible stories of real people, illustrated with videos, interactive displays and extensive memorabilia from the wasteland that was Flanders Fields. I can hardly comprehend the losses - it's estimated 3 million soldiers died, as well as all the civilians who lost their lives as well. This is before the ones who were came home bearing the mental and physical scars.

When you look around the area now you couldn't know what had gone before, other than the many signs which set out bits and pieces of battles, left over shelters or the cemeteries, small and large with many fewer names than there are graves. Ypres itself was bitterly fought over and pretty much razed to the ground. The photos of it post war in the 1919 compared to today are amazing - the whole city, including the Cloth Hall and Cathedral, was painstakingly rebuilt in the 1920s - that must have been such a task.

Saturday afternoon was a walk from Passchendale to Tyne Cot, one of the world's largest Commonwealth War Grave sites. We walked along what was an old railway, through No Mans Land. During the war this would have been the only way to get to the front and was used to bring supplies forward and transport casualties back, the ground around being so churned up by fighting that it was impassable. It's now farmland and so peaceful, yet we saw people metal detecting - even after 100 years the ground is still giving up its history. Apparently the farmers pile anything they find (munitions etc) at the corner of their land and there is an official team that goes round collecting it and making safe anything that looks dangerous - 100 years on! 600,000 men died in the area and while there are many graves, there are nowhere near that number. I guess we walked over more than one person in the small stretch we passed.

It all sounds morbid but it wasn't - it's good to remember and to see first hand where these things took place. I'd like to take the kids but I think they need to be a bit older to try and begin to understand, and to realise these events were not such a long time ago.

After all this it was back to normal and the Sunday evening madness of last minute washing (the bits that got left in the bag of course), homework (apparently Nanny Di is no good at fractions) and lots of cuddles - nice to see we were missed by dogs and children!!