In Flanders Field

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I’m up early this morning to grab a quick breakfast before I join the Flander’s Fields trip. I only have 15 minutes, but Nicky has kindly laid on a good spread, albeit without any warm rolls or cooked eggs. I quickly scoff as much as I can, jam a banana in my bag and am half way through my second cup of coffee when Frank arrives.

Frank owns and runs his own tour company taking small groups of tourists, in a people carrier, around the battlefields, cemeteries and memorials of the First World War. I’m his first customer (as he only lives over the road), we go on to pick up a middle aged couple from the midlands; an American couple of a similar age (who keep us waiting); and finally a grandmother with her 13-year-old grandson. Of course we are all scattered across Bruges and Frank demonstrates his incredible knowledge of the city’s tiny street and lanes. Every time we meet stationary traffic we’re off, shooting down a convenient little alleyway.

Eventually we are on our way, with Frank outlining our itinerary for the day. He is also full of really interesting information and gives us a Flemish lesson – or rather a lesson on the written language of the Flemish and Dutch … Netherlands. A few years back it was decided that the Netherlands language had become diluted and flabby. It was cleaned up, revised and updated. New dictionaries were published and everyone had to get used to using a new language. For older people like Frank’s grandmother, it was simply to difficult to adapt to the changes – she was unable to read anything published after the change over date. The strange thing is that Frank seems to think this is perfectly normal and assumes all countries do the same thing from time to time. Perhaps we are the odd ones out. We certainly don’t seem to have the same hang-ups about adding new words to our vocabulary.