Bubbly Jock and his wee lassie Ali come a visiting.

  
Slideshow Images

Jock and Ali came to stay for a week - before heading off to the South of France (oh the life!). We took a semi-organised, semi-freeform approach to their visit, which resulted in a fair bit of gadding about. They did the obligatory wander around Grand Place and checked out Mannekin Pis, who was all kitted up. We did a day trip to the trappiste monastery in the south, which makes Jock's favourite beer, Chimay. Next day was a day trip to Antwerp (Jamie and my first visit also). We opted for the scenic harbour cruise, for which 'pissweak' is far too nice a description.

Sunday we headed off on our BIG trip out west. We first stopped off in Brugge, had some lunch, perused the markets, and meandered around town. Then, at my insistence, headed to the coast. We hadn't been there yet, and had heard pretty average reports, but wanted to see for ourselves. All-in-all a pretty unattractive coast. From there we headed towards our lodgings for the night. We had booked in to a b&b which was the old brewmasters house, on the grounds of the St Bernardus brewery. Absolutely lovely place. The kind host booked us in at a local restaurant for dinner, and also encouraged us to sample some of the breweries beers from the bar fridge on our return (when she would have retired). Ali and I went to bed around midnightish (?). Ali went Jockhunting around 430, and found the two naughty boys still at it - trying to 'beat the brewery'. They did win, but were not as shamefaced at breakfast as I thought they should be! : - )

The other b&b guest must have been important in some way, as he was to be given a tour of the brewery, and we were lucky enough to be able to tag along. Very interesting, and the brewmaster wasn't bad either (Ali noticed that). The plan for Monday was to go to the Westvlederen trappiste monastery nearby and buy some of their beer, which is supposedly 'the best', and is also only available from there. Unfortunately, only 1 of the 3 that they produce was available. So we bought as much of that as we could (6pp). Great little road trip.

so now we have to get ourselves organised for a visit to their abode in Glasgow!