After a quick visit to the toilets, mentioned here only for their novelty of having a glass door and consequently free peep show (yes, the security forces in Holland watch every move you make), our heroes sped on, played dodge 'ems with a few coach loads of football supporters, and then stopped to put the cream cake out of its misery, for it had taken quite a beating during the bumpy ride, and was looking rather fragile and shaken.
Although our heroes had no plates, and they had not pinched enough spoons from the previous motorway services, they improvised with sheets of kitchen roll and their fingers, and the excellent cream cake vanished without trace; all this in the middle of an extremely violent snow and hail storm which had suddenly decided to descend on Holland.
They arrived at Vlissingen (Flushing, to you) at one p.m., and, on checking the time of the boat's departure (which was uncertain, as there had been some subtle adjusting of the clocks in Germany during that week, which had confused most of Europe) found that they had more than two and a half hours to kill. So our heroes powered back to town for food and beer, and to rid themselves of their 'Mickey Mouse Money Mark II'.
Pouring from the van, John and Mick headed for the nearest chippie for chips, chicken and yet more sausage. The others decided that something a little classier would be more appropriate for their last evening on the Continent, and chose a pub/café/restaurant further up the road, where they spent a very happy hour trying to convey their orders to the non English (or anything else, for that matter) speaking waitress.
Meanwhile, John and Mick, happily boozing it up just down the road, suddenly realised that nobody had mentioned a time for returning to the van, so they began to take it in turns to walk to the window, to see if anyone had returned. They later discovered the reason for the strange looks on the faces of the other drinkers in the bar, for across the road from the bar was the local bank; obviously the Dutchmen had suspected a bank raid!
The ailing van was pushed into a car park, where the services of a Dutch AA man were appropriated. At first he refused to help, in spite of the documents which Len shoved under his nose. Eventually, after a heated argument in English and Dutch (neither party understanding the other), the van was fixed by adding some water to the battery.