July 25, 2026

 Saturday. Left at 9:51. Nikor. Sunny, warm--not hot. Moderate winds out of the south/southwest. Clear skies, just some white brush strokes on the horizon. Koningsweg to Vechten and Achterdijk. There, and alongside the Hollendewagenweg thriving wildflower borders. The rest of the fields and of nature pretty dry. People out, but not too many. Getting out of the saddle still a bit sensitive, but parts in the big ring without issues. Dwarsdijk and Kapellenweg (apples or pears on the trees). Lek fairly peaceful, no barges. The areas between the breakwaters beginning to fall dry. Beatrixsluis, Plofsluis, Jutphaase brug, and Merwedekanaal back into town and Møs. The drought intensifies, but this time there were many barges tied to shore along the Sluispad. Perhaps that by now for many of them more and more waterways, such as the Lek, have become too shallow to navigate profitably. In the paper (AD, but de Volkskrant will return, they said) a report on how the Russian government is forcing companies and universities (well east of Moscow) to supply a certain number of recruits for the military every month. This among other forced recruitment tactics. Not much those poor people can do against the police state, but the police state is being hit where it hurts on a regular basis now. Unfortunately, Brussels has allowed Greece to support Ukraine rhetorically while protecting the bottom line of one of its influential shipping tycoons. To say that country, and several other EU members, have a credibility problem would be an understatement.