Lost

When I was a child, I knew the name of every street for miles around. I knew the quickest way to get to any given street, by using a network of back alleyways and negotiating the odd fence or wall. My family moved from my childhood home not long after I learnt to drive, and so my navigation skills changed. I no longer had to walk or ride down streets to get somewhere. I could drive from A to B. No problem. Except the older I got, the less I knew about where I was living. Sure, I walked a lot even as a young man, but I took less notice of where I was walking, I didn't look at street names because I was just going from here to there. And then a strange thing began to happen. The less I knew about where I was living, the more people stopped me and asked me for directions. I suppose if you walk a lot this will happen. Law of averages and all that. It even carried on when I arrived in Belgium. In the first year I was here, I would estimate I was being stopped sometimes as much as 3 times a week by people who were lost. It's a great way to meet people, but a bit of a pain having to explain to people that "Ik be een Engelsman en mijn nederlands is niet goed" all the time. We are not far from the border with the Netherlands, so a lot of people would be Dutch and most of the time just looking for the brewery, which is an easy one. I was stopped and asked for directions to the prison, which was strange because we don't have a prison anywhere near the town. One of the last times I was stopped was by a guy driving a car with Slovakian plates on it and he spoke from the start in English. I could have hugged him. I say one of the last times I was stopped because since that first year I have not been asked for directions at all. It's really strange, the better I get to know my way around a place, the less I get asked for directions! I still walk as much as I ever did.
But, Belgium is a strange place. It's set out strangely, I have lost all sense of direction here. If I look at a map of Belgium, I always find myself slightly surprised at where we actually are on the map. The streets are strange here as well. In that first year I was here and I was still on speaking terms with my bike, I decided, in a rare burst of inspiration, that I would explore my surroundings to get to know the area better. I also stupidly thought it was a great idea to take the bike because I could explore so much further than I would normally do on foot. I set out with a basic route in mind, which would take me down some back roads, one of which is in the photo that accompanies this post. I based my route on the idea that if I rode in straight lines, I should end up back where I started. In effect, a square. I rode for an hour before admitting to myself that my plan was hopelessly flawed, the church steeple I had spied and had been using as a target because I thought it was our local church, turned out to be an impostor. I hadn't a clue where I was and decided that discretion was the better part of valour and that if I rode any further I would become even more lost than I already was. I'm not sure if there are levels of being lost, but at that time I was level 2 of 3. I turned round and rode home the way I had come. I managed to get the name of the village from the notice board outside the church and bearing it in mind I made my way home. When I was shown where I had actually ended up on a map I refused to believe it. My square had turned into tetrahedron!