Goodbyes to Angus's family and an early morning drive down to Harwich for our ferry to The Netherlands. Casual, chatting about what our next months in Scandinavia would hold. We had 30 minutes before the 9am departure so we stopped to let Jella out, trying to persuade her to do a wee before having to spend 5 hours on the boat in a kennel. At some point amidst Angus's increasing anxiety at the approaching departure time and Jella doing not much else other than sniffing road-side crap, I spotted in big fat letters at the bottom of the ticket, 'Check in closes 45 minutes before departure'. FUUUUCK.
We whizzed around the corner and right up to some big barriers, swearing about how in Calais we could drive on up to 5 minutes before the boat left… Fuck. The window of the ticket desk went up and the irritatingly smug man inside told us that there was definitely no way we were getting on the boat and the best he could do was charge us a surcharge and give us a ticket for the next morning.

So we explored through a hole in the fence of an abandoned military base in Harwich, watched the ferry we were supposed to be on chug off into horizon, and ate fish and chips. A quick look inside a pub to ask if Jella was allowed in turned into an impromptu night with the barmaid and her friends, who poured us Fosters for free, shared brownie, and told us about their mate a Harwich local and his hideous acid-throwing incident.