Arrival in Belgium

I am writing this in our hotel in Mons on the first leg of our holiday in Belgium and France. We visited this area nine years ago with Ally and Davie and decided to return this year because it is the hundredth anniversary of the end of the First World War and also, sadly, the hundredth anniversary of the death of James’ Great Uncle Hugh. He died on 4th October 1918, just over a month before the end of the war. He was only twenty-three years old. Heather and Ewan are with us this time and we will also be visiting the Tynecot cemetery where the name of one of Heather’s relatives, Neil Chisholm, is on the memorial. He died in 1917 and was also aged twenty-three.
The hotel is nice and I’m glad that we have arrived safely after a rather difficult journey (for me!) I stupidly left my passport in the toilet at Edinburgh Airport and had to dash back to find it. However it wasn’t there, and just as I was asking the staff in the nearby Wetherspoon’s if anyone had seen it, I heard my name being paged - it had been handed in at the the gate where we were to board. I had got such a fright and had to run quite a distance to try to find it and I felt very upset, which must have been obvious as I ran back to join the others and apologised profusely. Luckily we were still in good time for our flight, the passengers were still boarding and there was plenty of room for our small cases in the overhead lockers. I cried quietly during the first part of the flight. As the saying goes "Laugh and the world laughs with you, cry and you cry alone." I have spent a lot of time comforting others and reassuring them if they make a mistake; this was certainly not reciprocated today! Perhaps because I was still upset, I stumbled badly as we got off the flight and if James hadn’t caught me I would have gone right down. Not the best plane journey that I have ever had!
However after a bit of a wait for our hired car, the half hour drive to the hotel went smoothly; the roads were nice and quiet and the others helped me by navigating as I drove. I’m so tired.