Perhaps a train-driver's uniform?

Enough of the crouching outside in the hot sun, drilling tiny holes in seashells - where do I think I am, Fiji? So now I'm back inside doing proper work, a story about the lovely Museum of Bags and Purses in Amsterdam for the Herald on Sunday which has today launched its makeover issue with - how did I know this was going to happen? - fewer pages for travel. Sigh.

Anyway, the museum was a little gift for me as I wandered the city centre, criss-crossing canals and leaping out of the way of tunnel-visioned cyclists on appealingly old-fashioned bikes of the sort I can relate to, having grown up in a flat city myself. [Digression: if you're the owner of a bike-tour operation, please consider that middle-aged tourists there to see the sights will not enjoy having to fit their bottoms onto g-string saddles and pedal along bent over racing handlebars, traumatising their cervical vertebrae by twisting their heads up so as to be able to actually see anything more than the patch of road ahead of the front wheel.]

I do love quirky and super-specific museums, and this is one of the best: three floors tracing the history of the handbag, all 500 years of it from a Flemish pouch to a Vivienne Westwood shiny red patent leather number. In between are 4,000 bags of all types made from every imaginable - and some unimaginable - kind of material. Leather, lace, velvet, plastic: yes; even, regrettably, snakeskin, tortoiseshell and stingray. But armadillo? Complete with face and feet? Eel, zebra, horse, shark and lizard? A leopard's head??? It was an education; and like all good lessons, left me with questions, chief amongst which was: What possible kind of outfit would you wear to complement the bag and matching shoes made from toad skin?

Rhymes with 'hamster jam'

No prizes for guessing the location, man. We had to pack our bags and disembark for good this morning, which was rather sad: five days on this lovely boat wasn't anywhere near long enough. We were only just getting into the rhythm of the cruise and now they've chucked us off so the real passengers can move into our suites and settle in for fifteen days all the way down to Budapest, lucky things. It's cruel.

I've just been through the Anne Frank House, only 30 years after my first attempt to visit it. It's a busy attraction, but it still resonates, being in the very house, climbing the same ladder-steep stairs, looking at the pencil marks on the wallpaper where Anne and Margot's heights were recorded. Very serious stuff, but well worth the wait.

And now I'm wandering the streets, crossing canal after canal, leaping out of the way of unstopping cyclists, and realising that my Panorama-stretched stomach isn't going to be satisfied even by two breakfasts. The thing is, apparently, to look for coffee in a cafe, not a Coffee House - you know? Something quite different on offer there.

The final day of a famil is always hard to fill, loomed over by the prospect of that immensely long journey to come. Heigh ho.

Suite as

It's been another of those weeks: stories out in a couple of publications about Queensland and Washington state; stories sold about the West Coast, Amazon and Victoria; working on Western Australia; as well as beginning to focus on next week's crazy flit to Germany for a 5-day cruise along the Rhine, and discussing the itinerary for June/July in the UK.

That's why Germany is a there-and-back, since I'll be in Europe again so soon: though it does seem rather a waste of free flights, with so much richness and variety right there. But the five days will be fun, on the maiden cruise of a fancy suite-only ship, calling in at Gutenberg, Rudesheim and Cologne (Glockengasse Nummer 4711!) and ending up in Amsterdam.

I've only been to Germany once before, to Hamburg, and once to Amsterdam too. That was the last stop on the Big Trip from NZ to Britain: 16 countries in 6 months, flying on 16 different airlines on 26 flights. I kept a diary (in a notebook! Longhand! How untechnological) and the last entry finishes like this -

>> We didn't lose anything, we didn't have anything stolen, and we never misplaced our bags. We saw a lot of places, did a lot of things, spent a lot of money and had a lot of fun. Now we're arriving back at the same time as many other British holidaymakers, and I can imagine being asked where we spent our holiday. We'll reel off the list of exotic names, and end up with Amsterdam. "Amsterdam!" the tourist from Rhyll will say. "The wife and I went there. Did you see Anne Frank's house?" "No," we'll have to say. "Shame, you really missed something there. You should have seen the bookcase..."

Because it was closed. Maybe this time!