Paul Weller was headlining the festival, and we would have loved to have been able to stay to see him, but this would have left us with no time to see the sights of Amsterdam - an unthinkable option for the boys! Consequently, once Robbie Williams had finished his set, we squeezed into another sardine can for the journey back to Den Haag Centraal Station, and from there cruised back into Amsterdam on a double decker train. Ed met us at Amsterdam Centraal Station as arranged, whereupon we all made an overriding vote to find somewhere to grab some food. Martin R had worked in Amsterdam earlier in the year, so we followed him - rather further than he had remembered - to one of his favourite haunts, a small restaurant that specialised in traditional Dutch food.

"Chris, Sarah and Rob had by this point made their way back to the ferry port in Ostende, where disaster once again caught up with them. Because Rob had not come out with them, Chris had neglected to make the necessary arrangements for him to come back with them. The official on the gate took one look at the three of them, the two names on the ticket and said "Sorry, you can't come on". Eventually, after much heated "debate", the official grudgingly said that he could put them on a hovercraft . . . on standby, from Calais!

The three then had to set off along the coast road for the three-hour drive to Calais. Sarah was furious with Chris, and with Chris giving as good as he was getting, Rob just did his best to bury himself into the back seat and wish he could be anywhere else!

Chris: "The temperature in the car was pretty icy at that point!"

Eventually, they got to Calais, where they found themselves at the tail end of a huge queue of cars also on standby. They then had to sit and watch one hovercraft per hour come in, unload, reload, turn round and disappear, each time taking no more than a couple of cars with them. Seven hours were spent in this way, with the car moving forward about twenty feet with each passing hour, and the temperature within dropping, and dropping, and dropping . . .

Once back in England, Chris cranked up the burners even more than normal (which anyone who has ever driven with him is something pretty high anyway!), and a couple of hours later they were back in Chesham. The ensuing domestic lasted considerably longer . . ."

Or, to quote Rob's original and much more concise review of this section of the report:

"Nightmare. The End"

Back in Amsterdam: Once the group had consumed its seven Dutch meals and one plate of sausage and chips, it was off to locate Amsterdam's most notorious attraction - the red light district! We were once again following Martin R, but his memory and sense of direction seemed to be going from bad to worse, and we spent the next half hour with him going "I know  it was here the last time I came here . . .", and "We'll know it when we see it!". Eventually we found it.

An hour of "window-shopping" was duly spent, with the boys not knowing which way to look next, and Sara complaining that any self-respecting red-light city should also have a blue-light district with men instead of women in the windows. "Paris does", she exclaimed knowledgeably. Eventually, after all the boys had given themselves neckache, we decided to move onto the area's other famous attraction - the coffee shop!

In Maastricht the previous month, Ed had said to his fellow Barbarians that you can always tell that you have a good coffee shop nearby if you come across half a dozen or so dazed tourists slumped in a line at the side of the road. Just follow the line of tourists and the coffee shop should be about fifty yards further on! However, Amsterdam had coffee shops in abundance with no such tell-tale signs to be seen, so we were in the hands of our expert as to which one we should choose. One with a West Indian feel got the team's vote, and we settled down to sample spliffs, with "herbal" tea for the non-smokers. Ed completely embarrassed himself by rolling the worst spliff our untrained eyes had ever seen. Talk about big and lumpy! That's one for the books . . . a Dutchman who can't roll a spliff!

Martin F rather overdid the inhaling bit, and felt unwell very quickly. After that, he just sat rather quietly in the corner, just moaning "oh, noooo . . ." every so often. Nice trip Martin?

Sara, meanwhile, was most disappointed, as after two teas she noticed very little effect. Maybe the tea couldn't cope with the inner lining of vodka! Between cups, some of the ladies ventured out to purchase some items spotted in one of the shops nearby. What they actually bought will remain a mystery, as their bags remained sealed and tightly guarded on their return. However, many of us have our own ideas . . .