There is an Abingdonstraat in Sint Niklaas, just as there is Sint Niklaas Close in Abingdon.

Sint Niklaas is about twice as big as Abingdon and is expanding with new fairly large estates planned round the outtskirts of town. There is a rule that 20% of the housing in new estates need to be for social housing. That is similar to the Vale.

The big industry in this area was cloth making. Now no more. The town museum has been built alongside an old textile factory, so this factory with dummys instead of work people is entered from the town museum.

In the Oxfam tent at the Christmas Market a group of middle aged women called The Bitchin’ Bitches – or something similar – provided some interesting entertainment. They were very funny to watch , and we were told afterwards we had missed a lot of the jokes as it was the language.

There is a group in Sint Niklaas called ‘Art in The Town’ who pay subscriptions and every second year have enough to buy a new work of art for the town streets. They argued that not enough people went to the art galleries so they would take art to the people. The Vale also asks developers to finance new art with most new developments.

We were told that this is the best beer in the world. Westbleteren is produced by monks and they only sell it at the gate if you pre-order, and they only allow a maximum of a couple of crates per customer. One of our hosts drives for an hour and a half to get a couple of crates.