Young F was at a friend’s birthday party this afternoon, and on our way back I spotted a rare sight – a hitch-hiker trying to get onto the E40 at the Steenokkerzeel junction. He asked if I could take him to Germany; I offered the next service station which at least is probably an improvement over a semi-rural slip road. He turned out to be hitching home to Lithuania – had started this morning in Dover, got a ferry and by five o’clock was now just east of Brussels, which I bet is a real black hole for hitch-hikers. He should probably make it to Germany this evening – indeed, might even be there by now – and reckoned he would be home in another two days.

It struck me how rare it is to see hitch-hikers these days. Certainly when I was doing it regularly myself, between twenty and twenty-five years ago, there seemed to be a lot of competition; now I guess a combination of increased concerns about crime (from both hitcher and driver) and a general shrivelling of generosity in society has cut down drastically on the numbers. Nice to occasionally do my bit against the trend.