It's quite strange being in a place like Belgium for Armistice Day. I'm used to watching the service at the Cenotaph on tv, or heading into town to watch the parade to the war memorial, but both world wars are so much more... recent here. There's reminders of the war everywhere - plaques in the streets commemorating who died here, who fought there. Edith Cavel hospital. Montgomery roundabout. The street we used to live on was Rue Battionier (Staffenholder) Braffort, after a soldier murdered by collaborators in 1944. We drive past Ypres on the way to the ferry whenever we go back to Britain, and though I say that Dunkirk's not improved any since my grandad last visited in June 1940, its not something we can really imagine.

Someone will no doubt tell you today that in Flanders' fields the poppies grow and it's always sounded to me like an empty quote, resorting to someone else's poetry when you can think of anything to say yourself. They're right though, they do. We see them every time we pass and its a very sobering sight.

One thing that really gets me though - there are over a hundred tiny cemeteries in Belgium, each with under 5 world war soldiers buried in them, and today a member of the British legion will be at each and every one of them laying a poppy. And an hour ago, at 11am, someone did the same at Waterloo battlefield, because today we remember all soldiers no matter when they died. The war is ever present here, but it's never forgotten.