May 27, 2025
Encounters of a strange kind
WHAT MAKES a good day on your bike is rarely the distance covered or the hills surmounted. It’s the people you meet and the small discoveries you make.
It doesn’t sound much but, on an unmade road across fields, we discovered a church. Or what remained of a church.
It pleased us, if only for a chance to sit on a low wall with our sandwiches. This would have been less remarkable had a statue not been marked with blue paint to show that the water would have been up to her armpits had it not been drained.
But one statue wouldn’t be enough. The path turned left and there, waiting for us, was a line of 19th-century figures labelled “Hi, I’m Jan and I’m going to the harbour” and "I am Aleide and I’m going home". I have no idea why. If I had, it would spoil the mystery, wouldn’t it?
To get to these delights demanded an effort that should never be imposed on an innocent couple who wanted no more than a bike ride. Our route took us out beside a long, straight waterway – and straight into the wind. Seemingly for ever. Any wind is bad enough but one that knows neither limit nor obstruction is unreasonable. A stiff letter to the tourist board is called for.
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A last novelty…
Holland, as well as itself being bombed, was on the route to and from Germany. Aircraft that didn’t get shot down on the way out sometimes were on the way back. Or they ran out of fuel, or had one of many other problems.
We’d noticed what looked like red model aeroplanes on poles without realising what they portrayed. It was on our last kilometres to Emmeloord that we understood; they marked where an Allied bomber or fighter had crashed in the war.
More striking still, a metal panel beside our route contained a window. On the window was the image of the plane that had crashed. Looking through it, put the plane in the field into which it fell.
As tributes go, this one was both striking and imaginative.
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