When you wished you'd bought a zebra...

May 21, 2025

But the best you could find was a horse...

It's not that simple to get a zebra even if your heart is set on one

LISA CAME OVER to see us this morning, us and a cycling couple from Edinburgh who’d joined us later in the day. In fact we had chatted last night, we and Lisa, as we sat in a shed of beautifully restored tractors that serves as a soft-drinks bar.

“I used to be an occupational therapist”, she’d said, “with children with difficulties or a troubled background.” She went as far as working with them in Uganda, children whose parents were prostitutes or drug addicts.

“I wanted to go to Africa and to somewhere that spoke English rather than French, but even then it took a couple of weeks to get used to the accent.”

It was back in Holland when she met her future husband – at a joke pole-dancing competition in which he was a contender – that she moved to his family farm. And it was there, not being a farmer, that she opened a campsite - just a field with simple amenities.

“I tried it last year just to see if it would work”, she said. She’s in her early 30s, with children and a lithe way of walking that hints at lots of dancing or gymnastics. The site, now complete, opened earlier this year.

“I feel guilty, though. I felt I was doing something socially useful, something that made the world better. Now I have to see.”

We set off today through endless open fields – it’s hard to remember that this is the most densely populated country in Europe –and with the trip’s first hint of a tailwind. We turned corners, crossed rivers and slowly entered a land of more interest. There aren’t many curiosities – land here, in the countryside and in towns is always for a purpose. But in looking for a venue for sandwiches, we found a chapel out in the countryside and placed beside a small lane.

We went to look. The chapel wasn’t built for that purpose, so far as we could see, but it celebrated Polish and American soldiers who died during the Liberation.

"They gave their lives for our freedom", the panel says

Byron Balk was a 26-year-old Californian who went scouting in or beyond the German lines and never came back. He was probably taken prisoner, said an explanation panel. He was later buried locally.

Teofil Kaczorowski and Michael Turek were Poles who on the first day of the liberation drove into a bomb hole full of water. Their vehicle turned and trapped them and they drowned.

I’m not interested in the weapons and battles of war but I find the plight of ordinary people, civilians and soldiers alike, deeply touching. Theirs is a history we can almost touch. One day, I hope, distance will allow us similar stories from the German ranks, of other humans who doubtless didn’t want to be there either.

With some difficulty, and after retracing because one campsite hadn’t been there for years despite what the tourist board says (“The owner went abroad years ago”, the former neighbour told us), we have put up our tent on the largest campsite of our trip, at Hank.

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