Yesterday, as I drove, I spent the afternoon pondering why it’s not obvious from the houses or landscape when Denmark turns into Germany then Germany, The Netherlands. Surely this confuses people? There aren’t many houses around. What happens if you find a restaurant and you and your dog want supper? 🐶🤔

From my observation the houses in this neck of the woods are all of a similar style, either very pointy or else Dutch hat shaped, if you know what I mean.

You KNOW when you’re in Sweden. There’s wood everywhere plus all the road signs are blue and yellow. To be fair in Denmark they’re often red and white but less so closer to the border.

In the UK for example, we start in the far North in Scotland building houses from deceptively-sparkly-yet-extremely demolition-proof granite, this core house-building material weakens to stone in Northern England before turning to some form of paper in London (perfect for little pigs) then back to something more substantial in the far South. You won’t find a house a little pig could blow down in Wales either. Plus those valleys😍! I think you’d have a pretty good idea where you were in the UK from landscape and housing alone.

Perhaps I’m missing the subtleties of the changes as I drive through. Please do enlighten me if you know what I’m missing. It’s very possible.

Although I’ve largely mastered first gear (yey!), second remains irritatingly elusive and third likes to crunch – which I suspect is my lower paw issue. I’ll work on it – so I am still a little distracted by driving although it has improved enormously! Practice makes you slightly better! It’s true 👍

The Sat Nav feels that by now we have built such a relationship that she could play a little joke yesterday. She took us on a pointless detour over some cobbles, just so I had to practice turning around. 😂. She is a card. The cobbles were terrifying but very pretty, I’ll give her that.

I’m very close to the River Elbe here, it’s very pretty indeed and the bridge across it had a wonderful 20 mph speed limit 🥁. Unfortunately, not many people smile. I’ve no idea why, if my house looked like theirs and backed onto a big river, I’d be smiling. Hell, I’m usually smiling at nothing these days.

When we arrived at the hotel here and I reverse parked into a neat space (natch), no-one smiled at Kitty. In fact they glared at her. I think we ‘lowered the tone’ with our cheery bright colours and squeaky dog. I’ll admit that Filou is both cute and extremely irritating but Kitty? Given we had been papped the whole day by passing cars and at the service station (often being filmed as someone dangerously overtook us 😳), I’m left baffled. Her magic is powerless here. Maybe it’s like when they block WiFi with a lead lining. Can you block smiling and good laid-back cheer? If ever there was a job for the Care Bears. This is it.

It sounds like madness when I say I felt the force so strongly I’m delighted we’re on our way to the next hotel today. I know the world is not Care Bear-approved and I do worry about my day to day life from now on. It’s very clear I need people to be kind and friendly and if they’re not I feel the need to fight valiantly for my right to be treated with kindness and friendliness which of course, does not exist.

So I either need a bodyguard, to be banned from interaction with strangers or else I need some emotional weight-training. I’m pretty sure a lot of this is about people ‘not knowing what I’ve been through’ but I suspect most of you feel like that sometimes, maybe all the time! We’re all going through something. Bugger. I’m not sure what the answer to this is.

I used to think that when smiling wasn’t enough, wearing badges would help guide others as to our mental states, maybe colour-coded for ease.

Blue – not only am I safe to be approached, I can offer help or even a hug today!

Purple – I’m holding it together OK but you’re on your own.

Yellow – I’m a bit wobbly, an approach from a Blue-badged person would be welcome but otherwise give me a little space/time/kindness.

Red – Avoid interaction if at all possible. I won’t do anything stupid but I’m upset/emotionally unstable and best left alone.

Pink – I’m a bit broken and wobbly. I have good and bad days. Please be kind and patient and it’s likely to make me feel safer and considered.

Anyway, I hope that catches on and in the meantime here’s a picture of the mysterious Schloß that we weren’t allowed in, or near or probably to look at.

In cheerier news, I can report that the strapping on the inner roof remains intact (hooray hooray) and touch wood, she is ready for the last stretch.

Here’s the map as it stands.

We’ve about 656km left to drive to get home which we’ll do in two stages. The first this afternoon. The ferry is Wednesday overnight. We’ve done around 3,450km by road at this stage. I’ve told the dogs. They just rolled their eyes. I don’t think they believe me about going home, they think we must be on the run, I think Miffy’s done this before in another life. More on my loyal companions in another post.

We’re currently at the vet, they have to have a tapeworm tablet before they go home according to Pet Passport rules. Not the easiest thing to organise on a trip like this but so far, so good. 🐶

Until The Netherlands…x