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As we continue to play catch-up, what follows is another excerpt from my journal.

There was a brief moment when I thought that I could parcel all of our experiences since arriving in the Netherlands into a single journal entry devoid of any reference to a specific day. Yet there are some occurrences which seem to demand acknowledgement of their specific context in time if not in place as well. A flexible approach is required, one which seeks to describe the bigger picture but is simultaneously able to accommodate specific entries. Let us start with the bigger picture which, paradoxically, is best illustrated through a specific event or, more accurately, non-event.

Wed., 20 April – Klaus has announced that a Skype video conference call will be held today involving the prospective students for the one-year course and interested individuals. A major announcement is to be made. Cracks appear before the call even gets under way. There is some confusion about the time when it is to start occasioned by an email from the Akedah International (the business through which Klaus provides his training) office announcing the wrong time. Akedah soon clarifies the situation after I bring the matter to their attention.

Our means of communication is limited to mobile phones with the result that internet access is too slow for a Skype audio or video connection, so we have arranged to participate in the video conference while enjoying the hospitality of Karina, another prospective one-year student who lives in the Veluwe district in the middle of the Netherlands, one of the last vestiges of wilderness remaining in the country. Karina and Vicki became friends while attending a number of courses given by Klaus in June and September last year. I am introduced to Karina, who does some catching up with Vicki, and then we settle down with a cup of coffee to participate in the video conference.

If destiny is at work and it is our task to recognise what ours is, then what happens next fills me with a sense of foreboding about the Island-Mountain Education course. There are technical difficulties. People encounter difficulties when trying to join the call. Now and then we hear Klaus talking to an assistant. From time to time he fades away and is replaced by people we recognise in Australia or elsewhere. The only person who seems to have established a video connection is Alexia in New Zealand. At some point it appears that enough voices have been brought together to be able to proceed with an audio conference. We hear Klaus, although there is interference, so it is not possible to follow every word he says. At some point he seems to be saying that the venue for the course has been changed. We are somewhat concerned, as he had assigned such an important role to the venue in his online advertising materials for the course and during his talk to the people who attended the first Body Awareness weekend which we hosted towards the end of November. So we listen more attentively but the call descends into chaos. Klaus’ voice is no more to be heard, just others from around the world. There is an attempt to resort to a chat session but it does not get off the ground.

What did Klaus say? Is there really going to be a change of venue? How will this impact on the course? On us students? On our horses? Will it mean the end of the Island-Mountain Education course which sounded so magical when it was announced and publicised?

Akedah sends out an email to everyone within a few hours: greetings from Klaus. He will send us an email within the next few days.

So what is meant to be?
So here we are the day after the failed conference call in the province of Noord-Brabant very close to Belgium. The big move is not yet over. Anaïs is still to fly over and we need to find a home for her, ourselves and Dubu. Then there is the niggling question of income. We have been torching a hole through our savings and the safe is going to be plundered once we literally start spending a year in Denmark sans earnings. Between now and then we may want to resurrect our business as a ‘working holiday’ and start generating an income again.

And then it happens again: the kind of thing that makes you feel it is all meant to be. Although Dolly generously offers to share her home with us until our departure for Denmark towards the end of August and Agathe is keen to have us share her houseboat and stable our horse at the same equestrian centre that is home to her mare, Ochet, Vicki and I feel an urgent need to pursue our original course of action, which is to find a home for us and Dubu together with Karina and her two cats, one that has equestrian facilities and is big enough to allow us to have Anaïs with us along with Karina’s two horses. This would enable all of us to get to know each other before the course starts and to move to Lyö together when it does.

Horses grazing at Stal De Mierden

If that proves to be impossible to achieve, we want a place of our own either with facilities for Anaïs or, failing that, close enough to an equestrian centre to allow us to spend quality time with her every day. The search for the former, started by Karina while we were still in Australia, has failed to yield a solution, while the latter readily presents itself within a week after our arrival in the form of a cottage in a small bungalow park called Vogelenzang (‘Bird Song’ in English), which is situated at the edge of a readily accessible forest spanning some 3500 hectares and is five minutes away from an equestrian centre known as Stal De Mierden, which has multiple manèges, an indoor arena and large paddocks (by Dutch standards) across the road from another forest crisscrossed by bridle paths and hiking tracks.

Some background information is required to appreciate the significance of this. The Netherlands is a highly regulated country. It needs to be to some extent, if you are to fit 17 million people in a country the size of a couple of Australian sheep stations, although some would argue that it is overly regimented. You do not simply obtain rental accommodation for a lengthy period of time, unless you are a registered resident and no municipality is prepared to register you as such for a period as short as four months. And even if you secure registration, almost no one is prepared to let permanent accommodation for such a short period either. The solution lies in finding a holiday bungalow park offering long-term rentals (although they may not be permanent) and, in our case, finding one close to an equestrian centre with stabling available for Anaïs, and doing so just as the high season starts, a bit like finding a needle in the proverbial haystack, a lesson we are about to have drilled into us when we look destiny in the eye and tell it to shove it.

Tue., 26 April – Fri., 29 April – Vicki and I decide to make another concerted attempt to find accommodation for us and ours, and Karina and hers, in the Veluwe. So we head north for about an hour and a half, which puts us in the centre of the country, check into a bungalow park and start our search. This comes to a screeching halt, when the local Customs office insists that we need to file an application immediately if we are to have any chance of bringing Anaïs into the country without being required to pay import duties and VAT (which would amount to a good few thousand euros). We spend a day buying and installing a printer, and preparing and sending off the paperwork. Not that it matters when it comes to our search. We still manage to track down all potential leads and come up with a net total of nothing. Throw in the rush and the stress of trying to do the impossible in three days, and you have two disgruntled humans returning to the south with their sorry tails between their weary legs vowing that they have learned their lesson.

Agathe (Vicki’s twin), Ron, Andrew and Dubu

Upon our return we collect a used car that we have just bought, a trusty little Ford Focus stationwagon, which is big enough to hold us, Dubu and our luggage. This is the vehicle that must take us to Denmark towards the end of August. Its purchase marks another entanglement with Dutch red tape. Before you can register a vehicle in the Netherlands you need to be a resident registered in a particular municipality. The story is the same: the local municipality refuses to register us as residents even though we hold Dutch passports, because we will only be here for four months. So we can buy a car but we cannot register it in our names. Welcome to the Netherlands, where you can officially be regulated into official non-existence. Officially, we are homeless and have no permanent residence anywhere. Still, we now own a car which Dolly has agreed to register in her name. Bless her soul. We shall endeavour not to incur any fines.

Tomorrow we will drive up to Aalsmeer, famous for its flower market, where we will re-establish contact with more family and friends, something which has been occurring and will occur for a good few weeks to come.

Mon., 2 May – We book the stable, move into the cottage in the Vogelenzang bungalow park and our clients start sending us work almost immediately. Now we have an income and a home for us and our animals. This, it would clearly seem, is definitely meant to be.

Our cottage in the forest. Come and visit us!