Beside the Seaside

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Büsum, Germany

Route: Astrup - Rømø - Rosenkranz - Dagebüll - Husum - Wesselburen - Büsum

It's my birthday. Thanks for all the emails and comments - each and every one is much appreciated. And to everyone who purposefully ignored my saccharine pleadings for cyber greetings - well, thanks to you too for reminding me that at my age birthdays are best forgotten.

I woke up on land owned by my family for generations but have decided not to demand it back. After all, Troels Winter, who moved here in 1470, is my great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-grandfather. 14 generations back - at which stage I (and you) have 16,384 direct ancestors. That makes my claim on the old place feel ever so slightly tenuous. The present owner's family has been here for generations, which the courts may wish to take into account. Also, and decisively, the place has heaps of charm but even bigger heaps of cow dung.

It's quiet, low and remote. The main road lies right on the horizon, so as you look out from the farmhouse you can see the rest of the world passing you by. Sounds romantic; would probably drive me insane eventually. I'm torn between admiring the ancestors who worked this land, and the one who escaped.

A long chat before I left with the owner - Peder Obeling. He has the biggest, ruddiest, most open and genuine smile I've seen in years. There we stood, he with his rusty old bicycle, me with the Bonnie, him speaking only Danish, me speaking only semi-succesful Norwegian, him off to see his cattle, me off to see the world. Lots of differences, lots of similarities. There are three strapping young men on the farm along with Peder and his wife. I thought: "How lucky. A farm family with three sons who all want to stay and work with their parents." But this morning Peder pointed out that the two of them were Russian and the other Ukrainian. Hired help. Peder's wife is German and that's the language he speaks with his farmhands too. He's an interesting man.

Meeting people like Peder reminds me why I'm enjoying this trip so very much.

--

Astrup is close to one of the country's most magnetic holiday destinations. I rode out to the island of Rømø, ten miles away along a thin, fun causeway. Message to all the Copenhageners who own holiday homes out here: they all appear to be standing, and nobody's prowling about. In fact, nobody's there at all except Mogens and Mogens' dog. Mogens lives on the island even when everyone else has left. Mogens was interested in my Astrup story but thought I'd be more interested to hear that he'd been to Edinburgh several times, once when he was an engineering student. He must get lonely out on his island.

I looked up the road, looked down the road and realised there wasn't much left of Denmark. Stopping in one last, delightfully olde worlde town on a fruitless quest for Christmas decorations, I headed for my latest, and easiest, border to date. On the Danish side the village is called Rudbøl; the German half is the more dramatically named Rosenkranz. The border is flagged between two homes. I stopped to take pictures. The sheep grazing by the side of the road looked at me briefly -- clearly, this was unusual behaviour -- before deciding the grass was altogether greener and more interesting.

--

Back into Germany, then. My map was a little unclear: what appeared to be a road straddling the very edge of the sea is actually a cycle path. Would the German police believe the Bonnie is a bicycle? It seemed unlikely. I retreated to the safety of the main road, a firm and trustworthy scarlet on the map, and started looking ahead for a place to stop. My eyes got no further than Büsum. Well, come on.. what's a boy to do? On his birthday? It sounded like a very comfortable place to lay my head etc etc etc.

Here's my comeuppance: Firstly, it started to rain. I was close enough to my destination to get away with it - or so I thought. In other words, I was soaked through (in all the most embarrassing places) by the time I got off the bike.

Oh, and I should have stayed on the bike. Büsum is a resort town but this (and the same could be said for Norwch City) is definitely not its season. Restaurants were closed. Bed & breakfasts were closed. Hotels were closed, except one that smelled too bad to hang around, and this one.. where the speciality of the house is the local crab.. and I hate seafood. When I walked into the restaurant they turned off a CD of old time rock'n'roll (which I love) to play the obligatory Christmas noodlings (which I don't) for my benefit: I was the only guest in the hotel.I 'treated' myself to spag bol and a bottle of the house red, which appeared to be fizzy.

How did it come to this? Last year I was with my whole family, celebrating a raft of special anniversaries. Two years ago I spent my birthday in a castle. Today I'm hiding from crabs.

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