Babette? Who the f*ck is Babette?

Ready to hear me b*tch about phantom pain, hurting prosthetics or emotional days?

HELL NO, NOT TODAY.

Because even though it may not seem like it, we also try our best to do fun things and enjoy life as much as we can. We didn’t survive that stupid accident for nothing after all. So let me tell you what dream of mine came true lately.

It all started with toddler twins Tina and Tara, who spent most part of our summer holidays in the South of France, on a campsite in our very own caravan. That caravan stayed there all year round on the same campsite, so after a few years, the whole town knew the white blond twins from Belgium. We headed there every year by car, and were often accompanied by our grandmother and aunt, or friends of our dad.

Countless unforgettable memories were made there, and I always get a warm, nostalgic feeling when I think about those summer days long time ago.

But, as often happens when cute children become annoying teenagers, me and Tara went there less and less on family vacations until we returned only occasionally for a week or two in our twenties. Nevertheless, camping in a caravan was something I thoroughly liked, and the idea of traveling around with a caravan one day, became one of my many dreams. Once in a while, mostly around summer, that dream popped up again and made me start searching for one. But due to lack of knowledge and skills, I always postponed buying one.

Luckily I ended up with a boyfriend even more adventurous than me, and, more importantly, even more determined than me to make my dreams come true. So little by little I tried selling him my idea of traveling with a caravan. Unfortunately he was more fond of camping with a tent. (He has more tents than 5 fervent campers combined) But then the unthinkable happened. I lost a leg.

To be clear: losing a leg doesn’t make camping in a tent impossible. But it does make it complicated as hell. You might have never considered it (why would you?), but getting up from an inflatable mattress with one leg is darn tricky, not to mention getting to a toilet that is often not next to your tent. So Miss Independent right here refused to go camping in a tent in the nearby future. So what did boyfriend Renzo do? That’s right, he started a quest for a caravan!

The search was long, intense, and very frustrating at times. We had to make a checklist of non negotiable things, set a maximum price, and watch out for hidden flaws. Week after week we (read: Renzo) went through all the websites again and again and again to find that one hidden gem. But then it finally happened: we (again: Renzo) succeeded.

So take a look and admire Babette, our own caravan that I named after my first horse. She has everything we need, from a bathroom to a bicycle carrier, from a big bed to a separate seating booth. I am totally and hopelessly in love with her, and we’ll take her for a first trip the last weekend of June. So that gives us a week and a half to still pimp her a bit.

But don’t worry, I’ll keep y’all posted on that!

Conclusion: never give up on any of your dreams, because you never know what chaos life will throw you into, giving you a damn good reason to make them come true after all.

With love,

Little one legged adventurer