The Resurrection of Donna

How Donna Broke the Polish Mafia

Dear friends,

How life swings between extremes!

First I want to say thank you for all the messages of support after my campervan, Donna, was stolen last week. It’s indescribable what solace this brought.

We may not be able to change the circumstances of others, but we can improve them. Even small efforts have impact beyond our understanding. This reminded me how decency is expressed in many little strokes.

Second, I have unbelievable news.

Donna was recovered!

I have to redact the story but here is what I can tell you.

I had placed two Apple Airtags in Donna.

One of these gave me a location before I even reached the police station in Berlin.

This initiated a recovery effort at a cemetery deep in the Polish countryside.

Unfortunately the Polish police came up empty handed.

The thieves found the Airtag and dumped it.

Several days passed.

I lost hope.

Then one evening, late after work, I collapsed on my bed.

Ping.

Location update!

I set Google Maps to “Terrain” and scrolled in.

I check the satellite image.

An icy chill overcomes me.

That’s where she is.

It’s way off-road, behind some warehouses, far from sight.

Call the German Police.

Send the coordinates.

This is where I have to redact; but what I can say is that I receive updates from the ground in operational time:

5.55 am:
”Police surrounding location.”

7.03am:
"Squat team moving in".

8.46am?
A picture of Donna loaded on a Police Rescue Truck!

Wearing her new Polish numberplates.

The thieves never found the second Apple Tag.

After ditching the first tag in the cemetery, the second briefly hit reception and updated.

The Police recover not just Donna but many other stolen vehicles.

And make arrests.

They really shouldn’t have messed with Donna.

I headed to Poland this week to collect her from the village where she was found.

Entering the police station, I spoke to an officer through the iron bars protecting the precinct.

I was told that the officer who could help me was not on duty and that I had to come back at 5am.

I didn’t much fancy sleeping in the same village as the local mafia.

I told him I’d come all the way from Scotland and that any help would be rewarded with a bottle of whiskey.

“Scot-landy?”

“Yes Sir, Scot-landy”

He seemed impressed by this and pottered off to speak with his boss. Soon after I signed the release papers.

I headed another 25 miles up the road and arrived not at a police impound, but a scrapyard.

Ominious.

And closed.

A weathered man with a craggy gait appeared.

We had an animated discussion of which neither of us understood a word.

“Fiat, Fiat Campervan…Germany…Germany!…” I implored.

His eyes squinted - a tell.

“Closed, closed!” he insisted.

We negotiated in the old-fashioned way, each with something the other wants.

And settled on an agreement.

After everything Donna had been through, I figured a few extra dollars to save her from the scrapyard's hydraulic press was well worth it.

He ushered me in, his mood suddenly rather chirmpy.

We wandered through the graveyard of a thousand crushed vehicles.

There she is!

In the last month, Donna had her tires slashed twice, was broken into and vandalized, and then kidnapped to Poland.

But she’d counterpunched.

The radio was gone and stuff had been stripped out. But the engine worked and my new best friend helped me fix on the new numberplates.

I headed back towards Berlin.

Why is she called “Donna”?

Because of the legal secretary in the show “Suits”.

Everything goes through her; the real boss who runs the place.

Donna is fierce, independent and defiant.

She bore the storms of a Scottish winter.

She delivered goods to the Ukraine.

She broke a Polish Crime Syndicate.

Whose next?