As usual, I wake up at 4:50. I know there is no point trying to get back to sleep so I read my daily issue of The Times (iPad) edition. I usually read the Comment section for a bit of light relief before the British and World News. By the time I have read the letters page, I can go back to sleep for an hour or so before waking up around 7.

This Saturday, we have nothing planned and both girls are at home. I know it is my duty (which I quite enjoy) to go to the bakers and get breakfast rolls, but I can wallow for an hour or so before I need to move. I quickly do Wordle and then get stuck into the Jumbo Crossword. Ariane‘s telephone suddenly goes „ping“. She reads the text and smiles – I know what‘s coming. Our neighbours are going to the bakers and would we like them to bring us something? We text our mixed order of pretzels, white and whole grain rolls. That‘s another 20 minutes of crossword time for me.

Even though I didn‘t need to go today, I actually quite like to the kick-start my day with a little stroll to the bakers. Supermarkets sell fairly freshly-baked bread these days, but the local baker is such a strong tradition here that there are still plenty of them around. They are generally small regional chains and often don‘t bake from scratch on the premises, but they still feel like bona fide bakers. The last proper bakery (not part of chain, baked everything on the premises) in Schönaich sadly ceased trading when the owners retired a couple of years ago. My daughters still claim that they made the best pretzels ever. Within a 15-minute walking radius, there are 4 bakers for me to choose from, but I do have a favourite. It‘s quite large and always busy – the queue often stretching out through the door. While I am standing in line, I have plenty of time to look at what‘s in stock and formulate my order. There are people behind me and I don‘t want to test their patience. Unfortunately, I am in a minority. Most people (especially old ladies – I am looking at you) get to the counter and then start wondering aloud what they‘d like. They invariably know the staff and also have a chat. I know that this is what „community“ is about and it‘s great that there is a social network outside our phones, but please don‘t do this when I‘m behind you in the queue! At least I have the 10 minute walk back home to calm down.

Anyway, today there is no bakery run needed. Our neighbour hangs a bag of fresh rolls on our door handle and all I have to do is transport it into the kitchen. The sun is shining and it‘s that lovely time of year where the mornings are still cool, but if you are in the sun it‘s just warm enough. I like to make myself a coffee and enjoy the sun on the patio, watching the bees visit and listening to the birds singing in the hedge. But today everyone is up reasonably early so we have breakfast together inside. Still, the patio door is open and we can hear the birds singing. We have the typical German breakfast of various forms of bread roll with butter, cheese and cold cuts. Ariane still puts jam and marmalade on the table, but it usually gets put back away untouched. We‘ll also have some eggs and I like home-made muesli with fruit. I used to love eating toast with orange marmalade (Chivers Olde English Thick Cut please) and although I still enjoy a slice, it has to be in England with a cup of tea. It doesn‘t feel right over here. In Germany, my breakfast drink of choice is a black coffee from our Nespresso machine – much more palatable now that the patent has run out and the price of the capsules has halved.

The idyllic image of gently sipping high-quality espresso, surrounded by spring flora I painted earlier is not exactly accurate. Now the sounds of Saturday morning in German suburbia are in full throng. Traditionally, this is the time of the week when you get essential jobs done. We live on a fairly busy road and the birdsong is soon drowned out by traffic. A hedge-trimmer and a lawn-mower are doing battle in the distance and we‘re also on the Stuttgart airport flight path. Chores are beckoning, so I finally put my coffee cup in the dishwasher and head to the cellar.

In Schönaich, Saturday is „Recycling Day“. This means that I am going to take our carefully sorted household waste to the local tip – which is just up the road. The categories are: Cardboard, Paper, Plastic, Glass, Aluminium, Cans and Tetra-Packs. These are all sorted into plastic boxes we bought at IKEA and get loaded into the car. Then it‘s off to the small recycling centre in the hope that I will get a good parking spot and don‘t have to walk far to the containers. Today I am lucky and find a prime spot. I am done in a couple of minutes and stack the boxes inside each other – feeling pleased with myself. Now that I have been going there for 20 years, I usually know where everything goes but if I am unsure, I know it is better to ask innocently, rather than try to slip an incorrect item past the hawk-eyed staff there. There is a container for plastic, but there’s also one for hard plastic. I once tried to slip a flimsy flowerpot into the hard plastic container and got caught! Lesson learned, I now always defer to the high-vis vested staff, who are pleased to be asked. The grey area between cardboard and paper is another potential minefield. We take our rubbish very seriously in Schönaich.

There is another chore which sometimes falls to me, but after years of my moaning and grumbling, Ariane and Anna usually do it instead: taking the glass bottles, plastic bottles and cans back upon which there is a deposit (which, in Germany, is really everything except wine and fruit-juice). The system works well and all supermarkets have machines into which you can insert the bottles and collect your deposit. Apart from tap-water, I only really drink beer at home which usually comes in a sturdy plastic crate containing 20 bottles. The deposit machines accept the crate full of bottles and this bit is over quickly. The rest of my family tend to produce lots of individual empty drink containers which must be inserted into the machine one-by-one. Whenever I take the empties, there is always a big queue in front of me and the machine usually spits back a few unrecognised bottles. This is extremely frustrating. Especially if you are an impatient idiot. Well, as I said, I don‘t usually get delegated this task any more. Of course, the upside of the deposit scheme is that the verges are not covered in empty plastic bottles and cans. When people visit us here, they usually comment on how clean everything is. Well… cause and effect, I suppose.

By about 11:00 the recycled waste has been ethically disposed of, the deposit bottles have been turned into cash and we are full of breakfast. My neighbour caught me coming back from the tip with empty containers and I thought maybe I had one up on him and he still needed to go. I was wrong, he had been during the week and had so little waste that a Saturday visit was not required – that is really living the dream.

So there you are. That‘s a Saturday morning in Swabian Suburbia.

Keen readers will remember that in 2024 my wife, Ariane, and I completed a 12 day walk in Northern England called the Coast-to-Coast. We both enjoyed it more than we expected and found that we loved multi-day walking and camping. So this year, we decided to do it again. This time we picked a shorter route, which crossed one of our favourite places – the Yorkshire Dales.

The logistics required to tackle this route were easy for us. The start point is only a half-hour drive away from my Dad‘s house and there is a 2-hour rail connection which brings you back to the start once you‘ve completed the trail. I liked the idea of starting in the back garden of where I grew up and gradually easing into the hilly wilderness of the Yorkshire Dales.

I only had one thought: „Whatever you do, don‘t fall over.“ Even though I was concentrating on the task at hand, I was acutely aware of my wider surroundings. It was early December and I was up high on the fells in the Lake District. The wind was blowing from my left at a steady 70 kmh but gusting up to over 100 kmh at times. The temperature was below zero and I had a river to cross via some wobbly stones. Three of my friends were already on the other side. Out of the corner of my eye, I could see that one of them had his camera up to film me in action. I had two walking sticks and plotted the positions my boots would take to carry me across with no drama.

Anybody involved in the modern world of big business will know that companies spend a lot of time defining their „purpose“. It‘s not a bad idea as it helps employees with a myriad of different priorities at least an idea of why the company thinks it has a right to exist. When I started working, the openly declared goals of companies was to increase shareholder value. Now that we seem to be collectively ashamed of capitalism, the explanations needed to become more „nuanced“.

The search for a purpose has also spilled over into our private lives. You’ve read it before. The tearful heat-winner on Britain‘s got Talent spouting „if you have a purpose and believe in yourself, nothing is impossible“. Unfortunately it is also entirely possible that they‘ll lose in the next round and wind up 5 years later singing in the „Journey to the Stars“ review on the Hull to Rotterdam P&O Ferry.

Talking of which, I have just been on said ferry, returning from a trip to my home county of Yorkshire. The musical entertainment was, as ever, a bit „Phoenix Nights“ but we still enjoyed the crossing and even had a little chat to the singer, which got me thinking about purpose again. He was not the example in the paragraph above. In fact, I think he was pretty happy with his „life choices“ – and a nice bloke to boot, even if he did sound a bit like Kermit. Anyway, I‘ll get back to purpose at the end of the blog.

We had a great time in Yorkshire. Alongside helping Mum sort out some stuff around the house, we had lots of time with family and friends to catch up, enjoy a drink together and tell each other old stories. Ariane and I also went on a couple of longer walks in the Yorkshire Dales, culminating in our tackling of the Three Peaks.

Seeg is a village in the foothills of the Bavarian Alps and the first place I lived in Germany. I went there in the summer of 1991 to visit my brother, who was already a resident there, fell in the love with place and have thought of it as my second „Heimat“ ever since. Two years ago we bought a flat there and as we get older we envisage spending more time in Seeg and less time in Schönaich (the suburb of Stuttgart where we currently live).

I have just started a 3 month break from work. My employers have, after 25 years, given me some extended time off – for which I am very grateful. I’m only on day three but it’s already been a pleasure to spend a little more time with Ariane and my daughters. Having some time off work has also freed up some brain-space so that I can get back to writing…

Last year we joined the dreaded “second-home” brigade and bought a holiday / potential retirement apartment in a village called Seeg at the foot of the Bavarian Alps. Seeg was the first place I lived when I moved to Germany in 1991 and worked for the local paragliding manufacturer, Firebird Sky Sports. As a wide-eyed, paragliding-obsessed young chap in my early 20s I immersed myself in the local scene and quickly fell in love with the area. The mountains, the people, the amiable beer culture and the general warm welcome I was given, made it easy. My wife, Ariane, grew up just down the road in a similar landscape so it made sense for us to set up our weekend retreat here over 30 years later.