I started my Saturday as usual – with a walk to the bakers. I had a quite a large order this morning because both our daughters had friends sleeping over. To my surprise they were all awake and sitting at the breakfast table when I got back. It was a pleasure to see them all tucking-in to fresh pretzels and rolls. And even though we had Nutella on the table, the fruit was the first thing to run out. Maybe today’s kids will reverse the obesity problem themselves after all? Continue reading →

A good day at work today. Everything ran smoothly and we also spent an hour listening to a beekeeper tell us about the honey he would be producing for us this summer. To be accurate, he won’t actually be producing any honey but his 50,000 bees will be doing it for him. Through the company we are sponsoring a local beekeeper, which is why he came to visit. Continue reading →

I had a meeting in Bad Tölz today, not far from Munich in deepest Bavaria at the foot of the Alps. It was an early start to beat the traffic and I had plenty of time to enjoy the drive. As the Autobahn turned South after the traffic jams around Munich the mountains came into view. The sun was still shining on the snow-capped peaks. On Sunday I had been out in shorts having a picnic with kids, so it was quite a surprise to see so much snow again. But a pleasant surprise. Continue reading →

The umlaut is the word used to described the two dots you sometimes see above the letters a, o and u in German. On a German typewriter keyboard there are separate keys for all these letters with umlauts and they are considered separate letters. It’s not just a u with two dots on it, it is a “ü”. To the German ear it has a distinctly different sound to a normal u. In the IT world, before umlauts were possible, you would represent a ü as ue – so the name Müller is usually written as mueller when it is part of an e-mail address.

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What a pleasure it was to cycle to work without gloves today. I was never particularly sensitive to the seasons in the past. I am a staunch advocate of the “there’s no such thing as bad weather, just bad clothing” view of life. But cycling to work every day has made me appreciate the changes in the weather. First the ground drying out, then it getting warm enough to stop wearing a sweaty hat under the helmet and now no need for gloves. It’s all less important when you’re in a car with heated seats.

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Finally the weather has really taken a turn for the better. Yesterday evening was already noticeably milder and I caught the faint whiff of barbecues on the air. Today we woke up to sunshine and a proper spring day. We woke up late as we were invited to a birthday party last night.  Continue reading →

Back in Germany again. We flew with Ryanair. We didn’t expect great customer service but it does seem like they go out of their way to be extra crap. Well you get what you pay for, I suppose – cheap ‘n’ nasty, as we used to say. I am not known for obsessive cleanliness, but the plane really was grubby. I say plane, and not planes, because we definitely had the same machine to and from Manchester. Continue reading →

Well, the trip to the Dales didn’t work out quite as planned. We ended up having our picnic in the car with the windows steamed up. Outisde, the wind and rain buffeted our rented Seat Ibiza. We did get down to the river for 20 minutes between showers but it was a lot of driving for not much return. Continue reading →

I am still in Yorkshire, up early to write this blog. I couldn’t sleep as I had seen a bit of blue sky through the crack in the curtains and we are going to drive up to Malham in the Dales today for a bit of walking. After 4 days of pretty patchy weather, it looks like we might manage today without rain and a fair bit of sunshine. The Yorkshire Dales are probably my favourite place when the weather is good – which is not very often. Perhaps the lack of good weather makes it all the more special when it is sunny. I’ll take some pictures.

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We are now three days into our Yorkshire trip and I am certainly getting my dose of windy days. We went up to Almscliffe crag yesterday and it was blowing a gale. One of my girls got caught slightly off balance and was blown over – she was quite pleased about that. Not many of her friends at school will have been exposed to the sort of wind that can blow you over. We spent a couple of minutes with our coats stretched out above our heads leaning into the wind – something I had done as a kid countless times. Continue reading →