I am now onto blog post number 64, and I still haven’t really spoken about the war. I suppose it’s about time I had a go at tackling those unspoken questions. How did it happen? Do Germans feel guilty? Does it get spoken about, or covered up? Could it have happened somewhere else? Will it happen again? I used to be able to ask these questions with a little distance. But then I got married and we produced two half-German children so now the answers are more than just “a bit interesting” for me. Were they born with some pre-loaded holocaust guilt? Has some rubbed off on me after living here for half my life? Continue reading →

Ariane is off work this week, due to the school holidays, so I have to ride in on my own. As I spend less time just trying to keep up, and can ride at my own slightly less sweaty speed, I also pay more attention to the surroundings. The cold and very rainy spell has passed and it has dried up quickly. Continue reading →

A couple of weeks ago, I blogged about the cold spell known as the Eisheiligen (read about it here). Well this year it really has come true. Today is officially the last of the 5 Ice Saints’ Days and they have been cold, wet and windy – coinciding nicely with the Whitsun Bank Holiday weekend. We drove down to see a friend in the Allgäu. There was lots of snow on the mountains and the temperature was just above freezing in the valley. Continue reading →

Oh dear Germany. Now you know what it feels like being an England football supporter during the World Cup. I watched the Eurovision Song Contest last night – up until the voting. What a surprise to wake up this morning and see Germany in last place! It all seems a bit harsh. OK, the German entrant “Jamie Lee” did dress up as a Pokemon and squeak her way through a rubbish song but silly costumes and bad songs were a common theme last night so I thought she might have at least made mid-table. Continue reading →

The school holidays have just started for the kids. But for me school has just started. My youngest daughter has decided she can’t put up with my German any more and gave me a grammar lesson this morning. It was the proper thing with a small test and then some homework. I did reasonably well – just one error. Continue reading →

No cycling for me this morning. I am going soft. The temperature has plunged, it has rained heavily all day but more importantly Ariane doesn’t work on Fridays so I had nobody to “encourage” me to cycle in. It’s also been a very long week with a few late nights at work, so I talked myself into driving instead. I’m glad I did – it was horrible all day. Continue reading →

Before I get started, there is now a link on the right hand side of this blog (or at the bottom of the page if you are on a smartphone) where you can enter your e-mail address and then press follow. You will get an update every time I post something new.

No cycling for me today. I had to drive to Mannheim and give a sales presentation to 25 disinterested insurance employees who had just endured 2 hours of powerpoint slides before my slot. Still, I like a challenge and in the end it went well. It rained all morning, so I wasn’t too upset about missing the cycling either. Continue reading →

Something very German happened on the cycle in to work yesterday. Just as we were approaching a nice downhill tarmac section in the forest, a small road-sweeping machine was coming the other way. The council had actually sent somebody out to sweep a path through the forest. Ariane was delighted, this would mean that stone chippings, leaves and twigs would no longer be on the path so she could increase her cornering speed even further. Continue reading →

The ride into work this morning should have been a real pleasure. The sun was shining, it was a comfortable 15 degrees and the forest trails were all bone-dry so the bikes roll a little easier. I was really looking forward to it. I don’t know why, but Ariane seemed to have her racing legs on this morning and soon overtook me and set a hard pace. Continue reading →

Summer has not only arrived, it’s unpacked a large suitcase and decided to hang around for a week. We are enjoying the fifth day of cloudless skies and high temperatures. It’s now so warm that we are going to the beach today. The beach in question is, in fact, “Sky Beach” in Stuttgart (www.skybeach.de) . It’s a rooftop bar, and every spring they transport a few tonnes of sand up there and along with cocktails and deckchairs manage to create a summer feeling in the middle of the city. We could have gone down to the open-air pool here in Schönaich, but considering that only two weeks ago I was scraping ice off the car windscreen in the morning we think the water will still be a little cold. Continue reading →