There are lots of speed cameras around Stuttgart. They take reasonably good black and white photos – of which I am frequently the subject. My girls have a laugh when another letter is delivered. I have a habit of stroking my chin like a pretentious lecturer when driving and this has been immortalized on film a few times. I am usually not speeding by too much and am proud to say I have no points on my licence but the cameras are everywhere and I struggle to keep track of the ever-changing speed limits.

The Benediktenwand near Llengries in Bavaria

Saturday – another Groundhog Day. Every day since mid March the sun has shone, the wind has blown and the lockdown has continued. We seem to be getting our weather in multi-week chunks now. For six weeks in February and March we were battered by various storms rolling in from the Atlantic every three days. Trees were uprooted and fields were flooded and then along came Corona and the weather stopped. We are living in a slightly greener version of Southern California. I wish it would rain. Continue reading →

I walked to the bakery this morning to pick up some fresh rolls and pretzels. Nearly everything is closed in Germany on Sundays, but bakeries are considered essential and so allowed to open. Picking up bread every day is a pleasant ritual. We eat less bread than we used to and we also have friendly neighbours who often get there before us and leave a bag with fresh rolls hanging on our front door handle. All this means is that my daily bakery walk has become more like a weekly pilgrimage. Continue reading →

No hi-tec electronic chips on the ski pass back in 1985

In my last post, I described how a group of young Brits survived the first 3 weeks of the 1985/86 winter season working as waiters in a Swiss ski hotel. It was a scary baptism of fire but by the end of it we had become reasonably competent waiters. Slowly fear left our lives and we started to enjoy ourselves. Continue reading →

There’s not much new to report about Germany this week. We are in our fourth week of lockdown and people are behaving well. I was mildly amused to read a headline this week in the news magazine, Fokus, asking why the politicians had failed so badly to deal with Covid 19. At the same time, I read in the British press how Germany is doing everything right. I guess it’s the nature of modern journalism to look for the negative first. But as there’s not much else to write about Germany, I decided to take a trip down memory lane to my time in Switzerland, working as a waiter after leaving school in 1985.

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We’re now a week into the lockdown and people are getting used to it. The rhythm of life has slowed down a bit, which is probably not such a bad thing. We don’t have to turf the kids out of bed at 6am to get ready for school and my 30 to 40-minute commute has disappeared. I am still doing a full day of work from home, but we’re all enjoying having more time and less stuff to worry about. We’re sleeping more, eating better (home-cooked food does that for you) and getting fitter thanks to thrice-weekly runs. Normally after a long day at the office, I’m too tired to go and run in the evening but after a day in home-office I’m eager to get out into the fresh air. I’ve also taken to going for walks during the day when I’m on the phone for longer calls. We’re probably still in the honeymoon period, but so far the lockdown has been fine – it only we didn’t have the virus to worry about.

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It’s been an interesting couple of weeks. Just a fortnight ago we were starting to think that this virus thing might have an effect on business and now we are expecting to hear that we shouldn’t leave the house. Angela Merkel spoke to the nation on Wednesday in her characteristically calm but stilted manner and told us that we should “take this seriously”. We were all expecting her to announce the “Ausgangsperre” (literally: out-go-lock) but she stopped short of that. She just told us to behave ourselves. I read articles in the British press praising her excellent speech and it was well-written but it was a bit short on substance really. Continue reading →

As mentioned in the previous post, we had a proper winter this year. It hung on for a long time and until a couple of weeks ago it seemed that spring would never arrive. No leaves on the trees, snow still lingering in shady spots, a freezing East wind and lots of grey sky. Then suddenly, summer arrived. We have skipped spring and were engulfed by a heat wave where temperatures rose into the high 20s and even threatened to touch 30 degrees in some areas.

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We had a proper winter this year. Plenty of snow arrived when it should have and stayed in the ski resorts up until well after Easter. Many ski areas are still open and have loads of snow which will linger well into May and perhaps beyond. It snowed quite a few times in Stuttgart too, so I was often woken by the sound of my neighbour scraping a path along our drive and clearing the pavement. Continue reading →

It’s that time of year again. New Orleans has Mardi Gras, Venice has the Carnevale, Rio has the Carnaval and in Germany we have Karneval. Or, as it is known in Bavaria and Swabia, Fasching. Every year the five days up to Shrove Tuesday are an excuse for dressing up, drinking too much and generally making a fool of oneself. Continue reading →