Well done, hoardes of loyal readers. You have survived 100 posts about life in Germany. You may have noticed that I set off a little quickly and have paced myself poorly. I had intended to write a post every day and then I thought five a week, which dwindled to three and now I haven’t posted for six whole days! In marathon running jargon, I have hit the wall. Or as the locals would say “er hat seine Pulver verschossen” – he has used all his gunpowder.

It’s funny – the first 70 posts came relatively easily. The healthy stream of posts over the first few weeks started to dwindle and eventually turned into a painful drip for two reasons. The first is that as the pressure of work has cranked up I have less brain space for writing. The second is that when I think of a new subject, I can’t remember if I have already written about it. If I were a proper writer, I would go back, read and notate all my posts so I could quickly cross-reference them and get back on track. That’s not going to happen.

One thing I have noticed about this writing lark, is that there are days when it comes easily and days when it doesn’t. So in future the flow of posts may be a bit lumpy, but on the good days I will try and rattle off a couple in a day.  I still intend to write another 100 posts in the next half a year.

My plan when I started was to write enough in a year for a book . I reckon I will need 200 posts, which will be corrected and edited down to about 120. I can then publish it on Amazon and at least say I have written a book. Once that monkey is off my back, I will use the generous proceeds to rent a house on the New England coastline where I will write the masterpiece to set the literary world alight in 2018. Unfortunately, I am going to need your help. Please use the comments or like buttons on the posts to give me some feedback. This inflates my already bloated feeling of self-importance and encourages me to think harder and write more. Please don’t be afraid to ask questions too – what would you like to read about?

Bis später!

I have just returned for a weekend riding a very old motorcycle around the roads of an area called the Holledau (or Hallertau, depending on who you ask) in Bavaria. Apart from being a lovely place with excellent motorcycling roads, it is the largest hops-growing area in Europe. It’s not an area you would usually visit – after all, Bavaria already has Munich, Neuschwanstein and the Alps – but this just lends it even more charm. The weather was perfect, the ride went well and the company was good too.

Most of the Saturday was spent hanging around. The main event is on Sunday but on Saturday the organisers arranged for all the participants to go on a short ride of about 20km. The bikes are then put out on display in the large beer garden which is the start and finish area of the event. After they had been out for a little while the organisers had arranged for a large secure barn to house all the bikes overnight. This is a great relief because the alternative involves loading bikes back into vans and trailers – which is just what you don’t want to be doing when a load of your mates are there and there is beer to be drunk.

Not just for looking at… every bike made it round the 120km course.

So we ended up sitting under the trees having a few glasses of the local “Jäger” brew. We then had a break and a snooze in the late afternoon and returned to the beer garden in the evening for something to eat. As in any self-respecting German beer garden, all the tables are the same – long with a bench on each side and comfortably seating 10 people. So it is quite common to end up sharing your table with another group, especially if there are only two of you. This is exactly what happened to us and soon my Dad and I found ourselves in conversation with a couple of locals.

They were both mechanical engineers. One specialising in building machines and the other a machinist. Even though they were not veteran motorcycle experts, they appreciated the old machines and were delighted that the vent was taking place on their home patch. After a while one of them got his phone out and proudly showed us the precisely milled headstock he had built for his BMW motorbike back home.

It occurred to me that there is a reason why the British manufacturing industry has declined while in Germany it continues to thrive, and it wasn’t just Margret Thatcher. Being an engineer is a profession which is really respected. In the suburbs and villages around Munich and Stuttgart there is every chance that you will meet lots of engineers. A quick google check, and I found out that mechanical engineering is the second most popular degree in Germany. In fact, five of the top ten degrees are engineering-related (including IT). In England things are very different – the first science (IT) is down at number five behind business studies, law, sociology and art. To be fair, both countries business studies at number one. The difference being in Germany that the business graduates will actually having something to sell.

We left the beer garden under the stars and wobbled the hundred yards back to our hotel, ready for a good night’s sleep in preparation for the “proper” run over 120km the next day. I knocked on Dad’s hotel room door at 8 the next morning and we wandered over for breakfast with the other motorcycle enthusiasts. The weather was even better than the day before – blue sky dotted with some benign cumulus clouds and not too hot. This is important because we ride the bikes in “appropriate” clothing. In our case this means an itchy tweed three-piece suit and tie. The only time Noel wears a tie is when he is riding his beloved old bikes and in Germany the eccentric “very British” rider image goes down a storm. We play up to it a little.

By ten o clock we were finally off and running. The scenery was perfect. Rolling hills stretched between the hops fields. Some times we would get a break from the sun by passing through a forest, other times we would be cruising along past open fields and quite often we would drop into the valleys and follow small rivers to the next village. It is fair to say that not a lot happens in many of the villages we passed through, so the locals had often set up chairs to watch us pass through. More often than not they were waving and smiling and always appreciated a wave back or a couple of toots on the old-fashioned bulb horn fitted to the bike. One bloke was busy waving the blue and white chequered Bavarian flag and I when I tooted the horn, he frantically upped the waving speed to indicate his approval. We pulled in for three pre-arranged stops (elevenses, lunch and afternoon ice-cream) and at each time the locals were out in force to oggle the bikes, ask questions and just generally make us feel very welcome.

Summer skies and open roads

Here’s Dad

When we finally made it back to base after a long day’s riding, the organiser had us parade through the now packed beer garden and said a few words about each rider. The whole thing was like an advert for Germany. Perfectly organised, lovely scenery, everything neat and tidy and quite beery. Our new-found English friends Simon, Steve and Nick were most impressed and promised to return. I certainly hope we go back next year and look forward to another old-fashioned weekend in a strangely charming old-fashioned corner of Germany.

A serious Biergarten – can apparently seat 3000 people.

Bis morgen!

I am writing this from a hotel room in Haag an der Amper – a tiny village to the North East of Munich in a quiet, forgotten corner of Bavaria. My Dad, Noel, and I are taking part in a veteran motorcycle rally which we enjoyed for the first time last year. Noel brought the bikes down from Yorkshire in his van and we trundled over here yesterday. We are both riding Triumphs – Noel on a Model C from 1913 while I am on the modern machine, a Model H from 1918.

The event here is a great advertisment for German efficicency. It is perfectly organised and has the great benefit of starting and finishing in a very pleasant beer garden. This year there are a handful of Brits taking part too which makes things a little more pleasant too.

We arrived yesterday evening and took a stroll around the village looking for somewhere to eat. I did say this was a quiet forgotten corner of Bavaria but I had forgotten how quiet. It had been a rainy day so the beer garden was closed and we soon discovered that there was no other restaurant in the village. This is strange because you usually find at least a lone Gasthof in every Bavarian village – usually called the Gasthof Post or Adler. I found it tragic that a village could have a chruch but no pub. What is the world coming to?

We drove down the road to Zolling and soon found exactly what we were looking for – a traditional Bavarian Gasthof. The initial signs were not so good. There was a grumpy looking chap smoking a cigarette at the entrance and when we opened the door into the Gasthof everybody stopped momentarily and looked us over. Going into a rural bar in Germany can sometimes be a little daunting. Still, sturdy waitress soon served us a couple of beers and we settled in.

Things got better when Noel noticed one of his motorcycling pals, Ronald from Belgium, sitting at another table with three Brits. We said hello and joined them. Soon the beer worked its magic and we were all enjoying a lovely evening. The conversation switching between the superiority of pre First World War Bosch magnetos to Brexit, to politics, to music to religion – and back to Bosch magnetos. The food was excellent and the waitress slowly warmed to us and showed the hint of a smile every now and then.

The bar filled up with all sorts of different groups. There was a heavy drinking,  card-playing table of middle-aged men, next to them the “Dorfjugend” (the village youth) and behind us was a table full of the older generation. As the evening wore on everyone could see that we were enjoying ourselves and making a decent effort to speak German to the waitress. I could see the table of elderly visitors nodding approvingly about the Brit table and soon we were all saying how friendly and wonderful Germany was.

Looking around the bar, it really did feel like we had slipped through a wormhole to another time. The decor was heavy wooden tables and heavy wooden ceilings. Our waitress was in the traditional Dirndl dress which wouldn’t have looked out of place a hundred years ago. I had the traditional “Zwiebelrostbraten” – a delicious beef steak with onions. When I ordered it I was asked whether I would like it medium or well-done. None of your french “à point” nonsense here. You get your meat cooked in Bavaria. The “Wirt” (landlord) was wearing, of course, Lederhosen.

In the end we warmed to the Gasthof Hörhammer and it warmed to us. Must leave now – the events start on time here and the organiser, Otto, made a point of telling us all to be pünktlich – on time – this morning.

Bis morgen.

On Saturday, as I wrote in my last post, Alan and I were give a free pass to go paragliding. The sun was shining and the conditions looked OK. We were also just happy to be spending a day together away from work too. Because there was a west wind forecast we decided to drive to another flying area about 20km away from the campsite and our normal spot in Pfronten. Continue reading →

The school holidays have finally started in Baden-Württemberg. We are as relieved as the kids. Baden-Württemberg and Bavaria, the two southernmost states in Germany, are always the last ones to break up. In other areas of Germany they have already been off for four weeks and by the time it gets to be our turn, everyone is really ready for it. The girls now have six weeks off and will not go back to school until mid September. The last few days of school involve various days out, parties and parents’ evenings. It turns into a bit of a marathon and we are just happy it’s all over. Continue reading →

Well it’s been a busy week for would-be terrorists and murderers. Over the past seven days there have been four separate attacks in Germany – all of them by migrants. Donald Trump has helpfully noted that Germany let them in and so should expect no less. The details and motives of all the attacks are becoming clearer every day but they were a mixed bag. It started a week ago in Wurzburg – a 17-year old Afghan refugee injured four people with an axe before being corned and shot dead by police. Then we had the Iranian youth in Munich, who was actually born in Germany, shooting nine dead. A day later a young Syrian refugee killed his girlfriend with a kebab-knife (the UK press insists on calling it a machete) and injured a couple more before being arrested. And later that day another Syrian refugee blew himself up and injured others in Ansbach.

So, how do we feel living in Southern Germany after these attacks? When the news broke of each attack, the immediate conclusion is “these must be ISIS terrorists”. The attacks in Munich and Reutlingen, the only lethal attacks, now seemed to have nothing to do with islamic terrorism. The other two certainly look like they were. But on the whole things feel just the same here and even though we have 100 Syrian refugees living in Schönaich.

Last summer when tens of thousands were arriving in Munich on a daily basis and Angela Merkel made her “Wir schaffen das” (we’ll cope) comment there was a sense of solidarity in the country. Germany of course always feels that it has something to prove and this was a tall order but a good opportunity to show the rest of Europe how open and tolerant the country was. And by and large Germany has coped remarkably well. Meanwhile in the background, Merkel was working feverishly with Turkey to stem the flow of migrants coming into the country. She was also criticising the building of fences on the so-called Balkan Route but at the same time probably breathing a sigh of relief that the flow would slow down and it wouldn’t be Angie’s fault. The policy has worked and the number of migrants now arriving is about 15,000 per month compared to ten times that amount just a year ago. Interestingly about 5,000 are returning to their country of origin each month – and a further 2,000 are being deported.

I feel that the high level of optimism and the will to prove that it can be done was at a peak last year. There was a national sense of rolling up your sleeves and getting things done. I don’t think the “terror” attacks have changed this but I do believe the events in Cologne at New Year did take the sheen off things. In case you can’t remember, a group of about a thousand young men from North Africa and the Middle East gathered in the square in front of the main station and intimidated and abused several hundred young women. The clash of sexist traditions with an open and liberated society was a shock. The police and local politicians then fed the fire by apparently trying to play down the situation – possibly for fear of being labelled intolerant or racist.

In a similar vein there have been isolated incidents where an Imam has refused to shake the hand of female politicians or teachers “for religious reasons”. These incidents have led to a slightly tougher attitude. It shouldn’t be a problem to insist that treating men and women equally is “non-negotiable”. Anyone who is not prepared to accept that can’t realistically expect a future in Germany. Such statements are becoming more common and politicians from all parties feel like they are on safe ground.

In my home town with a population of roughly 10,000 there are over 100 refugees. Apart from seeing a few of them get the bus every now and then, most people will not have noticed any difference. The ratio is one per every hundred residents which is roughly equivalent to that of the country as a whole. For the time being it all seems to be less dramatic than the press would have us believe – I’ll keep you posted.

Bis morgen-ish!

I’m sitting on the terrace on Sunday morning and have just had a good read of the newspapers. The papers are mainly occupied by one story. Last Friday evening an 18 year old German/Iranian youth shot 9 people dead in Munich and injured several others. Shortly afterwards when confronted by police he shot himself. Much to the disappointment of the anti-immigration lobby, it seems he was not an islamic fundamentalist.

One of the things I always tell people when they ask me what I like about Germany is that it feels very safe here. It’s a good safe place to bring up a family. I stick by that – although we probably live in about the safest area within a safe country. I dare say that there are some rough parts of Berlin where you might be a little more careful about locking your car.

When I first moved to Germany I lived in a tiny village called Seeg, about 5 miles from the Austrian border. If you want to know what the countryside is like around there just watch Steve McQueen trying to jump the barbed-wire fence in The Great Escape – it was filmed nearby. When I arrived, in 1991, it was like taking a step back in time. This was a small Bavarian community where everyone knew each other and kept an eye out for each other. As a young man it could be a bit irritating that my neighbour knew more accurately when I had got home last night than I could remember myself – but I suppose it keeps a village safe. After a while, I got into the village rhythm of live too. Every morning I would leave my flat – without locking the door – and drive the short distance to work. There I would park my car, and leave the keys in the ignition. Everyone else did too. You often see people in American films trying to find a car to steal by folding down the sun visor until some keys drop out. No need for that in Seeg back then. Just jump in and drive away.

In Autumn I would often drive to Italy over the weekends to go paragliding with friends in a place called Bassano del Grappa. It was only four hours away and on a clear day you could see Venice from the top of the mountain. A few of us would meet up at a car park just over the Austrian border and then all get into one car for the journey and leave the rest parked up over the weekend. I can remember once getting back on a Sunday evening and finding out I had lost my carkeys. After a frantic half-hour rummaging through various bags and looking under all the seats in the other car I suddenly noticed something. My car key was still in the driver’s door – the keyring occasionally glinting in the headlights of passing cars. The irony of that particular weekend was that our van had been broken into in Bassano. Although luckily not much was in it because we knew that thieves targeted the area.

It’s not just the break-ins though, I also feel that the overall propensity for violence is lower here. It seems strange that a country which unleashed unimaginable brutality on millions last century would become a peacenik haven but perhaps that is the reason itself. Germany still wants to show that it is a reasonable, grown-up, sensible folk. You see it in the politics and the depth of debate that takes place before any military action is taken – Germany is never going to enter a war by accident. This same attitude trickles down to everyday life too. Violence really is a last resort. I can’t remember seeing a fist-fight in Stuttgart in the last 10 years. Ariane saw two drunks taking swings at each other (and broke it up to the amazement of her friend) a few years ago but that’s it.

Of course, things aren’t quite as relaxed as they were back in Seeg 25 years ago. We lock up our houses and we lock up our cars. We still lose the keys every now and then but old habits die hard. But on the whole, it feels safe here.

Which brings me back to the events in Munich two days ago. It does seem that if someone gets it into their head that they really want to shoot a few people and puts the work into finding a gun and ammo, then there’s not much you can do to stop them. We can only hope it doesn’t happen here and if it does, then hope that the police react quickly. In the case of Munich it looks like the police did an excellent job. Within an hour the city was more or less shut down. Apparently there were 2300 police and special forces personnel on the the job very quickly. I don’t know if they helped but it was reassuring to see so many mobilised so quickly.

I was also really impressed by the information and instructions the police released. At times like these the news channels all go into hysterical mode and get anyone they can who happens to be near Munich babbling inanely into the camera. The police made a point of not speculating at all and just telling everyone to stay inside. The Munich Police press officer has since become a bit of hero for his no-nonsense calm style. When they were absolutely sure that the shooter had been killed, but were not yet exactly sure of the circumstances, he told the press that the shooter “had died as a result of violence” (it sounds less dramatic in German). A journalist immediately butted in and asked “what exactly do you mean by that?”. The press officer answered “that means he didn’t just fall over and die”. Lots of other questions were thrown at him – mostly suggestive. Again he answered coolly “the only way to answer those questions is for me to speculate. And that would be highly irresponsible.” The journalists were horrified at the thought of having to go back to the stone age of only reporting actual facts.

The events in Munich on Friday and in Turkey last week have overshadowed the Brexit news. In today’s papers there is barely a mention. May’s visit seems to have gone down well and Merkel has been doing her best to calm things down and spoke of a friendship between Britain and Germany. Now that Trump has been nominated and is making all sorts of provocative statements about terror in Europe, the whole Brexit affair looks a bit dull by comparison. That’s probably a good thing and mean that I might get to talk about something else next time I am out in the evening with friends.

Bis morgen!

I enjoyed myself yesterday. The weather was very hot again, but as usual this year the next cold front was forecast and thunderstorms were expected in the night. It had become so hot and sticky that everyone was quite looking forward to the next cool-down. But first thing in the morning the weather was perfect. For a change I didn’t walk to the bakers but decided to take my bike. I have discovered a new secret pleasure… cycling without a helmet. Continue reading →

I have just got in from an epic test of patience – my eldest daughter’s “Musical Parents’ Evening”. I got through it quite well, I thought, even though just a week a go I was at my younger daughter’s musical parents’ evening. Each one lasted just short of three hours. They don’t do things by halves at the girls’ school. But before I get onto the details let me quickly explain how the school system works over here. Continue reading →

From about friday lunchtime onwards any business calls or e-mails you receive may well end with the sign-off “schönes Wochenende” – have a good weekend. Because so many people go to work early here and the labour laws are very employee-friendly, a huge percentage of the working population are no longer at work on a friday afternoon. I usually work normal hours on a friday, but I join in the fun and wish everyone a schönes Wochenende from noon onwards anyway.

Well it turns out that so far this weekend has been “schön”. We had arranged to meet some friends of ours at an amusement park about an hour north of here. Normally going to an amusement park is a mild form of torture for anybody sane over the age of 25, but today wasn’t so bad. The weather was perfect, the kids looked after themselves and the place, Tripsdrill, is quite spread out between meadows and vineyards in the countryside just outside Stuttgart. The amusement parks in Germany are certainly a lot easier to stomach than Euro Disney. I made the mistake of going there with the family a few years ago. What a nightmare. Non-stop happy Disney music all day and the most healthy food we could find was a hot-dog in a spongy bun. The children’s menu in the evening was Pizza – with chips. At Tripsdrill, things weren’t so bad. We even managed to find a restaurant that served salad.

In the middle of the park, there is a large grassy field where people sit and have picnics and have a rest from the rides and attractions. As the day wore on the kids seemed to have more fun doing cartwheels and playing a silly game which involved hiding coins in the grass than actually going on the rides. A large stork also provided some entertainment by wandering around and picking up scraps of food. Quite a few of the pic-nicking families were largely comprised of women wearing hijab headscarves. It’s a sign of the times that even in such an incongrous setting (near the entrance to a ride called the Gsengte Sau – racing pig) that nobody gave them a second glance. It seems so normal now.

We had agreed to meet our friends at 10:30 which meant that we had to leave at 09:30. With this in mind, I decided to boost my popularity rating at home by doing an early-morning shop at our local village supermarket. I did a quick google search and found out that the supermarket, Knittel, opens at 7:00 on a Saturday. I imagined that it would be very quiet and so set off in high spirits, unaware that I was about to experience a hitherto unknown side of Schönaich weekend life.

It seems that the more mature residents of Schönaich also pick early Saturday morning to do their shopping. I was surprised to find the car park clogged with vehicles which were either badly parked or manoeuvring very slowly indeed. I eventually found a slot in which I was nearly able to get my door open enough to exit my car. But as slow as my fellow shoppers were in the car park, they were switched-on and aggressive once they got behind their shopping trolleys.

One of the quaint things about Knittel is that the staff in the fruit and veg department pick out the goods and weigh them for you – like proper grocers used to do. It’s a bit strange in a supermarket, because everything is within reach for the customers and the staff just punch in a number and stick a ticket on the the bag just like we are used to doing for ourselves. Anyway, it lends the shop a bit of olde worlde charm and should make a pleasant change. I say should, because it doesn’t actually work out like that. At least not on this particular Saturday morning. The shoppers around me were all hard-core grocery shoppers and they seemed to be on good terms with the supermarket staff. So while I dithered between the vegetables several other shoppers managed to butt in front of me. A couple of times the staff already knew what the customers were going to ask for and started loading up tomatoes before I had a chance to squeak “errr… actually I was here first”. I have been overlooked a few times trying to get served at a busy bar, but not being able to impose myself over a group of pushy elderly ladies at the fruit and veg counter was a particularly chastening experience. Things could only get better. Surely.

Wrong. Next up was the cold meat counter. By this time my nerves were frayed, but I was heartened to see that there was at least an orderly queue at the counter. I positioned my trolley diagonally so as to make absolutely sure nobody could get past me. But this time I needn’t have bothered worrying about people pushing in, the problem was that the queue was barely moving. The hopped-up fruit and veg shoppers had now downshifted into “social mode” and were taking ages to select their cold meats and catch up on local events by chatting to the butchers staff. I’m an impatient shopper at the best of times but this was almost unbearable. It occurred to me that this Saturday morning shop was probably a key part of the weekly ritual in earlier times when the working week was a lot longer.

On Thursday evening I had made a quick visit to our local Penny discounter supermarket to get some emergency supplies and was amazed that the youth in front of me was using his bank card to pay his bill of 1.54 Euros. At Knittel, though, things couldn’t have been more different. My fellow shoppers were strictly cash customers. Normally, that should speed things up. However, if you pack your basket (in many cases an actually wicker-basket) first, and then get your purse out, and then insist on finding the exact change, then things slow down a bit. Oh well, patience is a virtue.

Eventually, I paid swiftly using my bank card and headed for the car park. In the meantime someone else had parked next to me but I was able to get the passenger door open and climb across and after doing a fifteen-point turn exited the car park and headed home. It was a tough start to the weekend, but since then everthing has been “schön”. Let’s see what Sunday brings.

Bis morgen!