What a scorcher! A boiling hot, lazy Sunday rounded off the weekend. The thermometer touched 33 degrees C and it was just too hot to do anything. The kids disappeared off to the open air pool and the adults slobbed about in the shade at home. The most strenuous thing I did all day was watch the final hour of the Tour de France. Later on I took Mum on a bit of drive around Schönaich and we had a look at the “Neubaugebiet” (new building area) on the outskirts of the village. Continue reading →

I had a couple of very pleasant rides into work this week. The weather has taken a turn for the better and it has been dry for nearly a week now. Sunny, but not too hot with a light easterly breeze. The normal high-pressure summer weather we would expect but which has been elusive so far in 2016. The trails in the forest have completely dried out so our bikes roll just a little easier and, what with the Tour de France being on at the moment, the hills seem a little flatter than normal. Ariane was getting into the spirit of things a couple of days ago. I could see she had the bit between her teeth on the descent and as we approached the left/right combination that I like to think of as “the chicane” she stuck her left knee out like a motorcycle racer. Here we go again, I thought. Continue reading →

A very boring week I’m afraid. So much to do at work that my brain is too tired to write in the evenings. The press has gone quiet since the Brexit feeding-frenzy last week. And now we are half way through Portugal vs. Wales – more boredom. Even the weather has been a bit boring, no thunderstorms or heatwaves for a week now. Continue reading →

Another very busy week, with not much time to blog I’m afraid. It’s not so much the time needed to sit down and write as the time needed to think of something interesting to say. But it’s Saturday morning now, I am up early but it is chucking down with rain so I don’t fancy a round of golf and even the stroll to the bakers is not particularly tempting. So I have set myself up on the patio (there is a dry, covered corner) and will try and get some words down before the family wakes up. I quite like being out here in the rain. I have wrapped myself up in a sleeping bag and am enjoying that cosy camping feeling you get – warm and dry in the tent while the storm rages outside. Continue reading →

I can’t think of anything good to say about being English in Germany yesterday. You try and put a brave face on it but you soon remember why the word Schadenfreude was invented here. Of course it took about 5 seconds for somebody to come up with the witty comments along the lines of “the second Brexit in a week.” It gets funnier each time I hear it. Which has been a lot. Ha ha. Continue reading →

It’s been an exciting week. On Wednesday it was my birthday. The girls all got up early and made an excellent breakfast for me. I then went to work and, in the German tradition, bought everyone breakfast there. I have written before that even grown-ups get excited about birthdays over here so I received lots of calls, texts, mails, facebook messages and even a card. (Thanks Mum)

I had noticed that the weather was perfect for flying (paragliders) on my birthday so at lunch-time I jumped in the car and drove down to the Breitenberg in Pfronten and went flying. The conditions were absolutely perfect and I floated around happily for a couple of hours. I then sped back in the car and was back before eight having a cold drink with Ariane on the patio. The sky was clear and it cooled down nicely as it got dark. A perfect day.

Perfect conditions above the Allgäu region of Bavaria.

Thursday wasn’t quite so good. I had a meeting in Munich, but got caught for 2 hours in a traffic jam and eventually had to turn around and  I discovered during the day that one of the IT programmes we use at work hadn’t been working quite as it should for the past week. As I am our IT „expert“ I tried to fix things but only made them worse. This meant that I spent most of the night making sure that we could at least work semi-productively the next day. At the same time we were migrating another bit of software to another server. That made things a bit more complicated. As if that weren’t enough, we had severe hailstorms in Northern Germany last night too which meant we were extremely busy at work today as well. The Germans do know about Murphy’s law and probably use the phrase more often than you hear back home in England these days. On Thursday and Friday Murphy was out to get me.

I was so busy on Friday that I didn’t have time to really speak to anyone. This was probably a relief because all anyone wanted to talk about was “Brexit” – as the surprise result had just come in. I kept my door shut and my head down all day at work and kept working. In the evening I rushed off to a friend’s birthday party. I had absolutely promised to go even though it was in Düsseldorf which is a three-hour train journey. I had planned to leave work at lunchtime and arrive at the party on time but the pressures of work meant that I eventually turned up after 11pm. The birthday boy was nevertheless delighted that I had made the effort and I ended up having a great time even though I was dog-tired.

Of course everyone wanted to know what I thought of Brexit. I gave my standard answer: I don’t think it’ll be as bad as the remainers have warned and I don’t think it will be as good as the leavers have promised. Most people were expecting either a passionate condemnation or a passionate defence of the result from me and were a bit disappointed with my apparent calm. This was good news, it meant we could get down to the business of talking about football and music instead like you’re supposed to do at a party. There was excellent live music – just one guy with a guitar singing an amazing range of songs from old jazz standards to German folk songs to French chansons to the Beatles to Metallica. He was brilliant. At one stage he played “Über den Wolken” which describes a pilot realising that the big problems he had on the ground seem so small now he’s flying “above the clouds”. After that he played “When I’m 64” which is about the most English song you can imagine*. I think most people can relate to the lyrics in both songs no matter where you were born. I could have turned those songs into a clever metaphor for harmony in Europe I suppose. But I was at a party so I just clapped and had another drink.

I even finished the night off with a great European tradition – wolfing down a “Döner Kebab” at 4:30 in the morning. I can report it was one of the best kebabs I have ever eaten. And like all great late-night kebabs I regretted it almost instantly and then again the next morning.

So that was my week. I will write about Brexit later and post it today – promise.

Bis später!

*for example “I could be handy, mending a fuse” or “doing the garden, digging the weeds” – as English as you can get.

The last few days have been so busy that I have not been able to write a post since Tuesday. Then along came the Brexit result and I am still trying to work out what I think about that. I am working on a mega-catch-up-post and normal service will be resumed by lunchtime. Sorry for keeping you waiting.

Bis später!

Another busy day, but with an early finish. The German football team played this evening at 6pm so we closed shop early an hour beforehand. I expect it is the same everywhere these days, but if the national football team are playing there’s not much point trying to get any work done. The country shuts down, the roads are quiet and for at least two hours before kick-off everyone stops working even if they are still at work.  Continue reading →

An easy day for me today. The girls went off to a behind-the-scenes tour of Tarzan, the musical so I had the morning off and went out beneath ominous skies to play a bit of golf with my favourite scorer – myself. According to my scorecard I did quite well. It turns out that the behind-the-scenes tour was so good that the girls have decided to buy tickets to the afternoon showing. Ariane wisely predicted that the last place I want to be on a Sunday is in a musical so has just called to tell me I have a day off. Continue reading →