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 →

Yesterday was a bank holiday, tomorrow is a Saturday which makes today a Brückentag (Bridge-day). I quite like these days. They have a quiet, lazy feel to them because not many people work and lots of people are away for the long weekend – but all the shops are open. Continue reading →

Ariane has flown off to Dublin for a couple of days on a girls’ trip with her friend Corina – which makes me a so-called Strohwitwer (literally a straw-widower). We use this expression whenever the husband is left alone for a few days. Tomorrow is a bank holiday – Father’s Day over here – so I am hoping that I will be able to have lie in and then have breakfast made for me. In anticipation of the easy day tomorrow, I have allowed the kids to watch some TV this evening and cracked a couple of beers myself. I may even have a whisky when they’ve gone to bed. Continue reading →

It’s common knowledge that if you want to have a pleasant evening with friends, don’t talk about politics or religion. Well last night Ariane and I went out for a drink with 5 of our co-workers (a minor celebration as our company broke even in April) and the subject quickly turned to politics and religion. The good news is that we still had a pleasant evening and even though we didn’t all see eye to eye, we had a really good open discussion. As most of the people at the table were a good 25 years younger than me I was really impressed at their attitudes. It was a little disarming and I couldn’t properly fill my traditional role of grumpy old man – they were all so reasonable and articulate. The young aren’t what they used to be. Continue reading →