First Week Back

Easing back into work after my two-week break was smooth; because it's still the school holidays here in my part of Germany, many of my colleagues and clients are away right now, meaning there were a lot less emails to sift through and meetings to attend than at other times. It was still hot, though, and very dry apart from one glorious, brief spot of rain.

Monday (3rd of August) was too hot and humid to go for an after-work walk. I had a total of 140 emails in all my work-related inboxes; compare this with 288 emails after my summer holiday in 2024.

Another walk-less day followed on Tuesday (4th of August), equally hot and just as humid. I left the house only to pick up my prescription of eye drops at the pharmacy, ten minutes on foot from this keyboard. Work was very productive, but I developed a throbbing headache early afternoon and eventually took a paracetamol. Finally, some rain fell - it didn't last long and much of it evaporated on the sealed surfaces here in town, but it was a tiny bit of relief.

View from my kitchen at 6:04 that morning

Wednesday (5th of August) was a tad cooler at a max of 30C/86F, and it was pleasant in my north-facing office in Weilimdorf (no A/C in my part of the building). It was nice to see some of my colleagues again, while many others are on holiday right now.

After work, I walked to Benningen - it was warm and I sweated profusely once I arrived at the station there to take the train back to Ludwigsburg, but it IS high summer after all and perfectly OK to sweat as the natural physical reaction to heat. This very familiar walk is part of my "homecoming" routine, and I enjoyed it.

Not sure how well you can see it, but the birch trees to the left look very much like early autumn. Trees around here are really stressed because of the ongoing lack of rain.

Approaching Benningen

I was again at the office on Thursday (6th of August) and afterwards went to see my Mum; my sister was there, too, and we enjoyed one of Mum's delicious salads together.

Friday (7th of August) was the coolest day of that week at a high of 27C/80F! Over night, the temperature dropped to a chilly 15C/59F, making for a lovely fresh morning with all windows wide open and allowing for a much easier cleaning round.

My usual trains to Offenburg aren't running right now because of the holidays, but I still managed to arrive there at 8:00 pm, where my husband picked me up as usual and we enjoyed our start into the weekend together.

While waiting for my connecting train in Karlsruhe, I had a rather unusual encounter: An elderly lady walked up to me on the platform, asking whether the soon-to-be-arriving train was going to stop in Baden-Baden, which I confirmed. She thanked me and I thought, that was that. Nothing unusual about it.

But then she looked me intently in the face and said: "Now I want to do something good for you. What is your zodiac sign?" I was a little taken aback by this question and truthfully replied that I don't believe in zodiac signs, smiling politely. She said: "I am VERY clairvoyant, even if you don't believe in it!" Her manner wasn't unfriendly (neither was mine), but to my relief she moved on to the young woman standing next to me, also waiting for the train, and asked her for her star sign.

As they were both standing so close to me, I couldn't help overhear their conversation. After the young woman had told the clairvoyant her star sign, the elderly woman proceeded to say that she "should be very cautious tonight, as we have a full moon" - which was rubbish; on that night the moon was a waning crescent - the previous full moon was on the 29th of July, and the next is on the 28th of August.

I don't know how much the young woman participated in the conversation out of politeness or whether she actually believed any of it; the train arrived, and in the mad rush of a very crowded platform with passengers getting off and on the train I lost sight (and sound) of the two. For a split second I had been tempted to ask the elderly woman how come she didn't know where the train was going to stop if she was so "very clairvoyant", as she put it - but of course I did no such thing, since any discussion would have been useless.

When the train stopped in Baden-Baden (several stops before mine in Offenburg), I spotted the two getting off the train. Still on the platform, the clairvoyant was talking animatedly to the young woman, and I suspect the conversation had gone on non-stop for the last half hour or so. Just before the train moved on, the young woman hurried off the platform, and I lost sight of the clairvoyant.

We knew that Saturday and Sunday (8th and 9th of August) were going to reach 31 and 36C / 88 and 97F again, but the mornings were forecast to be much cooler than that, and so we decided to get up early and go hiking.

I'll show you these hikes in my next post.