Last Week of January

Unlike the week before, which was almost walkless for me, last week was quite good in that respect. Also, it started off with snow and then saw a mix of sun and clouds with some rain thrown in for good measure.

On Monday (26 January), I had a smooth trip back to Ludwigsburg in the morning. My sister had sent a picture on Sunday night with the view from her house towards the street, all covered in snow, while 150 km away, we saw not a single flake.

From the train, I spotted the first snow after Bruchsal, more than half way home, and as the train was pulling into Stuttgart, the layer of snow grew thicker. I took this picture from the local train for the last part of my trip, from Stuttgart to Ludwigsburg; I have walked along that tree-lined road many times and have posted pictures of it on my blog every now and then:

Reaching my house, this is how much snow was around the front door:

The views from my kitchen and my living room:

For my lunch break I had booked a massage at the nearby day spa. I walked there cautiously; the streets and pavements in my neighbourhood were covered in snow and, where people had meant well and swept off the snow, slipperly slush. No wonder then that I spotted a man on his hands and knees, trying to get upright again after a fall, but unable to do so without help. 

I rushed over (carefully, so as not to fall as well) and helped him up, which wasn't easy - although he was rather short, reaching only my shoulder height, he was also rather rotund and heavy. It didn't help that he couldn't stop laughing - he obviously pictured himself cartoon-style like sliding, slipping and falling. 

Eventually, he was upright, still laughing and clutching my hands. I asked him three times whether he was hurting and should I call an ambulance, but he insisted that he was fine and said "Thank you for seeing me", which was a bit of an odd choice of words, but then he didn't sound a native German speaker anyway. He then walked away, carefully avoiding the slushy-slippery bits on the pavement. I watched him for a moment before I went on to my appointment at the day spa.

After work, I had about an hour left before sunset and went to the fields for a walk in the snow. At first, the sun just about managed to get through, but quite wonderfully, shortly before sunset it threw golden rays across the snow - my photos can only give a poor impression of what was truly beautiful.

Tuesday (27 January) was wet and cold with rain washing much of the snow away. It was a good day for working from home, and also a good evening to spend at the pub. This time, we did better at the quiz, coming third and leaving the pub with a bottle of sparkling wine as our prize.

My usual day at the office followed on Wednesday (28 January). It started foggy with more rain later. The local trains were in their customary chaotic state. After work, I went to my see my Mum for a chat and a snack.

View from my kitchen just before 8:00 on Wednesday morning.

Glad to be working from home on Thursday (29 January), another cold and wet day, I still managed to stretch my legs for a bit more than an hour after work, covering the not exactly picturesque round to Asperg and back to Ludwigsburg via Eglosheim.

Friday (30 January) started sunny and bright, with grey clouds moving in later but no rain or snow. I had a badly needed hair cut between finishing work and starting on the cleaning. O.K. arrived at 9:00 pm. While the butternut & parsnip soup I had prepared was heating, we had crackers and cheese.

My Dad would have been 84 years old on Saturday (31 January). As has become our habit after his death in 2022, we had a remembrance meal at my Mum's in the evening, eating what was one of his favourite dishes.

It was a beautiful day, and so after breakfast, O.K. and I had gone into town for breakfast and a look at a shoe shop we favour. We each found a pair of shoes we liked, but finding a place for breakfast took a while - our usual cafés were full to the brim, and we ended up at a bakery where my sister and I had had breakfast months ago and really enjoyed it.

We went for a walk on the now snow-less fields and also visited my Dad's bird marker at the cemetery. 

Back home, we rested for a little before going to my Mum's for the evening.

Sunday (1st of February) was cloudy but dry, with patches of blue. After breakfast, we set off for a walk to Asperg with the castle on the hill, where we had not been in a while.

About 2 1/2 hours later, we were back home for coffee & cake. A rest followed before I started to cook. It was pasta with brokkoli and mushrooms fried in olive oil and what I intended to be a creamy sauce - it was tasty enough, but the sauce nearly entirely disappeared in the pasta due to its shape (fusilli - if you don't know what they look like, click here for the wikipedia article).

O.K. had to leave after that, and I was glad when he reported from almost home 1 hour 20 minutes later - no hold-ups on the motorway, no ice or other difficult driving conditions.

Read in 2026 - 4: There Are Rivers in the Sky

There are rivers in the sky

Elif Shafak

My sister lent me this wonderful book she bought as a paperback last summer at our favourite The Little Ripon Bookshop.

The story spans thousands of years as we follow the journey of a single drop of water through the various stages of its eternal cycle, neatly listed at the end of the book, something I appreciated very much.

But this is not a fairytale where a drop of water speaks or shares its thoughts. Instead, the reader is introduced to the three main characters whose lives we then follow, and finally, all three interweave, even though one of them has long died before the other two were born.

There is Arthur, from a poor working-class family in Victorian London. Against all odds, he finds meaning in his life. Narin, a Yazidi girl who lives near the river Tigris, is nine years old when we first meet her in 2014. Four years later we are back in London and encounter Zaleekhah, a hydrologist who has just left her marital home, facing divorce.

On the surface, these three have nothing in common. And yet they are all linked by that single drop of water. What Arthur discovers in the 1870s keeps cropping up in the lives of the girl and the woman. Nothing is ever entirely "lost", but everything is connected.

There are some horrible things happening; not fictitious drama, but real life events such as the 2014 massacre of Yazidi people in the Mosul area, and the subsequent enslavement of thousands of Yazidi women and girls. Still, the details of these scenes are not drawn out for gruesome entertainment - it is still a wonderful book, leaving the reader sad but also glad for having read it.

I am not going to say more about the story, because you may want to read it for yourself. There is a lot in the book about ancient Mesopotamia, cuneiform writing and the epic of Gilgamesh - some of it I already knew but not in such detail. Also, Yazidi culture and faith plays a role, and I had known very little about this before. The book made me read more about them, with wikipedia as my main source of information. Then there is of course all the information about water, and it is amazing how much we still don't know about this most vital of elements on our planet.

The author has put a great deal of research into this book, and she mentions her sources on the last few pages, making it easy for the reader to follow up with the various topics if so inclined.

Elif Shafak has so far written 13 novels and 8 works of non-fiction. My sister has at least one more of her books, and I want to read that, too; the writing is beautiful and the storytelling keeps you wanting to read on. Her website is here.

An Almost Walkless Week

Last week, the only time a proper walk was possible for me was on Thursday. The rest of the week was either full with appointments or the weather was inclement, or both.

On Monday (19 January), my trains back from Offenburg were on time, but on the first train, my booked seat was taken. The man who sat there showed me his ticket and it looked genuine - I was in no mood for a discussion and decided to spend the hour and 20 minutes or so standing with my weekend suitcase by the door, looking out and having my peace and quiet. With a desk job, I spend too much time sitting around anyway; I was only a little angry at having paid money for the seat and then not been able to use it.

I took this picture from my kitchen window as soon as I came home on Monday. It's not snow, just frost.

In the afternoon, my boss from my secondary employment arrived. The company laptop I have been using for years has reached the end of its life in terms of security updates and support, and since our work is about information security and data protection, we can't risk using outdated equipment that is not properly protected. Therefore, my boss took the old laptop and set up a newer one for me - not brand new, but with another couple of years to go. All went well.

Tuesday (20 January) was the first pub quiz in 2026 for our team, The Corner Shop. We weren't doing too badly in the first half, but blundered some answers in the second half. Never mind; we still had a fun night with our friends, and I paid the first round of drinks in celebration of my engagement.

The day had been sunny and cold, but apart from going to the Day Spa for 25 minutes of back and shoulders massage for my lunch break I didn't benefit from the good weather - it was of course dark by the time I left for the pub.

Another sunny but cold day, Wednesday (21 January) I spent at the office. The usual chaotic situation with our local trains meant I arrived a bit later at work than I had intended to, but still in time for the first meeting of the day. 

Then it was Thursday (22 January), and like on the Wednesday of the previous week, I was scheduled to give a basic training about Data Protection and AI at a company in Stuttgart. This time, we were to start at 9:00 am, and I chose a local train that would take me into the city with 35 minutes to spare - generous planning, considering that walking from the nearest station to the company only takes about ten minutes, and I didn't have to prepare anything.

The train was on time in Ludwigsburg. Everybody got on. The train pulled off. Then, the speakers crackled - usually not a good sign, and we were right: "Sorry, folks, this train has to end in Kornwestheim" - just the next stop after Ludwigsburg, instead of six more to where I (and doubtless numerous other people) wanted to get to. But we had no choice in the matter, and everyone got off the train, trekking across a long, long stretch of normally unused platform to reach the regular platfrom where trains to Stuttgart depart from.

It wasn't a long wait for the next train that was supposed to go where I needed to, and I was still confident I was going to make it to the training before 9:00. However, once aboard the train, it was soon clear that while this one was going to Stuttgart alright, it was stopping at the Main Station, where long distance trains come and go. Still, it was better than being stuck in Kornwestheim, and so I travelled into the city. I rang the person who had organised the training to tell them that I was coming in later, and since everybody in the Stuttgart area knows how bad our local trains are, he was fine about it, promising to tell everyone. And as I was the one to give the training, they could not start without me anyway...

In the end, I walked as quickly as I could from Main Station to the company, a distance of about 1.8 km / 1.1 miles, delaying me by about 15 minutes. The training went well, and for my way back to Ludwigsburg, I simply got on the next train at the nearest stop and arrived there well ahead of the lunch time I had arranged with my Mum at her place.

We had a delicious meal, finished with a coffee, and I worked the afternoon from home.

Just a bit before 4:00 pm, I left for the only proper walk I had all week - my standard route to Benningen. It was cold, but of course I was dressed accordingly, and really enjoyed the 1 hour 45 minutes it took me to get there.

Again, no problem with the local train back to Ludwigsburg; why can't it always be like that?

Nothing unusual on Friday (23 January); I worked from home, did my cleaning, packed my weekend suitcase and was on my usual train to Stuttgart and from there on the long distance one to Offenburg, where O.K. picked me up a little after 8:30 pm.

For Saturday (24 January), O.K. had planned to cut the ivy growing on his Mum's house. The previous Saturday he had cut the climber (we don't know what that plant is called) on the other side of the house, and I was chilled to the bone from holding the metal ladder and not moving for hours. This time, I was wiser and wore my hiking boots - their sole is much thicker than any other pair of shoes I own, and I was wearing several layers of clothes on all parts of my body. Also, I was able to do a bit more than just hold the ladder, and moving about to gather the cut off branches helped keeping me at a tolerable temperature in spite of the day never getting warmer than 4C/39F and the sun not reaching properly where we were working.

For the evening, we dressed reaonably nice, and O.K. drove us the short distance to Diersburg where we had dinner at a traditional restaurant. We enjoyed our food and the fact that after the day's work we didn't need to cook and clear the kitchen afterwards.

O.K.'s Mum is still at the clinic until the middle of next week, and therefore we went to visit her again on Sunday (25 January) just like we did last Sunday. This time, the weather was less walk-friendly than the previous week, and from the parking lot we went straight to the clinic. Coffee and cake at the VERY busy cafeteria was good, and we caught up with what had been going on during the week.

The day ended the same as most Sunday evenings when we're up at 5:15 the next morning; a meal, a bit of TV or reading, and early to bed.

A Mostly Mild Week

For the most part, last week felt more like spring than January, at least in terms of temperature. We saw the thermometer climb to 12C/53F on three days in a row, and it was probably even warmer in the direct sun and out of the wind. By Sunday, we were back to freezing.

The only thing I noted in my diary about Monday (12 January) was that it snowed. I worked from home and did not go for a walk.

View from my kitchen window at 8:00 am on Monday morning.

What little snow there had been the day before was all gone on Tuesday (13 January) when it was as mild as 10C/50F. It was sunny, then cloudy, then sunny again.

Working from home allowed me to skip out for half an hour at lunch time and get my sixth COVID jab (I'd not had one since 2023, and it is making the rounds again here). All went well, and apart from a slight discomfort in my upper left arm during the night, I felt no side effects.

At 4:30 pm, I walked for about an hour; longer would have been nicer, but I was expecting my two co-owners of the house to discuss a few things. 

Church in Pflugfelden where I walked past.

On Wednesday (14 January) I started work at the office as usual, but left after lunch to spend the afternoon at a company in Stuttgart to give the employees a basic training in matters of data protection and AI. 

Sunrise on Wednesday, as seen from my kitchen...

...and the platform in Zuffenhausen waiting for the local train taking me to the office.

This, giving trainings/talks and interacting directly with the people I work for and with, is my favourite part of the job.

We finished on time and nobody had any more questions, which enabled me to leave with almost an hour left until sunset.

I took advantage of this and walked from Stuttgart's Main Station to its North Station, a route I know very well and have done many times on my way home from the eye surgery. 

Sorry - the photos are in reverse order, starting with a sunset view before reaching North Station and ending with the row of trees near the entrance of the park.

Much of the park looks bleak this time of year, but I still enjoyed the late afternoon atmosphere and silhouettes of bare trees against the setting sun. My pictures can only show part of what it was like; imagine the continuous sound of many, many crows about, and a few other birds as well, with the constant hum of city traffic as a backdrop. As it was one of the 12C/53F days, it felt very good to be out and about.

For Thursday (15 January), I had planned to work at the office again because we were having our quarterly meeting of Compliance Officers (there are 13 or 14 of us for the entire company).

Getting there wasn't straightforward, as the local trains were rather chaotic that morning (as is so often the case). And then I finally arrived, only to find that I was unable to log on to my work computer! 

Since we do not have phones anymore, but all calls come in via our computers, I could not even contact our helpdesk without asking a colleague for help. From her computer, I called the support team and was told that they couldn't fix it quickly. They asked if I had an alternative device to work from. Yes, I did, but at home...

After I informed my boss, I took the next possible trains home, from where I had no trouble at all logging on. In the meantime, I learned that other colleagues had the same problem; apparently, it was an issue with a server, nothing we could do about individually. I missed the first two meetings of the day but was after all able to attend the Compliance Officers meeting, and work without a hitch for the rest of the day.

Late afternoon, I met a friend who lives five minutes from my house, and together we walked to the small palace by the lake which you have seen many times on my blog. The nearby winery (it belongs to the Duke of Wuerttember just like the palace, the lake and the entire estate there) were offering a "Wine After Work", all outdoors between the palace and the steps leading to the lake, and we wanted to have a look (and a drink).

It was a very nice evening, combined with 45 minutes or so of walking each way, giving us a chance to catch up; we'd not seen each other since before Christmas, and I was especially happy to give her the news of my engagement.

The day had been very mild again at 12C/50F, but although it was cooler once the sun was gone, it was warm enough to stay out for a while, especially when walking.

On Friday (16 January), it was sunny and mild all day. I worked from home, then did my usual cleaning, packed my weekend suitcase and left for the train station in the early evening.

The long distance train arrived even two minutes EARLY in Offenburg :-D

O.K. and I enjoyed our customary meal of salad, cheese, bread and wine to ring in the weekend.

Saturday (17 January) was much cooler at a high of 7C/44F, and only where and when the sun managed to pierce the fog. 

O.K. worked around his mother's house most of the day, cutting down the climber that is damaging the wall if left unchecked. For about 2 hours in the morning and another 1 1/2 hours in the afternoon, I held the high ladder to make sure he was as safe as he could be. Not moving but keeping hold of the cold aluminium ladder chilled me to the bone after a while, no matter that I was wearing two pairs of woolly socks, two pairs of gloves, a padded winter coat, scarf and woolly hat.

It took me ages to get properly warm again, but eventually, he wrapped up the work and we cooked a nice hot meal together.

Last year, we did that same job in February; I wrote about it here. I so wish O.K. would postpone it to a warmer day, but later in spring, birds breed in the climbers, and cutting the branches would not be a good idea.

It was dark by about 5:30 pm, and by 6:30 pm we left the cottage for a two-hour walk - we were on a mission to deliver three congratulatory cards to two addresses in O.K.'s village and one in the next village. The village band sends cards to those members and supporters who have a special birthday, Golden Wedding anniversary or similar events to celebrate, and it is O.K.'s job to print the cards and make sure they reach the recipients on time. When they live within walking distance, that is usually the quickest and easiest way to do that.

I enjoyed that nightly walk. Along the fields between O.K.'s and the next village there are no street lights, so we had a good view of the starry sky. Walking swiftly meant we weren't cold; only towards the end we were both glad to reach the village again, and get back to the warm, cosy cottage.

O.K.'s Mum is in a rehab clinic for various health issues right now, and we went to visit her on Sunday (18 January). The clinic is in Durbach, only a short drive away, and we know the area quite well from several walks and hikes, for instance here and here.

Durbach

Of course in January, the vineyards and woodland look different, but we still put in a walk of about 10 km before going to the clinic, where we had coffee and cake with O.K.'s Mum.

We spent the rest of the afternoon and evening back at the cottage, as usual getting ready for our usual 5:15 am start on Monday morning.