Last of March, First of April

Last week brought an exam on Monday, a true highlight on Tuesday and a business trip on Thursday. I still managed to fit in a few walks and spent a pleasant weekend at O.K.'s.

At 09:00 am on Monday, the 27th of March, the exam for the course I had been on the previous week started. It was not an oral exam with a person at the other end asking questions, but 30 questions were offered like a quiz with multiple choice answers, and I had 45 minutes to answer them.

Before starting the actual exams, two technical hurdles had to be overcome: I had to be identified via my work laptop's camera, and my ID card (German Personalausweis) had to be recognised by the camera, too.

Of course, it did took three or four attempts, like it had done for the test run, but eventually, I was allowed in and could go through my questions.

I had no problems with them and finished well in time.

O.K. was still here but left shortly afterwards, as I had to work anyway. It was a cold day of sun, rain and sun, only 2C in the morning (that's just a little above freezing point for you Fahrenheiters).

View from my kitchen window on the 27th.
Can you believe the amount of primroses?
They were not planted there but seem to become more every year.

It was windy and so I did not walk quite as far as I had intended after work, but limited myself to about 1 hour and a quarter before returning home.

Tuesday (March 28) was an ordinary work day, but the evening was far from ordinary: We won the pub quiz!!! And not only did we win, we also had a perfect score, meaning our team reached every available point! In the well over 10 years we have been playing at the Irish Pub, this was maybe the 2nd or 3rd time that we managed a perfect score. One decisive point was made by a guest, the 24-year-old niece of one of my American team mates who was here on holiday (the niece, not the team mate). At her age, she had no problem identifying a song that was played for about three seconds - us oldies didn't have a clue (we are all in our 50s). It was only fair that she took the prize (a bottle of whisky) home.

O.K. took this on the 28th during a lunch time walk near the village.

It was office day for me on Wednesday, the 29th of March. Work went smoothly, and I was able to leave early enough to walk home the rest of the way from Zuffenhausen. The weather was still very changeable, but it was milder and not as awfully windy as at the start of the week.

Thursday (March 30) meant an early start as I was travelling to Cologne. I left the house at 7:15 am and returned at precisely 9:00 pm. Everything went well with my trains, even though there was a bit of last-minute excitement when what should have been a 20 minute window to change trains in Stuttgart shrunk down to 3 minutes on the way home. Running from platform 16 to platform 4, I made it - no stairs to navigate, and no luggage other than my handbag.

The work meeting in Cologne was good and useful, and the people (I knew only two out of the thirty or so) friendly and competent.

Before catching the first of three trains back, I had about half an hour to spare and walked to the river Rhine.

Maybe some of my long time readers remember how I used to work at the Computer Games trade fair in Cologne every summer, on behalf of my moderator job with EA (Electronic Arts). Well, I stopped doing that years ago (my last post about the fair is here), and had not been to Cologne since. Returning now felt rather nostalgic.

Working from home on Friday, the 31st of March, was welcome. I had a quick walk into town to pick up some posters and leaflets (more about that in a future post), but other than that, no walk.

After work, I started my usual cleaning round. As is my habit when I have a train trip scheduled, I occasionally check my DB Navigator app for any changes. And guess what - both trains I was supposed to take that evening were cancelled!

Of course, by now I am used to such sudden changes of plan, and found alternatives. Still, it made me angry, as it just seems impossible for our national railway to get things right on a permanent base, and be the reliable service provider they once prided themselves on being.

Surprisingly enough, I arrived in Offenburg on time, and O.K. and I started our weekend with our traditional meal of cheese, bread, and wine.

Saturday, the 1st of April, was a day of almost non-stop rain. The chance to sleep in was very welcome! Around noon, the rain lessened somewhat, and we popped out for a walk of about 6 km around the village.

O.K.'s living room window is at the same height as this tree in his neighbour's garden.

O.K. made pizza for us, which we enjoyed with a bottle of Merlot that evening.

I spent most of the day resting, which was fine after that week.

We met with a group of friends for breakfast at a café in town on Sunday (April 2). After a nice couple of hours with good food, friendly service, a lot of talking and laughing, everybody went their seperate ways. O.K. and I remained in town a while longer, taking a walk to a part of town we quite like. It has an interesting mix of houses, some very posh 1960s ones, some more recent; rising on a slope, the area offers nice views, too. A few drops of rain did not bother us much.

We had hardly returned home and started the coffee machine when O.K.'s mother rang and asked us to join them for coffee and cake. So we grabbed our freshly filled mugs and went over (their house is just opposite O.K.'s cottage, with only a narrow road seperating them). His sister and her husband were also there, and so it was a nice unexpected family gathering.

The rest of the afternoon and evening was spent quietly at home, finishing off the rest of yesterday's pizza and going to bed early, as Monday was going to be an early start at 5:15 am.