A "Short" Week

Of course, last week was not shorter than any other week - it still had all seven days, but it felt shorter work-wise because Wednesday, the 1st of November, was a public holiday in my part of Germany.

On Monday (30 October) I had a pleasant train trip from Offenburg to Stuttgart with beautiful sunrise views of the Black Forest hills. I arrived in Ludwigsburg on time and worked for a few hours until I had to leave for the train station again.

Maybe you remember how the week before, my meeting in Marbach did not come about because too many trains were cancelled or late. We had agreed on another attempt today, and this time, all went well.

National Schiller Museum in Marbach, part of my work place there

Statue of Friedrich Schiller, German poet/playwright/doctor (1759-1805)

View towards the "rocket", by now a familiar sight for my blog readers.

The meeting ended at about a quarter past 3:00 in the afternoon which meant I had about two hours of daylight left. I took advantage of that and walked most of the way home. During the last third, drizzle turned into proper rain, and the bag with my work laptop felt heavier by the minute. I crossed the river Neckar and on the other side boarded the first bus that came along, saving me the last 2 km or so.

Neckarweihingen church

crossing the Neckar

Tuesday, the 31st of October, would have been my late husband's 55th birthday. I sometimes wonder what he would have had to say about this or that topic, how he would have liked a certain film, new music or a new computer game. But we'll never know.

It was also Halloween, but that has always been an American thing for us (we had a strong US-American presence here until the early 1990s) and not something my family ever celebrated.

The day was mild, but wet; I was lucky in that the rain held off long enough when I walked to my Mum's in the evening. She had prepared a traditional Sauerkraut dish for the three of us (Mum, sister and I), with mashed spuds and Wiener sausages.

 View from my kitchen window that night

Sunshine greeted me when I woke up on Wednesday (1st of November). As mentioned above, it was a holiday, and I had the entire day at my disposition. O.K. and I spent it separately, as it was only the one day off, and he had to play with the village band at the cemetery early afternoon.

The temperature was really mild at 16C/60F, feeling even warmer in sun - not November-like at all! I went for a 2-hour walk to Pattonville, which I will tell you about in a separate post. Along the way, I bumped into a colleague and her husband, and we had a nice little chat.

Last year and the year before, we visited the "Leuchtende Traumpfade" ("Luminous Dream Paths", roughly translated) in the palace grounds. 

We wanted to go this year, too, and my Mum and I chose that day - not a good idea, as it turned out. We could not even get in for the masses of people clogging up the relatively narrow entrance; it was really a pity, especially since my Mum had bought tickets for the two of us at the main entrance. 

Many people were queuing there, too, but we expected them to disperse in the vast grounds. After waiting at the entrance to the "Traumpfade" for a bit, with nothing moving back or forth, we asked visitors who were just coming out by the exit gate whether it was equally packed inside. They confirmed that it was so, and that made our decision easy - we left and went for a quick drink at the pub instead, before I walked to the bus stop with my Mum and then home.

Thursday, 2nd November, was cooler at 11C/52F, and wet almost throughout. It was a quiet day at work, with many colleagues having the whole week off (half-term school holidays). I went to a meeting with another person from my volunteer group; we had been invited to introduce ourselves and our work at an organisation with a similar aim.

Sunrise on Thursday was quite spectacular!

It was cold on Friday (3 November) morning, only 5C/41F - more like November is supposed to be. After work, the usual tasks (household, groceries shopping etc.) were waiting for me. O.K. arrived at my place at 8:15 pm.

Saturday (4 November) started sunny but it was windy to the point of stormy, which made for rapidly changing weather. For breakfast and one or two errands, we went into town; after a quick drop-in at home, we were out again, this time walking on the fields, taking advantage of an hour or two when it did not rain.

The khaki fruit on "my" tree must be nearly ripe now.

At 7:00 pm, we were at my Mum's who had cooked another lovely meal for the four of us (Mum, sister, O.K. and I). 

The stormy weather continued on Sunday, the 5th of November. It was the 14th anniversary of my husband's death - I still find it hard to believe sometimes.

After a late-ish breakfast, we waited for the rain to let up a bit and then went on another walk, this time on the mostly tree-less fields south of Ludwigsburg, were there was no danger of being hit by falling branches.

Back home, we had a brief rest and then coffee & cake. The rest of the afternoon was spent watching a documentary about hiking in the Black Forest (some areas that we know quite well featured), reading and writing.

Kitchen time rolled around quickly, and I prepared the second of the two pumpkins you can see in my autumn display. I peeled and diced the butternut, a few spuds and parsnips, roasting them all in the oven and adding crumbly feta cheese for the last 15 minutes or so.

O.K. left at around 9:00 pm and arrived home about 1 1/2 hours later.