First Week Back

Hard to believe that I've already been back at work for almost two full weeks since my Yorkshire Holiday!

Here is the first week, starting with Tuesday. For Monday (5 August), click here.

What I brought from Yorkshire: the gloves and the mug are gifts from the family, the books I bought at The Little Ripon Bookshop, the National Trust shop at Fountains Abbey and WHSmith in Ripon, and the socks I probably bought at FatFace in Ripon.

Tuesday (6 August) was my first day back at work. In all my email inboxes (with two employers and three clients), a total of 288 messages were waiting for me. Not to worry - I knew that some of them would not require any action on my part but were just for information, and others were invitations for meetings which I only needed to accept or decline. Still, there was of course enough left for me to do, and in any case, each and every message had to be looked at.

It took me until Friday before I was on top of all my inboxes again, but that's completely normal.

The day was sunny and beautiful, relatively hot at 29C/84F but good for my standard after-work walk to Benningen. It helped me to fully "arrive" back home.

On Wednesday (7 August), I was at the office for the first time since before the holiday. Some of my colleagues were now away, but it was nice to catch up with those still there.

A little rain in the afternoon made the 28C/82F pleasant enough for me to get off the train in Zuffenhausen and walk home from there, taking in the cemetery where I'd not been in many weeks and went to say hello to my Dad's and friend R's bird markers. A beautiful butterfly on R's marker made me smile.

Again at the office on Thursday (8 August), and then to my Mum's. I had not seen her yet since my return. She made a nice meal for the three of us (my sister was also there), and we had a general catch-up. 

The day felt much cooler at 23C/73F, a welcome respite of the higher temperatures and a chance to get fresh air into the flat.

It was still fresh on Friday (9 August) morning at about 15C/59F when I got up, but the temperature rose to 29C/84F during the day.

I wisely decided to do my cleaning in the morning, before it got too warm and I shut down the blinds, and work afterwards.

With it being the school holidays, train connections are fewer than usual, and so I had to leave about an hour earlier than usual when I travel to O.K. At least both my trains were on time, and O.K. picked me up in Offenburg at 8:00 pm.

After a leisurely stroll through the city centre (bands were playing at various spots), we had a good meal outdoors at an Italian restaurant.

It was dark by the time we arrived at the cottage, and we did some stargazing on the balcony for a while. With the village not being as bright as the city, we could even make out the Milky Way, which I can never see from my flat.

Saturday (10 August) was sunny and hot at 30C/86F. A few jobs around the house and garden were in order, but we also took a bit of time out for a rest and enjoyed a piece of delicious plum cake, made by O.K.'s Mum, in the afternoon.

O.K.'s sister and her husband as well as his Mum joined us for a family BBQ at 6:00 pm, with the area in front of the house being in the shade by then. I'd not seen them since mid-July and was happy to catch up.

Another hot day was forecast for Sunday (11 August), and it certainly was that at 32C/90F. Almost exactly four years ago, we had chosen just such a hot day for a hike along the Gertelbach waterfalls - a good place to be, with the shade of the trees and the running water making for a pleasantly cooler climate.

View from "Herta-Hütte", the shelter where we had our sandwiches.

To me, the big boulder looks like an ancient sleeping creature.

We found the same spot again where in 2020, we played in the stream for a while at the end of our hike.

Getting up to mid-calf into the cold water was so refreshing! But eventually, I had to put my socks and shoes back on.

We repeated that hike on that day. If you go back to my post from 2020, you'll see that we tried to get to a castle on a hill but didn't find the right road to it. This time, O.K. suggested we try again, and we were successful :-)

Windeck is the ruins of a castle that originates from around the year 1200. Like all such places, over the centuries it has changed hands many times and was the subject of fights and sieges as well as fire. You can read more about it on Wikipedia (in English). Nowadays, visitors can climb one of the two towers, which offers fantastic views of the area.

Back home, for our evening meal we grilled the merguez we had left from yesterday's BBQ, plus a basket of vegetables. At dusk, we walked to the cemetery to water the flowers on the family grave.

My first week back was over, and it had been a good High Summer's week.