Weather Week

For me, last week was largely dominated by the weather: There was everything from icy fog to spring-like sunshine, with a range of temperature spanning below freezing to (for some) short sleeves. Strong winds were blowing, but we did not get storms such as had been forecast for the UK.

The week was off to an icy start on Monday (20 January) with a long-lasting fog at -5C/23F making me glad I was working from home. The only time I ventured out was for the approximately five minutes it takes me to reach the nearby Day Spa for a back and shoulder massage during my lunch break, followed by a quick pop in at Aldi's, just another few minutes from there. 

I partly made up for the lack of exercise by doing a tiny bit of rope-skipping in the evening - only 120 jumps/skips. At my fittest, when I was still regularly going for runs AND went to the gym AND did ballroom dancing most Saturdays, I managed 400 to 500 without needing a break. Those were the days...!

Tuesday (21 January) looked beautiful with the icy fog turning every twig and leaf into a crystal-covered work of art. 

The view at 7:00 am from my living room...

... and about half an hour later from my kitchen.

A bit of blue sky was welcome...

...and at about 11:00 it was even brighter, although the blue was gone.

The mulberry tree outside my bedroom window looked beautiful...

...as did this group of trees at the cemetery.

At -4C/25F, it was only marginally warmer than the day before, but I felt the itch for a walk and managed to put in almost two hours in the afternoon, visiting the cemetery and doing a wide loop back home, where I worked for another hour or so before it was time to leave for the pub.

It was my team's first quiz of 2025 (quiz nights picked up again after the Christmas market break on the 7th, but this was the first Tuesday nearly all of us could make it) - and fittingly for our first quiz of the year, we ended up coming first!!

Great fun and the win a rather surprising treat, to be honest - we finished the first half missing two of the possible points, and in the second half, we missed another point, but still had one point more than all the other teams.

The decisive point that put us on 1st place was gained by my sister, who was our guest player that evening - she was the ONLY person in the entire pub who guessed the breed of a dog right, shown on the big TV screen. It was, if you want to know, a Malteser.

One of the points we embarrassingly enough didn't get was the answer to the following question: What was Portugal's currency called before the Euro?

Would you have known...?´

As usual, I worked at the office on Wednesday (22 January). It was again an evening spent with my sister, as we met at our Mum's for a delicious meal.

Sunrise on Wednesday, as seen from my sister's flat.

Winter pastels at their best!

I was lucky to catch this view from my kitchen that morning, the sky changed so quickly.

During the night, it got considerably warmer, and by Thursday (23 January) morning, the thermometer reached 8C/46F. There was some rain, but it stopped in the course of the morning, and around lunch time, the sun made an appearance - enough for me to make me walk to Benningen, picking up work again afterwards.

Looking back towards Hohenasperg

The colours were a lot more intense in reality.

Friday (24 January) was special in that for the first time in months, I heard the unmistakeable spring song of a blackbird when I opened all my windows first thing in the morning. I can't tell you how happy that sound made me, a sign of things to come, even if proper spring is still two months or so away, and it was nowhere near the full dawn chorus yet that I so love to get up to.

After work and my usual cleaning round, I took the trains to Offenburg (not the fast, long-distance one that I had originally booked - that one was 35 minutes delayed) and that evening enjoyed a meal with O.K. at his cottage for the first time since New Year's Day.

Sunny, windy and not just mild, but warm - that's in short the description for Saturday (25 January). 17C/62F is definitely NOT our typical January weather, but that was what we had on that day.

O.K. worked until sunset in his Mum's garden and around her house, taking advantage of the daylight hours and warm, dry weather. I did a few jobs indoors, and then we both agreed that I couldn't be of much use with the trimming of hedges etc. but should go for a walk. 

And so it was that I found myself enjoying the spring-like weather, walking for about 2 hours before returning home and making coffee for O.K. and myself (he didn't even come in for that, such was his drive to finish the jobs he had set out to do).

Looking back towards O.K.'s village...

...and ahead towards the next village.

 This bench looked very inviting, but I wanted to walk, not sit.

Usually, this is one of the first places to find snowdrops, but they aren't out yet.

In the evening, we had a quick but delicious meal of ready-made pasta (a kind of ravioli, filled "all'arrabbiata") and a tasty rucola salad with flakes of grana padano.

Sunday (26 January) was cooler at a max of 9C/48F, but still mild and sunny. It would have been perfect for a hike, had it not been for O.K. and his fellow musicians playing at another band member's 60th birthday mid-afternoon.

We still managed a lunchtime walk of about an hour and 15 minutes around the village, which was pleasant and better than not being out and about at all.

The birthday do did not include partners of the musicians, and so we spent good part of the day separately. Still, it was good to be at O.K.'s for the weekend, having our meals and enough time to talk and laugh together, also popping over to his Mum's for a bit to make sure she was alright and didn't need anything (she'll be 85 this year and has only been home from hospital for a week).

We watched a documentary about Norway in the evening, a country I think I would really like to visit one day.