A Mostly Sunny Week

[Updated 27.02.2025 about the phenomenon we observed on the Friday]

Last week was often sunny but very cold until Thursday afternoon, when the weather began to feel very spring-like. I managed some good walks and spent Sunday volunteering at one of the 59 polling stations in my hometown, helping with the German-wide general election.

I returned from Offenburg on Monday (17 February) morning and started work as usual. My lunch time was spent having my customary back & shoulders massage at the nearby day spa. 

My sister and I had agreed to go on a guided tour after work, at a huge construction site at our old school. Only when she arrived a bit before we had to leave and I offered her coffee did I realise that half of my flat was without electricity! My study was fine, otherwise I would have noticed immediately that something was wrong; it was full daylight so that I had not needed the lights on in any of the rooms, and I had not been cooking and only drank tap water.

Kitchen, bathroom and bedroom had no power, which meant my fridge was not cooling, and the freezer compartment had completely defrosted - something I'd meant to do for ages but I rather imagined it would happen in a planned way, not like this! Unfortunately, I had to throw out two or three items from the freezer, something I hate - it's food, after all, and I am very unhappy about food waste.

Anyway, my sister gave me the number of the electrician who had recently sorted out something at our Mum's place, and he agreed to come the very next day.

We went to the guided tour as planned, and learned many interesting things about what it means to pull an old complex of school buildings down and building a new one, all step by step without the school having to close for the work - a HUGE challenge.

I suppose you can guess when the school was built! It hasn‘t changed much since then.

The spacious foyer, still smelling exactly the same - not surprising, as the ugly carpet is still the same, too!!

How many hours of my life were spent staring at a ceiling like this while a teacher was doing his or her best to impart some knowledge?

We quite like the concept of the new school buildings, and enjoyed the trip down memory lane when we spent the second half of the tour inside the old building that we knew so well from when we were about 10 years old until our late teens.

Tuesday (18 February) was sunny but so cold at -6C/21F that I didn't mind not having time for a walk. I was working from home, and the electrician appeared as promised. It took him all of 10 minutes to sort things out, but I know that sooner or later a bigger job is on the cards - I still have all the original wiring from when the house was built in 1950s, and the ceramic-head fuses which should by rights be in a museum.

sunrise from my kitchen on Tuesday

The evening was spent with my sister again, this time at our Mum's, for a nice meal and chat.

The weather was the same on Wednesday (19 February), my regular day at the office and busy but unremarkable.

Thursday (20 February) saw the start of the spring-like weather: After a cold morning just above freezing, the afternoon was much milder at 10C/50 F. There was a mix of sun and clouds, but it remained dry, and I was very happy to be able to walk to Benningen after work, even though by then there was little left of the earlier sunshine.

Lunch was different from my usual cheese sandwich, eaten in my yellow armchair while reading: My sister, my Mum and Mum's friend met at the Vesperkirche, an annual charity project my Mum used to be involved with and wrote a guest post about here. It was packed, which is good - the more people come, the more donations come in (I hope). We enjoyed our meal but both my sister and I were pressed for time since we only had our lunch break.

On Friday (21 February), the warmest day of the week saw the thermometer climb to 17C/62F, which is unusual but not impossible in our area this time of year. After work, my sister and I walked to our neighbouring town of Kornwestheim, where we revisited a few places our family has ties to, and were out for about 3 hours.

sunrise again

yellow and blue - my favourite colours

An unusual phenomenon in the sky (no trick or reflection, but really what we saw)

More unusual cloud formations above Kornwestheim‘s old church.

Statue of a mother with children of various ages in Kornwestheim‘s Stadtgarten (town garden, a public park we‘ve known all our lives)

Italianate living quarter built in the late 1980s. Back then, I found it somewhat ridiculous and pretentious, but looking at it now I have come to like it.

Witz means joke in German, but here it was simply the name of the shop owners, long gone and the shop closed for decades.

The photographer being photographed 😊
It was the first time in months that I felt comfortable outside without a jacket or coat.

Update 27.02.2025: My sister reminded me of the name for the phenomenon we observed in the sky, it was a circumhorizontal arc and has its own wikipedia entry here. (In our case, it didn't look like an arc, but that's what it was.)

Saturday (22 February) was a complete "day off" for me, with no appointments with anyone and no work - I could just do what I wanted, and I wanted a walk to Steinheim. You may remember that the route across the fields from Marbach to Steinheim, where my parents had their allotment until my Dad became too unwell to look after it, used to be my Mum and my favourite walk for some years. I still love that walk, even though my Mum is not physically able to do come along anymore. The last time I was there was in September last year, as seen here.

I boarded the local train to Marbach at lunch time, then walked to Steinheim, up the hill to the allotments, on into the woods and back to Steinheim in a wide loop, then back to Marbach across the fields - a total of about 18 km, which felt really good. I had a sandwich and my water bottle in my bag and took a 10-minute rest on a bench, enjoying the mild spring air (15C/59F). Arriving at Marbach station with 15 minutes to spare until the train home was good timing without having planned it that way.

a crocus field

a familiar view, but never quite the same

The river Murr flows through Steinheim

The village of Lehrhof looks much better from afar than up close (trust me)

Germany held a federal election on Sunday (23 February), and both my sister and I were once again volunteering at one of the polling stations. I really like this kind of volunteer work; it makes me feel that I am doing my bit for democracy (apart from voting, of course), and I hardly mind getting up awfully early for that on a Sunday. (I must admit I wouldn‘t want to do that evey week, or once a month or so.)

Our shift was from 7:30 am until 1:00 pm, and we were back by 5:45 pm to help close the polling station at 6:00 pm and then do the counting.

There were seven of us for the counting, and so we were finished a little before 8:00 pm. I am not going to turn this post into a political one; let it suffice to say that the outcome wasn't a surprise. It could have been "better", but it could have also been "worse", in my opinion.