Hot Week

Last week started at a nice and pleasant 22C/71F, but the temperature kept rising so that we ended up with days in the 30s and no night cooler than 20 from Thursday onwards. June here is often more of a summer month than July, but according to the weather people on TV, it is unusual to have such a heat wave this month. Also, as before, it's been way too dry. And this week won't bring relief, apparently.

On Monday (15 June), I worked from home, took an early lunch break so that I was able to go for a massage and walked to Benningen late afternoon. I changed the route slightly, once again walking by the small quarry (if it ever was one) I first discovered by coincidence back in March. Of course it looked rather different now, with much less water in the pond, and everything quite overgrown. So far, I have not yet managed to find any information about this strange little place.

A few drops of rain fell on Tuesday (16 June), but it was warm at 25C/77F. After I had spent the morning working from home, I got on a local train to Marbach where a meeting with my client (the Literature Archive) was scheduled for early afternoon. All went well and I enjoyed the walk home along the river, which took me 2 hours and 15 minutes.

That evening, the last pub quiz before the summer break was held at "my" Irish Pub. There were only four of us, and we did not expect to walk home with a prize, but it was still nice to reach 24 or 25 out of 30 points. Also, as always it was good to be with friends.

Wednesday (17 June) was warmer but still pleasant at 28C/82F. It was my regular office day, and since my room faces North and never gets the full sun on the windows, it was not too hot to do focused work. I went to my Mum's after work for a bite to eat and a chat.

The thermometer reached 32C/89F on Thursday (18 June), and I was glad not having to take any stuffy trains or waiting at hot, dusty stations. Working from home allowed me to have a bit of a rest early afternoon; I had a headache all day and felt inexplicably exhausted. Untypically for me, I never set foot out of the door that day but just stayed inside.

It was even a little hotter on Friday (19 June), but I felt much better and got everything done - cleaning, grocery shopping, changing the bedding etc. - by 10:00 am so that I could sit down at my desk afterwards. O.K. arrived not too late that evening, and we had an assortment of three different salads for a refreshing meal. So far, I had managed quite well to keep the worst of the heat out of my flat.

Saturday (20 June) was hot at 34C/93F, but knowing the area well, we chose the paths with the most shade from large old trees for our walk. The small palace by the lake was our first stop; we had a refreshing shandy at the beer garden and then walked up into town via the deer park at a leisurely pace. Friends had given us a voucher for an ice cream parlour in town as a wedding present, and we exchanged that for two large cups and a small iced water.

A rest at home was very welcome afterwards, and in the evening we went to my Mum‘s for a delicious tabouleh.

It was very warm in her attic flat, but bearable with chilled drinks and light food.

It was about 10:00 pm and almost dark when we left, but there was still enough light for us to enjoy the evening sky and see the unlit paths on the fields, where we headed for a nightly walk. 

I enjoyed that walk greatly but didn‘t take pictures of the beautiful crescent moon and brightly shining Venus, as I knew the photos would not show them the way we saw them with our own eyes.

Sunday (21 June) was just as hot as the say before. Sleep had not come easy, as it never really cooled down over night, and as soon as the neighbours were up, we had to forget all ideas about a bit more sleep. Instead, we had a quick coffee, got dressed and by 8:00 were out for a brief walk, returning home less than an hour later and not going anywhere for the rest of the day.

O.K. left at 8:00 pm and had a smooth drive home in spite of passing several violent thunderstorms, none of which made it to Ludwigsburg. I had thought about going for a sunset walk but decided against it, as there was no way to really know where the gusty wind was going to blow the thick black clouds.

Hard to believe that we‘re already past the summer solstice!

End of Summer Week

It's not "officially" the end of summer just yet, but this past week definitely felt very much like we are slowly but surely approaching early autumn. No day has been warmer than 27C/80F, and some mornings were rather chilly at about 12C/53F.

Also, the light has a certain quality it doesn't have in early and mid summer, and the shortening of daylight hours has been making itself felt. Add to that the harvest largely brought in, blackberries and rosehips on the hedgerows and chrysanthemums, dahlias and sunflowers in people's gardens, and you can't miss the signs. 

I know I say this every year this time of year; late summer/early autumn puts me in a special frame of mind. Part of me does not want to let go of summer, of the time when I can just up and go for a walk without having to think about coats and scarves and boots, of bright sunlight streaming into my kitchen first thing in the morning, of flowers in the meadows and green leaves on the trees. But I also love the golden light we get from mid-August onwards, the evenings beginning to feel cosier with a blanket on the settee, the green of summer slowly giving way to the colours of autumn, and walking effortlessly in crisp air instead of arriving at the end of a walk all sweaty and ready for a shower.

Last Monday (18 August), the only thing worth mentioning was my after-work walk to Benningen. It was the warmest day of the week, but not so hot as to make being outside uncomfortable.

Tuesday (19 August) saw me meeting my group of "girl"friends (we are nearly all in our 50s now, which makes us not exactly girls anymore) for a meal in the evening, something they have been doing more or less regularly but I had not joined in a while for various reasons. It was nice to see them; the restaurant that two of them had chosen wasn't very good, but nobody left hungry and the most important thing was to be together. We won't be going to that particular place again, though.

On Wednesday and Thursday (20 and 21 August), I worked at the office. On the Wednesday, I got off the train in Zuffenhausen and walked the rest, visiting my Mum. It was nice to sit and chat on her balcony facing west, now that it's not too hot anymore. 

Rosehips along the way between Stammheim and Pflugfelden

It finally rained on Thursday evening (the only rain we had all week) - not for very long and not all that much, but it was better than nothing, and the gardens around here looked a little less dusty and somewhat fresher for it.

O.K.'s sister had her birthday on Friday (22 August), and I was invited, too. A good train connection allowed me to arrive there earlier than when I usually travel to O.K. for the weekend, and we enjoyed a delicious meal at her and her husband's with family and friends.

Saturday (23 August) was a day of working around the house and garden for O.K. while I took care of a few household things at the cottage and spent most of the afternoon resting and reading. 

For the evening, we set up the small electric grill on the balcony and asked O.K.'s Mum to join us for a batch of spicy Merguez sausages, a tomato and feta salad (I used the tomatoes harvested earlier that day by O.K.'s sister at the family allotment) and crunchy bread. 

While O.K. and I were having coffee and cake on the balcony in the afternoon, he spotted something on the grey cover over the sunshade... it turned out to be a hawk-moth, an anmial we don't remember ever having seen before. According to wikipedia, they are not uncommon in our parts, although they cover Germany and central Europe only as a migrant species, not permanently as across large parts of Africa, for instance.

We were both impressed with this beautiful moth and kept checking on it until after dark, careful not to disturb it. As we were clearing away the things from our small BBQ, we were hoping to watch it fly, but it took advantage of a minute or two when neither of us were looking, and we were left with the empty spot where it had been resting, a few drops of its business on the foot of the sunshade (easily wiped off) and of course the photos.

On Sunday (24 August - 4 months to Christmas Eve!), the village band were booked to perform at a village fête about 45 minutes away by car. Those who were not away for their summer holidays all gathered at a parking lot in the village, loaded themselves and their instruments into various cars (we were able to go with a young couple) and set off.

Some members of the local village band after their performance

"Our" village band

After the previous band finished and "our" musicians could settle themselves on the stage, I had a bottle of water while listening to them. I then left the large tent and went exploring a little bit on my own. 

My short walk along the river was very pleasant. Fresh air, the Black Forest rising on all sides, blue sky with white fully clouds, green pastures with cows and sheep, picturesque houses and colourful flower gardens - it really is a beautiful part of the world, and I was a bit sorry that O.K. and I weren't here for a hike. We can of course always come back another day.

Eventually, the band wrapped up their set, and we finally had something to eat. Afterwards, O.K.'s fellow musicians drove us back to the village, and the two of us spent the short remainder of the evening quietly before it was time for lights out in view of our early start the next morning.

A Memory Half Confirmed

In terms of walking, this week has been lousy. It was largely grey, cold, wet and/or icy underfoot, and the precious few moments the sun came through were during the busiest times at work.

By Thursday, I was getting stir-crazy and simply HAD to go walking. I finished work as soon as I had completed my most pressing tasks, which was at about 3:30 in the afternoon (after I'd been at my desk since 6:30 in the morning, with just an average lunch break), giving me 1 1/2 hours until sunset and almost 2 hours until darkness.

My first impulse was to walk to Benningen, but as I reached the first crossroads, instead of turning left I went right, suddenly wanting to go to Kornwestheim, where I'd not been in a while.

Once there, equally on a whim I decided to visit the cemetery, where I'd not been in probably a couple of years. 

Kornwestheim is where my maternal grandmother lived until she married my grandfather, and her mother - my great-grandmother - still lived there until her death in the early 1970s. Many times during my childhood, we went to see our great-grandmother, and I suppose it was some time after her death that my Mum or my Grandma (or both) took me along when they went to the cemetery to look after the family grave.

In my memory, it was always sunny and warm, which makes sense - on rainy days, there would have been no point in going there, as the flowers and other plants on the grave didn't need watering then.

I also half remembered a huge white statue placed rather prominently on a bit of open green in the cemetery, and how that statue used to impress and attract me. To my little girl's mind, it was Jesus, someone absolutely good and trustworthy.

Walking the paths on the cemetery now, I did not see the statue in between the bare trees and sad looking tombstones, and was beginning to wonder whether I had either imagined it (we all know that the human mind has a funny way with memories) or the statue had been removed. 

Instead, I went to the columbarium, knowing exactly where that was, and looked at the compartment that holds the urns of my Mum's parents. 

As I walked away from that site, intent on going right and leaving the cemetery by its main gate, for some reason I looked left - and spotted the statue not far away, still at its rather prominent site, and of course I had a closer look.

The reasons why I had not seen it before were that a) it was nowhere near as huge as I remembered (I was a little girl then, and it's a common effect that we remember things like a certain house, a tree, a street etc. much bigger from childhood than what they are to adult eyes), and b) it was not white but a dull grey, with darker grey on top, where no doubt some moss or lichen has formed over the years.

Still, it was the statue I remembered, and on approaching, I saw a fairly new information board nearby. It proved me wrong once more: The statue was not Jesus at all, but a widow and an orphaned child, the child being more or less my height (I'm roughly 1,74 m/5'7" tall).

The statue was erected in 1959 to mark this particular part of the cemetery, dedicated to the graves and memories of the people who died or went missing in the two world wars. The grieving mother raises her arms, asking for peace and to remind us of the dead, appealing to present and future generations to prevent war.

Albrecht Kneer, the sculptor, was 36 when the statue was erected. Born in 1923, he was a child at a time when Germany was still struggling with the aftermath of WWI, and 25 years old at the outbreak of WWII. Like many others of his generation, he must have seen or experienced unspeakable horrors, and a lot of his sadness and despair over the wars must have gone into his work.

One thing I remembered about the statue was right, though: Its whiteness. The material is called Muschelkalk in German; I have found various translations for it in English: coquina; lacustrine limestone; shell limestone or shell lime. For coquina, the website "Geology Science" has a picture that goes well with the idea of the white statue that I remember, but of course it has weathered to grey now.

In any case, I was quite deeply moved by this unplanned visit to the cemetery and my encounter with a half-forgotten memory.

Three Years, Three Months and Three Days

Three years, three months and three days - that is the exact period of time until my 60th birthday!

I have never had a problem with getting older, or "revealing" my age to people. When I was little, there was a family in our neighbourhood where not even the children knew how old their mother actually was. This changed in later years, and my Mum especially has been to many of this lady's birthdays over the decades. But I remember how silly I found this, since my parents never made such a fuss about their age.

Turning 30 was interesting - it made me feel really good, and I couldn't help but shake my head at how all of a sudden, cosmetics companies sent me adverts for anti-age creams and wrinkles concealers, and my health insurance started sending me a different customer magazine than the one I had received until then.

At 40, I thought I had the coming years neatly mapped out in front of me, and again I had no trouble with that number. Little did I know that 1 1/2 years later, I was going to be widowed, with my life changed forever.

For my 50th birthday, I was happy to be able to rent "my" entire Irish Pub and fill it with my family, friends and neighbours. Shortly afterwards, I had to undergo major eye surgery - partly related to my age.

What am I going to do when I turn 60? What will my life look like then?

Where will I be, job-wise, living-wise, relationship-wise? Actually, I do not expect either my job nor my living arrangements to change, and especially not my relationship - as far as depends on me, O.K. is my "forever" man.

Of course nobody really knows what the future will bring. 

Much like the rest of the world, Germany is undergoing rapid and radical changes that impact our daily lives. The company I work for could cease to exist or need to lay me off before I reach retirement age (currently 67 for me). My health could suffer, making me unable to keep a full time job or go for my beloved walks and hikes. O.K. could decide he's had enough of me. Political unrest and economy crisis could lead to dangerous circumstances beyond my control. Climate conditions could create  problems in the area where I live.

The list is long and scary, but although I am realistic enough to know that all of this is possible, my general outlook is optimistic and hopeful where my personal future is concerned.

I'll stick to doing what is good for me for as long as I can. This sounds egoistical, but it makes sense - I can't be of any use to anyone, be it in my family, circle of friends or at work, when I'm not well and my life is off balanced.

Therefore, here's to turning 60 in three years, three months and three days!

First April Week

Another short working week, with Easter Monday being a holiday, and seeing the hottest day of the year so far.

Easter Monday (1 April) saw us getting up relatively early so that we'd be in time for church; the village band traditionally provide the music for the family service that day. At 10C/50F, it was chilly. It was also wet and windy but cleared up late afternoon, allowing for an hour-long walk around the village before dropping in with O.K.'s Mum for a bit.

On Tuesday (2 April), just like the previous week I took the trains I normally take on a Monday morning to get home, and was at my desk at the usual time. I was very tired, had a bit of a headache and felt queasy in the morning. Resting on my bed for half an hour during my lunch break helped a lot, and so did the after-work walk to Benningen through the beautiful spring late afternoon and early evening, including a pale rainbow at the start that I just about managed to see before it vanished, and the first apple blossoms.

Click to enlarge and spot the rainbow!

Almost at vanishing point, if you look carefully, you can still see the rainbow.

apple blossoms

A chilly and rainy day followed on Wednesday (3 April), just right for working at the office all day. At 6:00 pm, my sister and I met at our Mum's for a delicious meal of home-made vegetable soup and freshly baked mini naans. My sister had been to the south of France over Easter to visit our relatives there, and told us of her trip and how everyone is.

It was milder but still rather windy on Thursday (4 April) with a mix of rain, sun and clouds. After work, I walked for about 1.5 hours in a part of town I'd not been to in a while.

sunrise on that Thursday morning

It is always interesting to find yet another spot from where the giant ferris wheel is visible.

Sometimes I direct my walks to places that I knew well in the past, such as the street where my piano teacher used to live and where I went for lessons once a week in my mid-teens. The family name is still on the mailbox, and the house has the same, slightly neglected "bohemian" feel it had back then.

Friday (5 April) was considerably warmer at 23C/73F, and I took advantage of it by leaving my windows wide open all day. I am not sure how much the beautiful spring day had to do with it, but I felt like I was "back" and properly "me" again for the first time in weeks, my energy and ability to focus returning.

The day consisted of the usual succession of work, cleaning and packing my little red suitcase until it was time to walk to the train station. Both trains were on time. When O.K. picked me up in Offenburg, we first stopped briefly with a couple of friends before driving to the village. It made for a late supper at the cottage at 10:00 pm.

The next day, Saturday (6 April), came with record-breaking temperatures and wall to wall sunshine: We had about 28C/82F, but the nearby village of Ohlsbach was later given as the warmest place in our part of Germany that day at 30C/86F. It is not so unusual to have warm days in April, but this kind of temperature was much higher than average.

We spent it working around the house and garden of O.K.'s parents. I scratched the moss of a set of stone steps leading up to the patio; while the mossy stones look nicer than the naked concrete, it also made the steps slippery when wet, and dangerous for O.K.'s Mum who will be 84 in August.

I don't mind physical work at all - it allows the mind to wander and gives a sort of satisfaction rarely felt with the abstract stuff I do for a living. But I must admit that the backs of my legs and some other body parts are not used to kneeling and crouching for hours, and every now and then I had to get up and stretch a little. Sore muscles were with me for a few days afterwards, but that's alright.

O.K.'s sister suggested a BBQ at her place that evening, which was much appreciated, since it allowed us to work longer and save time otherwise spent on preparing a meal ourselves. It was still warm enough to sit out in their garden all evening - a pleasant end to a real summer day.

It was "White Sunday" on Sunday (7 April), the name given to the Sunday of the First Communion for Roman Catholic children in Germany. Since O.K.'s village is predominantly Catholic, it is an important day there, with the village band playing for the children and their families on the square in front of the church after the service. 

The warm, sunny weather made for a good turn-out, and it was nice to observe the crowd in their festive clothes. 

Back home, we changed into walking outfits (it was warm enough for me to wear my hiking shorts and a short-sleeved top!), got into the car and drove about half an hour to the village of Nordrach. From there, we walked one of the many tours suggested in a booklet I keep at the cottage. 

Amazingly, in spite of the good weather, we walked most of the tour entirely on our own, the only sounds being birdsong, a murmuring beck running along the path and our conversation - beautiful, and just what I needed.

pear blossoms

Along the way, boards informed about various fruit trees cultivated in the area, such as this pear tree.

Who would not want to have a little rest with such a view?

Baking houses are typical outbuildings at the larger farms here, and this one was open, selling home-made schnaps and other products from the farm.

typical Black Forest farm house

Old stable in Nordrach

Nordrach church inside...

...and out. It is nowhere near as old as it looks; what you see was built in the Neo-Gothic style in 1904/05.

It was neither a strenuous nor particularly long walk, just over 10 km I think, but perfect after the previous day's physical work. Back at the cottage, O.K. fixed us our favourite drink for a summerly evening (Apérol Spritz), and we took one up to the patio for his Mum as well.

For our evening meal, we grilled the rest of the meat and Merguez sausages left over from Saturday.

A busy (as usual) but good week altogether.