Wednesday 20 June 2018

Wednesday 20 June - Güglingen

Where's Bertie? He's at a Stellplatz in Güglingen. Water is available at 10c per 8-10 litres, waste is free. (Exact location: 49.06454, 8.99466)
Weather: Cloudless and hot.

With a few exceptions, when other things get in the way, I write the day's blog post either just before or just after tea. Tonight I'm writing it just before (it's 1745 as I start) and there's not yet been much activity to write about.

My day started with a run. One of the things I like about Germany is the number of off-road bike paths all over the place, which give easy no-navigation-required places to run. This morning I only had to go twenty seconds down the road before I picked up such a path which I then followed for 2 miles before turning and running back. The only downsides of this particular path were the lack of shade and the fact that it went past the sewage works.

The crop fields gave pleasant surroundings for my run, but didn't provide any shade.

It was 22 degrees out by the time I got back at 9am (*really* must work on those early starts!) and after a (cold) shower and a very quick one-item shopping trip, I bagsied the driver's seat and out of town we rolled.

A small and winding road brought us the 15km to Güglingen and as we drove into the huge car park, which housed about 5 cars at the time, I pondered out loud what might be nearby to require such a large capacity. A quick wander told me that the only thing obviously near was the town's outdoor swimming pool.

Usually we try to park so that Bertie's solar panel is in the sunshine. Today we parked as far in the shade as we could and, as the sun moved, we contemplated moving to park crossways to the slots. It's an ignorant thing to do, and not something I would usually contemplate (and indeed, not something we did today, because it is just wrong), but as I said "It's not like there's any pressure on this amount of parking!".

Fastforward a few hours, and at 2pm the schools let out. By 4pm parents were home from work. By 4.30pm there was not a single space left in the car park and the access road had become the overspill parking. I've took a walk around and on a rough calculation reckoned there were over 200 cars here. There was audibly much enjoyment going on at the pool. There is just now starting to be a bit of an exodus.

Meanwhile, we have been mainly sitting outside in whatever shade we can find, variously reading, knitting and crosswording. I did download a 10km walking route just after we arrived but have no inclination to go and walk it in 30 degree heat and unbroken sunshine. Instead we will have tea and, when it starts to cool down a little, will go for a short stroll around the town.

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