Where's Bertie? He's still at the Stellplatz at Weilheim.
Weather: Wall-to-wall sunshine, with the most perfect hue of blue sky. Hot.
Mick's run was curtailed this morning when a careless cyclist veered off the path and noticed just in the nick of time that she was about to mow him down (he'd already leapt off the path trying to avoid said cyclist who was looking the other way). In the process she came off her bike. Mick was unscathed at that point, but he then helped her and her bike up, and in so doing did his back a mischief. Hopefully it's a minor strain that will be right as rain in a couple of days.
Meanwhile, out for a walk along the river whilst Mick ran, I averaged out the pedestrian vs cyclist carelessness when I stepped straight in front of a bicycle. Thankfully this one was on the ball and managed to avoid not only me but also the oncoming bike.
A period of inactivity followed for much of the rest of the morning. Whilst we very seldom plug into the electric if payment is required, if other people have left credit on the meter, then we are happy to use it up. So, once all of our neighbours had left, I checked out what credit was left and set about using it to get everything charged (with emphasis on the stuff we can't charge on 12v). Everything except Mick's beard trimmer, that is. Whereas in January we found ourselves in Spain with the charger but not the trimmer, this time our packing has been negligent in the opposite direction. Mick may have a long beard by the end of this trip. Or our collection of beard trimmers is going to get out of hand.
Our walk around the town came in the middle of the day and was an unstructured ambling sort of a tour. We did find the tourist office, but five minutes after they'd closed for a 1.5hr lunch break. It's a very clean and tidy town (no shabby buildings; even the church is pristine), but not remarkable enough to warrant a detour if you weren't coming here anyway.
Looking along one of the streets.
Fountain of the day, complete with finger across lens (sigh!)
Whilst it has been hot today, it's not been humid, leaving my hands unsweaty enough to be able to knit the afternoon away. Chasing the shade around Bertie, that meant I was effectively sitting in the middle of a car park knitting. As far as I noticed, nobody ogled or stared at me.
Perhaps that's because they had clocked our new neighbours. My first thought (a very uncharitable thought, I'm afraid) when I saw the female half of those neighbours was "mutton". Then I saw her husband, who stepped out of the driving seat wearing nothing but a pair of skimpy shorts. He apparently then decided he was overdressed as the next time I saw him he had changed into a pair of budgie-smugglers, and that is how he has remained ever since.
Our final activity for the day, just as the temperature was building towards its peak, was a late-afternoon stroll. The woodland path by the river was a shaded delight, as it took us through mixed trees, alongside a small brook and past a crystal clear pond. Our return along the riverside was less shaded, but still lovely.
It's just gone 1940 as I sit and type this, and the temperature inside is 31.2 degrees. That may sound hot, but in this unshaded spot it's a lot cooler than it would have been if we didn't have a screen at every sunwards window. Even the reflective cover I made for the side window and the black-out curtain for the open doorway have been deployed this afternoon.
(Today's aside: We've observed over the last three summers that Germany is cash-centric. Paying cash at the supermarket, even for a big shop, is normal and there are a surprising number of places that don't accept plastic. A couple of years ago we even found a petrol station that didn't accept cards - fortunately we did have enough notes on us to cover the 80 litres we'd just put in the tank. The problem with staying at pay-Stellplätze as often as we have the last week (an unusually high number of times; we usually favour the free ones more) is that it rips through the coin supplies, as few of them even accept notes. My norm is to pay for everything with plastic (I often don't even carry cash), but in Germany we find ourselves having to make an effort to use cash for small purchases just to get the change. For today's parking fee, Mick intercepted the man emptying the electric meters and changed a note for 50c pieces, €6 worth of which went straight back into the parking machine. It's such a contrast to Norway, where paying with plastic was the norm and cash the oddity.)
Weather: Wall-to-wall sunshine, with the most perfect hue of blue sky. Hot.
Mick's run was curtailed this morning when a careless cyclist veered off the path and noticed just in the nick of time that she was about to mow him down (he'd already leapt off the path trying to avoid said cyclist who was looking the other way). In the process she came off her bike. Mick was unscathed at that point, but he then helped her and her bike up, and in so doing did his back a mischief. Hopefully it's a minor strain that will be right as rain in a couple of days.
Meanwhile, out for a walk along the river whilst Mick ran, I averaged out the pedestrian vs cyclist carelessness when I stepped straight in front of a bicycle. Thankfully this one was on the ball and managed to avoid not only me but also the oncoming bike.
The snap I took immediately before stepping in front of the bike. I'm not sure whether the snowy mountains in the distance are visible in the photo?
Another river view.
A period of inactivity followed for much of the rest of the morning. Whilst we very seldom plug into the electric if payment is required, if other people have left credit on the meter, then we are happy to use it up. So, once all of our neighbours had left, I checked out what credit was left and set about using it to get everything charged (with emphasis on the stuff we can't charge on 12v). Everything except Mick's beard trimmer, that is. Whereas in January we found ourselves in Spain with the charger but not the trimmer, this time our packing has been negligent in the opposite direction. Mick may have a long beard by the end of this trip. Or our collection of beard trimmers is going to get out of hand.
Our walk around the town came in the middle of the day and was an unstructured ambling sort of a tour. We did find the tourist office, but five minutes after they'd closed for a 1.5hr lunch break. It's a very clean and tidy town (no shabby buildings; even the church is pristine), but not remarkable enough to warrant a detour if you weren't coming here anyway.
Whilst it has been hot today, it's not been humid, leaving my hands unsweaty enough to be able to knit the afternoon away. Chasing the shade around Bertie, that meant I was effectively sitting in the middle of a car park knitting. As far as I noticed, nobody ogled or stared at me.
Perhaps that's because they had clocked our new neighbours. My first thought (a very uncharitable thought, I'm afraid) when I saw the female half of those neighbours was "mutton". Then I saw her husband, who stepped out of the driving seat wearing nothing but a pair of skimpy shorts. He apparently then decided he was overdressed as the next time I saw him he had changed into a pair of budgie-smugglers, and that is how he has remained ever since.
Our final activity for the day, just as the temperature was building towards its peak, was a late-afternoon stroll. The woodland path by the river was a shaded delight, as it took us through mixed trees, alongside a small brook and past a crystal clear pond. Our return along the riverside was less shaded, but still lovely.
It's just gone 1940 as I sit and type this, and the temperature inside is 31.2 degrees. That may sound hot, but in this unshaded spot it's a lot cooler than it would have been if we didn't have a screen at every sunwards window. Even the reflective cover I made for the side window and the black-out curtain for the open doorway have been deployed this afternoon.
(Today's aside: We've observed over the last three summers that Germany is cash-centric. Paying cash at the supermarket, even for a big shop, is normal and there are a surprising number of places that don't accept plastic. A couple of years ago we even found a petrol station that didn't accept cards - fortunately we did have enough notes on us to cover the 80 litres we'd just put in the tank. The problem with staying at pay-Stellplätze as often as we have the last week (an unusually high number of times; we usually favour the free ones more) is that it rips through the coin supplies, as few of them even accept notes. My norm is to pay for everything with plastic (I often don't even carry cash), but in Germany we find ourselves having to make an effort to use cash for small purchases just to get the change. For today's parking fee, Mick intercepted the man emptying the electric meters and changed a note for 50c pieces, €6 worth of which went straight back into the parking machine. It's such a contrast to Norway, where paying with plastic was the norm and cash the oddity.)
I'm not sure if you would call it coincidence, but we both had cyclist involvement at roughly the same rime - see my post "Emergency calls."
ReplyDeleteI note the Germans have a more modest lunch break compared to the French - only 1.5hrs!
My mental picture of you going round checking all the remaining electricity made me chuckle. As ever: resourceful.
Between us I think we've exhausted the excitement with cyclists for this week! I hope yours was okay, particulary after such a long wait for an ambulance.
ReplyDeleteNot only did I check the remaining credit, but I came up with tactics that saw me using up the smallest amount of credit first, before switching to an outlet with more. Had another van arrived whilst the first one was still live, I would have dashed out and moved the cable over before they were even parked up. I work on the basis that someone is going to get that left-over credit, so it may as well be us.