7 months in the blink of an eye

In January we sent our youngest daughter away to Ireland where she looked after 3 adorable kids, made international friends and travelled a lot all over the country as an aupair.

Since then life has been busy - and now she already is back after 7 months of Irish adventures. She flew back to Germany on Sunday but stayed with friends for the night on her way home. On Monday I was waiting for her at the station. Usually we stay in the car when we collect someone at the station, but knowing that our daughter had far too much luggage on her shoulders, I went up to the platform.

Arriving home, there was a very special welcome from our 4 pawed neighbour:

While I had little laundry during the past months, this is changing now again:

And after living of Guinness on the green isle, our youngest was thirsty for a Bavarian beer - without alcohol at noon.

Later on she enjoyed my home made chocolate cake

As I remember well my homesickness for Ireland after returning to Germany when I was our daughter's age, I bought some essential food:

Today we had real Irish food for dinner: real Irish potatoes with ham and cabbage.

Now we get all the information about the every day life and adventures bit by bit - and I forget all my house work.

Unpredictable summer

In our part of Germany the weather is throwing real tantrums this summer. There are occasional summer days with bright sunshine, blue sky and some heat. But the next day you might need socks and a hoody again. Or the sky is dark grey and the air is sticky. All this can also happen within one day.

Luckily the days I'm travelling and enjoying outdoor festivals have been fine so far. Last Saturday I had planned to go to a medieval festival around some castle ruins where I haven't been before. But then I had to work all day. (Another story) This was quite lucky as the festival had to be cancelled for that day due to the storm Zeljko blowing over northern Germany.

Many other events were cancelled like open air cinema at the park in town and camping grounds were cleared. Cycling home after work was difficult and slow - still I arrived before the storm hit our village - just in time. We had visitors and instead of having a cosy evening in the garden, we had comfortable hours sitting in our kitchen, eating, drinking and talking. 

On Sunday I showed our visitors my favorite park - and there we saw the wounds the storm has left behind:

Autumn storms are the rule - but then the trees don't have strong leaves to get ripped of. At least the dwarfs had lived through the storm or were already rescued by the time we passed by.

Right now the sky is blue and the sun is out, but still it looks like wearing warm jumpers outside.....

Welcome Summer Cycle Trip

When I woke up on Sunday morning, the sky was blue, the sun was shinning and it was warm enough to wear shorts, a top and no socks! For this summer feeling I've been waiting for weeks! We decided to take some food for a picknick and cycle along the river. 

The sky was dotted by tiny clouds and there were more boats on the river than cyclists on the path. Some grain fields already looked as golden as in high summer. 

In Bodenwerder we had a longer break for our picknick and then went to a beer garden for drinks as we had used up most of our water and still had to cycle back.

Harbour Festival

On Saturday the harbour club had it's annual summer festival with several bands on a swimming stage. As we had been busy at home, we missed the first bands, but enjoyed "7bucks a week" and  "Drunk Monkeys on Crack", sitting at the bank of the harbour and also watching the play of clouds.

Home of the harbour club is a house boat "The task". There are often jam sessions, but so far we haven't managed to go to any of the events on the boat. One day we will.....

The Task:

7 bucks a week

Visitors on another boat house

Drunk Monkeys on Crack

Degustation Festival

Many of my readers know, that I work in a wine shop. There I often have to try small quantities of wine to get to know it. Sometimes I get some to take home to taste it with different foods. It's very exciting. Learning the customers tasts and selling them the perfect wine ist a real skill. 

My husband prefers beer - but learned to enjoy some good wine as well. For many years he has brought selections of different beers as single bottles home and he collects the tops.

This past weekend we had the first beer festival in town. There were more than 200 different beers waiting to get tasted! Well, our tongue can't remember too many different explosions, so I planned 5 different beers a day at the festival and one or two to take home. Actually we managed 18 beers in 3 days. 

Most breweries only had large glasses, so I brought my own small one and always got a sip from my husband. This way we both stayed almost sober and still could cycle home.

On top of all this exciting tasting my boss had asked me to assist him at a wine tasting at work on Saturday night. That day I was extremely careful at the beer festival, had some food at home and cycled to work at 6 pm. This tasting was a birthday party and the guests tasted 7 different wines. As I had to talk about some of the wines I had some sips as well. Luckily my boss and I were invited to the buffett the party had brought along and I felt fine. Not just that evening, but also on Sunday. It was a real adventure for my tongue - and liver, I suppose - but drinking sensibly I never felt drunk.

Mind you - I don't need any alcohol for some time now!

Traditional Border Surveillance

During medieval times, the borders between fields or in forests were not as fix as they are today. To make sure, nobody moved the border stones or used some feet of the next field for himself, the borders had to be checked regulary. Our village council takes a walk along the borders of the village every 5 years, this year the field borders were "checked", in 5 years time they'll check the forest borders. 

On Saturday the council and every inhabitant who likes long walks met with the local brass band and started off at 9 am. Since I'm not very active in our village clubs it was fun to see many people I had not seen for some time and my husband and I spent most of the way in company of acquaintances. 

After about 2 hours we stopped for breakfast - luckily beside a restaurant with tolilets. As it was at the border to the town, they welcomed us with cannons and blocked our way. We had also cannons with us and after lots of noise and smoke - and the exchange of liquors - we could move on.

Unfortunately it started to pour with rain at the last stop, so those who walked on got drenched. Those who had family or friends at home tried to get collected. Well  - we walked home, changed clothes and went next door to the huge tent were we got dinner.

There was a dance at the tent in the evening, but I rather went to the culture mill for a concert of Monkey Train which was fantastic - although my feet were killing me after 3 hours of dancing on top of the long walk in the morning.