...and a good time was had by all.

In May, I stopped offering walks with my local walking group. Too taxing all the time and I'd done it for 9 years (not so many in the pandemic years admittedly). Time to let other people offer walks.

However, so many people in the group were sad that I had stopped offering the monthly short walks and they contacted me, so I decided to start the short walks with these people as of June or so - and to offer the walks through the local English library so that people new to the area could also get to see something of the local area.

Anyway, today I led a walk through the Neanderthal Valley to the picturesque village of Gruiten - all along the Düssel, a tributary of the Rhine. We were surrounded by trees all the way.

This is a picture of the valley (not taken by me but taken off the Internet).

And this is Gruiten

The village cafe was choc-a-bloc (or chockablock if you prefer) so we tried another place nearby. We sat there for a while, but the single man working there was overwhelmed by work and said it would take him at least 15 minutes to get to us, so we caught an earlier bus and ended up back in the town we started off from.

This is the village cafe - with the cakes on display:

We went to a cafe right next to the station (apart from the five who had got off the train earlier - where they lived). 

Fourteen people had shown up and around 9 of us made it to the cafe: a family of three from Bangladesh, an Indian woman, a Latvian woman, a woman whose nationality I didn't get (possibly German), me (a Welsh-German mongrel) and the rest were Germans from my walking group.

Whether we were walking, on the bus or train, or in the cafe, a good mood prevailed. German native speakers spoke German and English, non-native German speakers spoke English and German, new words were learnt in both languages (including important words such as "die Einkehr" [stopping for refreshments along the way or at the end of the way] and phrases such as "et kütt wie et kütt" [es kommt wie es kommt or que sera sera]) and different aspects of German life were explained (such as the concept of mixed saunas [i.e. men and women together] all naked).

Everyone got on well with the other - a veritable United Nations. If a bunch of disparate people, from different backgrounds and nations, of different ages (including one child of around 11), with different native languages, who have never met each other before, can get on, why can't that be the case with everyone? It was so easy.

Altogether, it kept me busy for 6 hours and I got great pleasure in seeing everyone getting on with each other. We walked, we talked, we ate cake and drank coffee...and a good time was had by all. A perfect afternoon.

And next month, there's going to be another walk and another constellation of walkers that will mix with each other and get to know new people, new words and new places.