Not what I was expecting

A couple of days ago, I had an errand to run in town so I had half an hour to kill before my nature-drawing class started. I decided to have a cup of tea in a café near the classroom. It's the one I call "the drug dealers' café of choice" as you often see some right shifty characters sitting outside in front of it, smoking away.

As I was sitting there, sipping away, four bruisers (Schlägertypen) came in and sat down around a table two tables down from me. From their size, shape and appearance, I assumed they were the kind of men who carried knuckledusters (Schlagringe) in their pockets at the very least. They all looked hard and tough. 

Imagine my surprise when I heard what they ordered. I was expecting beer at the very least. Followed by some "whisky chasers", but no.

The first bruiser politely ordered an espresso, the second Orangina, the third a milky coffee and I didn't hear what the fourth ordered as my mind was doing cartwheels. Not what I was expecting at all.

How much?! Part 3.

A few weeks ago, I found out by chance that I could tolerate some gluten without the dermatitis and the eczema breaking out within minutes.

So what did I do? I tried out foodstuffs that I hadn't steered clear of for 9 and a half years. One of the things I tried out first was pizza. I chose a pizza salami made by Wagner. It cost EUR 1.79. Hmm... nothing to write home about. Rather disappointing, in fact. 

Two weeks later, I went past the chiller section in the supermarket again and saw that the same pizza cost EUR 2.99. Definitely not worth that price.

But the shocking thing was that within two weeks, the same product was now 67% more expensive than before.

Talk about a cost of living crisis.

How to ensure there are no joggers in the park when you go for a walk?

Go when it's raining.

I've just done my usual 5 km fast walk through the nearby park and I didn't have to shy away from any jogger wheezing past me, panting his or her possibly virus-laden breath in my direction. It was bliss.

Not my photos, but definitely photos of 'my' park.

How much?? (Part 2)

Sometimes, I hate being right.

Last Tuesday, I had to buy some paper for the printer. The local supermarket sold a ream (500 sheets) for EUR 4.99. As I was also doing some food shopping at the time, I only bought one ream.

"I must stock up on paper, " I thought. "The paper industry uses up a lot of power and producing paper will probably become very costly."

Three days later, I went back to the supermarket to buy more paper. The price had risen to EUR 5.99. In just three days.

How I hate being right.

The state of UK politics today

As a teenager and young adult in the UK, I used to have some grudging respect for the politicians I saw in the news and read about in the papers.

Fortunately, I now live abroad and can sit here, open mouthed, as I read about the latest fiascos.

And to think that, in the past, the UK used to laugh at Italy and how often the prime ministers changed there.

The UK has now become the laughing stock of the world. I've never seen such an incompetent bunch of people before. They put me in mind of a kindergarten - pig-ignorant* and squabbling.

(*After all, if you're in kindergarten, you've not been educated yet.)

...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.

And this is supposed to be an improvement? Part 1

The powers that be in this town don't seem to have thinking skills. Or maybe they're being bribed to take certain decisions. I don't know.

What I do know is that the decisions of the last five years or so don't make sense.

Take for example the site of the Tourist Information Office. For as long as I've known it, there has been a TIO right in front of the main station here. You come out of the station, look to the right and there is the TIO.

Not any more, though. Oh, no. That would be making life too easy for all the tourists and the trade fair visitors (and we have hundreds of thousands of them in a year - from all over the world).

No, no. Now, if you arrive here as a tourist and want some advice on this town, you have to walk about 2 km into the Altstadt (usually one of the main places that tourists want to visit). You practically have to walk all the way over to the Rhine. 

I think that if you can find your way there, then you don't need a TIO. If you need a TIO, you won't be able to find your way there that easily. I've seen how people struggle with the little maps on their smartphones.

And this is supposed to be an improvement?