A week of our exchange in Walldorf, Baden Wuerttemberg, Germany has gone by and I am now only starting to record the experience. Why? Because we have been having a smashing time!
To begin with, the internet was not working. This necessitated staying put on Friday morning until the technician would come to rectify the situation. it was a bit of a shame as the weather was good and we would have enjoyed getting out after a terrible day of rain on Thursday. I took the opportunity of going into town to search, unsuccessfully, for a map of the region. The technician did his bit and told us that it would be a few hours before it would be in full working order. We took ourselves to Speyer, unfortunately without camera, where we got a map covering the Palatinate area. We will return to Speyer with camera as it is worth spending some time there. On our return we discovered that the wifi was working but not the PC. I contacted our exchangers who sent a friend to sort it out. Several hours later we were up and running. We could now send photos to our German friends of the smashing events of Thursday!
I had a bit of smashing myself on Wednesday night when I decided that we needed some natural light in the bedroom in the mornings. Germans like their sleeping room to be dark. We like ours to receive natural light. The windows are not in an area conducive to leaving curtains open for fear of frightening the natives. But the room had 2 upper windows covered with black out blinds with the cords hanging tantelisingly. I realised that by opening the blinds we would have all the light we would need so I gently grasped the beckoning string and ... the blind dropped on top of my head - broken!
Thursday was not a good day! First of all it was pouring. We spent some time in the house trying to amuse ourselves. Jim started to read a book which is a rare thing for him. In fact he finished it on Friday while he was waiting for the technician. Unless there is a lot more rain, it could be another few years before he reads another book!
The cd collection here is very much to our taste but we had already discovered that the cd player was, to put it mildly, temperamental. It has a vertical loading mechanism but it does not always respond to the command to eject. It tricks us into thinking that it will but stops about one third of the way and returns to its starting position. When we finally got it to eject the cd we were too slow to insert the cd of our choice and discovered that it had lowered itself out of reach again. No gentle persuasion encouraged it to move and, had it belonged to us, the persuasion might have been less than gentle. We gave up! A while later I crept up on it armed with my favoured cd and, taken by surprise, it acceded to my wishes! However, much time has to be taken every time we want to listen to something.
Back to Thursday's smash! The supermarkets is just a few hundred metres from us so in walking distance but, because we wanted to buy some wine and some bottles of water, we decided to take the car. Somehow JIm managed to reverse into a red car on the other side of the road damaging both cars. In shock we crossed the road to find the owner and explain what had happened. Angela and her partner couldn't have been nicer but the car was on loan from a friend who would not be pleased"! We then had to ring our exchangers who did not seem too perturbed ... until they received the photos on Friday evening. We await their verdict and, meantime, are trying to rescue our holiday by doing what we would normally do on holiday.
We have a friend, Andy, in Cormontreuil, Reims, France, a bit over 4 hours drive from here and we had planned to visit him, Aurelie and their daughter, Susie, for the weekend. With a chance to leave the smashing life behind we set off mid-morning Saturday and arrived in time for tea and Susie-made cookies that tasted delicious despite having lost their heart shapes.
Susie was none too pleased to see us following her nap and the Lottie doll we had brought as a gift was rejected out of hand until she was more relaxed and ready to accept things at her own speed. Then Lottie found herself dragged along by the hair of the head!
We had a few hours before dinner so we revisited Reims Cathedral which we had visited a number of years ago before we retired but of which I had no recollection. Susie loves the cathedral and is very much at home there.
Following our visit to the cathedral we did a quick walking tour of Reims and then stopped for the obligatory beer.
Back to Andy and Aurelie's abode and there followed much champagne and wine and a lovely Mauritian meal by Andy and lots of reminiscences of Andy's time in Raphoe and the occasions we have been together since.
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