Well, the sun has gone so far south now, that at midday, it seems like 4pm on a winters afternoon in South Africa. The sun is at such a low angle, that we don't get any sun on our lawn, and the dogs and I spend the day chasing sunbeams upstairs.
Emma's heart medication seems to be working well - maybe too well - and she is back to her happy, evil self.
In Germany, most people have a real Christmas tree. Phillip wanted one but I was reluctant, since I new it would involve lots of work and would drop dirty pine needles everywhere. I didn't want anything to do with it, but since he was injured (see Skiing), I had to go with him to help him purchase one. When he saw the one he liked I told him it was way too big and convinced him to buy one more than a metre shorter. Phillip was very unhappy with the pathetically small tree I suggested, but when he saw that I was not going to give in, he agreed. When we got the tree home and I put it up, it reached up to within 10 cms of the ceiling! Thank goodness I never let him buy the tree he wanted!
Note from Phillip - November
Hi All
A quick update on November that I missed…… .
We visited Horst, Melanie and the new arrival Timmy at the beginning of the month, using a public holiday to make up a long weekend in Brussels. Ingrid was kind in her words on our Halloween party - I was finished, and will yet again commit to never touching Tequila again (until the next time).
We had a great time in Brussels and have in Horst a truly motivated tour guide. I think that we got to see what takes many years to accomplish in a single day. Horst works for the EU, so it was interesting to see the expansion of the EU offices in the city, somewhat taking the place over. Horst now answers the phone - "hello from the capital of Europe" (better not tell the French…). Although the expansion is impressive in its size and scale, it is not the most beautiful set of buildings ever seen.
On the Monday I flew to Copenhagen for three days related to work, although we did manage to make some time for 'industrial tourism'. Nyhavn is the recreational center of Copenhagen described as one of Europe's oldest and most wonderful capitals with a royal touch. The Danish' monarchy is the oldest in the world and Queen Margrethe ll resides right in the centre of the city. She was not in when we called, but we'll make an appointment next time. The palace was pretty impressive though.
The world-famous pedestrian street, Strøget, is the longest on the planet. With many restaurants and bars we did not get too far, but I really love the fact that no matter where you go in the city there are sailing boats bobbing next to the road ! Even our offices are based in a new development something like the V&A in Cape Town, with a constant view over the yacht club. One of the sales team comes to work in his boat because it is quicker that on the roads. Now that sounds interesting - except in winter !
I arrived back on Thursday and we went to dinner with a colleague from SA that is now working at the SAP Offices in Palo Alto, Faheem, as well as Frank who was out from SA, at our local Thai Restaurant (yes even in Reilingen !). Was good to catch up on local work matters again and Faheem's exciting if not surprising news that he is married now !
I left the next week for a week long session in the US with customers and some internal meetings. I'd never been to Philadelphia before and never really got to see much of the place as we were working till late and then just going to local restaurants near our offices which are far out of town. From 1790 to 1800, Philadelphia served as provisional capital while Washington was in construction. At the end of the 19th century, Philadelphia represented the greatest industrial center of the country. Today, the fifth city of United States, is apparently one the greatest fluvial ports and an industrial force (refining of oil, naval construction, electronics, chemical and metallurgic industries, paper, feeding, publishing). From what I saw though, no need to repeat that on the industrial tourism calendar - tick and done ! Maybe November is not the best time to be fair as it was really cold and miserable ! Came back to our budget and planning process for 2003 and was relieved to have my budget authorised before going off on leave in Dec ! For more info on our ski trip see the skiing section.
Note from Phillip - December
Had a quick visit to the UK for two days early in December, flying into Birmingham airport to see one of our business partners. Their offices are out in the farming area and a welcome change from the usual London trips. Got to go out to Stratford on Avon (Bard was not in so had to settle for a few beers and some Thai food once again).
Since I've been out of town, this left Ingrid with all of the preparations for Christmas as well as hosting and entertaining my folks and gran. Since Ingrid is not a Christmas person (I don't even think she believes in father Christmas!) this has been a real challenge for her, but as always despite protestations, she has done a marvellous job. Did I forget to mention that she has also had flu over this time making her feel really lousy and with a constant cough - 'tis the season to be jolly…………' .
Since my folks and gran were flying in before Christmas and staying for two weeks, we'd arranged that I'd go shopping with them for 2 days before the 25th to stock up on presents (save lugging them from the UK.) Was also looking forward to walking around the legendary Christmas markets (Weihnachtsmarkt) with healthy amounts of Glühwein… . We planned one day in Frankfurt, one in Heidelberg and visits to the Heidelberg and Mannheim markets. My mom loves wandering around the shops looking for presents and my gran also likes to get out and spend the day just watching people coming and going, so two days would be easy to fill. However, since I was out of action (having injured my leg skiing and now even more tied to the couch that usual), this left the task of Christmas shopping to Ingrid. She loaded everyone into the car and they went off to our local supermarket (Real) in Hockenheim (something like a large Checkers) and at the entrance declared, "you've got 30 minutes, synchronise your watches" ! Seems to have taken everyone slightly over the 30 minute deadline, but apparently this can be blamed on the long queues at the checkouts! Will rank as as a shopping record for my mom!
We did also get to both Christmas markets which would have been much more enjoyable if the snow had been falling gently, rather than sheets of rain pounding down. We did manage to see all that was on offer and did manage to include the odd medicinal mug of glühwein just to keep the pain away for me !
We had a lovely Christmas and it was great to chat to some of you on the phone. Father Christmas once again brought me everything I wanted, so am ready for a new year with even cooler ski kit than before !
November 2002
On 31st October we have our Halloween party, co-hosted by Tesha, since she's American, and she knows about this stuff. It was fun. We carved some pumpkins before. They looked really cool on the front porch at night with a small candle burning inside - quite scary. You can leave stuff on your front porch here - no one steals it! We decorated the whole house, and made guests enter the house round the back and through the basement, which was dark, except for a few candles. We had scary music playing in the basement and we had a "monster" made out of a ski suit and a horrible mask that Phillp had. But the best part was when the poor, unsuspecting German kids came trick-or-treating at our door. I guess that in Germany, trick-or-treat means you just give them sweets and smile. Well we gave them a surprise. Each time the doorbell rang someone opened it in full Halloween costume. I was dressed as a witch. But Phillip got the best response, dressed in a black cape and the mask from the Scream movie. One little boy of about 5 got such a fright he ran behind his mother and refused to come out again. I guess he won't be coming by next year. We also had 3 teenage girls come to the door. I ran out in my the mask growling, and one girl let out a huge scream which the whole street must have heard. I don't know what she said, since she was speaking in German, but she was still clutching her chest when they left. The party was a success. We had about 15 to 20 people, and most dressed up in some way. The best was a young couple who came as Dracula and Dracula's bride. They wanted realistic fangs, so the glued false fingernails to their teeth. It looked really good, but I hate to think how they got them off again the next day! The party enetually got down to the last 9 people playing Jenga until 2 in the morning. Phillip and Tesha had decided to turn Halloween into a Tequila party, and they went BIG! It was pretty apt as they both felt like horrors the next morning. Phillip helped to clean up the house a bit but then disappeared back to bed. So I had to finish cleaning up, pack the car, my and Phillip's clothes, load Phillip into the car, and drive him the 4 hours to Brussels!
We arrived in Brussels late in the afternoon, and Phillip was still looking a bit green, but ready to try some food again. We were visitng our friends Horst and Melanie, who have a small baby, Timmy. Brussels was interesting. We got to see lots of old buildings and the food was excellent. Its quite wierd, Brussels is so different from Germany. It almost has a an African feel to it, whereas Germany is very first world. The best surprise of the weekend was when we were about to leave to come home on Sunday morning. Horst showed me that 2 door down from their appartment is the birth place of Jacques Brel!. I must have listened to my parents Jacques Brell records 1000 times when I was a kid, he is the only thing I know about Brussels.
I managed to get a job. Not a real job - just a 10 month contract filling in while the permanent lady is on maternity leave. For various reasons, I decided not to take the job. So I will be a housewife instead, and in the new year I plan to do the TEFL (Teaching English as as Foreign Language) certificate, and then get some part time work teaching English privately. I think the flexibility will be great, providing I can actually get some work. But we'll take it as it comes.
On the evening of 28th November Emma had quite a big heart attack. It lasted about 8 minutes and was very scary. She had been acting very strange, wanting lots of patting etc for about 30 minutes before. So when it started we knew something was wrong and rushed her to the vet straight away. He did an ultra sound the next day and says her heart is very weak and is not contracting properly. She is now on heart medication, which the vet feels should control her condition and no attacks should happen again. After having my Staffie die during the night after coming out of hospital, while I was sleeping a few years ago, I could not sleep. I made her bed up next to mine and kept the light on the whole night and watched every breath she took, to make sure she was still alive. Well, she's still around, and I am now sleeping again. She was very quiet and slept a lot for a few days, and seemed to be uncomfortable and in pain. But she seems to have recovered now and is almost her usual old self.
The next day was Phillip's birthday, so he had to be content with Thai take-aways at home, rather than the nice dinner out that we had planned.
The days are getting very short now and the temperature is dropping. But it is still quite comfortable to go for a walk with the dogs. We had to set out clocks back an hour this month for day light saving. It happened on a Sunday. Phillip got up first and he woke me up at 11am telling me I was lazy and it was timme to get moving. It turned out he had got it wrong and set the clocks forward and hour, so it was actually 9am, not 11am. Still, not a civilised time to be in bed!
Phillip visited Copenhagen and Philadelphia during November. I will try to include some news on this in the December update.
October 2002
OK, so October's getting very chilly - up to between 10 and 15 during the day and down to 3 or 4 at night. I guess it will only get worse. Up to now it has been mostly sunny with the occasional rainy morning or afternoon. But now it seems to be cloudy and rainy for a few days before clearing up for a day or two. The autumn colours are really beautiful though with reds, oranges, yellows etc. One day when we were taking the dogs for a walk, a breeze came up and so many leaves were falling from the trees that it felt like it was snowing leaves! Really weird. The sun has also gone quite far south, so although we still have daylight from about 7:30am to about 7:00pm, the sun is not seen very often as it is quite low on the horizon. I suppose this is nothing. I had my first German haircut last week which was interesting. I explained in my best German what I wanted and she seemed to understand what I wanted. The result, although not exactly as my normal hairdresser, Lorenzo, would have cut it, was pretty close. Oh well, it's not a limb, it'll grow back!
When Phillip was in the UK over a weekend, I went to see Hambacher Schloß in Rheinland Pfalz which played a part in the development of human rights, freedom and democracy in Germany. Check out Hambacher Schloss on www.hambacher-schloss.de . We also recently checked out the local Hundepension (dog boarding kennels). This was also quite interesting and we will get to see how the dogs survive as they will spend 3 days in kennels when we go to Brussels to visit Horst and Melanie in Brussels in November. I'll probably be more traumatised than they are. One of Phillip's colleagues, who is American, moved here about the same time as us. She is hosting a Halloween party at our house on 31st so I'll tell you all about it in November.
We went to the Technical Museum (Transport Museum) in the nearby town of Speyer on Sunday. It was really great. They had about 30 train engines from steam to diesel to electric and some coaches, from the 1800s through to a Nazi Communications coach (really luxury) and various shunting engines as well as a rapid transit train. They also had about 60 airplanes, the bigger ones of which you could go inside and see. The most interesting were two Antonovs, a smaller one which was built in 1980 but looks like its from the 50s and also one of those massive cargo planes where the bum opens up to load cargo. There were all sorts of biplanes, Fokker etc. They had about 20 old fire engines vehicles through from horse drawn to more modern ones. Also there were many vintage cars. But my best was the U-boat which we were able to go inside and see. It was huge from the outside, but when you went inside it was very cramped - but really fascinating. I was a bit disappointed as it was built in 1965 and I wanted to see a Nazi U-Boat. But there is a sister museum in Sinsheim which I plan to go see - maybe they have a Nazi U-Boat. The museum was so big that we didn't get to see the whole thing. Phillip started to moan about being cold and feeling sick (he has a cold) so we had to leave before I could see the rest of the submersibles - but we're going back at Xmas with his folks so I'll see the rest then. Check out the Technik Museum Speyer onwww.technik-museum.de .
Talking of the weather, this weekend was no joke. Germany, France and England had gales the whole weekend. The German weatherman said the wind would be between 110 and 130kms. I thought he was kidding, but he must have been right. Yesterday we had to lean into the wind to walk. And sometimes you just couldn't move forward! It blew like mad the whole weekend. I thought the house was going to fall over. The wind lifted the green cover off our outside table completely. We have a big fir tree in our garden and I though it might fall on us. Tyson was really scared of the wind. He would rush outside for a wee, looking up at the howling wind the whole time, and then run back inside and hide! The news said that 9 people had been killed in the next province, from falling trees etc. I hope this isn't a regular occurence, otherwise I will have to get some stakes to hold the house down!
The dogs are starting to become real house dogs now. I have to beg them to go outside for ablutions. They just want to stay in where its warm. But they have a nice big basement to play in, although they prefer to play upstairs which has a large area. When I am working at my computer I can hear them thundering around upstairs playing with their toys. They are a 'bit' spoilt, with cushions in our bedroom as well as cushions and a beanbag in the lounge. Sometimes Emma feels that this is insufficient and makes herself comfy on the couch, for which she receives regular fatal beatings. But she doesn't seem to care.
Unfortunately, the vet has diagnosed a faulty heart valve in Holly, so she is now on medication and may not go cycling any more. She can run as much as she wants, but we may not encourage her to exercise as she might over exert herself. She seems quite happy, but we might take her to a specialist for a second opinion. These boxers really were a poor investment!
Tyson's favourite rug has always been a really disgusting, fake bear rug. He loves it so much that I brought it over from South Africa in my suitcase for him. I have been looking for a real bear rug to replace it, but no luck so far. I did, however, find a really cool cushion in the pet store the other day. The cushion is made to be a bear lying on his back - the closest thing I can get to a bear rug. Tyson loved Teddy from the start, but has to fight off Holly and Emma to get a nap on Teddy. I suspect any day now, Tyson and Teddy are going to go into hybernation for the winter! I might just join them.
Guess what! The neighbours have moved out. I'm sure it had nothing to do with our barking dogs though.
September 2002
From the beginning of September the temperature dropped rather suddenly from the early 30's to early 20's which was quite a relief. September was also the start of my job hunting. It's a bit tricky as I don't speak good enough German and I don't have the necessary tax knowledge to get an accounting job. There are a few places where English is required, including the US Army base, and I am applying for a few jobs which might be suitable. No luck so far but hold thumbs!
Note from Phillip - September
We're nearly at the end of month three of our new adventure in Europe and all is well. The nights are certainly getting longer now and temperatures dropping, but we've been so lucky with this years summer, missing the floods and bad weather that surrounded us, so no complaints. Ingrid is also really looking forward to ski season so every drop in temperature is a step closer to the first snow - that's a new way to look at winter! Work is great with so many opportunities here, but my normal problem of needing to focus on what to do first, is currently occupying my time. With over 20 countries to look after and the obvious language barriers, it is certainly challenging to define any standard processes to move forward, but it's great fun at present. We had our annual SAPPHIRE conference for Europe a few weeks ago so got to see Lisbon for a few days. Certainly enjoyed the food and wine and did manage to fit in a visit to some of the major landmarks. I can now vouch that Nando's Chicken does have the taste of Portugal, but the chickens are fatter there!
We will soon be making a few longer distance trips (so that I can play with my new car) and we can see some of Europe. First will probably be a trip to see Horst and Melanie who have had a baby boy Timmy in Brussels, but we will also be going to the Feldberg in the Black forest looking for accommodation between Christmas and new year when we hope to take my folks and gran there for a real white Christmas German style. I got my new company car a few days ago. It took some getting used to the idea of driving an estate after driving my bat-mobile for a few years, but now that I have it I'm very happy proving that middle-age must have arrived. I've taken the Audi A4 Quattro in the hope that we will get good use out of the 4 wheel drive when going skiing every other weekend in winter. We took the dogs in it for the first time this weekend in a trip to the local forest and Emma managed to get her head under Tyson's bum as he was taking a dump and was covered in unmentionables. Tried my best to clean her off with leaves in the forest, but the car is now officially second hand! The company policy is that you need to keep the car for 5 years, but I'm sure they cannot expect that of someone with a basset! Dave is threatening to come skiing in the new year, so any of you that are interested in joining, please let us know. By then our 'local knowledge' should be able to find a better rate than booking with an agency, but it's never going to be cheap ! Check out our skiing plans. If skiing is a bridge too far, we are also taking bookings for summer 2003. The area we live in is in the Rhine Valley, but also in the Wine Valley. The nearest large town is Heidelberg and this is really beautiful, complete with Castle and quaint old town. This is a big university town and when combined with its proximity to the wine region, makes for a great tourist trap. We're able to offer extremely cheap accommodation for 8 guests, but booking is recommended. There is also plenty of cheap beer in the fridge!
Tyson was attacked by a cat the other day. I'm not kidding! There is a nasty ginger cat which lives along the route of our daily walk. He was hiding in the bushes just on the inside of his diamond mesh fence. As Tyson wandered innocently past, the mean thing lashed out at him through the fence and made a scary hissing noise. Poor Tyson nearly jumped out of his skin! He leaped across to the far side of the pavement and nearly knocked me off my feet. Then Tyson tried to attack the cat through the fence, but the wholes were too small for Tyson to do any damage, and the cat could still get his paw through for the odd swat, and hissed like mad. I had to drag Tyson away kicking and snarling. Now this horrible bully of a cat waits for Tyson. I can walk past with Holly and Emma 5 minutes before and nothing happens. But the minute I stroll past with Tyson, the poor boy gets attacked. The cat isn't there every day, so Tyson just starts to relax and not expect him, and Wham! The poor thing is traumatised!
At lunchtime on the last day of September Holly swallowed a bee. I just happened to go outside and was horrified to see her head swollen to about 3 times the normal size, her eyes long since swollen shut, and huge bumps all over her. I chucked her in the car and screamed off the the vet, who was closed in the middle of the day, but persistent ringing brought someone to the door. Fortunately I didn't need to use my German to explain the problem, it was quite clear to see what had happened. The vet gave Holly an injection in the bum, but by this time, she had started to struggle to breath. So they put her on a IV drip immediately. She really was very bad, her neck was swollen to wider than her shoulders and felt very hard to touch. And her head was so swollen you couldn't see her eyes and I'm sure she couldn't see out. Her head was huge, much bigger than Tyson's even. Even given the seriousness of her condition, I couldn't help laughing. She looked so stupid! So there I was sitting with Holly in the vet, wearing my grotty gardening jeans and torn T-shirt. Luckily I didn't have curlers in my hair and slippers on at the time! Holly stayed on the drip for about 45 minutes before her breathing was easier and it looked like her swelling might start to go down. I took her home and she spent the rest of the afternoon sleeping or being sick. By the time she had to go back to the vet for a checkup that evening the swelling had started to go down, but it took the whole of the next day before she would get out of bed. I should have taken a photo, because she looked so funny, but I didn't have the heart to be so cruel.
August 2002
Phillip's gran Daisy was due to visit us during the first week of August. The day before she arrived, Tyson developed spinal problems, so her tourism agenda was not as extensive as Phillip's folk's but we did get to see Heidelberg Castle again. And again I learnt new things from a different guide so the tour was not boring. We also took a long walk in the lovely castle gardens. .
We also took Daisy on a boat trip from Heidelberg up the river to Neckargemund and Neckarsteinach. It was really beautiful with the river winding through the mountain and castles on the hill sides. And going through the locks was really weird too. I took Daisy to see The Schwetzingen Palace Garden but gave the palace tour a miss this time. It was great as we had more time to walk around the massive gardens. We spent about 2 hours there and hadn't seen half the place. It is really beautiful in summer and I will definitely be back. It was really interesting spending time with Daisy in Germany, as she had been in her 20's in England during the Second World War and had quite a different view of Germany than I did. August also saw the start of our German lessons which were badly needed, and we had our first chance to see an English movie since we got here. There are a few cinemas around which show original language movies and this was quite a treat!
At the beginning of August, Tyson had a very bad attack of pain and cried the whole night. We took him to the vet the next day who gave him a nice big injection and referred us to an Orthopaedic specialist nearby. We went to see the specialist a week later who did X-Rays and then Computer Tomography and diagnosed spinal stenosis. There is a bone growing across the channels which lead nerves from his spinal cord to his muscles in his back legs. Oh and he needed a small heart ultra sound just to check out a murmur he has. So that diagnosis cost us €500! Tyson had accupuncture and I was given a course of 8 injections I had to give him over 4 weeks. I'm not the bravest soul around, but there was no ways Phillip would do it. So I can now do a sub-cutaneous injection. Honest, and Tyson only flinched sometimes! He has to go back in 6 months for a checkup, but eventually he will need a spinal operation, which we are trying to avoid for as long as possible. The treatment seems to be working because he hardly has any pain attacks any more.
August also saw the receipt of 2 complaints about our barking dogs, one from the local town council, and one from an anonymous neighbour. In an attempt to stop the barking and avoid a possible debarking operation, I bought 2 anti-bark collars from the USA over the internet. It gives the dog a small electric shock which increases which each successive bark. It seems to have worked as Emma and Holly bark much less (if at all). Now, if Emma barks when she is not wearing her electric collar, she still shakes her head afterwards, as if she has been shocked! The neighbours have stopped complaining so I hope it will be OK now. We also have to pay the dog tax which is €300 per annum. These dogs are going to prove more expensive than children, for which we would get a large tax rebate!
July 2002
The last week before leaving South Africa was a bit hectic. The weekend before we were in Durban for a wedding. Then we had dinner dates on Monday and Tuesday, had to move out of our house on Wednesday evening, a farewell dinner of Thursday and we flew to Germany on Friday night. And I worked up until the Thursday afternoon and Phillip worked up until the Friday. I actually can't believe we managed it! Anyway, we arrived in Germany OK and the dogs were delivered to our house about an hour after we arrived. They settled down quickly and soon sorted out the neighbourhood cats which had gotten used to a dog free garden. We got my car, a little black Opel Corsa GSI, which is quite a change from my big Isuzu truck, but it is lekker and zippy.
July started off warm and just got hotter. It gets quite humid and uncomfortable here sometimes. There are so many things that are different to get used to: using an ATM in German, filing up your car with petrol yourself, driving on the wrong side of the road, having to take your own bags/basket with to the supermarket. Getting medical insurance for me was quite a saga. I completed many forms and saw the doctor 3 times. In the end, no private medical aid would take me because of my asthma and arthritis, so I have taken government health insurance. Much cheaper, but if I ever need treatment….. well, that can be a whole juicy episode on its own! We live in a very small town (actually more of a "dorf") but it is great as we are in the middle of the farming area. A few minutes walk takes you into the farm lands where they farm maize, wheat, leeks, asparagus, tobacco, strawberries and a few cows and goats. There are tarred single lane tracks through all the farm lands. I think they are for the farmers but are mostly used by people walking dogs, cycling and roller-blading (called in-line skating). There is also a huge network of marked cycle paths between all the villages so you can go almost anywhere your poor legs can carry you, and seldom have to cross a road. There are also huge forests with streams which have the same network of paths, absolute bliss for someone who has lived in the city their whole life. About 10 minutes walk from us is the Reilingen Sea! A small nature conservation area with a medium sized lake with no taxis from Alex! It is one of many favourite walking spots for the dogs.
Our house is quite big compared to what we are used to. Upstairs has 3 bedrooms and a large bathroom, downstairs has 2 studies, kitchen, large lounge and dining room, sitting room with fireplace and a guest loo, then the basement has a large storeroom, a big laundry and then a massive tiled open area with access from the garden as well as the house (dog city). The garden is much smaller than Bryanston, but fine for the dogs as long as they get regular walks.
Phillip's parents came to visit for the last week of July.I took Marg and Ray to see Heidelberg Castle. Although it was the second time I had been, I learnt many things I missed on the first tour. It is very beautiful and it really worth the visit. Phillip took Ray to see the German Grand Prix at Hockenheim, which is about 15 minutes cycle from here (and about 4 hours drive on Grand Prix day!). On that day I took Phillip's Mom to see Schwetzingen Palace and the gardens. The gardens were lovely but the palace tour was a bit strange. The tour was in German, and we were given a written guide which we could read as the guide was speaking. Problem was we would read a 2 line passage, and the guide would go on for 20 minutes, with everybody laughing. I don't think we got our moneys worth! We also went for a day drive down the German wine route "Deutsche Weinstrasse" and bought some really nice wine. We also got to see the monastery ruins at Bad Durkheim which was interesting.
Note from Phillip - July
My folks came for a visit and I managed to go to the Grand Prix. I was there for the Saturday qualifiers with clients as a company event and went on my own steam on the Sunday. We decided that Ray and I would go to the Grand Prix and Ingrid stayed with my mom. The day was really great with Porshe racing as well as formula three, but the best spectacle was seeing Germans in their natural habitat ! The Hockenheim race is a major even with around 300 000 people attending. Around 100 000 of these come along and camp for the full four days in the farmers fields that surround our sleepy town of Reilingen. Reminiscent of the great trek, they arrive and create lagers with the addition of techno music and beer on tap against the side of vans. Since the majority of campers are on 'boys only' weekends away, and lacking any 'adult' supervision, they are all pissed from sun-up and end up sleeping in any patch of grass they can find covered in their own saliva! Another phenomenon is that the town is painted red. Not from party goers, but Ferrari fans. Everything is red and Schumi fever takes hold. With Schumacher being German this is even bigger, but apparently Ferrari has always been huge here. They were interviewing the local police chief and he said one of the biggest problems they have is the 'Kleine Schumi's' after the race driving home. Since there is no legal speed limit, you can imagine that controlling the race fever must be quite a thing, but I also see how they do control them - just add a really good German Traffic Jam - 'Stau' (one of the first German words you learn here…). You can imagine after the race when 50 000 camper vans get onto the road after 4 days of sun and beer on tap combined with another 200 000 Kleine Schumi's, you have a great disaster movie plot, but all went off well. Ray and I went on bicycles because it is only a few KM's away, but the foot traffic was so heavy leaving the circuit that we were forced to make an emergency stop at a beer tent on the way out for an hour or so.... .
The dogs seem to have survived the trip from South Africa OK. Holly and Tyson were fine, but I think Emma had found the trip a bit traumatising. But they settled down quickly and soon sorted out the neighbourhood cats which had gotten used to a dog free garden. We had a dog proof fence installed which took 3 days. During this time, we had no fence at all, so I had to keep the dogs inside all the time, and take them outside on leads for ablutions several times a day. It took the dogs quite a while to understand the concept of upstairs and downstairs. In fact Tyson refused to even walk down a flight of stairs until we spent several minutes coaxing him, they just had no concept. If one of us was upstairs and called the dogs from the ground floor, they would stand and look at us and whine. They just couldn't understand what "up" was. Very funny. They seem to have got the idea now though, and run up and down the stairs like mad idiots. A few weeks after we arrived, I managed to teach Holly how to go for a walk with me on the bicycle. Generally I walk Emma and Tyson together, as they don't need that much exercise, then I take Holly for a cycle which she mostly enjoys bar one or two small accidents! We are less than 5 minutes walk from the farm lands, which is really great for walking the dogs. (Actually, anywhere in Reilingen is less than 5 minutes walk from the farm lands!). And it is usually quiet enough that we can let the dogs off one at a time to have a run around.
