Insufficient self-sufficiency

In my daftest musings I imagine I could get by quite well on a Scottish west coast ‘desert island’. Truth is I might survive on summer low tide beach foraging but the long cold dark wet winter and a diet of limpets, perish the thought and me.

Flohs and Puces – flea markets of Germany and France

The flea markets on the French and German sides of the Rhine in Alsace and Baden-Württemberg have evolved separately and have developed their own distinct characteristics and culinary delights.

Beware of all enterprises that require Lycra

Having recently spouted (blogged) about the new cake scale I thought it high time to put words into action and earn a 100 mile cake. The return ride from Breisach to Basle in Switzerland is roughly 130km and to earn a cake I would have to supplement my ‘Rhine right bank upstream’ route with some further meanderings.

Fashion for charity

The high streets of Southern Germany are very uncharitable when compared with those in England.

Fumbling French Flea

A big plus of living in the heart of Europe is the option, without any lists or planning to just throw tent and stuff on the bike or into the car and without any online-booking bollocks simply escape across a border or two.

The cake scale

“Let them eat cake every 160.9344 km” (attrib. Queenie Marie Antoinette)

I brought my trusty push-bike and my scented running shoes to Southern Germany and though I have succeeded in re-calibrating the bike’s odometer to kilometers I am still stuck in thinking in the Queen’s finest olde Imperial. 

Bandes cyclables & German noodles

The Southern Rhine divides two countries and two very different cycling experiences. In the south of Germany most roads have at least one cycle path, often well removed from the roads. The French have had a go, splashed a bit of paint around, marked a few cycle lanes in cities, printed a few maps and signs but their heart isn’t in it.

Name die Tune

Our primitive car radio cannot pick up BBC6music in the far south land. Condemned to listen to the FM stations from Germany and France has encouraged us to develop our own in-car entertainment. We call the game GEMA after the German organisation for the prevention of music. You are welcome to play this game without paying me or them any royalties.

Fishing for Fat Lava

“Fat lava” is a term used to describe ugly German ceramics, usually vases, from the 60s & 70s. There is a European Directive that all antique shops must have a large brown Fat Lava vase in the corner for gathering dust and walking sticks. The term is now used as a interweb search key for pretty much any German ceramics from 50’s to 80’s whether or not the glaze is lava-like, thick, fat or thin, bubbly, cratered or drippy. As a result of the success of a new invasive species in Germany, Cheapus Vases Ikeas, Fat lava vases are now all migrating across the channel to make a last stick-stand in a corner of what will be forever, Retroland.

Lost in music

For his July 2012 concert in Ulm, Elton John requested that the Münster bells were silenced.

Forums dedicated to helping new residents in Germany and Switzerland provide mixed views on the delights of living in an apartment close to a church or Münster. Münster or Monster in English describes a church with a bloody great bell. Our Münster is armed with a 3850 kg Monster, Die Christusglocke, together with some other lower calibre weaponry. These bells have been funded by voluntary donations as part of the extensive restoration of St. Stephan’s Münster.

An unravelling mystery

“It’s awful undermining to the intellect, German is; you want to take it in small
doses, or first you know your brains all run together“
Mark Twain – A Tramp Abroad

I have lived in a small town in Germany for one year. My home is on the right bank of the Southern Rhine with a view across the river to France and its huge Wrigley chewing gum factory and only a 40 minute mad dodge through herds of a pug ugly Swiss 4WD white BMW’s along the Autobahn from Switzerland.

Everybody’s gotta be somewhere

“Everybody’s gotta be somewhere!”
Eccles

When I told a neighbour on the Isle of Man that I was moving to live in Germany he advised me that the Manx are “bored abroad” and that the troubles of the world are caused by people who don’t stay where they are put. There is more than a smidgen of truth in the anecdote about the Manx crab: