Local people

11 o’clock, 11th day, 11th month. I am  sitting on a bench on a railway platform in Breisach on the French German border, waiting on a train to take us north to where the wind blows after half a decade living on the calm right bank of the Old Rhine.

Vine time

I took a  break from walking beaches to take part in this year’s grape harvest. A Winzermeister from a nearby town invited me to help and I thought a little manual labour would do me no harm. 

Smack dab in the middle

A little to the south of Breisach and some 40 km north of the Swiss border two trees grow, one either side of the towpath that runs along the right bank of the old Rhine channel. These two trees form my portal between northern and southern Europe. This gateway is where the cool north and the warm south meet, the midpoint between machair and maquis.

Hibernating fleas

Sunday morning early starts are over for the year. Last Sunday was the final pre-dawn break for the border two hours before the Shipping Forecast.

Adopt a vortex

On 22nd October 2012 Dominic Jung from Wetter.net gave the German weather forecast in which he said: “Teilweise tanzen dann sogar im Alpenvorland die Schneeflocken bis ganz runter vom Himmel.“ I ran a Google translate of this forecast and the result was better than I could have imagined,

Terms and conditions of Britain’s relationship with Europe

David Cameron has pledged to renegotiate Britain’s relationship with the European Union. Well he can take the day off and annoy his family as I have defined suitable terms for him.

Collecting stereotypes

Like the grizzly Manxman on the Pequod I was born ‘in the little rocky Isle of Man’. I confess that neither have I his ‘preternatural powers of discernment’ nor was I ‘taught….by the old witch in Copenhagen’. But I can spot a salmon or a stereotype on a good day at 20 paces.

Thinking outside the box

This week my trusty but not rusty Marin took me for a ride to celebrate its 14th birthday, and we had a ‘smashing’ time.

Rhine salmon

SILVER TOURISTS – PAST AND PRESENT

In 2012 two Atlantic salmon, the first for over 50 years, managed to swim their way  up the Rhine to Switzerland. The Upper Rhine is still blocked by French EDF dams  and these fish had to sneak through the locks beneath the barges heading upstream to Basel.

The good, the mad and the same – life in Germany

Germany is always ‘dead fucking last’ on any British list of places to live or places to holiday-home. As the only Manx person living here on purpose I offer you the skeet – the good, the mad and the ‘same as it ever was’ of 18 months living on the bank of the Rhine in southern Germany a short paddle from France.

The story of my cycling endeavours – who brakes loses

Open-air cathedrals

For the first time I cut down a tree this year. Tall weak and spindly and the tree was little better. But neither of us are yet lost causes. At 24 feet taller than me it was always going to be a challenge to get the 30 foot fella to fit in this low ceiling-ed apartment cell.

Pigsticking

With the first frosts of winter I have explored the forest of Baden-Württemberg and Alsace either side of the southern Rhine. More precisely I have scratched around the dead ground, for that is the ground that the spiky blackthorn loves best. 

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.

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.

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.