Header picture: Summer flowers near Neuruppin
1 August -
Day trip to Rostock today, by car.
On the way, though, we found ourselves a bit low on diesel and made a little diversion in search of a petrol station.
Part of the pleasure of holidays is spontaneity, so once re-filled, we carried on along the lanes and stopped off in Güstrow, some 25-30 miles from Rostock.
Güstrow is yet another glorious little cobbled town, with its 16th-century Renaissance palace and 13th-century cathedral
(click photo, left, for pictures).
The latter is most famous for Barlach's "Hovering Angel" sculpture, but frankly this was a bit of a let-down.
It hovers lumpily in a dark corner and to tell you the truth we wouldn't fancy its chances in the Ørsdalen bring-and-buy.
Nice chamber organ, though — the main organ has been taken away for restoration.
We were almost tempted into another building to look at the "Krippenmuseum" ("surely that can't mean 'crib museum'", we said —
but it did: a museum of Christmas nativity scenes), but somehow it was even more tempting to carry on
to Rostock for a bit of shopping, watching the crowds happily milling up and down the main street and listening to the buskers.
4 August -
We've been in Germany for a month, and enjoyed every minute of it.
One of Katie's water-based skills is the SUP (stand-up paddling) board (photo above right), on which she is very steady and remarkably fast —
while T&T can balance on the thing and maybe paddle it a bit without falling in, Katie can actually travel long distances on it!
Tim is now hard at work practicing in order at least to come in a distant second, and at the time of writing has managed to get a mile or so down the lake (and back).
Even Tracy has had a go.
But today, Katie returns to Norway as a leader on a youth camp, staying for the week in a tent near Sandnes. She did the same thing the same week last year, when we reported (from the comfort of warm and dry Germany) of "serious bad weather on the way in, strong winds, heavy rain and snow and formal warnings of floods and avalanches" where she was going. This year it's even worse. There's been two feet of rain the past month, even the E39 is closed for flooding, people are saying it's the worst weather they've experienced in their lifetimes and the Met Office is apologetically saying that they have "no words of comfort to offer" (photo, left).
Katie and I (Tim) took the train down to Berlin airport (fast, comfortable and relaxing) from where Katie took a direct flight to Stavanger while I returned alone on the train, looking forward to a quiet hour with a good book and cup of coffee. It was not to be. I found myself sharing a carriage with a German mother and over-active daughter and her Spanish in-laws. The mother was so overloaded with keeping her 2-year-old vaguely under control (a task that really required sedatives) while trying to act as a guide to her in-laws in a mixture of broken English and seriously shattered Spanish that she kept asking me (of all unsuitable people) for information about the surroundings and even at one point (the height of strangness) asked me what was the Spanish for an Einkaufscenter (shopping centre), to which I somehow dredged up centro comercial from some past Spanish holiday and which seemed to satisfy them. Thankfully, they got off part way and I got my coffee after all.
5-6 August -
So now it's just T&T at the flat.
A quick walk round the town lake on Friday evening, Saturday morning on the lake followed by a steak dinner at the Buffalo farm,
and a 10-mile walk around the nearby villages on Sunday morning, along with a paddle (Tracy) / swim (Tim) in a previously-undiscovered little lake at Prälank.
7-8 August - Night in a hammock - Because the rivers and lakes system carry on for hundreds of miles, we can potentially take the kayaks on much longer trips than are allowed by the need to get home in the evening. For that reason, we've bought three "sleeping hammocks", with built-in mosquito nets, that you can just sling between convenient trees at the water's edge and use for an overnight stop. Last night was a trial run, so T&T were able to watch the sun go down over the water, and listen to plops from the fish and unidentified scufflings below and whooshings above while rocking gently in the occasionally debate comfort of our neighbouring hammocks. Click picture, right, for 9 photos.
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9 August - A more solid night away - Today we've set off on our way towards Norway. It takes 7-8 hours to drive from the flat up to Hirtshals, so if we're getting the overnight boat from there (which we're doing this time) then it's perfectly possible to set off the same day. On one previous occasion, though, there was an accident on the motorway, followed by several sets of major roadworks, and we ended up rushing through Denmark with one eye on the clock and the other watching out for speed traps, which isn't the kind of stress we need. So this time we opted for a leisurely departure, bit of sightseeing on the way and a night in a north-German hotel, followed by a slow morning and calm plod up through Denmark to catch the ferry. The German hotels website we use turned up a querky but wonderful hotel near Bad Segeberg in Schleswig-Holstein. The hotel was built around an old water mill, but had spread to incorporate various nearby houses, in one of which we were staying. The receptionist was very friendly but effective — in a trice we were checked in and given a comprehensive run-down of all relevant information and taken down the road to our house, all without drawing breath, it seemed like. The place was immaculately kept; lawns and borders neatly trimmed and everything orderly and in place. The same was true of the whole village and the surrounding area. Photo of our room/house and of the village church. We went for a long walk round the surrounding villages in order to enjoy a last dose of hot sunshine. The next village was called "Eilsdorf" — "hurrying village" — and it suddenly struck us that this tidy and efficient place (beautiful as it was and certainly worth a return visit) was a very different part of Germany to our rather laid-back, fuzzy and relaxed district. Dinner in the hotel was spectacular (and reasonably priced) and it was only afterwards we noticed the discrete Michelin sticker. Tomorrow night sees us in yet another bed; we're looking at the weather forecast for the overnight sea crossing and hoping that in terms of stability and lack of sway the sleeping accommodation will more resemble hotel than hammock. We'll see. Then back to work for us both on Friday.
11 August - Back in Norway - Calm sea, good crossing and woke to clouds and cold drizzle in Stavanger. Stoked up the coffee machine at church and settled in for the first day's work for a while. The NRK news reports that Bergen — which has always been famous for its rain — is under threat. It's not stopped raining there all summer (nearby Vindafjord has enjoyed continuous rain for 70 out of the past 72 days), which coupled with two previous catastrophically wet summers in a row, means that its historic wooden buildings (the other thing Bergen is famous for, apart from the rain) are rotting because they never get a chance to dry out. "Either the climate has to change or we'll have to build a glass roof over the entire city", says Bergen's director of conservation, "dryly", as NRK puts it.
13 August -
A weekend of work (wedding on Saturday and service today) and of sorting things out after our holiday.
On the way home, the car reminded me that it's been doing its share of work this year as well (photo).
But the sun came out, just to remind us that although we've been having fun in Germany, Norway can look pretty good as well (click picture left for photos from the journey home from church today).
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14-18 August - Jon and Sarah -
It's developed into one of our annual highlights, the end-of-summer visit by Jon and Sarah.
Normally they bring good weather with them, but even they couldn't do a lot about this year's rain.
I've not included a lot of pictures from their visit (click photo, left, for just a few) because we're assuming that a plentiful supply will arrive shortly on Jon's blog - I'll include a link when they do!
17 August - Funny faces contest - Down the bottom of the drive, the goats came out to inspect Jon and Sarah and to put on a display of funny faces for them (click photo, right, for pictures).
25 August - another unexpected visit - One month ago we wrote that Tim had paid an unexpected visit to Neustrelitz hospital.
This evening, T&T are sitting in Stavanger hospital, following a message received this afternoon.
The story is that Katie's gymn lesson today had the pupils playing football while nearly blindfolded
(i.e wearing goggles almost totally obscured by gaffer tape).
Katie ran after a ball and unexpectedly headed a large and inconsiderately-placed lamp post.
She didn't score a goal with it, but instead ended up in casualty.
So here we are, while Katie is doing her best to persuade a doctor to let her out today.
PS - she did no better at blagging her way out than Tim did a month earlier: she's there for tonight, at any rate.
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26 August - released and home for Saturday evening! -
29 August - Over the fjord - We had a brief trip to collect something from the other side of the fjord. The car in front of us in the queue for the ferry was (like about a quarter of the cars you see around here at this time of year) a German camper van. I didn't think to mention it earlier, but when we drove with Jon and Sarah out to the car park from where we walked to that lighthouse a fortnight ago, we were met by a sign at the end of the road that described the weight limits and other regulations for camper vans. The sign was in just one language - German. Anyway, the driver of the camper van jumped out and ambled across, so (grasping the opportunity for some free German practice) I apologised for the weather (it was raining again). He claimed not to mind, and made nice comments about how beautiful everything was. We were still behind him at the other side of the fjord, but like most German camper vans, he turned off up the road to Prekestolen (the "pulpit rock"). I don't know whether they made it up there, because the footpath is apparently so boggy, waterlogged and frankly dangerous, that it has been closed for part of the "summer" and tourists turned away. We enjoyed our outing, at least — and the ferry, its interior seemingly unchanged from the ferries we knew 30 years ago in Lurøy, evoked memories of what now seems like the far-distant past.
30 August - Screams in the night; bodies in the morning. Have we moved to Chicago? -
There was a scream outside the house in the middle of the night.
"What was that?", asked Tracy.
"Ngwulue", replied Tim, with his usual middle-of-the-night cogency, and headed back to sleep.
We woke to a fine morning.
While the kettle was boiling, Tim took a recycling bag out of the back door, where he fell over a deer.
Tim apologised and they looked at each other for a while, without moving.
The deer was alive, but on closer examination it was badly injured - severely chewed by some large predator in the night (probably the lynx).
There was nothing for it but to ring our neighbour and ask him to come up with his gun.
He took the body away in the back of his pickup (it's probably now in close proximity to gravy and potatos).
In the evening, as Tracy was driving back home from a late meeting, she had to stop half-way up the drive for a large stag with prolific antlers.
It stood there in the middle of the driveway and looked at her for quite a while, before walking up across the field.
You could almost imagine it was looking for the missing deer.