monday 4 – wednesday 6, duesseldorf – long 6 hour train journey up to duesseldorf and then on-site for 3 days testing stuff in the lab and moving things generally forward. met up with christian on monday night for pleasant meal out at a thai restaurant
tuesday night went for drink round the corner and saw the end of the man utd vs real madrid game, pub a bit smokey.

friday 8, stuttgart – spend one day working in stuttgart then get back too late to see katie off, who is going to britain on a flying visit to see her mum and dad, who have deteriorated so looking after the children this weekend.
wait around for sabs to get back and bake pizza for them both then they disappear to their rooms.
eve comes out later just a bit before Any Questions comes on the radio and wants me to put records on, so I turn it off and nip downstairs to get a few records to play:
meatloaf (paradise), bangles, blondie, belinda carlisle then blancmange – day before you came; never get round to kate bush but we have a good dance, then are tired and get late to bed.

saturday 9 – needless to say am late up, went for croissants, have breakfast together then finish off Sabs’ room, painting the new partition wall. Sabs had Tiana over to go thru her referat/talk on england for geography, helped a little with providing books and comments
Eve has decided to go to Ilda’s and then to cinema.
They both overnight at different places, so I’m left alone. Heat up the remains of Eve’s kebab with some leftover beans in the fridge for my tea, then a bowl of linsentopf; still on the second half of that liter bottle of wine which katie left – quite restrained really. the lent abstinence from beer has resulted in a general reduction in alcohol consumption.

sunday 10 – go for run in west park and get mixed up in a race which is going on, so I’m running against a steady stream of runners and end up crossing the finishing line in the reverse direction.
carry on with some video editing for the confirmation weekend to show everyone, then do a bit of work on the apple mac, but otherwise a restful day and going easy on myself.
Eve comes back form Ildas to finish her homework and i cook the spag bol for tea, using the wrong tomato sauce and putting the onions in way too late but it tasted ok – always look in the fridge before starting, not ending!

monday 11 – wednesday 13, stuttgart – completing work on document and getting this signed off, then take train back

friday 15, sabrina’s confirmation weekend – work from office then take s-bahn to airport to pick up first nick and gill, then susan, pam, imogen and amy. meet katie and eve at poccistrasse after seemingly long journey; travel on to harras with eve, pam, imogen and amy as katie takes her family to hotel brack.

saturday 16, sabrina’s confirmation weekend – we go to hotel to meet up with susan, nick and gill then wander down sendlingerstr. very slowly, since the girls want to go in every shop, particularly karre and kadoh
we go into the stadtmuseum where there is a 70s exhibition going on, very good with lots of representative clothes, music, photos and even a video which really evokes some memories – perhaps the decade wasn’t so bad after all
we go through viktuallienmarkt and stop for lunch after wrestling to get a table outside near the maypole
afterwards we wander up to the frauenkirche then through odeonsplatz and down to the hofbrauhaus where we get a table right near to the music stage when it eventually starts at 6pm
get talking to a hertha berlin fan as they are playing 1860 and he mentions 2 interesting facts about the EU which we mostly ignore, tending to focus only on the benefits for each country, particularly the UK:
i) it was a brit who first proposed the idea of a european union (winston churchill, although he didn’t envisage britain being a part of it and said this shortly after the 2nd world war) – the idea was to knit adjacent countries together so tightly and mixed, polish firms setting up in germany and vice versa, that they wouldn’t contemplate going to war against one another and as a result …
ii) the EU has provided nearly 70 years of peace
we leave the hofbrauhaus and go home for meal and chat together, a nice evening all at home talking and relaxing, showed the video made earlier.

sunday 17, sabrina’s confirmation weekend – sabrina’s confirmation day at peace church then afterwards celebrated in riem with lisa’s family

monday 18 – friday 22, dortmund – spending the week in a nice hotel which mile has found for us, typical evenings consist of a half-bottle of wine, to keep relatively sober to accompany a decent meal then up early to carry out the training .

took the long train journey up there, lasting 6 hours and then the long one back getting home around 10pm on friday
tiring week as ever and relax at home at the weekend, not doing very much but recuperating.

monday 25 – wednesday 27, bad kohlgrub – took train out to murnau picked up by rainer and we drive onto bad kohlgrub for the all-hands meeting there.
excellent food, good hotel, went swimming in the hotel pool which was a decent size, 6 lengths to 100m, trained with about 50 lengths; then very tired on second day due to late night and too much wine and food
good entertainment with a krimi-evening on the tuesday night, again too much food and wine, too cold to go out but overall a great event.