Nine Wheels in Germany – July 2019 (Month 64)

Cycling this month

Last month was a very good month for cycling as we had our Bodensee tour, but this month wasn’t too shabby either, with a total of 766km cycled.

And I went here:

As there were some warm days I decided to get Alfie the trike out of storage and ride him a little. I always love riding my trikes, although it is of course much slower than riding a velomobile. I used him for my work commute for a week.

Alfie the Trike on work’s random parking space, only accessible if you can ride across grass or negotiate two 90 degree corners in the paving. Bizarre design, but works well for a trike!

Tile-bagging and other rides

I have mentioned my tile-bagging (Veloviewer Explorer Square) in previous blog posts. The image below is my Veloviewer Max Square on 1 July:

Veloviewer 13×13 Max Square, 1 July 2019

As you can see from this, I had completed lots of squares north or south of my central point but I needed to expand east and west. So that gave me a purpose for some of my rides over the month of July.

Below I have written a few short reports of some of these rides, most of which involved tile-bagging, at least tangentially.

Niederrhein Radwandertag

The first Saturday in July was the Niederrhein Radwandertag. This wasn’t something I had been particularly aware of, but when asking Ralf if he wanted to cycle (Klaus was away in Korea) he said that people were meeting in St Tönis so I said I might go there as part of a tile-bagging route. I then looked up what was happening and saw it was the Radwandertag.

My plan was to ride the route with Hartmut (he was leading a ride) but then I noticed that his route was going to Willich and that isn’t a route I particularly like, so I decided instead to go to Kempen first, get the card there (they stamp it if you visit one of the Stands) and then get a second stamp in St Tönis.

So I went to Kempen, got the card and a stamp, and also a booklet which had the routes. I decided not to follow the official route to St Tönis from Kempen as it had some stretches that weren’t so velomobile-suitable, I just rode directly there.

It was lovely to see Hartmut and Herbert at St Tönis and I took the opportunity to have a nice slice of cake!

I had planned a route from St Tönis towards Nettetal as then I could collect some more Veloviewer tiles on the west of Nettetal, heading to Herongen. I noticed that my route went through Grefrath-Oedt where there was a Niederrhein Radwandertag Stamping point so I might as well get that. The road was closed for a bit event in Oedt, mostly with the fire brigade, all as part of this special day. I managed to squeeze my way into the town centre and got my card stamped.

From Oedt I headed to Nettetal. I knew there was a stamping point there which was directly on my route (at the De Witt See information centre) so I might as well get that one. I passed a sign to Breyell, 1.5km away, and there was a stamping point there but as I wasn’t really doing this I didn’t bother. Which I then started to regret about 2km later as I though I could get several more, and I had only just missed Breyell. Oh well, too late!

I got my stamped at the Nettetal place and used their loo whilst also having a quick look around the wildlife information centre.

Now I was on my tile-bagging route and so I fiddled around a bit, as you can see from the map below of my whole ride. The western side is where I was tile-bagging – I needed tiles in Hinsbeck, Louisenburg and Herongen.

I noticed from the Radwandertag booklet that there were stamping places also in Wachtendonk and Kerken (although the Kerken one was actually in Stenden). Why not get those on the way home too? So I did!

I could have also gone to Geldern and got another one, but I was so annoyed about missing the Breyell one that I decided to stop at Kerken. I handed in my card there, and the lady said I had by far the most stamps.

All in all it was a 70km ride and I enjoyed it a lot. Good weather, good cake, some fast roads… what more can you ask for?

By the way, KK (the first stamp) is the German shorthand for Kempen, which is now on our number plates (we used to only be allowed VIE for Viersen but some of the older plate designations, that had been removed formerly, are now allowed again). KK was originally “Kempen und Krefeld”, when they shared a registration mark, but Krefeld has had its own (KR) for a long time now. Some wag decided that KK stands for “Königreich Kempen” (the Kingdom of Kempen) and you see that in lots of places – people have numberplate holders made with Königreich Kempen on them, also stickers etc.

Tilebagging – NL part 1

I had a second tile-bagging ride, this time 72km and mostly in the Netherlands. I managed to bag lots of tiles on this one, but had to do a very fiddly route to get them!

I rode first to Straelen via Kerken (good, fast roads!) and then headed down down a long, straight road which went towards the B9, crossing it briefly before I nipped into Herongen. From there it was into the Netherlands and following my Garmin to ensure I picked up the tiles. At one point I was riding on the road (although there was a cycle path available – naughty me!) and I was very pleased to be on the road as the cycle path went in a completely different direction and I would have missed my tile!

The route my Garmin had arranged around Venlo was surprisingly good and I was able to keep moving and the cycling infrastructure was very good.

I went north towards Arcen and got some tiles, then it was time to go east again and head home. I saw signs to Jagersrust which looked like some kind of café which indeed it was, and I stopped for an ice cream and a cuppa! It was a warm day and I had forgotten to take a bottle of water with me.

The ice cream was very good!


However, being NL this was pretty pricey (I think I paid 8 Euro in total for the tea and ice cream). And then when I left, I noticed about 50 metres up the road I crossed back into Germany and there was a rather nice looking Bauerncafé which undoubtedly sold good German cakes! I would have to return to check it out…

And two days later I did! As Klaus was away in Korea I had a lot of time on my hands and with the good weather I decided to bag some more tiles.

Tile-bagging NL – part 2

This ride was 76km and was back in a similar region to the last one.

I started via Kerken again and this time rode up to Walbeck. From here I followed the purple line on my Garmin (the route carefully prepared by me the night before to get all the possible tiles I could in the shortest distance!), then I headed across to Arcen. I would perhaps normally have stopped for cake in Arcen but I had planned my route to take me to the new Bauerncafé on the way back, so I kept on.

I rode straight down the main road between Arcen and Venlo, using the cycle path beside the road. This is a decent path and it is of course the law that we should use it. I just reached the outskirts of Venlo when my track curved round and started taking me back north again, to get another set of tiles.

When planning the route there was a very tricky tile to get, as there only seemed to be narrow farm tracks to get there. It wasn’t clear whether I would actually succeed, and when I got there (the black spot on the map below) I discovered a sub-optimal track ahead.

Oh dear, I definitely couldn’t cycle this!

I had climbed out of Millie and had a look around. It looked as though an asphalted track started after just 100 metres or so. There was no obvious alternative route on my Garmin so I just had to push Millie. She is low-slung so it was quite musical with all the plants and thistles rubbing on her underside, plus I have a minor paranoia about ticks (I was wearing sandals), but eventually Millie and I both made it through mostly unscathed.

The road surface was pretty bad for the next 2km but still way better than walking across bumpy grass! I visited some bits of NL I guess I will never visit again – really quaint hamlets, farms etc. But in due course I arrived at the Bauerncafé Jacobs and they did indeed have cakes, and they were indeed tasty!

After being fortified with this cake I headed home at super-speed, glad to have bagged some more tiles!

Tile-Bagging in Brachter Wald

Another long tile-bagging ride this month was an attempt to get into the former military manoeuvres area in Brüggen. This ended up as a 90km ride as I also added some more tiles near Venlo.

The problem is on the south-west corner of my track, the Brachter Wald.

Where the black blob is, is a gate. The Brachter Wald/Brüggener Wald are closed off to motorists with various gates. Years ago Klaus and I had major difficulties getting his recumbent trike through the gate at the bottom of the picture (near the Baggersee, where my track abruptly stopped).

August 2014, a Steintrikes Wild One does not easily fit through a turnstile gate

I knew that gate would be impassable for me, but wondered if other gates into the woodland would be perhaps of a different design. I had a backup plan, as there were two tiles available within about 500 metres of the gate, so if I couldn’t ride through I would walk through so at least I could bag these two tiles which would certainly help with my Max Square, although walking in SPD sandals isn’t ideal, plus leaving Millie unsupervised!

I arrived at the gate… and it was of a different style, hurrah! The gate that had caused us problems before was a turnstile-type, but this one was a bit different. I thought it might JUST be wide enough for Millie. I had a go – but I couldn’t get her nose moved when I was pushing her from behind. This was really a two-person job. Fortunately a cyclist appeared at the gate from inside the wood and he offered to help. He lifted Millie’s nose up and it just had to shuffle about 10cm to one side and then it worked. She was through!

I decided this meant I could get out OK this way if I had to, but I would try to ride right through in case they had changed the other gate. So you see from my track above, I cycled about 6km through the Brachter Wald, which is lovely – there are wild ponies there! The whole place has become a huge nature reserve, but with signs still of the former Army presence with giant concrete bunkers and silos which nature is slowly assimilating.

Ponies in the distance

(Those last three photos were taken when I visited with Klaus in August 2014, I didn’t take any pictures this time).

When I arrived at the gate at the south end of the Wald, I discovered it had not been changed in the last five years.

I had a bit of a try but there was no way Millie would get through there without having her sawn in half.

So I turned round and cycled the 6km back to the original gate.

This time I really struggled on my own to get through. There was no-one to help and although I had positioned myself at the nose end of Millie, it really needed two people as her tail needed to be shuffled across and this was very hard from her nose end. I watched the carbon fibre flanks of Millie being slightly compressed near her tail area as I slowly wiggled her through the airlock. Finally success, and she had no visible additional scrapes/marks on her (she already has quite a few so I am very phlegmatic about them anyway). So I counted that as a win, plus I bagged my five tiles.

What I did learn from this, however, was that Klaus would no way be able to get Emily through this gate. Not a chance. He will also need to do these tiles in due course. My suggestion to him was that we ride there with Ralf and then Klaus borrow’s Ralf’s DF (which is narrower and shorter than our velomobiles) to do the five tiles/6km ride in Brachter Wald. I mentioned this to Ralf and he told us that our friend Uli actually has a key to the lock to these gates (there is a large gate area which is padlocked but would allow a tank through). So we may have to tempt Uli to have a ride with Klaus through Brachter Wald sometime!

In total my ride on this day was 92km. The rest of it, after negotiating the Brachter Wald gates, was pretty easy; I did one short detour to bag a tile (at a former monastery south of Venlo) where I had to retrace my track after getting to that tile, but it’s not something I usually have to do as there are generally good through-routes. The tile is 1 kilometre square so there are usually several roads in each tile, even in the rural areas.

Cake with Ralf in Stemmeshof

My colleagues had given me a Voucher for a café in Nettetal for my birthday in June and so when Klaus was back from Korea and as he was fighting the jet lag I suggested we rode (with Ralf) to the café to use up the 20 € voucher. This seemed like a good plan, so we had a ride one day with Ralf, doing some tile-bagging.

It turned out also to be a day when we did some velomobile sub-aqua when Ralf led us through some water-filled gullies across some of the field tracks. Millie remained dry inside (and she is usually very leaky), but Klaus’s Emily sucked up rather a lot of water, both in the foot holes at the front and also somehow into the axle box at the back where the gears are. He had to lift Emily’s tail and then her nose to try to encourage the water out of the drainage holes.

After this we had definitely earned our cakes! We arrived at Stemmeshof; I had been there once or twice before but as we walked inside it became clear we could not sit down in there as the noise level was huge! This seems to be a thing with design of public spaces in Germany now – plain walls, tile floor, hard furniture… and it makes for a huge volume level as there are no soft furnishings to dampen the sound. Klaus with his jet lag definitely didn’t fancy a noisy cake so we sat outside although it was a bit cool.

We were a bit boring and all ordered the same cake!

Klaus was feeling really hungry though so he had another slice, this time of a different cake.

That would keep him going for the ride home!

In total this was a 76km ride but it was good fun and it was good to ride with Ralf again – we haven’t managed that so much recently.

Tile-bagging in Viersen

Klaus needed a haircut and he really likes the barber shop in Viersen (so do I). It’s 20km away so it seemed wise to cycle there.

As I had some missing tiles south of Viersen I asked Klaus if we could do a little detour after the haircut and collect them. Of course he agreed (he also needs the tiles!) so I planned a route that would collect several of them.

We passed close to Ralf’s house so dropped in to see him – he was doing some maintenance on his DF. This included the first time he had oiled the chain – after about 6,000km. But in velomobiles the chain is so well protected it doesn’t get that dirty.

We then headed into Lobberich to stop for cake.

Our ride was 71km in total, and Klaus came back with a very good haircut too!

Papperlapapp with Klaus

After our separate holidays (Klaus in Berlin, me in England) we went out for a cycle ride together to enjoy some cake at Papperlapapp. As rain was forecasted we chose Papperlapapp in Vorst because we knew there was a place to park which was undercover – this is the advantage of knowing all the cafes and cake establishments within a 40km radius!

We enjoyed a slice of cake each and just relaxing outside.

The threatened rain didn’t really arrive, just a few spots.

On the way home we rode through quite a different landscape that before our holidays as during this week the wheat had been harvested.

Tile-bagging Steudle

My final solo bit of tile-bagging for the month was an after-work dash around to pick up some tiles to the north (my favourite area to ride) and the north east.

I needed some tiles around Kamp-Lintfort and managed to organise a ride of 93km which bagged a whopping 22 tiles!

I hadn’t originally planned a cake stop but I knew that Landcafé Steudle in Vernum would be open on a Monday (most cafés are shut then) so I had it in the back of my mind, as it would only be a small detour. I wasn’t sure if I would do the whole track, or if I would stop once I had completed the Horstgen tiles (to the NE of the map) as then there was quite a long transfer to Geldern where the next batch of tiles started. I could have stopped halfway round if I didn’t feel like riding more.

However, my legs were good (as was my motor!) and so I kept going, enjoying the relatively quiet roads at three in the afternoon in Kreis Kleve.

There were roadworks in Geldern but I was very lucky and able to continue on my track through the roadworks; they were one way so if I had done this track the other way round I wouldn’t have been able to get a tile. I maintained a good speed for this ride too, with an average of 29.4 km/h for the 93km.

I had to put my foot down a bit towards the end as I suddenly couldn’t remember if Steudle was open until 18:00 or 18:30. I estimated I would arrive there at 17:45 and some German establishments start cashing up early and won’t serve you, even if they are still officially open! But it was fine, I arrived at 17:30 (I put the pedal to the metal a bit for the last hour) and had a lovely slice of cake.

Stelde is 19km from home but we ride this route so regularly that it feels like you are almost home and the journey home goes by in a flash! The only difficulty was crossing the B9 road during rush hour, so it took a bit longer before I was safe to cross to Winternam.

Tile-bagging for Klaus in Krefeld

On the last day in July Klaus suggested we did a ride to bag some of his tiles. His Max Square is smaller than mine, so he is bagging tiles that I have mostly got, but there were two available for me on this tour so it was a worthwhile 36km!

The funny detour out to the east from Niep was to enable me to get a missing tile; Klaus had originally planned the route directly down on the main road from Niep to Krefeld but I spotted there was a very small diversion of 2km to get a tile that we both needed. The planning of these routes is actually fairly complicated, if you try to get all tiles with minimum distance, and also because the maps on Veloviewer are not the same as Google Maps or the maps on the Garmin software, so it’s not always clear exactly where the tiles start and finish.

And this was my Veloviewer Max Square map by the end of July:

Veloviewer 18×18 Max Square

And, as a reminder, here’s what it looked like at the beginning of July, when it was 13×13

Doing the Veloviewer Max Square challenge is a really interesting way to ride new roads and visit new places. This is just the rides for 2019, my lifetime Max Square is 21×21 (also here in Germany, as my UK Max Square was limited by the Colne river which meant I couldn’t get several squares north east of where I lived unless I hired a boat).

A visit to England

Because I have been doing lots of overtime at work I have ended up with almost two weeks’ additional leave. So I decided to take a week when Klaus was in Berlin with his daughter Lara (and Poppy also went with them to Berlin but stayed with Lars for the five days) and visit my Mum in England.

Rather than make Klaus drive the 450km round trip to the Hoek van Holland the day before he had to drive all the way to Berlin, I decided to take the train. This used to be easy – Venlo to Rotterdam, Rotterdam to Hoek van Holland. Two trains, one change. However, things are now much more complicated!

As you can see, it is now three trains and a bus. It also costs 24 € for the train and 2,22 € for the bus. Things are much easier with an OV-Chipkaart (a bit like an Oyster card) so on one of my tile-bagging trips I went to Venlo station and bought the card in advance and put 55 € credit on it.

This meant Klaus just had to drop me off at Venlo on the Sunday morning. The return journey on Friday night was more complex as Klaus would probably still be driving back from Berlin, Gudula and Frank weren’t available so I investigated how much a taxi would cost. 55 € seemed very steep, especially as my two day ferry crossings only totalled 77 pounds! Fortunately my colleague Dorothee came to the rescue and said she would pick me up. Hurrah!

So Klaus drove me bright and early to Venlo and I got on the first train, the comfy double-decker.

I got off at Eindhoven and bought a cup of tea whilst awaiting the next train, which took me to Rotterdam. This was a single-decker train and not so nice, but still fine.

At Rotterdam I just needed to get a train to Schiedam. This was only a four minute journey but I had to wait a while for the train.

I got off at Schiedam and then had to follow the signage to the bus stop, bus 711 which goes directly to Hoek van Holland. It arrived after about 10 minutes and several people with suitcases – including me! – got on.

I went right to the back so I could leave my case on the floor.

This was an easy journey and I arrived at the Stena ferry with two hours in hand.

This was planned, as I knew I wanted to pop into the Albert Heijn supermarket in Hoek van Holland to buy food for the ferry journey. It’s 8 hours on the ferry with not much to do except read, play on the iPad (but no wifi, so I had downloaded some TV programmes) and eat. If you eat on the ferry it’s expensive so I went round Albert Heijn picking up things that I thought I fancied. This included salad, olives and feta, bottled water, houmous, but also a few non-Keto things such as a sandwich and a bread roll to go with my salad.

I managed to kill enough time that boarding was starting once I had walked back to the ferry terminal. The queue for motor traffic seemed to be 90% motorhomes!

I knew the ferry would be very busy and indeed it was. I went to the front end to look at the view.

It was way too noisy here though, right next to the big restaurant, so I took myself off to the quiet area near the stern of the boat and found a comfortable chair. I settled down for the long journey.

I watched a couple of TV programmes and finished a book I had brought with me. Then I went for a constitutional around the deck. I left my bag of food and my water bottle on my seat/table area so it was bagged as I didn’t want to lose it! But I had to take my iPad with me (I had checked in my suitcase).

It was a beautiful day for a crossing. We left Hoek van Holland at 14:00 and I sighted land in the UK an hour and a half before we actually docked – this is due to the route the ferry has to take due to the sandbanks around the East Coast waters. There were some lovely views though. That line on the horizon is Suffolk, where I was headed!

We disembarked at 20:00 UK time and Mum was there to collect me. It was great to see her again and to be back in the UK.

The next day was a mostly lazy day. It was going to be very warm in the UK but fortunately where Mum lives is a village at the top of a hill so there’s always a nice breeze.

I had my morning cup of tea in the garden.

Later on in the day I went for a walk to visit my Dad’s grave, and took the cross-country walk back. The gentle rolling hills of Suffolk have a very different view than Niederrhein.

The barley seemed a bit further ahead than in Germany.

In the afternoon we went for a cuppa with Mum’s neighbour and friend Stephanie. Stephanie rents her house and the landlord won’t let her plant things in the garden, so instead she has created an amazing flower garden in pots. It was beautiful!

The next day was set to be really warm – 34 degrees (very unusual for England although we get to that temperature quite often in Kempen). We had arranged to visit my cousin Moyna in the afternoon, but in the morning we headed into Ipswich by bus to do a few bits and bobs (I bought a new bag as the one I had with me on the way over started collapsing). The bus journey back was interesting as the bus conked out at the bus station but the driver found another one, although when we were underway he said it was gutless and there were some hills on the route. We made it back though!

In the afternoon we drove to Moyna’s. She lives in a beautiful thatched cottage called Holly Cottage.

As it was such a warm day we sat in the garden. Moyna has a fantastic garden!

We sat on the verandah of the summerhouse and ate scones with homemade jam and clotted cream.

And we looked across the fields to some of the rather nicer bits of Essex!

We had a really good chinwag with Moyna and plenty of cups of tea. I last saw her at the funeral of my father, over three years ago, so it was good to catch up again. I also enjoyed driving Mum’s car around the lanes fairly near where I used to live in Colchester.

Mum and I settled down in the evening to watch an episode of the series Chernobyl. I had ordered the DVD to be delivered to Mum’s in England and so we watched all five episodes whilst I was at her house. I had also brought along some Russian chocolates that my customer had brought for me at work; we ate the mystery Russian chocs whilst watching Chernobyl.

I also went to visit my sister one day and went out for lunch with her and my eldest niece, Gwenllian. In a spooky coincidence we were all dressed in white tops.

Helen, Gwen, Anna

We then proceeded to go out for a Chinese buffet meal and Klaus said I was bound to spill some down my white linen top. This is mainly because I usually spill food when I eat (I have to eat largely one-handed due to dodgy left elbow). Anyway, on this occasion I was very careful with my napkin and at the end of the meal I hadn’t spilled any but the other two had. Go me!

I also met my middle niece Angharad’s new kitten, Socks.

Gwen’s dog Chip was in the house and he was being very friendly to Socks, but Socks was not sure about Chip. As Chip can’t walk up the stairs in Anna’s house, Socks had learned to go up the stairs and look through the gap between the treads at what was happening below.

I had a lovely time with Anna and Gwen, and later also saw my other two nieces Angharad and Ceridwen, but was a bit shocked by the mug my sister gave me to drink my tea from:

Although Anna and I have a very easy-going relationship, and we agree on many things (Brexit being a disaster, etc), we clearly don’t vote the same way in General Elections!

The next day was my last full day and we had no specific plans, so decided to head to the beach (I had said to Mum I would like to visit the beach as we can’t really do that in Kempen as we are at least two hours away from the coast!)

We went to a beach in Suffolk called Shingle Street. We had been told there was nothing there, which was true, but it was lovely.

We walked past the artist and then found ourselves on a beach with only about 10 other people in sight.

A few people were swimming but they said it was very cold!

It wasn’t just the heads of swimmers we saw, there was also a seal in this cove area. We could just see his face peeping out of the water from time to time.

After an hour of simply sitting on the shingle and watching the ships go by (including the ferry I would be travelling on tomorrow), and also watching the swimmers and dogs frolicking in the water, we headed back via a pub for a pub lunch.

We stopped at the supermarket on the way back and bought me some more teabags. I bought about 2500 bags, carrying 840 home and leaving the rest in stock at Mum’s to collect when we come at Christmas with the car. I had actually misremembered how many teabags I had back in Germany and when I got home I counted them all up and it seems that I now own 5,000 bags. So that should keep me safe over the first few months of Brexit anyway.

In order to improve my tea drinking at Mum’s I bought myself a larger mug (I like big mugs). The choice was a bit slim but I liked this one’s shape and the message on it is acceptable (not sure if Klaus agrees).

Mum’s lovely neighbour Maureen brought round some slices of a coffee & walnut cake she had made so we enjoyed that with a cuppa.

In the evening Mum accommodated my request and we went out for an Indian meal as I do miss a good Indian here in Germany!

The following morning we left home at 06:30 for Mum to take me to the ferry, which would leave at 09:00. We had bought food for the journey yesterday, so I said goodbye to Mum, checked my suitcase and then headed to the quiet area again, where I got a better seat. I watched out of the window as we went past the many wind farms in the shallows around the East Coast.

The journey was fine – I read a lot of Michelle Obama’s book Becoming which I had purchased in the UK. I watched a film or two on my iPad, and then we were approaching the Hook of Holland.

I had the schedule for the return bus/train/train/train and annoyingly missed the first bus as we had to wait ages for our suitcases to arrive at Baggage Reclaim. When I caught the next bus I had to stand the whole way as it was full.

The train connection from Schiedam to Rotterdam was easy, and as I had a 20 minute wait for the next train I had an ice cream at Rotterdam.

I hopped on the train to Eindhoven, and had a message from Klaus to say he was already home from Berlin! He had made excellent progress with the driving. He had picked up Poppy from Lars in Berlin too so she was also home. I was able to tell my colleague Dorothee that she wouldn’t need to pick me up from Venlo, Klaus would.

Except it didn’t quite work like that. There was a huge electrical storm as my train approached Tilburg and when it got to the station it stopped. After half an hour people got on, and it was clear that this train was now going back to Rotterdam rather than continuing to Eindhoven. It was hard to get any information about the trains but I did hear an announcement saying passengers for Venlo should get the train to Nijmegen as no trains were continuing to Eindhoven because of the storm.

Nijmegen is definitely nearer home than Tilburg so I decided that was a plan. After a 20 minute wait a train arrived, which I got on. During this time I had been checking on the Dutch rail website ns.nl to see what trains ran from Nijmegen to Venlo – and it turned out none did! I could get multiple busses (6 in total to get to Venlo). This was completely hopeless so I phoned Klaus and he said he would set off straight away to drive to Nijmegen to pick me up. This, another 2 hours in total, after driving all the way back from Berlin!

I wrote a post on Facebook saying how annoying this was that there was no train from Nijmegen to Venlo and friend Oliver said that there is one, it just isn’t an NS train but is Arriva. I checked Arriva’s website (very poor!) and lo and behold there was! It travels via Cuijk, Boxmeer, Venray etc (familiar cycling territory). I phoned Klaus to ask if it helped him if I got the train to Cuijk or something but he said he was approaching Nijmegen. I only had to wait about five minutes before he appeared at the station to pick me up – what a hero! I eventually got home at 22:00, having expected to be home at 20:30.

I really enjoyed my time in England, it was very relaxing, and I don’t mind the travelling either, but it was good to be home. We’ll be returning to England at the beginning of September, but this time in our velomobiles!

Miscellaneous

As July has been very dry, the farmers have to water the potatoes almost constantly. They often have to lay giant hoses across the road. They are supposed to put blocks each side to let cars cross, but some are better than others. This was on my way to work one morning:

And you can clearly see from this photo why I got stuck!

I tend to always get stuck on the foot cover/bump, which I only have on the left hand side (as you look at this picture, the right hand side from inside) and I am seriously considering cutting this one out as well so that I have more ground clearance. It will also give more airflow which is positive in summer but probably negative in winter.

Same location, another day, another type of hose covering – although this one I actually managed to ride over without coming to a juddering halt!

I am now careful to choose a different route if I can see signs of watering on the potato field.

I walked back from work one day in July (Klaus gave me a lift into the office) and on the 4.2km route I spotted a few places where there were some nice blackberries so went back in the afternoon with a tub to collect ’em!

My working life is mostly OK. There are constant changes where I work but other things remain eternally static… I have some great colleagues and we work really well together, but there are also some very difficult issues to deal with at work. But things are looking up in some ways. At least I am having to do less overtime at the moment so I can enjoy the nice weather for all my bike trips.

I have effectively a job-share, where I work 5 hours a day and my colleague Alex full time, both looking after our key account. As an management-desired experiment she has been working from another office for the last two weeks. The logic of this is hard to fathom, but it does mean I get more exercise walking to her office to pick up paperwork etc; it’s a good five minute round trip! It also means lots of phone calls to discuss what we are doing, rather than the previous rotating my chair 10 degrees so I can talk directly to her where she sits a metre away. As is always the case, the Ways of Management are Unknowable.

I have noticed that our new photocopier/printer/scanner in the office speaks a rather weird version of Dutch.

Firstly, I am not entirely sure why our photocopier is speaking Dutch to us anyway (it’s a German company, although the touchscreen talks to us in German), but I also have a strong suspicion that’s not a real Dutch word…

Cakes this month

You have undoubtedly noticed lots of cake pictures scattered throughout the text of this blog, but here are some other cakes that were consumed this month by me or by companions.

And next month, August? We have a mini bike tour in the middle of August to visit some castles in Münsterland (we have taken the Monday off work so we can have a three day tour). We also leave for our tour to England at the end of August, riding through NL over two days to Hoek van Holland. But apart from that we have a fairly normal month with work and no doubt tile-bagging (although this is now getting harder as the tiles are further away!).

I really appreciate whenever my readers comment, so please let me know if there is anything you particularly like about my blog posts or if there are things I should talk about more. I guarantee I will continue to do some good cake testing on your behalf, should you ever find yourself in this part of Germany!

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