Back to Britain – January 2026 (Month 10)

I am writing this post at the end of February as I didn’t get round to it beforehand. Consequently this will be another very short post, mostly photos – which may be a relief to you anyway!

What happened this month?

Klaus and I started the year with a visit to the National Trust Blickling Estate in Norfolk, which was lovely. We had a pub lunch there before exploring the house and the grounds, which were lovely.

I also did another Parkrun in freezing weather. It was a slow time but it was good to run 5k again.

Klaus and I also enjoyed the New Year by doing a 6 mile walk around the three villages Gazeley, Malton and Dalham.

Klaus had been on sick leave over Christmas and sat at his desk on the first working day of the new year to try to work but unfortunately his stress was really bad and he was unable to work, so he had to be signed off again. This time the doctor signed him off for two months and also put him on some medication to help him cope with the anxiety he has now about work. The doctor also suggested other things to do (which he is doing) which included exercise and being out in the fresh air.

This meant that Klaus has been coming along on the Rambles with me and enjoying chatting to other people.

January was a cold month, we had two days of snow but went on a ramble even on a snowy/icy day.

We had a long weekend in Germany to visit Klaus’s father at the beginning of January.

We took the ferry across to Hoek van Holland on the Thursday night, enjoying the traditional Stena Lounge Cakes.

We arrived in HvH the next morning and drove straight to our old home in Kempen to see Gudula and Frank – they had arranged for some excellent German cakes for us!

We had a lovely time talking to them. It was strange being in that house without Poppy, and we also took away all her things (leads, coats, toys, basket) which we eventually gave to our friends Gwenllian and Mark for their two dogs.

We then collected Klaus’s daughter Lara and started on our journey towards Mannheim, going as far as Oberwesel on the Rhein where we would stay overnight to break up the long journey.

We had a decent, if a bit chilly, apartment but struggled to find an open restaurant in Oberwesel in January. Eventually we had a pizza and then stopped at a bistro for a dessert of waffle.

Oberwesel is one of many villages along the Rhein but it is really dead in January!

We had a reasonable night and then it was time to head to Mannheim for breakfast cake.

We wandered around Mannheim town centre which seemed really empty. Klaus was a bit shocked how few people were there on a Saturday morning – it seems as though the centre may also be dying a death like Ipswich.

We then went to visit his father who had made us all lunch. It was good to see him after ten months – he was well and seemed still very content living in his flat in a complex for retired people.

We dropped Lara off back home and then returned to Kempen to stay at Heskeshof, the holiday home just 400 metres from where we used to live, picking up a kebab on the way.

We had booked a smaller room but Alessandro who runs Heskeshof recognised who we were and gave us an upgrade to a lovely flat with kitchen. We were the only ones staying there (I think there are about 8 flats/rooms in total).

The next morning we were treated to more open skies of the Niederrhein.

But also icy roads.

We needed to be at the ferry around midday and were early enough to go for breakfast cake in Landcafé Beyen in Stenden.

After this we had an easy drive to Hoek van Holland and we bought a few bits and bobs to have on the return ferry crossing which was a day crossing.

This meant 8+ hours of free food and drink, which we made the most of.

It was nice to be home but it was good to have seen Klaus’s father again.

The following week I had a Suffolk Churches Visit which was to Lidgate Church in Newmarket which has famous graffiti all over it – and a Bible which seems to have had a lot of use.

Klaus was not working now so on days when I didn’t have anything planned with the ramblers or U3A we often walked into town for a cup of tea for me, decaf coffee for Klaus and a cake to share.

I did another park run where there was a celebration for someone’s 500th park run where people were wearing dinosaur suits. And much faster than me still!

I did another slow 5k but it feels good to be running again, although I have plantar fasciitis now so am having to do a lot of faffing with foot exercises and insoles.

Another day, another ramble – this time at Needham lakes with the Stowmarket group.

I look at several Facebook pages for Bury St Edmunds and saw the post below:

So we decided to go to this and had a very enjoyable evening with seven people in total, five of whom were German. It was a good chance to chat and we agreed to do this each month on the fourth Thursday.

The Old Cannon Brewery is a really nice pub too with good food and of course they brew their own beer.

I bought an air fryer this month and experimented with various things, mostly successfully. My German style baked cheesecake was really good though, Klaus was most pleased!

He and I went to Aldeburgh to see the sea.

This was all good stuff in helping him to relax a bit from the work stress and his symptoms (chest pain, insomnia, weird dreams etc) started to subside. The various side effects from his medication hit him fairly hard but after three weeks he was mostly back to normal, apart from possibly more fatigue.

The Bury Bach Choir had a Saturday practice and I made some shortbread and took it along – there were plenty of other cake goodies too!

And the other notable thing this month was I put out a post on Facebook to say I’d like to walk dogs (having not got anywhere with borrowmydoggy.com) and got a large response which eventually got whittled down to Aggie the Cockapoo and Lottie the miniature Labradoodle. Here is Aggie on a walk with me and her owner.

I went on walks with both dogs and their owners to get to. know them and will be walking them on an ad-hoc basis in future. We will see what comes of that but it was lovely to have doggie visitors at home bouncing around – we both miss Poppy very much and are happy to have other dogs in our life.

See you next month!