Black to Blighty – April 2025 (Month 1)

The end of an Era – I return from Germany to the UK

I have just had to do a lot of blog adjustments as the whole direction of this blog has now changed – it is no longer about life as a Brit in Germany, but about reintegrating into the UK after 11 years away. And with a German husband in tow.

We had taken Klaus’s daughter Lara to Stansted Airport for her journey home on the last day in March, and Klaus was due to start his new job on April Fool’s Day. For his first day we would travel together to the office which is in Wickford near Basildon in Essex so he could pick up his laptop, phone etc. As my sister lives just 10 minutes away I arranged to spend the day with her and she took the day off for it.

So we headed to Wickford and I dropped Klaus off, saying hello to some of his new colleagues as well – particularly Debbie who had been really helpful with the Visa stuff. It’s a small office and warehouse unit in an industrial estate, rather different from the head office in Mülheim where Klaus worked previously with a swanky glass-walled building with huge car park full of company cars. He is definitely in a different working environment now.

I headed off to Anna’s and after a cuppa and chat we set off to Rayleigh for a lunch together. We found a pub that had a good menu.

We decided to go elsewhere for dessert/cake and found a very cute little café. Anna had some kind of hearty cake.

I went for scones – a very generous portion!

After that we headed back to Anna’s for a bit of a chinwag. Klaus messaged me that I could collect him later on and so I said goodbye to Anna and collected him and we headed back to Bury.

His company phone was an Android and we are so much into the Apple system. I was already thinking of upgrading my phone so I did so and Klaus bought my old iPhone 14 from me to use as his work phone – made things much easier overall.

The next day the Landlord came to visit, along with the managing agents, as we had been complaining about the hot water pressure which was basically hopeless. We had thought we might need an entirely new unvented system but the landlord’s plumber, who came with him, suggested a pump on the output of the hot water cylinder. He plumbed this in and it was a revelation – very decent water pressure! We requested that they cleaned out the header tank and covered it properly so this was also done. The poor hot water was a major issue for this house so it’s great it was sorted out – we can now have lovely showers using the cylinder hot water rather than the dribbly traditional Landlord electric shower.

The next day Klaus had to drive to Manchester for work (his job will involve loads of driving) so I had the house to myself. I took the opportunity to do some more unpacking as he just hadn’t had the time. He didn’t mind me unpacking his things and putting them away in our new cabinets in the study so I did so.

I also had yet another visit to the Tip (I go regularly) as we had so many cardboard boxes to get rid of.

Later that morning it was my first u3a event (University of the 3rd Age, which is a local group where people arrange different interest groups). I had decided to go to the German conversation class and had already chatted by phone to the lady who was leading it. She was unfortunately not well and couldn’t make that meeting but the people there were very friendly and welcoming. My level of German was much better than theirs (to be expected, I only moved from Germany a week before!) and in the end I decided not to participate further with this group as there was another group I wanted to attend that met at the same time.

Samantha looked great after I did a hand car wash (the hosepipe just reaches under the back gate).

This inspired Klaus so he washed Carl too when he returned from his two day trip to Manchester.

In Germany you are not allowed to wash your car using any washing liquids or wax or anything on your land. You have to do it at a special car wash (so that they can collect the runoff water), So this is a bit of a luxury, that you can do it without having to hurry as people are queuing for the wash boxes.

We have been doing walks together and regularly used the circular walk across No Man’s Meadow to the Abbey Gardens.

I attended a Choral Evensong at the cathedral one afternoon – I got there a bit early so almost no-one was there. There weren’t many people so we sat in the choir stalls for the service.

And here is Klaus enjoying his evening coffee in our back garden – and photographing it for his contacts at inhub who gave him this enamel mug.

Rambling and Walking

I had joined the Rambler’s Society as soon as we moved to the UK (but unfortunately after Klaus bought his hiking boots at Cotswold Outdoor as it turns out we get a 15% discount with the Ramblers).

I started with a walk around Bury town which was very useful for getting my bearings a bit more. This was on a Friday morning and I had a lovely chat with a very nice lady from the town of Clare, as well as a couple of Bury ladies.

The following Monday I joined the “Wellbeing Walk” in Nowton Park for their 10am walk. This is fairly short (2 miles or so) and with a very pleasant chap called Geoffrey leading it. I had a good chat with a lady called Marina and we exchanged phone numbers.

The Ramblers offer several led walks per week and I went on my first longer walk with them (6 miles/10km) from Long Melford.

We saw lambs in the field at Kentwell Hall.

There were about 15 of us on this lovely walk.

I went on several other rambles during the month, meeting a variety of people and having some good chats. I prefer the 5-6 mile rambles (9-10km) which take about two and a half hours (with a break for tea from our flasks halfway).

We did another nice ramble around West Stow Country Park.

There is an anglo Saxon village there, and there were several interesting carvings around (done recently!), such as this lovely dragon’s head.

We also rambled at Wickhambrook, near Newmarket.

We passed a farm where a farmer had done some wonderful wood carvings too!

Another walk a few days later was also to the Newmarket area, this time to walk along the Devil’s Dyke to see some very rare flowers called the Pasque Flower.

There were several batches of them on the steep banks of the Devil’s Dyke.

Newmarket was very interesting as it’s so horsey (racehorse region). Whilst driving through the town I had to stop twice for a string of racehorses to cross the road.

Here, looking down from the Devil’s Dyke, we saw some horses out for a walk.

We rambled also in the King’s Forest at Thorpe Woodlands.

We stopped for a tea break at this lovely church in the middle of nowhere.

And were very impressed by the different patterns in these cut logs that were piled up.

Here is an action shot of me crossing a stile.

And here we are near the end of the walk. I’m on the left in the blue Tilley hat. My r shirt says “I run because CAKE”, a very appropriate present from my sister some years ago.

I’ve not only been walking with the Ramblers but also with Klaus of course.

We often have an evening walk into Bury St Edmunds, enjoying the wildlife (water voles, birds, squirrels) as we take our rural path from our bungalow to the town centre.

One time we stopped for fish & chips as it was a Friday. Yummy!

Oh, and I managed one cycle ride! I went out on a Sunday afternoon in my velomobile round some quiet local roads (although I did have to go round two main roundabouts) and it was OK but tough work on the hills as the velomobile slows down so much uphill (at least when I am riding it) and I wasn’t keen to let it fly full speed downhill as there were corners.

This was 12.28km in 34 minutes so only an average of 21.6 km/h. And it didn’t inspire me to do lots more cycling – we’ll see how things settle in. But I do see the possible end of my cycling/velomobiling days as this area is less suitable and I had two back issues getting out of the velomobile last year. Walking seems a bit kinder to the body!

Anna and Val visit

I had a visit from Anna my sister and Val her youngest. Val hadn’t yet visited our new house as they are usually looking after the dog to enable the other family members to come. It was lovely to see Val and I had gone out in the morning to buy some cakes and we shared them – including this GENIUS Creme Egg Scotch Egg (see below) which was a Cadbury creme egg coated in Brownie mix with powdered chocolate on the top. We split it three ways but it was still waaaaay too powerful for us!

This cake would have completely killed Klaus, of course, so I took pity on him and made a German Käse-Sahne Torte which worked rather well.

Napoleon build up

I am sure I have mentioned before that the first thing we bought after signing the contract on our bungalow was a large gas barbecue (brand Napoleon). We bought this in December from a barbecue place in Ipswich and it had been stored in our garage waiting for the day that Klaus could build it up, which we knew was a major undertaking. In the end he did it almost entirely on his own (I just helped him lift the main BBQ area onto the stand at the end) and it took him about two and a half hours. But Napoelon was finally ready!

We went out and bought a 13kg gas bottle from the garden centre down the road – but it was too tall for Napoleon! So we returned it and realised, with tape measure in hand, that we would have to get the smaller bottle, a 6kg one, and drove around several places looking for stock (the garden centre were out). Eventually we found one at B&Q where we had to pay a £45 fee to join their scheme which was a bit hefty as we had not had to pay anything extra at the local garden centre.

Anyway, that bottle fitted! With loads of room to spare. And it lasted just over a week (Klaus was barbecuing every day and learning how best to cook with Napoleon).

Since then we have bought another large bottle (which of course does not fit inside the bbq but that’s fine, it stands to the size) as well as a small bottle in reserve that lives in Napoleon. And we have continued having BBQs very regularly – Klaus is an excellent barbecue cook and everything is very tasty.

Bury Bach Choir

Ladies and Gentlemen, I have joined the Bury Bach Choir. We saw flyers for the choir on our first visit to Bury St Edmunds and I said at the time I would love to sing with them. My wish has been fulfilled! And not only that, they are performing Mozart’s Requiem in June and I joined in time to participate.

I have to say, the organisation of this choir is outstanding. I sent an email asking to join and a specific lady (whose job is to welcome new members) contacted me back straight away. She arranged for me to have a buddy in the choir, a lovely lady called Penny, who met me 15 minutes before the practice started. We went to the “Librarian” together who had pre-organised my sheet music for rental; if I passed the voice check (audition) in due course then I would pay for the music, but could borrow it until then.

Penny showed me where to sit and introduced me to the other tenors – there are 16 in total but were usually around 10 for the Requiem (not everyone could make the concert so some sat it out, although others still came to the practices).

I had a really enjoyable practice. It was lovely to sing again, everyone was very friendly and although I hadn’t sung the Mozart before and was very rusty, I could see it would be fine and I would enjoy it. The Music Director, Benedict Collins Rise, was also excellent – he said some really funny things and ran the practice really well. It turns out he also does the Bath Bach Choir, a choir in Ipswich and a couple of others.

I left on a real high, especially as the Tenors told me that as there was no practice next week they would go down the pub and I was invited. I said yes of course! I was then added to the Tenori WhatsApp Group.

So the following week I duly went along for the drinks. I had mentioned in the WhatsApp group beforehand that I have issues with face blindness and remembering names. And then went off on a walk.

When I came back from the walk the WhatsApp chat had loads of messages – the choir members had taken photos of themselves and added their names so I would recognise them! This was unbelievably lovely of them all!! I made a crib sheet that I took with me to the pub, and another of the Tenors bought along sticky labels with peoples’ names on that made it even easier.

We had a lovely evening chatting and then one of the Tenors said he would walk me home as he lived in a similar direction. He took me a new route which was lovely and gave us this look at the floodlit cathedral on our way back.

So my experiences of the choir were all really good. And then at the next practice it was time for my Voice Check / Audition. I wasn’t worried about this as although I don’t have a particularly good-sounding voice I can read music well, sight sing OK and generally hit the right note at the right time. I underperformed in the Voice Check (particularly with the sight singing) but was good enough for the Choir Director to allow me to join the choir.

And that was also very efficient. I had to pay my subs (which I did by bank transfer) and the cost for the music (which I did by bank transfer). All super-easy. We get a weekly bulletin with information about what we are doing that week (we know in advance which specific bits of music we will be practising) and also with information about other concerts we might wish to attend, etc.

We then also had a Saturday choir rehearsal to focus more on the Salieri Coronation Te Deum – and this involved cakes. I made vast quantities of shortbread (I ended up bringing quite a lot home for the freezer, as well as giving a lot away) and was able to sample some very tasty other cakes whilst there.

For the cake-eating tea break we also wore sticky labels with our names on – this is partly because there are 104 members of the choir so it’s tricky to know peoples’ names.

With my crib sheet of photos/names and sitting together with the Tenors for several practices now I have got the names and faces of about 10 of them learned which is very good going for me!

The concert is on 7 June and I’m really looking forward to it. I’ve had a great time so far with the choir, and have done a bit of homework too in learning the Requiem and the Salieri piece so hopefully I can play my part in the overall musical experience.

Osteopath for Klaus

Poor Klaus had another back issue after spending a whole day at a trade fair and then lifting some heavy boxes. His back went into another muscle spasm, which has afflicted him most of his life. It was time to find an osteopath in Bury St Edmunds.

We went to one which was just 5 minutes away by car – they were able to give Klaus an appointment the next day which was great. The osteopath was a very nice chappie who reminded me a lot of Jonathan, my former boss at the record company in Eastbourne (who also happened to live in Bury St Edmunds earlier).

Anyway, this osteopath was showing me what he was doing to Klaus with the suggestion I might help Klaus. But I didn’t have an opportunity to write anything down and wasn’t always entirely sure that I understood what he was doing.

Klaus’s back was slightly better after this but he phoned for a second appointment after four days, which he had, but that too didn’t really solve the problem.

So we did what perhaps we should have done all along – go to my former osteopath near Colchester in Langham. Richard Kemp is excellent. He’d had an initial consultation with Klaus several years ago but not actually treated him before; he gave us an appointment an hour before he usually starts work in the morning and did his magic on Klaus, which was a huge improvement. A second visit a week later fixed the problem completely. Although it’s a 45 minute journey each way it’s worth it for effective treatment that means Klaus isn’t in pain. I have booked an appointment for myself to keep on top of things although I’ve been doing yoga again so my back is feeling OK – but at my age things are bound to go downhill!!!

Tourists in London

One of Klaus’s German acquaintances contacted him to say he would be in London with his wife for a holiday and could we perhaps meet up. This seemed like an excellent idea so Klaus and I arranged to get the train from Bury to London, stay overnight in the same hotel as Christian and Sylvia, and get the train back. Amazingly the train tickets were just £14 each way which we consider a mega bargain.

We ended up getting a taxi to Bury St Edmunds station (it would normally be a 30 minute walk) because Klaus had his bad back and we knew we would be doing lots of walking over the two days.

The train journeys were fine – we changed trains at Ipswich and everything ran on time. Very decent train experience.

We arrived art six in the evening and after putting our luggage in our room we met up with Christian and Sylvia who had had a very enjoyable few days in London. The hotel was right by Tower Hill so we walked to see the Thames after having a nice curry at a restaurant round the corner – also a very fair price!

Here is Klaus with his wizard hat!

It was lovely to see Tower Bridge lit up.

We went back to the hotel’s lounge and chatted. I went up to bed two hours before the others as I was really pooped.

We had already decided to hang out together the next day so breakfasted together and then went out for a walk. I had suggested we walked to the Wobbly Bridge opposite St Paul’s (they didn’t know about this) and maybe stick our noses into Tate Modern. Sylvia wanted to be back at Tower Bridge at 13:30 when it was scheduled to open.

So we walked along the riverside walk towards St Paul’s.

The Millennium Bridge is of course no longer wobbly.

St Pauls was closed for a service (it was Good Friday!) so we crossed the bridge again and went into the main Turbine Hall in the Tate.

None of us is particularly keen on modern art and, having seen a small installation, that was enough for us and we headed back for the Tower Bridge opening.

After this we had lunch in a very busy café outside the Tower of London. The number of tourists was rapidly rising and we felt like almost everyone who walked past us was speaking German. It was very surprising!

We went back to the hotel and chilled out until it was time for Christian and Sylvia to head off to Heathrow. We said goodbye, having very much enjoyed spending the time with them, and invited them to visit us in Bury whenever they wanted.

Half an hour later it was our turn to head off, this time to Liverpool Street Station. We arrived nice and early (I am ALWAYS early!) so had a scone at a café.

The journey back was equally fine, a comfortable train from London which did get stuck behind a slower train and so was 8 minutes late arriving at Ipswich but we had 20 minutes for the connection so it was easy. We walked home from the station in Bury and stopped for a pizza on the way back.

We were really impressed at what good value the train was and will definitely do it again!

We become gardeners

When we rented the property we were told the landlord would do the gardening for an extra £100 a month. We went for that as we had no garden tools and the garden was very large. However, the weeds were growing and there was no sign of the handyman doing these (he came with a ride-on lawnmower three times, mowed for 10 minutes and then left). I had researched cordless electric lawnmowers and a really decent one was £400 so I decided to buy that and we would take over the garden work – I was doing the weeding anyway. I collected some garden tools from my Mum’s shed which was enough to start with.

Here is Klaus doing the first mow. I have done subsequent ones as the mower has a powered feature (you don’t have to push it) which I can use on the uphill bits. My weak arm is strong enough to push it on the flat.

I have also bought a bird feeder and a bird bath. The hanging feeder with fat balls in kept falling off overnight and being blown up the garden… or so we supposed. We later realised someone else was helping themselves.

In this photo you can see I had already bought a squirrel-proof fat ball. holder but the squirrel still liked the seeds. So we now have squirrel proof fat ball and peanuts for the birds and I also hang lower down the seeds for the squirrel as he is sweet – it’s fun watching him shin up the pole with his little hands and feet sliding down….

I can see that the birds will end up costing me a fortune as I do like to watch them on the feeders so am of course regularly visiting the garden centre to buy their seed. So far we’ve only had a few birds (blue tits, great tits and a dunnock) although we have lots of pigeons and blackbirds on the lawn. When sitting outside we hear lots of birdsong which is lovely.

U3A English History

I think I may have mentioned before that I have joined the U3A or University of the 3rd Age. This offers various discussion groups which are led by group members – a kind of learning together.

I had already tried the German Conversation class but decided not to keep going with that as it clashed with English History. I went to the first meeting of the English History which had two ladies each presenting a little talk on some historical event. The first lady spoke about the match girl strike and the second looked into the lives of the victims of Jack the Ripper (in summary, only one was a prostitute but they all had fallen on hard times, mainly because of drink dependency). Both were very interesting and I will go again.

A visit to Ely

On a sunny Sunday afternoon Klaus and I decided to visit Ely. We set off early afternoon in Samantha with the roof down and chose a more scenic route there than the A14 – we went through Mildenhall and Prickwillow on the way. We parked by the cathedral and had a look around.

Here are Klaus’s photos of the cathedral, the present building dates from 1083 but there was a previous Abbey Church on this location in the year 672.

After all this sightseeing it was time for cake.

We enjoyed walking around Ely which seemed very peaceful and a very pretty town. Our journey home was an alternative route through Gazeley etc so on country lanes, once again much more fun in Samantha.

Three churches walk

Just two days later I was on another walk which started in Gazeley. This visited three churches, all very pretty in their own way.

I loved the inscription below – to me it was a bit too effusive!

We also walked past a huge house belonging to a rich Arab who is also into horses (this area was near to Newmarket).

And then it was time to drive home with the roof down.

Samantha is ailing

Except…

The roof was most of the way down and the mechanism just had to close the tailgate but it got stuck.

When I tried again I got this warning:

I went and slid my hand through the gap into the boot and jiggled around the Boot Separator… but it wasn’t helping.

Eventually, on about the tenth time that I had jiggled everything around in the boot, it closed. Phew! As I was on the verge of phoning the AA to collect me.

You can also probably see a couple of other interesting things on my dashboard., The first is under the word “Boot” there is a picture of a cup of tea. That picture is always on and seeing as I am usually drinking a cup of tea then that is rather appropriate.

The second issue is an Engine Warning light on the right hand side. This had come on three weeks before and I had taken the car to get the error code read at my local Mercedes independent. They said it was an oxygen sensor. As the car was still under warranty I phoned the company that sold it and they asked me to get an official quotation for the repair work to the oxygen sensor and they would get it authorised by the warranty company and it could be fixed.

This started an extremely frustrating three weeks when I kept phoning the car company to get the quote, they kept saying they would do it and nothing happened. Still, it had been reported as a fault before the end of the warranty so it was in the system. Or so I thought…

I tried opening the boot again when I got home and had the same problem getting it to fully open, so I decided I would need to mention this to the seller as the car had 1 more day of warranty. I emailed him but got no response (I also phoned him but it went to answerphone).

And then Klaus phoned me up. The air suspension on his Mercedes had failed and he was stuck in Gloucester.

Conveniently he had made it to the hotel he was booked into for the night, so was not stuck in the middle of nowhere. So we contacted the insurance breakdown recovery and they sent someone to look – it was a hole in the air hose for the suspension. This is not something he could reliably fix by the roadside so it was agreed that the next morning the car and Klaus would be brought home on a recovery vehicle. Klaus was in Gloucester for a meeting early the next morning so he would do that meeting before being driven home.

Come the next morning the meeting was unfortunately cancelled due to illness so Klaus phoned to get his car recovered. This time they told him they could only recover the car and not bring him home. he spent an hour on the phone to them holding for different departments who were trying to find a local garage to fix the problem and provide a courtesy car but with no luck. Eventually I called from home and spoke to a very helpful lady who said it was nonsense that Klaus couldn’t travel back with his car and she sorted it all out so he was on his way in the early afternoon. AA Relay took him to Oxford Services and he had a two hour wait there for the next truck which would bring him all the way home. He was able to sit in a corner and work so it wasn’t a completely wasted day. They delivered Klaus and the car to our local Mercedes garage (the ones who wouldn’t send me a quote for my oxygen sensor!) and I picked him up at 11:30pm.

Whilst he was waiting for rescue I decided to take my car to the other Mercedes independent garage which is in Stowmarket. I decided it was time to give up on the Oxygen sensor quote from this first garage. So the second garage agreed to look at the problem, plus the roof opening issue, and they booked Samantha in for the following Wednesday. I said I would come over that day so they could read the error code.

So they did. The error code was not an oxygen sensor but a NOx sensor, a completely different and much more expensive thing – which this garage cannot do. They worked out the problem with the boot separator which was a bit of plastic which had become unbounded and could slide about – this could be manually moved to the correct place or potentially glued by me. Replacement boot separator and fitting would be around £400 so I decided to try the other options first.

The NOx sensor thing was a major issue though. I phoned the local Mercedes Main Dealer and they said to read the fault would be £210 and the NOx sensors were over £500 each (there are two, both were looking dodgy). On the day that I had this error code read my car was now out of warranty and this caused a problem for the garage I had bought it from. They had talked to the warranty company and got a provisional approval for an oxygen sensor replacement, but a NOx sensor was effectively a new problem and I was now out of warranty. This was really annoying – particularly as I had been pushing for the quote for weeks, and the guy had misread the fault code (and then not written it down or printed it out either).

I bought Samantha from a decent garage and he said he would see what he could do as there were some other options, although the NOx sensors themselves are out of stock throughout Europe so this will not be a quick fix. I’ll keep you posted. But having both cars out of action (well, I can drive Samantha but am nervous about the roof and of course the engine light is on) is rather sub-optimal, especially as they are supposedly premium cars!

Next month you can find out if Carl’s suspension was fixed and where I got with Samantha.