Life in Germany – March 2025 (Month 132)

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

January was a month that involved a lot of visits to the UK. And so did February. March was when we finally moved to the UK.

I’m writing this blog post in mid-April. Life has been extremely busy (as you can imagine!) so I will abridge a little more than normal. But the photos will continue.

This month I continued my weekly visits to the UK and Klaus went alternate weeks with me.

On the 4th March I made a solo day crossing. As you can see, I am well organised with food now.

I was doing this journey in Murphy the company car Octavia as it has free diesel and I didn’t need to take quite as much stuff with me this time. Murphy did another of his special electrical glitches and showed an Airbag warning light as I was heading to Sainsbury’s. I messaged Klaus to warn him and he duly got a phone call from the Skoda garage a few minutes later – this had happened before. Once again, the Airbag warning light didn’t come on the next time I started the car (which is not allowed! It should not self-clear) and Klaus told the Skoda garage but they said “alles in Ordnung”. As the car would be returned to the company three weeks later we just shrugged our shoulders.

As we had moved our television to the UK at the end of February I had to get us a UK television licence. I also ordered two sideboards and a coffee table for our lounge – these were delivered and I ended up having to go to the tip again to get rid of the cardboard boxes. Fortunately they didn’t require assembly.

And this visit I also brought Don Quixote, a wood carving that Klaus’s parents had for donkeys years and which his father gave to Klaus. I transported it wrapped in bubble wrap.

What I discovered, after I unpacked it, is that you can take out his spear and it divides into two which would have made it much easier to transport – I had a cork on the end of the spear so I didn’t put my eye out.

The next morning I got a phone call from Klaus… his Visa had been approved! Finally! This was such a mega relief for us. The application had been done by immigration solicitors and the company had paid extra for a speedy decision which they said would probably take a week – but it was only a little more than one day. Now we knew that the move was definitely on – hooray!

On this visit I basically spent the time unloading boxes again. And then it was time to return to Germany three days later. Once again the early start from Bury (leaving by 6:30am) and then porridge for breakfast on the ferry.

It was a lovely clear day for the journey but very cold outside so I only managed a minute or two in the fresh air.

It was nice to be back with Klaus and in the home straight before our move.

We were able to start doing walks in the evening as it was now lighter and Klaus did a bit of photography – we saw these amorous toads.

Long term readers of this blog will know that I often stocked up with teabags, custard, Paxo stuffing and Nestle Banoffee mix when I visited the UK. We realised we would be doing the same in reverse now we are living in the UK – and so I started stocking up on things we had not been able to find in the UK, or that were colossally more expensive there (Ajvar).

On the evening of 12th March it was time for our final night crossing from NL to the UK. We are old hands at this now!

We had the car full of stuff, of course, including this time Klaus’s office chair which took up a fair bit of space. We unloaded as soon as we arrived in Bury St Edmunds the next morning as we were heading out 2 hours later for him to do a business trip to Oxford and Gloucester – and I came along for the ride.

It was a long drive to Oxford and we stopped on the way for a rather disappointing Costa refuelling.

I dropped Klaus off at his first meeting (where he was joined by a colleague from the UK subsidiary of his company) and then I headed off to Gloucester which is where their second meeting would be, and I would pick Klaus up after that.

I parked near the Gloucester docks and had a really enjoyable walk around there.

I ended up at Gloucester cathedral which was lovely – and reminded me a lot of Bury Cathedral.

A volunteer gave me a summary of the history and then I wandered around, including going into the room behind the stained glass window (you can see its shadow behind the window here):

And then after this I went to the cloister where various bits of Harry Potter were filmed.

After all this exploring I needed some sustenance. The cathedral had a nice café with a cream tea available.

I had enjoyed my look around and I now went back to the docks and explored some other areas. There was a small church there (the Mariners Church) which was an old one for seafarers and I went in and had a look around – rather different from the grand cathedral but very characterful.

After this I bought some wine gums for Klaus and then drove to the place where he was in his meeting. He finished about 10 minutes later and so I was ready and waiting for him. We then drove to Oxford where we had a hotel overnight as he had a meeting in Oxford the next morning.

The guy at the Reception Desk was really keen to talk German with us, so we did!

We had an extremely small room which was very old fashioned but the price was fine. We walked to a local Steak House for our evening meal, we then went back to the room and went to bed really early as we were both pooped – lots of travelling and new experiences!

The next morning I had the full monty breakfast and Klaus was a little more circumspect.

We checked out of the hotel but I stayed in Oxford, I was going to wander around whilst Klaus was at his meeting in Harwell Science Park.

So I went on a bit of explore. I had visited Oxford before as I had an interview at St John’s College after taking the Oxford Entrance Exam and they offered me a place – as long as I got two Es in my A-Levels (in other words, they wanted me). The thing is, the Oxford application was my Dad’s idea, he really wanted me to go there, but I didn’t. I remember at the gathering before the interviews we had a tutorial and all the others there were public-school educated young men who made fun of my Essex accent and that I was a blonde girl – they assumed I was dumb. I saw rather more of this in my future if I went there so decided I didn’t want to accept the offer and I turned it down. This visit to Oxford made me go through the counterfactual options to see how my life might have been if I had said yes to the offer.

Visitors weren’t allowed in the colleges so this was as close as I got to what could have been my alma mater.

I did a lot more wandering around looking at colleges.

And also spent some time in Blackwell’s, I looked up books in my field of study (Biblical Studies/Ancient Near Eastern Literature) and didn’t recognise any of the authors’ names except for one I know through a podcast. My era has well and truly passed by.

After this I decided to walk to a suitable meeting point with Klaus (so that he didn’t have to drive right into the centre of Oxford) so I started walking to the north east. On my way I stopped in a café as I saw something that looked very good – a kind of waffle crepe cup thingie. It turned out to be far too sweet and not as good as it looked – and it weighed my stomach down for the next few hours.

Klaus and I met up at a petrol station where he filled up and then I took over driving and drove us the 4 hours or so home. We were pooped when we got there.

The next day was Saturday, our day off, and we spent it in the house doing more unpacking. Doing the Study is taking a long time as Klaus has to work and we didn’t have the handles on the Bestä cupboards yet, but we slowly improved matters.

The next morning was the early start to the ferry again, but this time with the knowledge for Klaus that this was his final return trip to Germany – his next visit to the UK would be permanent.

What felt like just a few days later I was on my final solo trip back to the UK with a boot full of stuff.

We had booked Carl the E-Class in for a repair of his parking brake so I drove him to the garage and then walked back a fairly scenic route, passing Kevelaer Way (Kevelaer is the twin town of Bury St Edmunds and is up the road from Kempen).

The car was done for a fair price and I walked back later to pick it up.

The next morning I decided to sort out a parking help in our garage – hanging something from the ceiling so I would know when to stop the car when going into the garage so that we can both close the doors and also reach our freezer which is inside the garage. For this project I remembered something my Dad had done in the garage at home when I was a teenager… which was hanging a pompom from the ceiling and when it touched the windscreen it was time to stop.

As I didn’t have a pompom I borrowed one of Poppy’s dog toys (she doesn’t play with them very much) and took it with me to the UK. Job done.

That day I walked to Nowton Park which is just south of where we live and had a lovely wander around. This is a large park with lots to do for visitors – including a café,

The café served very nice ice cream!

And then it was time for my last solo return to the UK, which would also be our last trip on the Stena Hollandica (which we used more that the Britannica). So I said goodbye to the Stena Lounge workers who had all been great and friendly. And for my last porridge he gave me a banana rather than the fruits of the forest which I am less keen on.

Arriving back in Germany I went to the local Edeka supermarket and once again Germany surprises me – they had this little sign near some pink hand baskets. If you use one of these it shows you are willing to meet your dream partner – you are willing to flirt with people.

Interestingly, after I took a boring grey shopping basket, I noticed at the end when I paid that there was a pink basket in the pile of used ones, so someone was hoping for something more on a Saturday morning.

Klaus had done his deregistration from Germany on his last working day – which you have to do the maximum one week before or two weeks after you leave. The problem was, they unexpectedly cancelled his appointment that morning without any suggested alternative – we would be out of the country very soon! Fortunately he was able to get another appointment for that day and the deregistration went well – they did a better job than they did with mine as they actually took note of his new address and put it on his Ausweis document – mine just says “Bury St Edmunds, GB”.

We now only had a few days left in the UK.

Klaus and I had organised a mini leaving party in our flat and I had bought some cakes and biscuits back from Germany. We got ready on the Sunday afternoon, and were delighted how many people came along. Several of my colleagues from the job at the food mixing factory came, along with one chum from my most recent job at the candle factory (several other colleagues from there were unfortunately unable to make it),

Lots of friends brought cakes along so we had plenty to eat and there was lots of chat. I really enjoyed it, and even Poppy stayed the distance, enjoying getting lots of cuddles.

Klaus and I had the job of finishing off the cakes the next day as we would be leaving for England the following day.

As I hadn’t seen several of my candle factory friends I popped in on the Monday morning and was able to see several of them, which was lovely!

It was then time to take Klaus’s company car and laptop etc back to his office in Mülheim. He hadn’t been able to do this on his last working day as I was travelling back from the UK on that day so couldn’t pick him up from Mülheim. So we went together, he had a chance to say goodbye to some more colleagues

Monday evening was our last evening with Poppy. We had lots of cuddles and it seemed that, despite being blind and deaf, she had picked up that weird things were afoot as she looked rather gloomy.

The next day was the big day – our move from Germany to the UK!

The car was packed with the final items to take with us (clothes, electric toothbrush, Klaus’s leaving presents) and we had a teary goodbye with Gudula, Frank and Poppy before getting in the car to head to Hoek van Holland for the day crossing. Poppy and Gudula waved us off.

And a note, it is just as difficult to wave goodbye to your dog, not knowing when/if you will see her again, as you think. But it is the best option for Poppy.

On the road I finished up with our smart home organising.

We had set off in plenty of time and got to the Hook of Holland with more than half an hour before the start of check in so rather than sitting in the car in a queue we decided to go to the Torpedo Lounge (Mijn Torpedoloods) which is the restaurant just along the riverfront from the Stena ferry.

We ordered a couple of starters each and some drinks.

I had ordered the bread plate and I was surprised at how much bread they gave me. It was good and tasty!

Unfortunately when the bill came they had charged us for a “Large bread platter” which was 4 Euros more than the item I had ordered (and the Large wasn’t even on the menu). I queried the bill and the chap said he spoke with our server and she said she had asked if we wanted the large version and we hadn’t answered (neither of us heard her) so she decided we did want large. We were really annoyed about this. They refunded me the cash but that’s the end of our visits there as that’s really cheeky.

We were soon on the ferry for our last crossing of the house moving experience.

Klaus also had to start building up his whisky and gin cabinet – Stena had a good offer for these two together.

We arrived to Bury St Edmunds in the sun.

We unpacked the car and did some more general unpacking.

The next day, although Klaus was officially on holiday from his German company, the English subsidiary had a really important meeting with a major client and so Klaus decided to go along to that. in Birmingham.

So he headed off whilst I did some more organising.

Because… that evening Lara would be flying over to visit!

We collected her from Stansted Airport and she became our first official overnight guest at our Bury Bungalow.

The next day we had planned to visit my niece Hari in Chelmsford. Hari was happy to have an evening meal with us in Chemo so we set off early afternoon and stopped in at Small Talk Tea Rooms for a cream tea.

After that we had a look around John Lewis’s to kill some time waiting for Hari’s working day to end. I was dwarfed by this chair!

We went to a Bottomless Pizza restaurant with Hari. This was a new experience for Klaus, Lara and I – you don’t order a specific pizza, the servers come round with lots of different ones and you take a slice if you wish or pass and wait for the next one. They came round regularly and we all ate loads!

We had a nice time with Hari and then it was time to return home, at which point a closed road meant we had a huge diversion for the last 10 minutes of our journey which added half an hour on to it! This was very annoying late at night in the dark!

The next morning I had a rather lovely delivery of a fruit basket from Mum’s friend Margo, as a welcome gift. How lovely!

We had a wander around Bury St Edmunds with Lara. She’d visited before in the winter but it was rather nicer weather this time, and we were more familiar with the good walking routes.

We stopped at Harriet’s Tea Room in central Bury for cake.

Later in the day we walked to Nowton Park which is 10 minutes away. It’s a lovely large park with lots of nooks and crannies where you can find things, such as this rather pretty arch.

When we got back to the main entrance area we had an ice cream each.

Later that evening we walked to Bury for our evening meal (a Thai meal at Giggling Squid) and on the way there we saw a water vole!

The next day we planned to visit Cambridge and take Lara back to Stansted from there. We headed off to the Park & Ride nearest Stansted and got the bus in to Cambridge centre late morning.

We stopped off for breakfast cake/croissant.

Then we had a walk around Cambridge, enjoying looking at various things.

I stood on this pair of feet near the Sedgwick Museum and a maintenance worker told me what it is – it’s the Anthony Gormley statue “Earthbound: Plant”.

This is actually a life size cast iron statue, but buried upside down. See photo below I found on the Internet.

We walked around some more, admiring all the buildings. The town was beginning to get busier but wasn’t too bad.

We had lunch at a burger place as we had been trying to see the Bridge of Sighs but it turned out we would have to walk much further than we had thought, so we gave up on that idea.

Klaus bought himself a new hat after trying on most of the hats in the very nice hat shop in Cambridge. After this we needed some restorative tea and cake!

And on our way back to the pickup point for the Park & Ride I saw this very small piece of artwork along the road which is called Downing Street. Not sure about the purple serpent! Klaus and Lara had walked straight by as it was only about 30cm tall.

We arrived very early at the airport for Lara as I had got the time wrong (not helped by the clocks changing the day before) and waved her off before returning home.

The next day was Klaus’s first day at work, but as that was the 1st April that means I’ve finally reached the end of March’s blog. At the beginning of this post we were German resident, now we are Brits!

If anyone can think of a new title for my blog (not a Brit in Germany) please let me know in the comments. As I have zero clue at the moment.