Six Wheels in Germany – June 2022 (Month 99)

This month we finally had our honeymoon – you can read all about it here: Klaus and Helen’s Honeymoon Road Trip.

Because that is pretty much all that has happened in June 2022 this will be an unusually short blog!

One very important thing is that Poppy the dog turned 12! Here she is looking grey around the muzzle but she is still very happy and mostly well.

She has of course back and hip problems but this month has improved a little and has not been on painkillers for a month now. It’s obvious sometimes that she has some discomfort but it’s nothing too bad and we are building up her strength by longer walks. At the end of June in the very hot weather her back seemed much better. Happy Birthday to the Popster!

Here is the Wheel so you can see what I have done this month exercise-wise:

This is mixed in with all the honeymoon walks, but as you can see I had just 3 long cycle rides and then the red items at the end of the month (from about 10 o’clock to midnight on the wheel) are trike commutes to work as it was so hot.

One short ride at the beginning of the month was an early Sunday morning trip to Kempen for coffee and Windbeutel…

But the much longer ride was a Kempener Kuchenexpress ride to Büllhorsthof.

Kempener Kuchenexpress is the name of a Signal chat group that Klaus and I have with chums Kai and Dirk. Kai had some tyres for my Milan to hand over and we had said a month or so ago we should meet for cake. Eventually we found a date, also invited Dirk who invited a couple of other chaps too.

Everyone arrived at our house early on the bank holiday Monday of Pfingsten (Pentecost). Unfortunately just as Düssel was arriving in his shiny new Milan GT something went wrong with the pedals. He had had lots of teething problems with the Milan and as he was only 18km from Beyß, from whom he had bought it, he decided to ride to Beyß and deliver the Velomobile to him for repair. So Klaus agreed to collect him afterwards and they would go by car to meet us at Büllhorsthof.

So off we went, me cycling with 3 chaps who are all WAY faster than me, so I was giving it more gas than normal but still wasn’t very quick. The message below from Strada:

Anyway, we arrived and were surprised how few other people were there, although 12:30 was a little earlier than lots of Germans go for cake. I go for cake any time of the day!

I recommended to the others the Etagere. Three of us chose it.

The fourth, Kai, decided to go for two cakes at the same time! Mind you, he cycled from Neuss so definitely burned off the calories!

We had a lovely time sitting in the garden at Büllhorsthof although we had a few minutes of rain (we sheltered under the umbrellas for that).

Unfortunately Düssel and Klaus didn’t make it as Düssel had so many problems with his Milan that it took him more than an hour to travel about 10km and eventually, with about 5km to go, he abandoned his Milan by the side of the road and phoned Beyß to come and pick it up. He had, as the Germans say, “had the Schnauze voll.” Or as we would say, he was sick to the back teeth of it. As far as I understand Beyß collected it and it has been repaired but I don’t think Düssel will ever really repair his relationship with it.

So Klaus collected Düssel and then took him to the railway station in Nettetal to get the train home to Düsseldorf whilst we ate cake. I bought a take-away piece for Klaus and we all rode home.

Here was my route:

And here are my statistics.

The only other long rides I did were a trike ride with Klaus where we met Lara for cake. This was at the Auffelder Bauerncafé which is between Viersen and Kempen. We had had a not great experience there 6-7 years ago and hadn’t been back since but as Lara was going to cycle to meet us on an upright bike this was the best midpoint – and the Auffelder Bauerncafé was really good! We all chose the same cake, Pfirsich Maracuja. Very tasty!

And whilst I am mentioning cakes, after I returned from holiday I had to bring in something for my colleagues as I had had my birthday. In Germany when it’s your birthday you have to bring in the cake, your colleagues don’t do it for you. Which is weird but there you go. I made some scones as I had some Tiptree jam in the cupboard.

I’m not always sure my colleagues like my English cakes but most of the scones disappeared over two days.

Apart from the two weeks of honeymoon we haven’t done much this month as I have been working effectively full time. Part of my job when employed last August was to help integrate a new ERP system and the go-live date was 1 June. We weren’t really ready but couldn’t delay it as we would miss our slot with the programmers so we made the best of it.

Here you can see a usual day for me – lunch at my desk.

I was building up loads of overtime which meant I have booked off the two weeks around Christmas so can have a nice relax then (can’t take holiday between August and Christmas as it is our busy season). I will have some more overtime to take off early next year too. But as I really enjoy the job I didn’t mind doing the overtime, although my back complained a bit having to sit in the chair so long.

And a couple of days after we returned from Honeymoon Klaus had a business trip to Barcelona. He was a bit nervous about the flight as there were so many stories of cancelled flights, but in the end he made it there, albeit 2 hours later. Travelling with only hand luggage was a good move.

He had a lovely few days in Barcelona and got to eat some good food and see the sights as well.

Summer is really here now in Kempen. We have had a couple of dramatic storms but also some really hot days. The wheat is nearly ready to harvest and the fields are full of hares.

The local Asparagus place has now closed (they only open for a few months during the asparagus season), although they have a vending machine for strawberries.

We have events to look forward to in July too, so holiday season isn’t quite finished for us. But this is all I can really report for June. I hope you appreciated a succinct blog by me for once!

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