On the road again – well almost

You might have been excused – once again – for thinking that your trampess had fallen off the end of the world or alternatively found Nirvana. Both are close to the truth. Winter in Miami was a wonderful escape from the cold and grey of northern Europe, though even in paradise it is possible to encounter self-inflicted hell. In your trampess’s case, this comes in the form of early morning spinning class taught by demons who smile as they scream “another turn to the right” (meaning: increase the resistance) over pulsating music followed by “and keep the cadence” (meaning: don’t slow down just because you are going uphill) with a gleam that Faust would have recognised. I won’t mention the kinesis wall where strength training is further challenged by dynamic movements while standing on one leg – possibly doing squats at the same time. Because, obviously, that is part of what we expect to have to do to maintain muscle mass and little grey cells both. The private swimming lessons do count as self inflicted torture since changing from graceful, head above the water breast stroke (learned in one session from the tramp at the age of 29 no less) to head in the water crawl is, for someone who is blind and has avoided trying to figure out how to breathe in an alien element since last flunking beginner two swimming twice, nothing less than traumatic. But with the best swimming teacher in the world (apart from the tramp of course who overcame all those flunked courses at the Y in one easy lesson by de-constructing what I was doing wrong – a lot – and what inhibited success – blindness, solved with a snorkel and mask) and the conviction that every year one should learn something new, added to the challenge of a triathlon for my 65th birthday next year, it seemed a now or never opportunity. The first lesson was a masterclass in patience (his) and overcoming panic (mine). The second session was much better. The third was a triumph: believing Malcolm Gladwell’s theory of 10,000 hours your trampess set about putting in as many as possible between the 2nd and 3rd lesson (and her imminent departure from Miami). I can only say that MG is right and teacher was suitably knocked out (as were all the residents who watched me doing “my homework” every afternoon). As a reward I gave him Outliers as a thank you (two masochists deserve each other). The lesson went on (after all I had not done 10,000 hours yet so another one with instruction would only take me further to my goal of being ready for the over 90 Olympics when that day comes – according to my calculations 26 years should be enough to become accomplished in swimming, running and biking given my starting position in all three).

After almost 2 weeks in London (where miraculously despite infinite breakfasts, coffees, lunches, teas and dinners, I did not add weight to the sleek self I had managed to attain – it was the swimming that did it: one more hour a day on top of the existing programme made all the difference, curious that; probably means I was meant to be a farmer and do manual labour 7 hours a day), I find myself reunited with the tramp and back on the road. Well, almost - we are actually back in the factory! (a perfect setting for a birthday, no? - well, actually the spot where we park is quite lovely and the views of the fields are charming so even though we are on Industriestrasse it is much better than it sounds). I think we may head to Hamburg later today though which could be very romantic.

Meanwhile, the perils of the trampess continue unabated despite all the upgrades on the WLW! Nothing like being tied to the railroad track by Simon Legree but still – finding the loo won’t flush is mildly disturbing (it is a wonderful, normal looking loo but works by push button – many choices the excitement of which I won’t bore you with but when you push a button and nothing happens and it feels as though it hasn’t registered your finger well . . . ), then the internet went – one has learned to live without it for the odd hour so not hopeless or unduly distressing. But imagine going to turn the cooker on and no gas, no spark (actually no gas because no spark – an obviously sensible safety override but one that means that the handy old match cannot rescue the situation)! Well, as God was clearly looking over me when these various unplanned, unexpected and random disasters occurred, we were parked in front of the tramp’s sister’s house (it was deemed easier for me to cook and then carry over the food – no fighting for hob space – more about which later), so I merely carried pots into the house and put them on the fully functioning hob where we cooked side by side - our vegan approach meant adding a few more pots of greens to the evening meal – it is fair to say that our level of green vegetable consumption is held in awe here in sunny Germany, international influences notwithstanding - and in due course we all sat down to dinner together. Now ask yourself, if you can’t cook, can’t go to the loo and can’t get your emails, what is there? Working in the garden and learning to golf. My brother-in-law provide the latter diversion while the tramp, dumbfounded, spent hours, nay days, pouring over manuals on our generator etc. Even now he hasn’t quite been able to tell me why it all happened, but he keeps muttering, “we have to learn these things better . . .”

But worse was yet to come: as we were about to exit early one morning to go to the tramp’s sister’s for breakfast, we couldn't open the door. There is only one door so not being able to open it is rather disastrous. We tried everything: electrical, mechanical, manual. Nothing worked. (This has happened before, dear reader you may recall the day we spent in Mellau trapped inside while our neighbours tried everything to rescue us). I rang to say we would be late for breakfast and explained the difficulty. Naturally they asked if there was anything they could do (like help me out the window or something similar) but the tramp said no. Luckily the brother-in-law ignored the tramp and came rushing over and . . . yes, you guessed it, opened the door from the outside without a key! Somewhat overwhelming and shocking - and not good (the bad possibilities are endless: not being able to escape in an accident; burglars escaping but leaving us locked inside . . .). So we left, locked the door (hoping it wouldn't reverse the pattern and we’d find later that we couldn't get back in) and had breakfast. Needless to say a long email was sent to the factory and we returned the following Monday. In the meantime we read manuals as part of our anti-Alzheimer's programme.

I am taking a break from the current anti-Alzheimer’s programme the tramp has assigned me which is to understand the navigation system better (it is apparently very clever – and very highly rated; such I have found out from the English website rating it) - but it did a very weird thing to us yesterday which was to send us under a 4m bridge (we are 4m high so it was close) on a road that was forbidden to trucks (since it is a very clever system, it knows we are a truck and shouldn’t do such a mean thing – especially since the road was far too narrow to perform any kind of a u-turn in less than 20 manoeuvres and even then it is likely we would wind up in a ditch). On top of it the radio (yes the radio, not a phone hooked into the navi system) demanded a password! Why does anyone need a password to listen to a car radio??? A totally surreal experience. Luckily the tramp was right that the iPod works on its own so I could still get music – and no longer just country: one of the tramp’s many improvements was to have head phones connected to the iPod so we don’t have to listen to the ambient noise when listening to the iPod (the ambient noise in the WLW on an autobahn is significant so this makes a huge difference – it is actually possible to listen to classic music – and voice not just symphonies – through our superior head phones). So in an effort to understand the navi system, I can tell you that I am learning the most atrocious German words (how did they ever make them up???) in order to avoid such calamaties as losing the voice of the navi and the radio at the same time. I am sure an English manual is available (after all I read an English review of the system) but not on line. So my anti-A programme continues.

We have had some wonderful excursions though, and I am catching up with my personal as yet un-ticked list of great things to see. The best so far has been Hildesheim where the wonderful bronze doors (which I remember from Dean Frisch, freshman year at Wellesley, art 101) are not at the moment on the cathedral because it is being refurbished/restored/cleaned for its 1,000th birthday (makes my modest 64 this month seem young really) in 2015. Luckily they are in the museum for Egyptian art so we saw them there. Spectacular. Definitely worth a detour. The column, commissioned by the same bishop Bernward, 7 years later – also in bronze, with stories from the life of Christ, was in another church and equally magnificent. I managed to persuade the tramp to visit the upper floors of the museum where we found some fabulous Egyptian objects plus a perfect facsimile of Sennefer’s tomb (mayor of Thebes as I am sure, dear reader, you know). We were the oldest people to crawl into it and I enjoyed sitting on the carpeted floor as the tramp read from the book he’d bought describing each of the tomb paintings. Setting an example for the youth of Germany, who did enter but didn't stay for long; meanwhile other older people bent down to peer in and were rather astonished to see two OAPs sitting on the floor but didn't enter despite the fact that it was obviously the sensible thing to do and the tramps are nothing if not sensible). On the ground floor there was an exhibit which we kept passing through which is one of those exhibits that one would only really find in Germany or Holland – called Duckomenta – yes every great painting or sculpture you can think of with at the very least a Donald Duck duckbill, and sometimes a complete face or body (think Man in the Golden Helmet, Dejeuner sur l’Herbe, Cleopatra, anything!!!) millions of them, everywhere. Crazy. We ate at the museum (tolerable pasta) and then drove on to Goslar – one of the villages that was spared bombing during WWII so filled with timbered and plastered houses from the 15th C. We arrived in a timely manner in the town square where the glockenspiel had miners instead of the usual mediaeval craftsmen (the wealth of the town came from the silver mines). The next day we drove to Hannover and went to the Sprengel museum (clearly you can get very rich making chocolate – I am very supportive of that) - a very smart, modern building with reputedly one of the most important modern art collections in Germany. It was here that the tramp declared modern art too depressing, too negative, too miserable. I can see him as an 11th C bishop in Hildesheim. Definitely making progress – who knows he might even believe in God before he is 80!!! That would send tramp 1 around the bend! Spirituality is one thing, God is quite another.

Which leads us from Kirche to Kueche (the Kinder having been done some time ago). He also declared, in light of the food offerings available in Germany (not much in the way of vegetables, salads that are primarily potato – well the list goes on), that I had done a good job of cultural indoctrination. I have decided (in my role as cultural dictator) that all Germans should be forced to live in Italy long enough to understand the joy of eating vegetables (especially green ones). In my favourite Roman restaurants (even before becoming vegan) I always lit on the anitpasto table and filled a plate full of lovely green things. A grilled fish to follow, some honest wine. What more could a girl want? I was looking at a health (they do have them) magazine at my younger sister-in-law’s and it had a recipe for rucola salad: hard boiled eggs, boiled potatoes and two decorative rucola leaves! The good news is that both sisters grow fresh herbs and salad, and one makes her own jams and marmalades as well (all delicious). But I do my best and we did have a delicious ratatouille with quinoa for lunch yesterday. All the vegetables were bought in the organic market in Muenster (someone must be cooking them) - a decent selection given the time of year.

Our political life will take an upturn shortly as we have an invitation to drop by the one of the tramp’s former colleages again - where we will be guaranteed some serious discussion on the state of the world (meaning mostly the state of the Middle East). Our friend is no longer in the government but he still is actively involved in thinking about policy. Of course the last time we were there it was the European cup and lightening struck the lamppost in the street during the all important Germany v Argentina game. They lost their computers for 2 days (and telephone as well) but managed to restore the television and the game. Even foreign ministers like war on the football field! No such diversions this year so I guess we can concentrate on the real wars (I am amazed at the one in Libya is being called “kinetic military action” and a “time-limited, scope-limited military action.” The online parodies that I have seen are merciless: “Make love, not time-limited, scope-limited military actions!”).

So Hamburg tonight where I just might get a romantic dinner out (anniversary, birthday and Mother’s Day all rolled into one). Fingers crossed.