I’m currently sitting in the Thames Barrier Park café having breakfast during half term and I’m please to report that the hordes of screaming children either haven’t risen yet or have better places to go on this warm, blue sky day in October. It’s quite and beautiful looking out onto the gardens and the river Thames beyond. So why am I frowning? Well, I’ve taken a week’s holiday from work in order to relax and reflect before getting yet another year older and undoubtedly wiser and maybe a little more cantankerous. I’d argue however that any grouchy behavior on my part is not as a result of getting old but a lack of tolerance of the people around me. I asked the less than animated Café man for a coffee, some water and beans on toast. I love eating beans on toast for breakfast and I think it’s really hard for anyone to get this wrong. The recipe is in the title for goodness sake and if you follow the recipe you have it. Beans on toast!!! Now somehow the title of Beans on toast has clearly passed this man by and he managed to serve up, Toast and beans in a bowl with a look that says, “Can you put this together as it’s far too complicated for me?” What he had managed was Beans next to toast. Maybe this would pass most of you by and you would accept that this is how things go but I found myself doing my best Clint Eastwood squint while assembling my breakfast into the correct order. I suppose it could have been worse and he could have done toast on beans?
After I’d finished I then went to pay the bill came to £5.40. Now I only had £5 in cash so I asked, “Can you let me off the 40p please?” I was hoping that the breakfast self-assembly would allow for some discount but he looked at me blankly. I then offered to pay by card. “We only take cards from £8 and above” the man said with another blank stare. He then reached into his meager tips pot to pay the 40p difference making me feel really terrible and guilty that this mans tips are now going to pay towards my breakfast, and of course I now have to go back to the car and bring not only the 40p difference but a super friendly tip to make up for my financial short comings. Blarh!!!
I’m starting to realise that my German driving trip blogging is starting to drag on now and that my original idea of writing a little bit every time I write a new blog will actually involve the end of my trip being written in about 27 years time. To keep it simple I’ll say only this. The Southern part of Germany and the Black forest is the most stunning of landscapes you could ever imagine. Tall trees as far as the eye can see, people that are friendly and warm. Food that is amazing and filling, mostly being meat and potato of course which I love and beautiful architecture especially at Neuschwanstein Castle. The mountain toboggan at Todtnau that I rode down at 100,000 miles per hour was such a thrill that I wish I’d gone back up and done it a few times again. The Steins of beer especially in Munich were huge and very intoxicating along with the surfers which I’m sure were there and not a result of too much beer.
I drove through many villages that were strangely devoid of life. I mean seriously devoid of any life. There were cars, houses, cafes, hotels but just no people walking about. This happened so many times I actually thought that a zombie apocalypse had hit the town. One town near Nuremberg was somewhat different as the cast members of the village of the dammed exclusively populated it. I walked into one dingy restaurant and discovered them all watching a woman eat a sausage. Please understand how bloody strange this is. They literally sat around a big table while one woman, chewed on a single sausage from a fork. Nobody else has food and nobody talked. They just sat there staring and I’ve never run away so fast with a genuine fear that I might be the second course.
Germany is full of history and culture while being modern and traditional at the same time. The first and especially the second world war are marked and communicated in a very natural way with former Nazi buildings still being used as local town halls still adored with eagles and even a Burger King that has the swastika outline clearly visible on the sides like a dirty mark left over when the Nazi symbol was removed 60 years ago and never cleaned up. Its not that they want to show it off or are proud of it, more that they don’t want to hide away from the past or try and cover it up like it never happened. They just want time to wear it away and let it be ignored. It was a dark time for Germany and the world and it just doesn’t deserve any more time. Nothing said this more than the location of the Nuremberg rallies where Hitler gave his speeches to the brainwashed crowds. Its not been smashed into a million pieces or turned into a museum. Its just been abandoned to litter, graffiti and a place where truckers park up for a nights sleep.
Below are some of the pictures I took on my travels. I hope you like them. I’m now thinking about lunchtime. The menu says, Cheese on Toast but I’m not feeling confident.
M
