Driving on the wrong side of the road

I want to drive on the wrong side of the road.

I’ve thought of another challenge to add to my list: drive confidently on the wrong side of the road. Up until now I’ve not had a vehicle I would have been willing to trust on a journey to the continent, but now I have my van I really should give it a go. 

I know from cycling in the Netherlands that going straight isn’t too much of a problem; the real issues arise when I have to go round corners or change lanes. But particularly going round corners. I automatically go back on to what to me is the right side of the road. I think the first time I do this I have to have someone with me as an extra pair of eyes. Hm, now where am I going to find a volunteer for this job?

Spaetzle

German comfort food

Spaetzle are a type of noodle commonly found in southern Germany. They can easily be bought ready made in supermarkets, in the same way we can buy ready made fresh pasta in the UK. I like them fried up with finely chopped onions and then lots of gruyere stirred into them. They’re great with some added chilli sauce.

I found the recipe below on Jamie Oliver’s website.

Swabian Spaetzle

Ingredients

500g white wheat flour
5 large eggs
1-2 tsp salt
1/4 l cold water

Spaetzle are a famous Swabian / South German (side) dish, served with all kinds of roasts and much gravy. Gratinated with cheese and served as a main dish with fried onions, they are called ‘Kässpätzle’ .

Method

Make the spaetzle dough by mixing all ingredients (flour, eggs, salt, and water) with a wooden spoon. Beat the dough until it shows blisters. Let it rest for 10 min.
Bring a big pot with water to boil and then add salt.
It’s very traditional to hand-scrape the spaetzle into the boiling water by using a cutting board and a knife or palette. But I use my Spätzlehobel, you could use a colander with rather big holes instead. Just let some tbsps of the dough drop into the boiling water.
The spaetzle are done, as soon as they begin to swim on the surface. Remove them from the boiling water and start again until all dough is used up. If you serve it as a plain side dish, you may want to fry the spaetzle gently in a bit of butter.

Horse leading

Leading horses had me a little worried.

My youngest niece was six on Monday and as a birthday treat she’d asked to go horse riding. As neither she nor her sister has learnt to ride this meant they each sat on the back of a horse and were led around the area. Two children, two horses meant two adult leaders. Two adult leaders meant both my brother and myself were called into service.

 

I was a little dubious about this as my track record with horses is not good. The only time I’ve ridden was once in Iceland a couple of summers ago. I rented a horse for an hour and went out with a guide. As it was my first time I had a docile horse and we went very slowly. What could go wrong? Well, first my horse got a bit spooked by a car on the road, reared up and threw me off into the path of said car. The driver, who luckily was going very slowly, seemed a bit bemused to have a person suddenly land in front of him. But it wasn’t a problem. I’d felt like I’d fallen in slow motion and so wasn’t hurt at all. The horse was fine and I got back on. It was probably only my inexperience that caused this anyway as I’m sure anyone with even the remotest idea of equine behaviour would have been fine and controlled the situation without a problem.

 

The remainder of the ride back to the stable was uneventful and I quite enjoyed my brief experience. Of course, once back at the stable, I had to dismount. As I slid inelegantly from the saddle my finger caught in the mane and twisted. An hour or two later it was swelling badly and I was in a lot of pain with it. I had to pack up my tent, catch the bus to the next place and re-pitch my tent. All of this I did very slowly. The next day it was even worse. I went to the pharmacist who sent me to the doctor who sent me to the hospital. It turned out I’d broken my finger. But it was no ordinary break – why do something the normal way when you can make it more complicated? My x-rays had to be sent to Reykjavik for a specialist to look at and advise.

 

So as can be seen, my experiences with horses has not been very positive so far. The irony of how I can fall off and be fine, but then break my finger when getting off correctly was not lost on me. Luckily I’m fairly resiliant and the whole experience hasn’t put me off wanting to learn to ride. If anything I want to do this even more now as I don’t like feeling beaten by something.

 

However, I might be happy to get on a horse again myself, but it’s a whole different story being in charge of horse with my young niece sat on its back. And to make me even more nervous, no riding hats were provided. We walked along the road and down a few lanes round the fields in a big circle. The horses stopped a few times to let us know that they were really in charge – they’d refuse to move for a few minutes – but overall it was absolutely fine. I was really relieved when we got back safe and sound though!

Silent Spring

It’s the golden anniversary of a book that was one of the most influential of its time.

By Rachel Carson

I first came across this book more than 10 years ago when I read a mention of it in a friend’s Open University course materials. It was suggested background reading for a course on the ’60s. It went onto my reading wish list but I only got round to getting myself a copy recently. This year celebrates 50 years since it was published, so I suppose it’s as good a time as any to read it. Unintentionally it was actually quite appropriate to be reading it in Germany as the Germans got more than a few mentions.

This book was the first of its kind – a real wake-up call to society, pointing out the issues and problems caused by a fast-growing reliance on pesticides. It was highly influential in the fledgling environmental movement and really makes me wonder how ‘green’ conscious we would all be today if Carson hadn’t written this book. It probably helped that the ’60s was also the era of the hippie and a book like this would have fitted right in with hippie culture.

Carson, chapter by chapter, talks us through the different pesticides; how and why they were invented, how they may have seemed to work at first, but how the ‘pests’ they were supposed to kill soon adapted and become resistant. A real example of Darwin’s survival of the fittest and evolution in action.

She points out how many unintended species had their populations decimated and in some cases were completely wiped out. As many of these species of insect, bird or fish are either a food source to ourselves or are natural predators to the ‘pests’ this was disastrous. The pesticides also had a detrimental effect on human life causing health problems and even death to many people who were exposed to them.

Many of the pesticides seem to have been invented by Germans. The irony of how they are now one of the most environmentally conscious nations on the planet was not lost on me. I did wonder why though – is it because they had pesticides before anyone else, did the damage before anyone else, and so got cleaning up before anyone else? Or is it because they feel guilty? Or do I need to be more cynical? They were the forerunners in producing the pesticides and so made lots of money from them. Now they’re the forerunners in cleaning up the mess (they sell a lot of solutions apparently), so they’re still making lots of money.

Reading the book you wonder how people could have been so stupid. ‘This pesticide we tried has killed lots of fish we used to like to eat and harmed a lot of people and the insects are still as abundant as ever. What shall we do? Oh, I know, let’s use an even bigger dose of pesticide’. But of course it still goes on. Do we never learn?

As an alternative to pesticides Carson proposes importing natural predators, but with hindsight is this a good idea? Could the imported predators create problems of their own?

The book starts to seem a bit repetitive after a while, but then I’m used to hearing this. At the time of writing it was something completely new. It was revolutionary in its time and changed the way people thought. That we take the environmental movement for granted now and use words like ‘eco-friendly’ and ‘green’ as part of our normal vocabulary is a measure of it’s impact.

Carson was trained as a scientist and researched many scientific papers for this book. However, it is written in a way easily understandable to a layman, which of course helped it become so popular. After researching and writing about cancer inducing pesticides and chemicals it is another irony that she died from cancer in 1964 a mere two years after publication. How sad that she never got to see the impact her work has had on the world.

Bretzels

Delicious German food with not a sausage in sight.

bretzelGermany has some great food. Ok, so a lot of it is meat and of no interest to me, but the meat-free food can be delicious. Take bretzels for example. Big bread pretzels. Bought at the right bakers they are mouth-wateringly divine. The bread is so light and soft on the inside, yet the outside is really crisp and crunchy. They have a sprinkling of large salt crystals scattered across them. They usually cost about 50 cents, though I did find them in Lidl for 29 cents – the bakery ones are better though.

 

Bretzels get their brown colour from lye. This used to be used as a cleaning agent and disinfectant. Some time in the 18th century a baker accidently dropped a batch of bretzel dough into his bucket of lye. He decided to bake them anyway and the modern lye bretzel was born. Lye bretzels are particulaly popular in Southern Germany and the name ‘bretzel’ is just a variation of the more common ‘pretzel’.

 

They are bought everywhere here as a quick snack and the children love them. When I do see them in the UK they’re more of an expensive treat and not nearly as nice.

 

I’ve heard about an Australian guy who’d liked them so much he started importing the dough to Australia and baking them there. He’s now a millionaire. Now there’s a business idea I could follow up on …

Hilleberg Akto

Checking out another tiny tent.

Yesterday we called in at one of the big camping shops in Heilbronn. I’d wanted to see a Hilleberg Akto when I was looking for my new lightweight tent recently. All the reviews I’d read rated it highly. It’s large enough to fit one person comfortably and someone my height can easily sit up in it. The porch area is large which is great for cooking or storing a backpack or muddy boots. It has a single pole and can be erected inner and outer simultaneously in less than five minutes. It’s made of a very thin lighweight material that is also extremely weather resistant meaning it should stand up to quite ferocious storms.

When I decided to buy the Vango Helium 100 instead there were two things that swung me: the price and the weight. At around #400 it’s really expensive – in the shop yesterday it was priced at just under €500. As they are made by a small company and don’t change much from year to year they are not like other tents which can easily be picked up for half price or less at the end of each season. The plus side to this (the man in the shop explained) is that you can always buy spare parts if the need arises. Even if you have one of the earliest tents from circa 1971 you can still get parts. The other downside to the Akto however, is the weight. Although it’s sold as a lightweight tent it weighs in a 1.6kg. A few years ago this would have been considered extremely lightweight, but not anymore. My new Vango is around 1.2kg and the Laser Comp is lighter still. They are both reputed to be as sturdy in bad weather.

The man in the shop was extremely helpful and although he knew I wasn’t about to buy one he still erected one for me so I could have a proper look. It was even better than I’d expected. The single pole erection is similar to the Vango. It felt really spacious when I sat inside and I was impressed by the porch size. I really like the idea of having one but I wouldn’t use it for walking with because of the weight and my other Vango is fine for when I’m travelling with the car and don’t need to worry about the weight.If I did happen to have a spare 400 quid though, it would be a nice luxury addition to my growing collection of outdoor sleeping options.

Below is a picture of an Akto from the Hilleberg website.

tent

Cycle panniers and computer

I’ve got the gear, now I just need to start cycling.

A quick shopping trip to Lidl in Germany yesterday resulted in my acquisition of a pair of panniers and a cycle computer. The panniers seem pretty good – I wouldn’t plan to use them for an end-to-end cycle tour of Africa, but as I’m only planning on local cycling at the moment they should be fine. It only cost €10 for the pair so I really couldn’t resist. I can’t take them in my backpack to Prague next week, so I’ll have to wait till the end of the summer to get them as then my brother can bring them in his empty suitcases.

The computer was only €3.99 and apparently does lots of whizzy things like tell me how far I’ve gone, my average speed and how many calories I’ve burnt. So it should be fun to play around with. And it’s small and light so I can take it with me when I leave here.

2012 Twelve March Review

The 3rd monthly review of my 2012 Twelve challenges.

1.  Floating in a floatation tank (I’m hoping to do this in London during the February half term)
 
2.  Reading at least 10 books from the BBC Big Read list (if I read 10 a year, I’ll have the whole 200 knocked off in the next 12-13 years!) – I still haven’t read any
 

3.  Taking at least one photo every day of the year (this will improve my photography skills, be a photo-diary of ‘year in my life’, and help me to learn to use my new camera) – not been very good at this either
 

4.  Coming up with a fitness plan and sticking to it (the start of my training for Kilimanjaro, though I may not actually climb it for several years yet) – nor this
 
5. Leading at least 4 of my own walks (good practice for my walking group leader’s qualification) – I’ve volunteered to lead some walks at school as an extra-curricular activity, but this wouldn’t start until at least September and may not actually happen at all
 

6.  Buying another house (need to get my finances in order first) – I’ve made a very limited start on going through my paperwork
 

7.  Learning to use at least 3 new pieces of technology or computer programmes (not counting my new camera) – nothing done here, though I’m getting slightly better at using Apple Macs
 

8.  Doing a writing course (depends on the length of the course whether I’d complete it in the year or not) – still haven’t started this
 
9.  Getting at least one piece of writing published (paid or unpaid, as long as someone else makes the decision to publish it and it’s not self-published)
 
10. Making a start on sorting out my photos (putting the prints that are currently still stuffed in packets into albums and getting all my photos scanned into the computer – no way will this be completed in a year, but I’ll feel good even if I get started on it) – done nothing about this
 
11. Buying a car/van that I can sleep in (and doing any necessary conversions/adaptations) – I’ve bought a van and started researching conversions.

12. Getting into cycling (even if it’s just short cycles along decent paths) – almost a step backwards on this one as the cycle rack I bought last summer won’t fit on my new van (anyone want to buy an unused cycle rack for a hatchback car?)

Well, reading over my review I realise I sound rubbish! I don’t even have the excuse of March being a short month. But my major achievement this month was buying my van and the whole procedure of looking for one, checking it out, buying it and sorting out insurance did take an awful lot of time. So I’ll use this as my excuse instead. 

I’m writing this in Germany. I’ve only been here a couple of days and I’ve already done a few things I can write about in my April review. How much easier it is to achieve the things I want to do when I don’t have to go to work! 

Ballooning

I’ll get a hot air balloon booked one of these days.

I’ve just checked my groupon emails and there is an offer on the London email for hot air ballooning. I missed out on this offer this time last year because I was in Germany and only checked my emails too late. I’ve still got a day and a half to apply this time but I’m not sure if I will. The price is £99 and supposedly this is half price. But when I check the Virgin balloon site £99 is the full price for a weekday morning flight in the North West anyway and it’s only slightly more expensive for flights at other times and days. So I’m thinking I’ll hold out and see if there are any similar offers on the Manchester email which would hopefully be cheaper.

Chess

A cheap chess set is my first step towards completing this challenge.

Chess is one of those things that everyone seems to know how to do except me. I’ve tried to learn at different times over the years, but each time I find someone with a chess set and the knowledge and patience to teach me, I get a few lessons and then we end up in different countries and that’s the end of my chess for another few years. By the time I get to have another go I don’t remember anything and I’m back to square one.

I’ve been on the lookout for a cheap chess set that I can start to play around on and try to teach myself a few moves using the internet and books. Last night I was in Tesco and found a game that combines chess, draughts and backgammon. It isn’t anything fancy but it’s all I need for starters. It should have been a tenner but was marked down to £2.50 – how could I resist? So I now have one less excuse to put off finally learning how to play chess.