Category Archives: My photos

Back to school

You probably haven’t noticed that it was a bit quiet around here for two weeks because I don’t post regularly enough, but André and I have been on vacation during the last two weeks of my school holidays. We went to the southwestern part of England during the first half of August and were very lucky with the weather – we only had rain on two days but never got wet while hiking.

We hiked several parts of the coastal path that surrounds most (all?) of England and did one or two other hikes as well. I was fascinated by the public footpaths and bridleways that anyone can use. We walked through fields with cows, sheep or horses and even crossed several private gardens, where one feels a bit like an intruder, but if there were people present they just said hi and didn’t seem to be bothered by random hikers at all.

I might write a bit more about our trip if I can find the time; however, I’ve been back in school since Monday, and the first few days have been very hectic. We’ll see if it gets better after the first couple of weeks.

Meanwhile, here are a few photos (as usual, click for bigger version).

Obligatory shot of Stonehenge.

Durdle Door near Lulworth Cove on the Dorset coast.

It’s the enigmatic frog! (Found in a wooded area of Exmoor.)

This is Dartmouth after sunset, as seen across the Dart from the town centre. We attended a wedding there.

Wouldn’t you like to ride in a car like this to your wedding?

Tomatoestomatoestomatoes

Of all the plants we sowed in our garden this spring, the tomatoes and peppers were the only successful plants – probably because we grow them in pots instead of the soil. Almost everything else has been eaten by slugs. Too bad they don’t seem to like dandelions, we have way too many of them.

   

Anyways, the tomatoes for which André has lovingly cared since March are starting to yield fruit. I already froze some “regular” tomatoes – most of those are going to be used for cooking – and today I picked the first bowl of cherry tomatoes (about 1.2 kg/2.5 lbs).

These are really very tasty! We’re having pasta casserole with cherry tomatoes, broccoli and ham tonight: Nudelauflauf mit Schinken und Brokkoli. (I substituted some of the brokkoli with tomatoes, since we have so many.)

As usual, click the photos for bigger versions.

Going for a walk

The weather has been quite nice during the past week, so André and I ventured on two walks during the weekend. On Saturday, we encountered a couple of swallowtail butterflies (Schwalbenschwanz), which are supposed to be quite rare in central Europe. It was the first time I’ve seen them, but André saw one in our garden earlier this year.

Schwalbenschwanz

On Sunday I took a photo of the village in which we live. As you can see, it’s very small, only about 50 houses, and it’s surrounded by fields and pastures.

Dorf

As a bonus, here are some wildflowers growing next to a field. The red one is a poppy (Mohnblume), and the blue ones are cornflowers or bluebottles (Kornblumen).

Mohn und Kornblumen

Click the photos for bigger versions.

Happy Easter!

In Germany we celebrate two days of Easter (Sunday and Monday), so technically I’m not too late. Yesterday we were busy hiking the Baybachtal (link to German site), and after 20 km (12.5 miles) I was too exhausted to post.

As you can tell from the lack of updates, I’ve been very busy during the last couple of weeks. This was mostly school-related, but during the last week we finally started working on our garden in earnest, which had been neglected by the previous tenants. I can’t quite offer before and after photos, but I do happen to have a picture of the surprising amount of snow we got on March 22. Luckily we still had the snow tires on our cars, but a neighbour didn’t and managed to get stuck right in front of our driveway at 7 am, just when André and I were trying to leave for work.

snow in spring

Fortunately the snow (all 20 cm or 8 inches of it) only lasted for two days, and after that, the weather has improved considerably. It’s been warm and sunny for the last week, and the temperatures have reached 20°C (almost 70°F) over the weekend. The same area of our garden looks like this today:

easter 2007

The flowering bush in front of our neighbour’s walnut tree, by the way, is a Ribes sanguineum, or Flowering Currant (Zierjohannisbeere in German). The bumblebees just love it.

RoboRally!

I’ve mentioned my favourite boardgame, RoboRally, several times before. André and I usually play it with a group of friends on New Year’s Eve and are always looking forward to it because each game is different from the ones before.
RoboRally doesn’t have one single board, but several (six came with the original edition by Wizards of the Coast, and you can buy more in additional sets) that can be combined in numerous ways. Also, you set the goals wherever you want, so the course that the robots have to pass is never the same. You can do a fast game in about an hour, or play on an elaborate board plan until the wee hours of the night… and it’s always fun!

If you want to try it out, take a look at the RoboRally Demo which is part of the Robo Rally pages on the Wizard website. You don’t have to read all the instructions; all you have to know is that you have to maneuvre your bot to the green goal in five steps and can use five of the nine movement cards provided on the left. Once you get the idea, it’s easy! At least in the first two levels it is, it gets more complicated after that…

André and I own the original 1994 American edition of the game, which is similar to the edition that’s available now. The design was changed somewhat, though, and I really have to say that I like the original robots much better than the ones you get now. I spent and afternoon or two and painted the ones that came with our game; you can see three of them in the photo. From left to right: Twonky, Spinbot and Hulk X90, who thinks he’s a couple hundred feet high but suffers from vertigo. ;-)

our RoboRally bots!

Übrigens können wir die deutsche Version des Spiels von Amigo nicht wirklich empfehlen, weil es so vereinfacht wurde, dass es nicht mehr so viel Spaß macht wie das Original. Lesenswert ist aber der Eintrag in der deutschsprachigen Wikipedia.