September Update

I've been a bit neglectful of this blog over the last couple of weeks, and I think it's time for an update. I've had quite a full August and September, but unfortunately not full in the sense of lots of outdoors activity...

So much for Thermidor

Although August should be a very warm month here in Germany, you wouldn't have known it from the weather we had this year. It was mostly cool and overcast, and frequently also cold and wet. All the Germans I have talked to have complained bitterly about how awful the Summer has been, forgetting of course the wonderful and unusually warm Spring we had. The weather hasn't really picked up for September, and last week we were down to low teens. I'm told, however, that in many respects this is the late-Summer weather that was typical a generation ago. It remains to be seen if we're staring down the barrel of an old-style winter.

Along the Kocher

As explained in the next section, I only made one bike-trip in August and September, cycling from Schwaebisch Hall to Heilbronn, roughly following the path of the river Kocher to where it joins with the Neckar. Unfortunately, there must be something about Schwaebisch Hall that does bad things to my camera - like last time I ventured out here, the camera battery died very early in the day. Naturally, I forgot my replacement batteries, so I was only able to take a few pictures before the camera gave up the ghost.

The day started out rather cool for the middle of August (see above) with low-lying fog obscuring any view from the train for most of the hour-long journey from Stuttgart. It had really only just lifted when I arrived in Schwaebisch Hall at about 10am. The town of Schwaebisch Hall is actually very well preserved for a medium-size German town and certainly it deserves at least a good hour or two to wander through its cobbled streets. Remembering how far distant Heilbronn is, however, I could not afford to spend too much time there.

The first hour or so of my ride was overcast and pretty unremarkable - in this stretch the Kocher is a wide but deep valley. The only really memorable part of this section was the large motorway bridge across the valley, which reminded me of those pictures of Roman aqueducts. Although we're used to such feats of engineering, the scale of thing and the way its slender legs gracefully soared above the valley managed to stir some admiration for the anonymous architects who built it. That made me think, in turn, whether the Romans regarded their amazing water works as deserving of little more interest than a motorway normally arouses in us?


It was just after the bridge that I decided to climb out of the valley to get some more expansive views of the countryside. It was just at this time that the sky was starting to clear, and by the time I made it to the small village of Rueblingen just out of the Kocher I could feel the sun on my arms. Rueblingen is a small little village with not much to recommend it to the tourist, but it's sedate and laid back feel set the tone for the next hour or so. As I cruised across the plateau I had the bike paths to myself, travelling past fields of corn already at my height and though charmingly rustic villages that pepper the landscape.

A little after mid-day I made it back to the Kocher valley, sitting just above the walled medieval town of Niedern Hall to eat my lunch. The Kocher valley is much narrower here than before, but it is just as deep and steep. The northern side of the valley opposite me was carpeted in vineyards, with the brilliant bright green of the vines contrasting greatly with the golden-brown of the crops on the plateau behind them. It was only with great reluctance that I resumed my wanderings at the end of my meal.

After descending into Niedern Hall I joined up with the Kocher and started on the long trip to Heilbronn - almost 60 kilometres still to go. I can't say there was very much to remember about this part of the journey: it was pretty without being spectacular, and I found no reason to stop and have a closer look at any of the villages I passed. After about three hours I had made it to almost to the end of the Kocher; instead of reaching the very end of the river, I cut across the low, rolling hills to the Neckar. The change in scenery was dramatic - in this region, the banks of he Neckar are covered by heavy industry, including one of the main coal-fired power plants for the Stuttgart region. There were also many more bicyclists about, which made the last 10km or so to Heilbronn rather slow. But after already doing 90km since Schwaebisch Hall, I was happy with the more sedate pace. I arrived at the station sometime about 5pm, and back home in Stuttgart two hours later.

Health Woes

A little after my trip along the Kocher I started experiencing some pretty serious discomfort around my ankles, just above the ball of my foot. After applying an absolutely useless "anti-inflammatory" cream from the doctor for about a week, the pain strongly worsened and I could only walk with difficulty. I sought out a referral to a specialist, but this is when I discovered a big problem - a very large percentage of the doctors in Germany go on holiday in late August/early September, and most practices were closed. I finally got an appointment, but only in a week's time. Eventually I was persuaded to go and see the nurses at the Institute's medical centre (on-site rapid response for accidents, but normally bored out of their minds and happy to hand out aspirin or ibuprofen). The nurse was very kind and tried to change my appointment - and as soon as she mentioned I had private health insurance the consultation was mysteriously moved to 8:15am the next day. There is very much a first and second class when it comes to medical treatment in this country. Health insurance for foreigners like myself is mandatory and very expensive - but at least I'm getting some benefits.

Although I had feared Achilles tendinitis, the problem wasn't the tendon per se, but rather where it joins the foot. Due to my flat feet, this is always under stress - and probably it was my feats (harhar) of athleticism in the alps that finally triggered a flare-up. Although I got fancy shoe inserts and constriction bandages, the primary recommendation was to stay off my feet - so this pretty much killed any possibility of bike riding in the near future. This wasn't such a problem, as it coincided with an explosion in the amount of work I had to do, so staying in at the office on the weekend was very much a necessity.

Unfortunately, typing would soon become a problem. On the morning of Monday the 3rd I woke up with intense throbbing pain at the tip of my left index finger, which was also all swollen up and red - a finger infection. I dutifully trundled off to the doctor the next morning, and got referred on to a day surgeon to get the infection cut out. I'll spare you the details, save to say I was walking around with an oversize bandage on my finger for two weeks, completely out of proportion with the incisions that the surgeon made.

Sunsets

One of the things I like most about this time of the year is looking at the view from my office as the day draws to a close. On a clear day I could sit there transfixed for hours as the sky imperceptibly darkens from light blue through purple to dark grey. But the recent spate of poor weather has meant that the tranquil twilight hours have been replaced by dramatic and fiery sunsets, as the menacing clouds light up with the last gasps of the day. Below are a selection of some favourites:























The building in the background is part of the University of Stuttgart.