Sunday morning

And a very fine time it is too. I'm blogging from the balcony again, the temperature is a balmy 24° or so, with 80% humidity so it feels warmer, and a gentle breeze from the east. The sky is mostly blue, with a few thin veils of (pauses to look up the proper name) cirrus clouds to enliven the picture. This is ideal weather for me, summer need not be any warmer than this.

On the occasion of my previous balcony blogging, I complained that the contrast between the relatively dark screen and the very bright sky was giving me a headache. This time, I turned the furniture around, so that I am now facing north (along the side of the apartment) rather than east, and it has made a great difference.

The swallows have left, all but one. I last saw them en masse on Thursday morning (the 27th), on Friday there were about a third of the usual number, and today there is just one. I really wonder what will happen to it? My assumption is that it will either fly south on its own in a hell of a hurry, or starve or freeze in winter. [Updated: the swallows returned on 23. April 2007.]

It occurs to me how very lucky I was to find (be offered) this apartment. My balcony is in the shade, at the northeast corner of the building, with gaps on both sides before the next building: whichever direction the wind blows, it moves through one or the other of these gaps and therefore stirs up the air here. The balconies on the next building north of mine are still in full sunshine, and are in the middle of a long contiguous block: they only feel the wind when it blows directly towards them.

10:30 and the church bells are ringing again, perhaps the end of the first service?

Friday was very pleasant. I met G and U for lunch in the city, a slow and relaxed meal for once with even a glass of wine. After that, back to the office for 3 hours, then we went downtown again shopping. G wanted "an exciting shirt," U wanted a new skirt, I wanted a pair of black T-shirts to replace two that are turning grey from old age and too much washing. (I should say at this point that I am normally a very patient person, but shopping with other people really gets on my nerves. My routine when looking for something known, like T-shirts, is this: find where the T-shirts are displayed, choose one, purchase it. Elapsed time six minutes. My routine when looking for something unknown is similar: rather than getting on my own nerves spending a whole day searching, I spread it out over a week or more, one shop per day in ten minute doses, then go back to the best shop and purchase the chosen article in an around six minutes.) Dear reader, G spent over an hour trying on shirts! I bought my T-shirts and then hung around waiting and waiting and waiting, I was nearly in fits. On the way out, as the PA was already making "hurry up!" announcements, G suggested looking at leather jackets. Sure, why not. I had been looking at them on the previous weekend, so I lead us quickly to the right place. Out of sheer boredom I tried on one which I hadn't noticed on that first occasion: it fit perfectly and met all my other criteria (soft smooth flexible leather, lightweight, zipper rather than buttons, turn-up-able collar, lots of deep and secure internal pockets, cheap - 105 Euros). So I bought it. Elapsed time around ten minutes. He bought a jacket in around half an hour, just as the cash registers were being shut down. Poor U came away empty-handed for once.

We walked east from there to the Karlsplatz where the Hamburger Fischmarkt was open. This is an annual event, a sort of low-brow cultural exchange project: every summer, Hamburg sends us its Fischmarkt for a week of fish (fried, grilled, baked, poached, sautéed, salted, pickled-in-vinegar, and raw) and beer and oom-pah music; every autumn we send them our Weindorf for a week of wine, Swabian fast food and oom-pah music. My colleagues claim to find it distressingly plebian and uncultured, but will gladly go - and will have a great time - as long as someone else suggests doing so. I love these annual Stadtfeste, and I think it part of the charm of Stuttgart that the city wishes to present them.

The photo on the linked page shows the "world-famous fish slide," a two-storey contraption: the fish is battered and fried on the top floor, then sent down the slide to the ground floor for dispersal to the waiting public. Were you to assume that this is not haute cuisine, you would be right. But it is good entertainment and a jolly pleasant way to spend the evening. We sat under the plane trees, drinking beer and eating our fried fish, listening to the German version of country music (romantic Schmalzlieder) and watching the world drift by.

Damn, but I really want some time on the beach - any old beach. Feeling this breeze play around my ears and bare feet, listening to kids playing and the surf-like murmur of the traffic makes me want desperately to be at the seaside, even if only for a day. (Or a lake would do just as well, I am remembering a day at Waskesiu Lake in PANP with my cousins.) How to arrange this? I'm absolutely broke, about to spend three weeks or so in Canada (my parents are paying the ticket, a late birthday present) and in any case I am up to my armpits in work most of which is behind schedule. Which is of course why I've been sitting here for nearly two hours blogging, coffee-drinking and otherwise generally lazing about.

The one great advantage Munich has over Stuttgart, is that it's surrounded by lakes; you can get to the Starnberger See in half an hour by subway!

Ah, another annual event: the JU 52 just flew by. Lufthansa still maintains three of these in flying condition, although they are now pushing seventy years old, and sends them out on tour every summer. They spend a day or two in every major airport, flying several circuits per day over the nearby city; you can go to the airport with your kids and just jump on board (for a handful of Euros).

12:01 and the sun is shining on my neck and the screen. I shall have to move, or get on with the work I should have started hours ago.