Day Tripping

Later on Mother’s Day we were hit with a rather major thunder, lightning, wind, hail and rain storm, all at once, the Gods really threw a whammy to us! Lasted for only about a half hour but furious. I saw poor people were racing their bicycles home getting soaked in the process. What a mess on the patio, all the dirt from everywhere got blown up against the window sills, cleaning to be done.

We made borscht soup yesterday, with the amount of vegetable required for it, it means lots of slicing (with a mandolin) and dicing (with knife). Carrot, parsnip, beets, celery, leeks, onion, beef and chicken broth as a base, good way to get Bruce to eat vegetables. Kitchen was a mess but we have a dishwasher, that isn’t me at a sink, so cleaned up fairly well, except chasing bits of vegetable that fell off the counter. 

Saw two dogs playing together out the bathroom window, they were at it for a long time. One Dachshund and a mixed breed dog who was white, long haired and had a brown patch on one ear and a brown ring around his tail. I can tell you this detail because I watched them exuberantly chasing each other, biting each other on the mouth and generally having a jolly good time playing together. Tried for a picture, too far away even with zoom, but one owner took lots of pictures or perhaps videos of them. To see the happiness and energy was really great! The dachshund actually tried to ride the white dog's back like a horse, he/she laid over to be more available to the smaller dog, well I won’t go on but it was a good laugh to watch.

Out with Christoph to a favourite Thai restaurant (Chada Thai) which has us driving through some really pretty neighbourhoods, with old classy buildings and the rhodo’s are out in full so a nice colourful drive. For lunch we were able to sit outside this time, just needed a tapa to cover our drinks and food due to horse chestnut blooms falling, not a bad thing really. Food and service are good and it is truly Thai food, not a facsimile of it. Then we went up the mountain in town to Dattler cafe for a coffee and ice cream for Christoph, he does like ice cream.

I got a haircut by a woman with a sense of humour, no English but we understood each other. While I was there Bruce was waiting and he bought me a beautiful bouquet of roses! What a lovely surprise! They are, as you see in the photo very colourful. 

So I did what my florist friend Jenn taught me to do and cut the stems under warm water, stripped the bottom foliage off and into the vase.

Pepe has ordered our blinds for the four window/doors in the flat in Sevilla. He visited the factory and saw them weaving or sewing the blinds, these are artisan works but because the material they use, a natural fibre called Esparto aren’t expensive, they are reasonable in price. Again, I like buying from a small organization that takes pride in their work. Pepe saw that at the factory and he liked the shop owner (Luis) and listened to his recommendations. The blinds are needed to keep the sun from the doors which we had fixed this year and want to maintain. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Esparto Many people have gone with wood slat blinds and I’m sure they work also but because our flat is very traditional we wanted to keep, well, with tradition and this type of blind is. Another complete difference between the flat here in Freiburg and the one in Sevilla, here the blinds are operated with a remote control, and are metal. 

Out into the countryside with Christoph on Ascension day we went to a restaurant on the Rhine, www.klaesles-gastronomie.de popular spot for biking people to stop off at, in fact we’ve seen our neighbours there before. These people are not biking to work, they are taking the lanes etc, and doing kilometres of trails so wearing biking gear more suitable to sweat reduction read spandex. 

Food was decent, view fantastic and then we crossed the border to France to Neuf Breisach for coffee to a small cafe where Christoph knows the owner fairly well. 

We’ve been there a couple of times before, always good. Neuf Breisach is an armoury town, anyway, small French village on the border. Honestly I went into a tail spin about ordering coffee and couldn’t remember the French for coffee with milk, had cafe con leche (spanish), had caffe mit milch (german) until Bruce said cafe au lait, right, haha that’s it.

Border flags

We had a popcorn and movie night. We haven’t found popping corn either here or in Sevilla, they do have the microwave version but we had both read it’s not good for you, although that was dinner many nights when I was single. He sourced real popping corn from a website last fall and it’s been waiting for us, nice change!

Saturday we meet with Christoph and go to Gasthaus Blume in Opfingen, the one we tried with Angela and Ryan, we got there early enough to get a table outside, and it did fill up rapidly. The difference with this place is they serve German tapas! We ordered three, waitress said they are small, we thought what Germans think is small isn’t always to us. We did order two more though, tasty, unusual parings of meat and vegetable, nicely presented and cost about double what a Spanish tapa would, but justifiably so I think. They only do the tapas on weekends and while everyone around us didn’t have them, I think they are onto something. We’ve had a meal there before and Christoph said it was one of the best schnitzels he’d had, that is saying something! 

From there we went to Landener, winery which we visit every year and I’ve written about before. This year they, and everyone else, got hit hard with a late frost and lost about 30% of certain crops. Luckily the year prior had been a good one which provided them with some buffer, but that’s a lot to lose! Just get started tasting and Christoph tried to book the car for longer and it didn’t work. So we had to leave in a rush, but not before snatching up three boxes of wine (6 to a box). We will likely go back this year, as said before I really like this family and the wine they produce. I like to take time there, not so much for the tasting, although I want to do that too, they make subtly different wines every year. I like to just soak up the atmosphere of the workings of a well run family business, they have a shady spot outside to sit and we see the locals working the fields in their many different sized tractors. Guess I still have a bit of farming in my heart.

All for now, Cheers, Bx2 and Lexi Cat