Hanging around in the 'hood'

Hi again! Gee it's great to be able to just lay around and relax, meet up with old friends and basically lead a lazy life of leisure for a week or two.....although some sad, somewhat-too-fanatical part of my soul is crying out for less yummy Christmas cuisine and a decent battering in the gym!

I must admit to not having been totally lazy, quite by accident I went for a 20km jog/walk with the dog on New Year's eve...we got a little lost and ended up trampling through knee deep snow (OK for the dog it was more like swimming, so funny) for hours. More deliberately, sledding is no piece of cake, there are no ski-lifts on the golf course, and it's hard to run up-hill in Bundeswehrstiefel (German Army Boots - from Ernie, to keep out the snow). But soooooo much fun, and has given me a few good ideas for some personal training sessions ;)

There's been more snow this December in Kiel than there's been for about 8 years (source: Manfred Mareck, who, by telling me today how he fell on his head 25 years ago whilst ice skating may have reduced the credibility of these facts;). In any case, there's been a lot of snow, and it's been beautiful!

A few photos for your entertainment:

Lanweg 15, home of the honourable Familie Mareck (Wie ich eben von Manfred gehört habe: schön und reich, hi hi)

This is the pond in the Mareck's backyard, as you can see, the boat looks very useful in it's current predicament!

The track through the forest just out the back of our house, on the river Schwentine. It's so beautiful here, I've taken the dog for heaps of walks because it's so nice!

My lovely lady Sophie, who would like to say hi to my mummy!

Conny and Melli! These beautiful girls prepared a wonderful pizza for us in their fabulous flat. Poor Melli is recovering from a knee arthroscope is working hard on her Physio exercises, good girl:) I will miss these girls!

This is a picture of beautiful old Goslar, one of Germany's oldest towns at over 1000years old. Back in the day, the town was extremely heavily fotified against invasion, and I took this picture from the top of the Zwinger, the largest fort/watchtower, which now is a museum full of medievil weapons and torture devices, from catapaults to stretching racks and finger traps, to the medievil solution to marital disagreements: a cage a couple would get locked in where they were separated but forced to look at each other, which was located in the town square and passers by and cheeky little children would throw rotting fruit at them until they promised to make up and then they were allowed out! What a great idea!

Another day of travels...to Lübeck. This is another gorgeous old town, used to be one of the richest towns in Germany. This is a picture of the Marienkirche (Maria Church), taken from the observation platform of the Petrikirche, from where you could see the whole town.

I went to Lübeck again with the Mareck's on the 30th Dec to check out the 'Ice World' an exhibition of ice sculputes in a big hall frozen to -8°C, i.e. so cold that no matter how much you walk/jump/dance around/wiggle your toes you cannot feel your feet...the sculptures were amaying, and since it's Germany, so was the schnapps! There's also an ice skating rink, which I tried out, as can be seen by the many bruises on my knees as I type...