First Day of September

Sunday, 1st September

The day dawned bright if soon overcast, but the morning's radio weather warned of a cooling heading in from the Atlantic, via Ireland. By the end of the day it had arrived for the loss of some 7C.  

Decided on exodus around noon as the village square was taken over by an annual flea market, everything clogged and home-cooked Sunday lunch definitely not on the day's agenda. Schaeffer Jakobs Apfelland in Kelkheim, an apple farm just 12km distant, came highly recommended and Shepherd Jake's cider, a Frankfurter 'Green Sauce', Flammkuchen (Alsatian Tarte Flambee), pickled cheese and cucumbers 'cut the mustard', so to speak. The sudden invasion from one end of the orchard of a classroom-full of high-decibel, tractor-climbing schoolchildren, with equally vociferous parents, and a multinational gathering serenaded by a harmonium at the other saw us retreat a further 22km, direction Wiesbaden, to Hochheim.

Surrounded by vineyards, the old town of Hochheim am Main has some quaint quarters, timbered houses, cobbled streets, bijou restaurants, cafes and a pleasant atmosphere. It's fun just to keep turning into side-streets for the next surprise, but also well worth looking skywards as the old architecture can be very intricate and worthy of closer inspection. The magnificent old Baroque church of St Peter and St Paul, with its marvellous frescoes, stands on the very edge of the village overlooking the vineyard slopes, commanding panoramic views across the Main valley: it took just two years to build between 1730 and 1732 but about seventeen to restore over the turn of this last century. Does that say something about a decline in work ethic or would cheap flights have a bearing?

The Riesling grapes look pretty healthy and almost pearl-like, some even appearing translucent: don't know too much about it but there was a lot of hot sun since the middle of June........

 

Time's a'changing

Saturday 24th August, 2013

The harvest is in: the fields around here already mostly 'en brosse'; apples ripening, blackberries more on their way out than in; roadside fruit-sellers tidying their stalls for another year. School's back with the coming week likely to see an overload on the autobahns as the young return while the elderly take off into what they hope will be quieter, less-crowded vacation areas.

Although late in coming, no complaints about a summer that ultimately turned out hot, if sometimes humid, mobile air-conditioning units a somewhat unexpected best-seller. Wimbledon was blessed with warmth to help sell the strawberries and welcome a first British men's champion since the fellow who made the polo-shirt an iconic fashion item, but there's no mistaking the first signs of autumn as the evenings cool and balconies become less welcoming without the comfort of wool and double layers. 

The football season is underway - Arsenal only just redeeming themselves after a rotten start - and when cricket has increasingly to dodge showers and measure light, the evenings a good two hours shorter than they were not so many weeks ago, we know that two of the four seasons are tugging once again for supremacy. 

Today was one of two distinct halves: the first bright, warm, even humid but still affording a leisurely Italian lunch on a shaded side terrace in the heart of Frankfurt; the second getting drenched as a rapidly blackening sky beat us to the first autobahn bridge under which the Morgan's flimsy cover could be erected, subsequently deteriorating into a cool, damp evening.

Guess there'll be a little more time for the hobby from now on. Just hope that all those temptations coming out of Olympus, Panasonic, Fuji et al come in traditional black as the new fashion for coloured gear is going to land me in hot water with the Lady Treasurer......there's only so much stuff I can claim to have "had for years...." 

Kronberg-Schönberg