However, this omission was fixed by a whistle-stop trip to Frankfurt and Dusseldorf. Why those two and not Bavaria with the opportunity to say hi to the old work colleagues and practice the local "Bayerische" language that confuses and annoys in equal amounts? Well, some friends who we hadn't seen for over 20 years live just outside Frankfurt and having managed to make contact with them after losing all their contact details (they lost ours too.....) we had to go and say hello. For obvious reasons you have not met them in here before! Then there is the lure of the enormous Dusseldorf boat show too.....
For the benefit of Captain Rae, we flew over with his old employer in (to quote Capt Rae) a "poxy little frogbus". It seems that Colin did not enjoy his time in the short haul fleet on the Airbus 319/320.
Some time catching up with Debbie and Hajo and exploring the forest near their house was great. 20 years felt more like 20 weeks although the captain's wrinkles said otherwise. Hajo has a lovely classic car:
that is undergoing a little engine overhaul to prepare it for the next 48 years of its life:
To quote Bernie the old car collector extraordinaire, the timing chains look like they come from a Massey Ferguson combine harvester, not a car. The one part of a Stag engine that was over-engineered perhaps?
After a good walk in the forest, we took part in the German tradition of post exercise coffee and cake. Well, tea and cake in our case. Perhaps I should have taken a picture of Debbie's homemade treat a little earlier on though:
After Frankfurt, we took the Inter-City express train to Dusseldorf to meet up with Andrew and Linda (the Nordhavn 43 owners) and then to visit the boat show. Before you ask, we can confirm that we only bought food at the show, nothing else. Travelling through Germany at 284 kph rather made the local Cardiff services using antique Pacer trains that are nearly as old as Hajo's "classic" car seem a bit tame.
The show, called "Boot" (of course) at the massive exhibition centre was a test of stamina and shoe leather but great fun. We saw an ideal replacement for our RIB as a new tender:
A special boat show price of around 4,000 Euros was so tempting.Somehow we resisted it.
The trip finished off with a day wandering around the city and Altstadt area, taking Andrew and Linda to a typical German Brauhaus for a late lunch and then catching a cold (man flu of course) from her. That was less than ideal.
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Thanks for your ideas / cheek / corrections / whatever! They should hit the blog shortly after the system checks them to make sure they will not put us or you in jail.....