20December1996

20 December 1996 mid-p.m
My dear folks, .

We are in Germany. To be precise, we are back in our little guesthouse in the next village to Hambach where Cathy dropped us off an hour ago. Jones lies fast asleep on the bed, having retired late, risen early & sipped at the generous Rusty Nail I poured to celebrate our arrival. And I - well of course I am sitting down - at the table which is provided - & writing to you. Our room is large & perfectly fitted out, as one would expect in Germany; twin beds, pine wood furniture & ceiling, discreet flecked wallpaper & an immaculate shower room en suite. Through the French doors there’s a manicured back garden, bridge over pond, set against the hazy backdrop of vineyards & hills wreathed in mist. Or at least there was when we arrived for it’s now pitch dark. The day was grey & damp. Clearer skies & sub-zero temps are promised for the weekend.

It’s been a hell for leather week & it’s wonderful to be here. It’s as though we shed all our burdens at Heathrow airport. I have worked nine of the ten past days, not only at the Beeb but also at my study desk in the mornings before I departed & again in the evenings on my return. So I sport the multi-coloured halo that’s borne of sweet relief from long hours & many hassles. Jones might tell you that she saw me playing the occasional computer game but that’s fair enough. The only virtue I have lacked has been that of writing to you & I am trying earnestly to make amends. Thank you meanwhile Mum, for your fax, & Annie for yours. You may have gathered from my phone message Ann that yours arrived largely illegible, to our distress. Yes, please do ask Santa for a laptop or least a proprietary desktop so that we can enjoy your letters to the full.

I got home from work sevenish on Thursday for an evening that was meant to include a bath, drinks with neighbours, packing & Jones’s Christmas dinner. We called off the drinks with neighbours on the grounds that we had to sort out an electricity failure at the Quinta where we were had guests. This was only a small exaggeration as Maria had phoned earlier in the day to inform me of some minor disasters caused by weeks of wind & rain. Fortunately, she’d already had most of them sorted out. Jones phoned her back to confirm that I’d understood Maria correctly while I called a neighbour in Portugal to arrange payment for the repairs. Then I confirmed tentative arrangements with three sets of neighbours who are to take turns feeding Mavis in our absence - much distribution of keys & bottles of thank you bubbly. Finally we took the bath, enjoyed a delicious supper & set to packing.

The packing was slightly complicated by the arrival of Mavis himself who deliberately spread himself out in the largest of the open suitcases & feigned sleep. We kinda packed around him until he took the hint & moved elsewhere. Jones said she found it hard to pack for a week away after years of doing no more than stuffing a few clothes into an overnight bag. If we won the lottery, she said, she would give away every stitch of clothing she possessed & replace them with several smart outfits which she’d take everywhere. This, she felt, would resolve the problem of deciding what to pack. I agreed. That is I agreed that she could throw it all away & start again. Whether this will resolve anything is another question altogether. But the issue is not a pressing one.

We rose at 5.45 & were in a mini-cab to Heathrow an hour later. Towards the end of the journey we got to chatting with the driver who had a hang up about affirmative action towards buses. He couldn’t for the life of him understand why there should be dedicated bus-lanes. I made some tentative efforts to defend them but soon opted to let it ride. You have to respect a man’s prejudices.

Even at that hour, the freeway was busy & the turnoff to Heathrow was a three-lane ribbon of near-stationary lights. There’s more people flying in & out of the airport these next few days than you’d believe. The terminal was crawling with people. Trust us to get into the slow queue for the Lufthansa Airbus to Frankfurt, behind a little old lady who was not at all certain where to go after checking in & was asking lengthy, nervous questions of the clerk, exasperating those waiting behind her. Fortunately a fellow passenger took her in hand & let the rest of us check in. Jones says she isn’t going to fly when she gets old. We’ll see.

So over the Channel in a full plane with a cheese & salad croissant for nourishment & a young black woman with a baby beside Jones for company. When Jones saw the infant coming she pulled the sort of face you get on drawing the straw for the pimply youth at the school dance! But infant glued itself to ma’s mammaries & left us alone. At Frankfurt, it was absolutely touch & go as to whether we’d make the 1230 bus. We did, by the skin of our teeth, to find I’d mislaid my stock of Deutschmarks. I was ready to spit blood but the driver pointed to a nearby currency exchange & waited a couple of minutes for me to do the necessary. I blessed him for his kindness as well as discreetly pressing an additional note into his palm as I paid for the tickets.

It’s an hour down the freeway to Mannheim where Cathy came beaming up behind us as we alighted. Her daughters & their cousin, Micaela, who’d been assigned to keep a look out for uncle & aunt, were tucked up in the Lufthansa lounge listening to some groovy music. They came out shrieking welcomes & covering us in hugs. The two Gohdes girls have grown something wicked since last I saw them just on a year ago. Both look older than their years. But while it’s possible to credit Erica’s 13 years, Anita looks 12 rather than 10. She’s not only big for her age, she’s also maturing rapidly. She’s growing up faster than her mum would wish but, as Mum sighs, there’s nothing to be done about it. Micaela & Erica are excellent company, much of an age & enjoying the same interests.

After a cup of tea, Cathy ran us down to the bank where we spent nearly an hour sorting out family accounts. Thence to the B&B in Diedesfeld which was where this letter started out........ Allow here for the passage of some hours.......

I followed Jones on to the bed for 40 winks. Cathy then picked us up & took us & Anita over to the village of Hassloch for a Christmas visit to an elderly friend who had recently lost his wife & was mourning her sorely. It was a good visit in spite of language barriers. He was delighted to have us. “I can’t talk right now,” he proudly told a telephone caller, “as I’ve got visitors from London”. And we were pleased to be there. His aquavit, made from apples, was on a par with the best Portuguese fig essence & distilled in much the same fashion. We did it proud.

Rolf, Erica & Anita meanwhile went riding at a nearby indoor equestrian centre. They enthused about it when we met them back home for supper. Afterwards, we walked the 35 minutes back from Hambach to Diedesfeld. It was cold & is set to get colder. Jones was clad in twin coats - her elderly fur inside another coat - while I wore the ski jacket I inherited from Kevin a decade ago. It’s probably out of fashion but still brilliantly warm.

There, that’s most of our recent history in far more detail than you might have wanted it &, having set it down, I’m going to leap into bed. I’ll get this off in the morning.