A Rainy Day

I woke up to the sound of rain. And it rained most of the day. Quite fitting to what we wanted to do today.

Ute took me to see the grave of our mother. It was my first time since she died last year and I could not be here for the funeral.

Things are changing in Germany, even grave yards. This is the "Stadt Herten Komunal Friedhof" (belongs to the city). In this section you are not allowed to plant anything. Only removable things are allowed. It takes a lot of stress off the family. The city plants and takes care of it. Of course you pay for it when you buy it.

On the way back home we stopped at a bakery. Ute needed bread. Right now there is soccer mania here everywhere. It is the time of the "Europa Fussball Meisterschaften". Cars are driving around with little German flags mounted to them. A sign it is a soccer fan. These sweet things are called "Amerikaner" and are decorated with a soccer jersey.

My friend Inge came at lunch time. Ute, Inge and I went to the restaurant I had already been on Sunday. More white asparagus.
Inge is another dear friend of mine and we go back a very long time. No visit to Germany without seeing her a couple of times.

In all those years I never noticed her license plate.  GE is code that she lives in the town Gelsenkirchen. That is a must all over Germany. When we were on a trip when we were children we played who can identify from which towns the cars are which we passed. After the stamp are usually letters and numbers at random. Inge got a special one though. A is the first letter of her last name and her birthday is on the 8th of January 1948.

The 'spargel' this time in a pancake. Interesting but I can't say it was my favorite.

The place has a little shop and this time I found the cheeses very interesting. We took a couple slices home of the 'wildflower', 'pesto', 'carrots' and wasabi' ones to taste at dinner time.












But before dinner I went for another fast walk. 3.431 km (2.132 miles) in 39 minutes ... not bad concidering that I had to stop and look and take pictures.
I went through fields which is very nice since Ute lives on the edge of town. This is Raps, the yellow flowers are over and the seeds are forming, for oil etc.

I refrained from taken too many pictures again. I went through some lovely neighborhoods with wonderful interesting front gardens. But this fence I thought was very interesting.

Ute says it is good against noise like traffic.

I came back from my walk just "slightly" moist.