Summer in the city

We have two weeks of vacation and decided to stay in and around Mannheim.

The first days have already been exiting. Sunday I participated at the Heidelbergman, an Olympic distance triathlon. Monday we did a short trip to the Hunsrück to visit a friend who is breeding Haflinger horses. He had invited us on a coach ride and bbq.







In the next days I plan to do some running and horse riding, we have another tournament on Friday and there is plenty of things to do in the garden and home, if I get bored of relaxing.

Moreover I will practice a bit with my camera. Here are some impressions from our garden...







...and the fields around our horse stable in Straßenheim:







Sunset over Mannheim:

A new home

Last Tuesday Lea celebrated it´s 3rd birthday. And she became a proud owner of a new home. :)

BBQ season opened

We became quite a bit nervous yesterday, as it was continuously raining the whole day after a week full of rain and we had invited some friends for bbq on Sunday afternoon.

But when we opened our eyes on Sunday morning, the sun was out. After riding I mowed the grass and we got out our bbq stuff.

Lea was exhited because of all the guests and fresh meat on the grill. :)

The almond trees are in full blossom

Finally the winter is gone. 25 degrees Celsius allow garden work. And also our big almond tree is in full blossom and looks gorgeous.







On Monday our horses moved to a new stable in Straßenheim near Mannheim. Here you see Andor and Ray shortly before the move.

November

The November is almost over and I haven´t run very much so far due to lot of work and other activities. We have been to concerts of Udo Lindenberg and Die Toten Hosen. Moreover was my sister visiting with Mikael Babajanyan who was singing the Marcello in the La Boheme opera.



Last weekend the the first (and seldom) snow was falling in Mannheim, so I show you one more garden photo for this year, our last wine grapes I harvested 8 days ago.



My haflinger Andor is quickly becoming familiar with his new surrounding. The neighbouring mares are already fallen in love with him. On Sunday I could go on my first small trip outside the riding stables with Andor, yet still on led by Astrid.



The December is already planned with lots of Christmas and birthday parties. I will be in Mecklenburg around Christmas eve before leaving for a weeklong ski trip to France with Astrid and her home ski club.

Yearly birthday

September is birthday time. As the weather continued to be rainy, I invited for a bbq session in the garden on short notice and some friends could really make it.

As a preparation we temporarily changed a part of our living room into a dining room. As we liked it we kept it. So we have now a new dining room and a sofa in the kitchen. :)



Below one of my birthday presents, a new phono player from my Camelot colleagues.



Lea also likes it. As she rests and relaxes in the living room every morning, she is happy about the new phono as well.



We are still very happy with our garden and especially the previous tenants which managed to plant colourfull flowers for every season...





...and present us with some really delicious apples. Yam yam!!!

Summer garden parties

Last weekend was a party weekend. We had our annual summer party of the company with lots of sport, relaxing and fun and perfect weather on Friday.



And we had a nice "bbq in the rain" garden party on Sunday. :)

Our garden becomes a jungle...

Here some impressions of the jungle in our backyard.











By the way, tomorrow our one week holiday starts. We'll go to Berchtesgarden in the Alps for some hiking and stop over in Ingolstadt for a big party with old university collegues. Enjoy the summer!

Garden party

As we didn't organize a party after moving into the new flat at the end of last year, we did so last Saturday and invited some friends to a garden party. 4 free days and sunny weather made it a nice event.

Thanks for all who came and for the new garden bench.

Four summer days spent outdoors...

May first is a national holiday in Germany, so I made it a long weekend. The current summer weather with around 25°C during they day is simply too tempting.

Saturday I went to Alsbach to receive my "new used" race bike which I bought from protrainingtours.de. It's a nice black one and I immediately tried it out on a 70 km mountain tour back to Mannheim.

Sunday some collegues and friends participated in a Neckar valley cycling tour from Eberbach to Heidelberg. Not too hard and not too easy, a good mixture of exercise and rest.

Monday I spent time at home, planting some summer flowers on my balcony among other things. It was a funny trip buying flowers with my bike in a garden discount market out of town. :)



In some hours I will join a hiking tour in the Palantine woods with some friends to finalize this short break from work. It won't be the last for May, luckily.