Now that we are more settled in Grassau we are having a lot of fun!
We now have a routine where we get up and clean out the horses at home, have breakfast, cycle to the other stable and clean out those horses, and then we have a few more hours of jobs like weeding the garden or buying food in. We have lunch when Amina gets home from school about 1.30pm (German schools start and finish early!), then have a few hours in the afternoon to chill before cooking dinner. We go out on the bikes pretty much everyday.
We quite enjoy cleaning the horses out, it's not a difficult job but it's fairly rewarding seeing the difference you've made! The tricky bit we find is getting the horses back in from the field after we have finished. Jessica's advice was for one to wave a bucket of food and they'll all trot over into the stable, and the other can close the electric fence to the field. Sounds simple enough, but we find there's normally a straggler that lingers back so you have some in the field and some in the stable. But we persevere and eventually get all of them back in.
On Tuesday afternoon after finishing our jobs we cycled up to Chiemsee lake, which takes about 20 minutes. We parked up our bikes and wandered along the edge of the lake with a Nogger ice cream each (similar to a Feast in the UK) and sat and dipped our feet. We called in at the beach bar on the way back and shared a beer on some deck chairs. It's such a cool spot to have nearby!
Over the wall from Holger and Jessica's garden is a public foot spa-thing (I'm not really sure what you'd call it). So on Wednesday we took a couple of beers over and gave it a try. The water is freezing even with a beer blanket! You are supposed to stand in the water and do a "stalk walk" bringing your knees right up and this is apparently good for your circulation. But we could only manage to dip our feet in for a second or two.
One of Craig's "jobs" this week was to take Holger's motorbike for a new rear tyre. Not surprisingly Craig was pretty happy to help out with this especially as Holger suggested Craig could do a few extra kilometres. He donned Holger's bike gear and set off to the garage, about 30 mins away. This pretty much sums up our Grassau hosts: trusting and very chilled.
Holger is at home most Fridays and although he is usually working this week he took us for a swim in Tütensee lake. This lake is slightly further away than Chiemsee lake, but it is much smaller so it gets warm more quickly in the sun. It was beautiful, surrounded by woodlands and it was really peaceful. We found a pier and hopped in for a swim and then sunbathed to dry off. Craig also found a rope swing and had this very elegant moment.
Over the weekend we just chilled mostly. We still had the horses to clean out at the stables nearby because Jessica was away on a trail ride. There is a park at the end of the garden with a table tennis table so we went out and had a few games, read by the pond in garden, and went for a walk nearby.
Food-wise I think we have done quite well cooking vegetarian food all week! We have made pasta with spinach and feta, millet with roasted veg, halloumi wraps (these went down well), pea and asparagus risotto and some others I can't remember!
Medically, both my teeth and my tick bite seem to be healing. I think the mouth parts of the tick have fallen out (they are so small it's difficult to tell). Craig found a small tick in his leg on Monday, which thankfully came out whole, so we have instated nightly tick checks before bed. Hopefully no more medical updates will be required in the coming weeks!
Total money spent between two: €546
No comments:
Post a Comment