Offenbach, Germany

(Posted 31 December 2015)

l to r : Uncle Georg, Annabel, Me, Cousin Susanna shopping in Offenbach, Nr. Frankfurt, Germany. In the extra's Annie, Susanna dancing in the background and Cousin Gunnar behind her. I think I had been given Susanna's little DAF car for me & annie to drive into town to meet them. Funny little cars with just forward or reverse, no gears. Annie liked shopping!

A quick holiday with my first real girlfriend Annie who being a student nurse in London tended to have dreadful holiday dates and even worse daily/weekly duty times.

We had met in London on 13th September 1973 and the farewell was on 2nd October 1976 after she had been forced to spend the night when her VW beetle broke down the night before. For me a very important three years - Annie was a wonderful person (with a super family) and she did an awful lot to drag me in to adulthood. Not sure how she managed to hold out so long. My world came to an end when we broke up and I fought hard to wipe her out of my memory and have no photos of our time together - this photo was given to me recently by my other Uncle Jochen. However in 2011 an old Kodak Retinette I had from her father was a good excuse to re-establish contact and since then we have irregular email exchanges and keep hoping we will manage a coffee one day. Today 31st Dec 2015, the day I post this, the latest email arrived with memories of New Years Eve 1974 in London between Hyde Park Corner and Trafalgar Square, in her words "Have a fun New Year's Eve...... memories of a traffic jam in London in your Buggy hugging everyone....."


The Buggy she refers to was the one that transported us on this holiday,  a vandalised VW beetle (Blip to follow). I have no idea how we managed it. For those with experience of the heater in a brand new beetle in the 70's will know it better resembled air conditioning - in a vandalised one with a very leaky roof there was simply nothing more than fresh air!

The itenarary:
6/3: 22:00 Harwich ferry
7/3: 06:30 Hoek of Holland, 12:30 Offenbach, pm Weinheim (near Heidelberg
8/3: Shopping in Weinheim and wine festival
9/3: Schwetzingen and meet cousin Michael
10/3: Black Forest and Donaueschingen
11/3: Lake Constance, Austria to Höfen (alp passes to 1700m)
12/3: Reutte, Hahnenkamm
13/3 Castle Linderhof, Oberammergau, Schwangau
14/3: Castle Neuschwanstein, Tegelberg, Ammersee, Hersching
15/3: Munich, Schwabmünchen
16/3: Romantic Road to Offenbach. Russian meal
17/3: Shopping Offenbach, Michael arrives. Drinking!
18/3: Annabel to hospital (see Blip). Pizza, Drinking
19/3: Offenbach to Hoek of Holland 23:00
20/3: Back home Norwich, Norfolk.

I still can't believe the buggy did this journey without a hiccup and how we survived alpine passes on oversized fat summer tyres in March.

Footnote: Sadly Uncle Georg died a few years ago and I have almost no contact with my two cousins, Susanna and Gunnar (he probably took the photo) but Susanna is today employed by the major Berlin hospital in a non medical role. Ought to remedy this and organise a meet up with our surviving Uncle Jochen who turned 75 on 16th December 2015 but on the phone sounded like a 25 year old.