Hot, hot, hot!

Sunday 8th June

Another hot day - even the locals are finding it hot.

We had a quiet morning - Penny and I checked out the internet situation which means two flights of stairs and the hill to get to the lounge by reception.  Not too bad going down but hard work coming back.  Still the internet works and is quite fast.  I think I forgot to mention that it is a national holiday in Germany today and tomorrow which means all shops, including food shops, are closed. Not what you really want on a seven day holiday.  

After lunch we went out for a drive to Schleiden where we had a wander round - it was so hot that we saw four people sitting in the middle of the river on chairs having a barbecue, their beer cooling in the water!   We thought we would drive to a lake but got stuck in a traffic jam so turned round and headed back to Germunder where we understood there was some German music and dancing but all we found was the local brass band playing - however they were quite good so we sat and had a beer and listened.  We were very surprised the amount of the "grey haired brigade" were there, nearly every table at the cafe was taken up with them - they all seemed to know each other so we wondered if we are near a retirement village.  Back at the apartment I cooked and then we all settled down to either read, do the crossword or play Wordsearch while watching the sun set.

Monday 9th June

27.5 degrees in our bedroom when we woke up this morning.  There had been some rain overnight but still no sign of the promised thunderstorms.  It just seemed to get hotter and hotter finally reaching 32.5 degrees in the shade on the balcony.  After lunch we could hear thunder and thought that we were in for a good storm but we sat on the balcony and watched and listened to it going passed us.  The wind got up and when I went into our bedroom the duvet cover was full of wind and billowing.

We had to force ourselves to go out as it was still so hot but we went up into the National Park and to Heimbach where we had a wander round and sat and ate an ice cream by the river.  Our next stop was the dam at the north east end of the lakes - it is very difficult to learn much about these places as, of course, all the information boards are in German which is very frustrating.  The thermometer in the car was reading 33 degrees and as none of us really do heat very well we went back to the apartment where I promptly fell asleep!

We sat in the evening and watched the most amazing thunderstorm coming towards us, there was hardly any thunder just sheet lightening.  The wind then came in flattening the long grass in the field next to us and then the rain.  We had been sitting on the balcony but had to retreat pretty quickly indoors where we sat watching the whole storm going over us.

I took most of the photos with my camera and this is the only one I took on the iPad.  However once the storm was over the sky was amazing.

I've tried to take a photo of the map we are using but it is shiny and quite difficult to get a good image. Germund where we are is in at he bottom right hand corner and you can see Heimbach in the top left hand corner.

I have a problem with photos as they are all on my camera which I can't access until we get home to the laptop.  I've taken some on the iPad and some on my phone which really aren't very good quality so when I get home I will do a photo blog. However here is a photo of my breakfast in Ghent!