Das ruhige Leben

The last few days have been pretty relaxed, lazing around the village of Ehrenhof which is, if anything, even more remote than I had been prepared for. It broadly consists of about two dozen houses positioned around a lake with no shops at all. The grand tour could be conducted without ever leaving the front steps of the house. It lies between the small town of Neustrelitz and the slightly larger Neubrandenburg which begins more closely to resemble civilisation.

We visited Kirsten’s grandparents as well as some of her friends from the club at which she used to work. The level of English spoken by people here varies wildly. Those of our generation have studied enough to school that one can communicate with them, but often they lack the vocabulary to express themselves back. Less is spoken by the older generations who would likely have learned Russian if anything, although her grandfather actually speaks rather well having worked at a British camp following the War (yes, I did mention it — but they started it!).

I can now provide photos since my laptop is running smoothly again thanks to a new hard drive I managed to pick up before leaving England. I’d forgotten that Carey works at PC World but he was able to sort me out pretty quickly with a new Samsung 100GB deal, sacrificing some speed for lower power consumption which should help with the machine’s general heat issues. I’ve finally dumped Norton Antivirus (though not their firewall) which lends a very noticeable performance boost. I wish I’d done it sooner really.

Sausagewatch: Bierknacker [bee-er-k’na-ker] is a coarse smoked sausage which Kirsten and I prepared in a dish of fried sliced potatoes called “Bratkartoffen”. It’s strong spicy flavour lends itself well to mixed dishes such as this, but it can be eaten alone, hot or cold.