The summer has finally arrived here and we’ve already gotten off to a galloping start on the adventures we have planned for it. First off, Wiki and Loxon visited their grandparents, while Mark and Marion rode the TGV to Paris for the weekend. It was lovely to see The City of Light again after ten years. The highlight was strolling in the Rodin sculptor garden on a sunny spring day.

Another weekend, we visited Uncle Jürgen and his family, and attended the biennial Ritterspiele (knight’s games) in Horb. The locals of the town turned out in medieval clothes, and even armour, and an extensive marketplace was erected for the sale of goods from old times. There were swords and bows, chainmail, herbs and spices, craftwork of all kinds, and even fortune-tellers.

The games themselves featured four knights competing for the hand of a widowed countess. In heavy armour, they charged their mounts along the jousting lanes, performing feats of skill and strength. In the final joust, they even knocked one another off by hitting their opponent’s shield with their lance. It was astonishingly realistic. Wiki and Loxon had also manufactured their own equipment for a similar tournament at home, as seen at left.

The day after the games, we attended Oma Birgit’s wonderful 70th birthday lunch and joined her for a charming ferry ride down the Neckar River to Hessigheim. And since then, we’ve also had a visit from Derya and her boyfriend Robert, who came down from Bonn for the weekend.

We’re now preparing to set off on our main summer crusade — you can read about that in the next post, although it’ll be after a longer interval than usual as a result.