Okay, so it's actually been NINE MONTHS since I updated this blog - and even back then in February, I was writing about things that happened SIX MONTHS before that!

This is going to be a super bullety - as in, one bullet per month - update of what's been going on with me since, erm, the autumn BEFORE last...

- Sep 14: A spot of hiking with Bernd, Thomas & Eddy; various lunches & dinners; Oktoberfest craziness with Mikko & Jussi from Finland and Siobhán & Gary from England and sundry friends from Munich; huge flooding in my living room thanks to torrential downpours & a blocked downpipe; Wasen madness in Stuttgart with Marko, Franz, Harry & Dieter - including the theft and miraculous recovery of my manbag.

- Oct 14: Oktoberfest fun with Lizbeth & Ole from Norway and Paul from London & Johannes from Sydney; fun times with cousin Paula & her hubby Paul, including hiking, beers, coffees, beers, food, and more beers; a trip to Mallorca with my choir!

- Nov 14: Successful concerts in Palma de Mallorca and even a swim in the still-warm Med; a literary dinner at Jörn & Antje's (shame about the book: GB84); breakfasts, lunches & dinners at mine; at trip with Bernd to Buenos Aires - hell yeah!!!

- Dec 14: Wow, Buenos Aires is quite a city! I'm really going to struggle to contain myself and just write the one bullet, but the city was AMAZING and the trip to Salta and the surrounding Andean countryside was SPECTACULAR!! I'll put photos up soon - I promise; insane amounts of work that utterly destroyed my holiday chilledness in about 36 hours; a visit from Chris, Kate & the girls that went some way restoring my sanity (and all the Glühwein helped); a fabulous visit from my cousin Jack's granddaughter Sophie & her bloke Nathan from Brisbane - my rellies are all just amazing, whichever branch of the family tree they hang from!; Christmas at Michaela's with the boys and our Aussies; a New Year break in Zurich with Lorna, Béné, Marie, Toni, Matthias & Pablo.

- Jan 15: More Zurich fun, including a Japanese dinner with Mirèia & David; a visit from Ivos (who also wanted to catch up with Lorna while she was around); a cheeky weekend in Amsterdam with Béné & Toni; a thundersnowstorm - a personal first, and one that I probably would've preferred to experience NOT on my bike trying to cycle home from work!

- Feb 15: A visit from Austrian rellies (cousin Eva & her niece Verena); a week off work sick - wow, THAT was DULL; a cheeky weekend in Düsseldorf visiting Micky and experiencing the life of a DJ and fellow gourmand; Christian's legendary Kasspatznessen with all the Stammtisch people.

- Mar 15: A choir weekend in Pfronten, including a delightful walk through the snow to a nearby brewery recommended by Manu; Hamish from Scotland spent a weekend visiting, including a shit load of sausage - not for the first time!; Kenan from New York spent a weekend in town too; so did Earl from Canada. 

- Apr 15: A long weekend in Berlin with Bernd, Felix & Sebastian, getting up to all sorts of nonsense; beergarden fun with Martin, Barbara & their little Jakob; brunch at Hofbräu Bachmeier with Béné, Marie & Toni, including six bottles - yes BOTTLES - of prosecco between us!; Frühlingsfest fun with Franz, Marko, Enrico, Stefania, Mara; Auer Stammtisch fun.

- May 15: Simon from Amsterdam visited for a weekend; Hamish & Duncan from Scotland came for a weekend (and boy did we eat meat!); day trip to Regensburg to visit the Maidult with Franz, Marko, Enrico & Béné, including a fab Italian dinner at Enrico's cousin's restaurant; a FANTASTIC birthday party at Nockherberg, made possible by Toni's friend Herwig's ex-colleague who is a waiter there and opened up the Kaminzimmer especially for us, so my 40+ friends who came didn't have to stand in the freezing cold beergarden; another cheeky weekend in Zurich, this time for Matthias' 40th birthday.

- Jun 15: Cracking weekend in Rome with Enrico, including dinner with Tony & Luciano; Forschungsbrauerei fun with Michaela, Russ, the boys, Steffi & Tommy and Caro & Arron; a Francophone dinner at mine with Corinne, Béné & Julia; Stammtisch at Schinkenpeter; finally some hot summer Flaucher sunbathing and barbecue action!

- Jul 15: Chris came to Munich for a few days; two-week family holiday in Hungary & Austria, including an overnight stay in Sopron, a week at Lake Balaton, a crazy weekend in Budapest and some chilling in a hotel in Burgenland; CSD in Stuttgart with Franz, Marko, Steve and Harry & Dieter; Pascale, Pepe & the twins Mateo & Daniel came to visit from France!

- Aug 15: A serious of incredibly delicious meals with P&P&twins and various other people; a crazy weekend in Hamburg with Bernd, including catching up with Thom and staying with Marco; more rellies from Austria (Martha & Hans); Hans-Sachs-Straßenfest with Al from Washington; more beergardens, more restaurants, more fun, including at Felix's birthday party; a lovely visit to Rasmus, Lene, Johan, Marie & Elias in Denmark!

- Sep 15: Madness in Reykjavík and environs for Bears On Ice with Christian & Christian (photos to follow - I promise!); another insane weekend in Berlin with Bernd, Rupert & a cast of thousands; a week of way too much good food in Munich with Hugh & Lee and Vincent & Natacha; Oktoberfest debauchery; a visit from Dudi from Israel; culture in the form of a Bayerischer Rundfunk Chor concert at the Prinzregententheater with Thomas & Eddy.

- Oct 15: Oide Wiesn fun with Dave from Texas and Otto from Munich, including scoring a table by seeing Michael Strssmnn from across a crowded Zelt; Karen's 50th birthday with Russ & Tine; fabulous Thai food with Christoph; a stupendous weekend in Madrid all on my own (but not for long); a delightful weekend in London staying at Hugh's, including a lovely catch-up with Justin and Nick, brekkie with Julie, and an afternoon with Simon & the whole clan Blair; a wonderful week having Tye & Sarah from New Zealand to stay; a hilarious evening at the Kammerspiele with Christian, Sabine & Rudi to see Gerhard Polt, a German comedian and scathing genius; a lovely weekend out at Ronald & Sara's near Traunstein.

Phew! I'm all up to date! ("For how long?" I hear you ask. Well, we'll see.)

I'm on classic blog form, writing about bloody last August in bloody February!! I mean, it's not as if I can plausibly claim to even remember back that far! Ah well, good job I take a few rudimentary notes of things...

So basically I was in Croatia with all my lovely family. I drove down from Munich (with a stop in Salzburg to catch up with Rupert) and it took 13 HOURS!! It really shouldn't have been more than like six. But I made the big mistake of driving on the day the whole of southern Germany started its summer holidays...

In Liznjan (formerly Lisignano), near Pula in Istria, we had a villa with a pool and we went diving and we cooked and ate and we were cooked for by our Istrian landlords one afternoon and it was all fab. And then it was a 12-hour drive home with Michaela, Russ & the boys, with a stop in Italy and a stop in Austria. Lovely. At least I could share the driving on the way back.

Next stop Dachauer Volksfest with Bénédicte and her cousin's family. Then some more dinner parties at mine, a trip to the Gäubodenvolksfest at Straubing with Marko, Franz & Otto (where I bought sexy new Lederhosen), more Sri Lankan curries for Susi & Chris, who popped in for dinner, more catching up with mates, Felix's birthday party, hanging pictures at mine with Russ, and dinner with Johannes (who was over from Sydney) and his two friends Les & Andrew (who were doing Europe).

The month drew to a close with a weekend with Matthias & Pablo, who were up from Zurich. Thanks to them, I learned that my underground parking space is too low for a Smart. No, really. It's teeny.

June! Glorious sunshine in beergardens! Glorious drenchings on the way to pubs! Glorious goths all over the place!

Visitors from Mexico, days off sick, drunken revelry for my sister's birthday, singing in choir concerts, stuffing my face with Brazilian food.

Actually, that kind of sums it all up. Briefer than brief. My lovely long weekend in Leipzig visiting Dietmar & Dirk, then proper Munich summer fun for the rest of the month.

Sod it, I'll do July then as well, seeing as I'm feeling so succinct!

I got my head scanned in an MRT tube. "Don't swallow!" they said - so of course I had to swallow about every five milliseconds. For the 50 minutes it took to do the scan. And at the end of it they said "You're fine." So I'm not about to explode? No. Yay!

I celebrated my sudden reaffirmation of unlikely deaddroppingness by popping to Paris for a weekend to catch up with Tom from Sydney and to visit Nath in Lille for her 40th and to catch up with Osama back in Paris. Ah! What a city! A joy. So many bars! So many sexy guys! Such big crêpes!

Back in Munich, the summer parties kept on coming: Marie, Corinne, Bastille Day at the Institut Français, CSD (with me swinging that bear flag like a goodun for pretty much the whole parade!), Ox Soc summer Pimms party, and Diane's fabulous birthday raclette!

And as July drew to a close, I finally started having those dinner parties my new flat has been crying out to host. Cooking up Sri Lankan curries and washing them down with copious amounts of booze. Yay!

April was a busy old month. What with moving in to my new flat, having a whole new kitchen put in, and having to unpack all my boxes, I thought it was time I took a holiday. So I went to Sri Lanka for a fortnight with Rainnie and (for the first week) Susi.

What a holiday!!! After the first four days on the beach at Hikkaduwa doing next to nothing, just trying to calm down from all the stress of the previous months, the trip really got going when we took a minivan and driver along the south coast.

First stop (after a quick walk around the centre of historic Galle and its fort) was Mirissa, where we caught up with Jackie & Steve, who were there with Jackie's daughter Georgina. After a bit of messing about in the water we headed to a beachfront café and ate the biggest crayfish I've ever seen!

I went on a whale-watching trip with Jackie & Georgina the next morning, then we headed further east to Tissamaharama, where we bought provisions for the night and for the next day's 4WD safari through Yala National Park, where we saw elephants, leopards, bears, crocodiles, buffalo, deer, birds and monkeys. And a lot of dust!

Our next stop was Arugam Bay, a cruisy surfers' town on the east coast. We stopped here for a few days to calm down again after all the action. I even had a go on a surf board - my first try since South Africa's J Bay back in 2003 - but I was more comfortable eating and drinking in the town's many various little places - including the first decent coffee we'd found in Sri Lanka.

The second week saw us heading inland courtesy of our new driver Jagath, first to Ella (where we overnighted and walked up Little Adam's Peak), then by train through the mountains and tea plantation country to Nanu-Oya, where Jagath picked us up and took us on past St Clair Falls to Kitulgala, where we were literally the ONLY guests in a fabulous ecotourism resort with AMAZING food and a crazy cabin on the river.

The next day's whitewater rafting was more of a gentle paddle along the river, what with the season's low water levels. Still nice though. And then we went to Kandy, where we saw the Temple of Buddha's Tooth and ate some South Indian food - just for a change from the heaps of divine Sri Lankan food we'd been stuffing ourselves with up to that point.

The tea factory & museum in Kandy was interesting the next morning. Then it was back on the road, heading north-east to Trincomalee for a spot of diving - OMG the sea was so warm (28°C even at 30m!) I needn't have schlepped my wetsuit with me all the way from Germany and then right around the whole bloody country. And we got kicker tans when our dive boat got stranded with no fuel...

Two days later we were already heading back across to the west coast for our last night in Sri Lanka, at Negombo. But we still found the time to do a cookery course and a load of last-minute spice shopping! Then, sadly, it was time to head back to the airport and for Rainnie & I to fly almost exactly the same distance - just in opposite directions...

Back in Munich, and back at work, I was soon back to my hectic social schedule, heading to Ryan's school play (he was Mack the Knife in a fabulous production of the Threepenny Opera) and then to the Frühlingsfest on Bénédicte's birthday (conveniently a bank holiday!) with Aleks, Marie, Franck, Marzena and Julien. At the weekend, Marcel & his two friends Gijs & Nico flew in from Amsterdam to surprise Béné for her birthday.

Béné's parents were  in town the following week, and so I invited a houseload of French people to come and eat English food (I did a roast chicken) - and the crazy thing is, they survived!! I fitted in a few more lunches (with Bernd, with Michaela, with Toni) before heading to the UK for the weekend.

In London I stayed first with Paul in his place near Elephant & Castle, then with Jezza & Tanya at their place near Warwick Avenue (heading for Eritrean dinner at Mosob and running into Andy Buglass of all people!). In Leamington Spa I stayed with Ruth & Andy (where we ate many many sausage rolls and roast potatoes in the pub next door to their house), then had all my remaining belongings packed into boxes and taken away, then had lunch with Frankie and Ali at Wofon before coffees in town.

I bought some new glasses. Very trendy they are too. Which I'm totally not used to. Can't help thinking they look like the NHS nastiness I had to wear when I was a kid. But other people say they're nice. Hm.

On my birthday I went to the Augustiner Biergarten in town with Toni and some friends of his. It was a low-key affair, as I decided this year to combine my birthday with a housewarming at the weekend. Now THAT was a party!! The first people arrived at 4pm and the last people left at 4am. And I spent all those twelve hours drinking and making sure all my guests were drinking. And guests there were many: I reckon 70 people came over the course of the day. I LOVE that my new house fits that many people!

A few days laster it was time for a trip out to Ronald's village near Traunstein with Julia & Jo, where we had the degustation dinner at Camba Bavaria brewery in nearby Truchtlaching. What beers! And then more food and more wine at Ronald's the next day, along with a long stroll through the countryside that ended just as the heavens opened. Time for a sauna. And yet more food and drink!

May ended in style, with a cabaret show at the Volkstheater with Thomas & Eddy, where we saw the Geschwister Pfister singing a medley of Deutsche Schlager songs from the '50s to the '80s. It was very well done, I have to say! And so was the wine & nibbles at Thomas & Eddy's afterwards.

Right, February:

I had dinner at Béné's with Marie-Laure, Ramón, Corinne & Eric. I caught up with Robert & Ron from San Francisco. I had dinner at Felix & Sebastian's. I caught up with Rudi. I went to a Carnival fancy-dress ball with Jo & her friend Julia, and met Klaus there.

I had singing lessons. For the first time in my life. Fabulous! I had a never-ending series of meetings with builders, plumbers, electricians, tilers, painters, glaziers, carpenters, and most importantly with Ernst from my choir, without whom my renovation work would have taken at least 9 months longer and would have cost 9 times much - of that I'm sure!

And Billy flew in from Hong Kong to round off the shortest month. We went for dinner, we went for drinks, we went for breakfast, we went for coffee, it was all good!

Now March:

I went for a lovely cycle ride with Rudi out to the Isartalbahnhof, then to the Asamschlössl, and on to the pop-up art space exhibition thing in the old Rangierbahnhof beim Flaucher. Crazy weird excellent art!

I went to Christian's for his annual Kasspatzn dinner. And by jiminy they were good! All the Stammtisch crew were there too, as were Michaela & Charlie, and everyone was impressed with his cuisine. Mmmm!

We had a choir weekend away in Pfronten. Unlike last year, where we were snowed in, this year the weather was clement and we could even go for a nice walk on the Saturday.

Paul was over from London with some mates, and I went for drinks with them to the Hofbräuhaus. I went to the Bavarian Mr Leather election night and caught up with Rudi, Klaus, Daniel, another Christian, and of course Kay & Tom.

We went down to Greinsfurth at the end of March for Martha's belated 50th birthday party. It was a blast! The Mostheuriger just the other side of Amstetten from us was delightful, with a FINE selection of award-winning schnapses! And it was nice but weird but nice to be staying at Berger's again.

And the last weekend of March was when I MOVED HOUSE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Yes, all the renovation work got done in under two months - despite the flooding incident, where a minor explosion of my new water meter sent hundreds of litres of water into the downstairs supermarket at 6 in the morning!

OMG my new flat is AMAZING, by the way!!! Everyone, you all have to come and see it!

Yes, ALL RIGHT, it's June, and I haven't even finished last year yet. Well, I've had quite a bit on my plate, okay? Which I'll tell you all about - in due course...

So, December. Well, it was quite a mild one. No heaps of snow, no walls of ice. Didn't stop people drinking Glühwein though. Me included.

I had Tye and a whole bunch of his Kiwi family in town, and I took them to the fabulous upstairs bit of the Hofbräuhaus for proper Schuhplatteln, music, dancing, and of course drinking and eating. They loved it!

For Xmas proper I was at Chris & Kate's in Guildford, as were Michaela, Russ & the boys. It was lovely - and I didn't get snowed in! But we almost couldn't land, it was so stormy, rainy & windy...

For New Year I was in Antalya, on Turkey's south coast, with the lovely Lorna. We spent a week there in slightly iffy weather, doing lots of walking around through the Old Town and across lots of ruins from Antiquity. The Antalya Museum is off-the-scale good, by the way.

And then it was January. Al was over from Washington and I took him for dinner at the Korean noodle place. Graham & Frik were over from London with some mates, and I took them to the Ratskeller for a drink.

I had a viewing of my flat and had 50-odd people through my place in under half an hour! Something told me they wouldn't have any difficulty finding a tenant to replace me...

Then I had a cheeky weekend away in Amsterdam - well, I couldn't just sit there and listen to Toni & Béné going on about how they were going to coincidentally be there at the same time and NOT join them!! It was fabulous. Mélo had organised a post-New Year party in a brasserie and it was lots of fun.

The next evening I had dinner with Béné, Véro, Nath and Kim & Linda with their baby son Duuk. That evening I went partying with Toni and we had LOTS of fun. Then a final day of sightseeing and I flew home. It was unusual for me to see so much of Amsterdam proper, rather than buggering off to visit friends outside. Nice!

Later in January I had a weekend of culture, with a small musical theatre production about Ernest Hemingway in the Steinwayhalle followed by a concert in the Herz-Jesu-Kirche, a huge cuboid of modernist Catholic architecture.

The month ended with me FINALLY getting the keys to my new flat!! (I mean, honestly: I'd signed the purchase contract before Christmas - and there was a shedload of renovation that needed doing!)

Happy late February, darling readers and readerettes! Now, join me in a spot of time travel back to the end of October 2013...

So my last blog was a tiny bit inaccurate, inasmuch as it claimed to cover the whole of October. In fact, there were two other things that happened - or at least began - in that month: a long weekend in Bilbao with Bénédicte (more on that in just a sec); and my first viewing of a flat for sale. Which was simultaneously my final viewing of a flat for sale. Because I have now purchased said flat!! Lots more on that later later...

Anyway, so I flew to Bilbao on 31st October with Béné. And it TOTALLY ROCKED!!!!! The only thing that can possibly improve on a fabulous tapas bar is LOTS OF fabulous tapas bars. And the only thing that can top that is when each of the many wines - red and white - to go with them is DELICIOUS. And the only thing that can top THAT is when I get to enjoy the tapas and the wines (and a whole raft of other Spanish and Basque delicacies) with someone who loves them as much as I do: Bénédicte!!!!!

Okay, so here's a little gold mine of tapas/pintxos recommendations for Bilbao (although to be honest we didn't find a single one that I would recommend): Thursday night was Café Iruña (for the best pintxos morunos in the universe - and that claim wasn't far off being true); Bar Antomar (for a plato de ibéricos in a classically Spanish looks-like-shite-but-actually-rocks ambience); Bar Gure Toki (for posh pintxos on the Plaza Nueva); Taberna Txiriboga (for free croquetas); and Bar Ormaetxe (for kicker red wines on the street in a cloud of weed). Not forgetting the "nightcap" that became a whole hat shop's worth of nightcaps in the form of patxarán on ice at Ambigú - off-the-wall DJane 80s selection, conveniently opposite the hotel!

Friday's breakfast at Café del Arenal was a REVELATION: totally Spanish, unpretentious, overlit, chrome-and-glass bartop, and then manna from Spanish heaven in the form of a pintxo de tortilla con jamón york with my café con leche plus txokolate con txurros for Béné. Oh my! Then we wandered back into the Casco Viejo and ended up in Café Brasil for rabas and a txakolí white wine - hello! Then we walked to near the Guggenheim museum and stopped for a supa dupa fly selection of pintxos at Abando y Barra. Then we walked all around the Guggenheim and stopped for a coffee at Larruzz. Then we had a siesta back at the hotel. Then we did a pintxos crawl along calle Santa María: Irrinzti (okay wine, okay tapas); Gatz (fabulous, inventive pintxos); Restorante Arriaga (average balacao, fabulous wine and cheeses); and back to the hotel for some digestion time.

On Saturday, after brekkie at Arenal, we actually DID the Guggenheim Museum rather than looking at it from the outside! A well-earned pintxos lunch at Abando y Barra (this time at an outside table) was followed by a sudden downpour, which we eventually ran right through to take shelter in El Corte Inglés, where we proceeded to buy a checked-baggage-weight-limit-stretching amount of meats, cheeses and oil. Back at the hotel we had a rest and a celebratory drink - because I got an SMS from the estate agent in Munich telling me I had GOT THE FLAT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! We continued to celebrate by going back to the Casco Viejo and doing the tapas places we hadn't already done: Sorginzulo (for TO DIE FOR foie gras); Basoa (for über blackberried thick red wine); a corner shop (for empanadas argentinas); La Korrala (for ouch-ouch bright lights and high-energy disco music in a quirky gay bar); Lamiak (for our first corked wine - which the scary barkeeper woman wouldn't change for me - but then totally DID change for Béné - my hero!); and back to Ormaetxe (for one last wine before bed).

Sunday morning after brekkie at Arenal (I seriously couldn't get enough of their tortilla - it tasted of my memories of Santander from 20 years ago!) we did a final sweep of the Casco Viejo for pintxos that we hadn't done yet - and found a corker! Bar Charly had imagination and sparkle. Then we headed back to Plaza Nueva for another discovery there - Kukusoak (more txakolí, more pintxos) - and then more delicious foie gras at Sorginzulo, plus a gigantic pile of rabas in the hot lunchtime sun. And then we had to go to the airport. But WHAT a weekend it was!

Let's see if I can condense the rest of November down a bit more than I did the first three days!

Well, there was a Wednesday night disco sesh at Harry Klein with Jürgen, Nina and Andrea (which started with a couple of drinks at Hotel Anna). I had a weekend visit from Matthias in Zurich, which overlapped with dinner with Béné and Véro & Suzy who were over from Amsterdam. I had a Schnitzelfest with Marko & Franz at Krablergarten. I went to Rich Myers' fancy-dress party at SUB (this year's theme was Bollywood; at last a chance to crack out the gear I bought in Mumbai!). Charlie's birthday dinner at Roma was lovely. The choir concert went well on 24th. And the Catalan cinema festival I went to with Rudi (with a cheeky Greek meal beforehand) was great too!

And I wrapped the month up by having my first Glühweins of the year with Michaela on Saturday 30th. In fact it was a mini Christmas market crawl from Stachus to Marienplatz and Rindermarkt. Roll on Xmas!!

I was a total tease in my last blog entry, promising Oktoberfest gossip and then leaving you hanging. Well, here's how the second week panned out:

I had one of those "oh, we'll only go for one" evenings that turns into an all-night bender. Naughty Julia! Leading me astray from the office (well, we WERE working the bank holiday, so we deserved an early finish) and saying she had to catch a train so she wouldn't stay long.

Well, of COURSE we ended up spending almost the whole evening in the Oide Wiesn - and I kept bumping into friends of mine there! Notably in the Augustiner Zelt, where we even got up for a couple of dances and I ran into Matthias & Christian and Kay & Tom. Which was a blessed relief from the freakazoids we ended up sharing a table with!

To round things off, I did a final Wiesn day on the last Saturday, with Jo, Mark & all his mates. When our reservation came to an end pitifully early (in my view), Jo & I slipped away to a Weißbierzelt - always a dangerous move, but one that seems to make SO MUCH sense at the time!

Ach, when you're at the Wiesn, you simply HAVE to end up deep in conversation with random strangers. So we did, before heading back to Mark's for a slap-up roast dinner - yay! - which was very well irrigated, as the French say... I truly had a skinful, in a 98%-blackout-can't-remember-getting-home-but-managed-to-fall-asleep-in-the-armchair kind of way.

The Sunday was a welcome antidote for my once-again destroyed liver: I met up with Michaela for lunch at "Oh! Julia", the new Italian behind A&F, and a leisurely wander first through an exhibition of Nordic Masters paintings and then through a few Munich watering holes. (Hair of the dog, and all that...)

The following weekend I joined Michaela, Russ, Ryan & Lydia for dinner at my favourite Ethiopian place with Rosanne, Maria & Mike, who were over for the Munich marathon. The food was fab, but I had to leave them because I'd arranged to meet up with Felix & Daniel for a few drinks. Lovely. And anyway, I saw all the Brits again the next night at the Forschungsbrauerei for another delicious meal.

That Sunday, 13th October, was a truly gorgeous day, so I jumped on my bike and went for a giant ride along the Isar. I treated myself to a Leberknödelsuppe in the Harlachinger Einkehr on the way home, because it was getting a tad chilly in the dusk. And then I had a few drinks with Dio & Sven that evening, bumping into Mo and a mate of his from Egypt.

Midweek in the week after, I had Béné, Corinne & Bezi over to mine for dinner -at last! The quiche lorraine I made was pretty bloody amazing. Thanks for forwarding me that recipe, Béné!

Then I had a cheeky weekend in Dublin. Well, I say "in" Dublin, but for the most part I was in Lisa & Clare's house drinking and eating! Lisa & I spent a lovely couple of hours on the Sunday afternoon at Dublin bay, or more specifically the south wall of Dublin port, taking loads of photos. But apart from that it was eating & drinking all the way. The big dinner on Saturday night (build your own burgers, washed down with gallons of red wine) was my opportunity to meet Karen & Enrique, as well as Clare's bloke Mark at long last. What a night!

I flew back in on a Monday and promptly took the opportunity to have lunch with Michaela at Loretta - it was still super sunny, so it was a pleasure to grab one of their outdoor tables on the Müllerstraße and chow down on a delicious grilled goat's cheese & walnut sandwich. And then I cycled over to Béné's that evening for moules frites. Yum!

The last weekend of October started early for me, because Johannes from Sydney came up from Salzburg on the Thursday night to have dinner with me. I took him to L'Amar, where I had a delicious steak (but the meal, or rather the ambience, wasn't quite as good as it had been a few weeks ago when I went there with Toni...), and then we went for a few drinks, as you do.

Then, on the Friday night, I was at Anton's for his birthday bash. Wow! So much delicious food! On teh Saturday it was time to enjoy more gorgeous sunshine by cycling out to the Aumeister Biergarten at the northern end of the English Garden to join Béné & her colleague Susanne for a few beers & some Brezn. Then I had dinner that evening with Harry & Dieter, who were in town.

And there you have it. October. It was a good one!

Happy New Year, peeps!

Right, that's quite enough of 2014 for a while. Let's return to where I left off: September of last year.

So I baked scones! And Ivo & Rüdiger enjoyed them greatly.

The weather was still fab, so there was no reason not to go for a barbecue at the riverside with Franz, Marko & Toni - in my lunch break! - and then again at the weekend, with Franz, Marko, Andreas & Klaus. Followed by a lovely evening in the Flaucher Biergarten with above barbie fans plus Stephen (who was back over from the UK for a bit ) and his brother-in-law Jason.

Béné was once again generous to me in her dinner-party invitations, and I met her friends Anne & Ian and Aurélie & Ben. Christoph, too, was a fabulous dinner-party host, cooking for me as a belated birthday gift with Dio & Sven as assistant gourmands. Indeed, the dinner-party cycle continued the next night at Dio & Sven's place - it was toasted sandwich extravaganza!

Michaela, Russ & I just time to catch up with Alex (Chris & Kate's friend in Guildford) and her Uncle Fred, who were on their way to Austria, before Michaela & I drove down to Austria ourselves. We were all going for a sad reason: funerals.

Our Uncle Poidl had sadly passed away the previous week. The funeral was incredibly emotional. I found all the Hail Marys strangely hypnotic, and the farewell honk of the fire engine's horn echoing across the cemetery and to the hills beyond to honour his many years of voluntary service was much, MUCH more moving than it seems here on the page.

The following week was much more cheerful: it was Oktoberfest time! I met Dietmar & Dirk off their train and the party started that Thursday evening, as we went to pick up our tickets and had a few drinks with Micha, Hans and Norbert. We were out dancing till 3am on Friday, spent all of Saturday at the fest - in particular the Oide Wiesn, the historic bit - with Peter, Franz & Norbert (with the added benefit of meeting a random family of Kiwis in the Augustiner Tent), and then did the whole Bräurosl thing on the Sunday.

I tell you, that first beer on Sunday morning was REALLY hard work. I think I was sipping on it for about two hours. But the booze started slipping down more easily after that - especially after I snuck out at around four o'clock for a wander and a bit of fresh air... Yes indeed, that oxygen break seemed to revive my thirst, and the rest of the evening flew by, as I flitted from friend to friend and from beer to beer!

But the highlight of the evening (or at least of the close of the evening) was me & Dietmar having to literally drag Dirk along the street, each with an arm slung over our shoulders, to the bus, then shovel him into a seat (generously vacated by a lady who still had the ability to stand unaided), and then drag him to my house, and THEN - this was the interesting bit - somehow lever him up my three flights of stairs. With Dirk all the while professing that "I'm NOT drunk!"

No sooner had I seen Dietmar & Dirk off back to Leipzig than my next guests arrived: Hamish & Duncan from Scotland.  Even though I was working every day they were here, we still managed to do lunch every day and meet most evenings. Memorably for steak & whisky at Kapitales vom Rind. And in between times I was at the Wiesn with the Oxford University Society (and Jo).

Another weekend, another social engagement: this time with Bernd and Franz to the buffet at Hirschgarten. We ate much fish and drank much schnaps. But this was me winding down after a liver-shrivelling week, "only" having beers in normal bars, rather than at the Oktoberfest.

There was - of course - more Wiesn in the second week. But THAT, my lovelies, was in October, so you'll just have to wait!

Oh blimey! The year's almost over, and I've yet to write about half of it! Here's August in a few words:

The month started well with Franz's birthday party in the Biergarten behind the old exhibition centre, just up the hill from where the Oktoberfest is held. I headed to another, the Michaeligarten, the next day with Béné  & her cousin & his partner.

The weekend I was mostly at the Flaucher, splashing about in the water with Selena, Neil & little Christopher. It felt just like a proper summer holiday!! There was even a cracking thunderstorm that evening, which I watched from a bridge over the Isar with Harry & Dieter, with whom I'd just had Greek dinner.

Another week, another Biergarten - the Menterschwaige with Veronika - and another thunderstorm - yay! Later in the week, Andy Kerr was in town with Duyen & their kids, so we went to a Biergarten (of course) and then had Vietnamese food at Mama. Finally, I could introduce my latest Vietnamese friend to my first Vietnamese friend!

Colin & Feli got married on 10th, and the party was splendid: a heady mix of Bavarian & Scottish music and food that seemed to have fallen straight from heaven. Just time for a couple of dinners here & there, including with Béné, Julien & Marzena at the Kloster, and then came the big trip...

California!!!

I flew to Los Angeles and met Chris, Kate, Sophie & Livi at the airport. We grabbed a hire car (more of a tank really) and headed first to Venice Beach, then to Santa Barbara. Then we headed up Highway 1, doing lots of eating, nature-watching, and more eating before reaching San Francisco.

Michaela, Russ, Ryan & Charlie flew in the next day, and we had a fabulous big family reunion type get-together weekend of fun & frolics in the sun. Then I took a train south to Silicon Valley to catch up with Jamie & Claire, who now live in Mountain View (Jamie's working at Google). Good times: too much food and WAY too much to drink - but it was ALL good. (I now understand margaritas and tacos.)

I got the red-eye across from San Francisco to New York and we touched down at Newark just before another massive thunderstorm interrupted all flights. Rich picked me up & took me to Teaneck, where I had an hour's sleep before heading into Manhattan for a mad rush of drinks & food with friends all on the same day: first catching up with Matthew who was over from Melbourne, then with Kenan who was up from Florida, and then with Dan (and Rich & Paul) for sexy Korean tapas.

The next day Rich & I headed out to the Jersey Shore to see how much of the Hurricane Sandy damage has already been cleared away - and how much remains to be done. And the following day we all headed out to Fire Island to catch some waves and some rays and chill, before I had to fly home again. Boo hoo!!

The last week of August, back in Munich, was marked by summer flair as well. Lots of eating & drinking, culminating in the Pestalozzistraßenfest and Marzena's birthday party with Béné. All in all, a good month.

D'you know what? I'm on a roll here. I think I'll quickly write about July too.

Mmm tapas with family! Italian food with choir people! Grilled sausages by the river! Afghan food with dear friends from Amsterdam! Beers with colleagues old & new! Brunch with the lovely Caro! Mediaeval capers with Brit friends at the Kaltenberger Ritterfest! More barbecuing on an island in the Isar! Giant Schnitzels in town! Refreshing beers after a two-hour bike ride to hear a big band play by a lake!

The big highlight of July was when Rasmus, Lene, Johan, Marie & Elias came to visit from Denmark. We ate in town, we ate at home, we drove into the countryside and messed about on boats in the Schliersee and in the Kochelsee, we swam in the Walchensee, we ate pizza, we ate Vietnamese food, we played in the park, we reminisced, we caught up.

And the month ended with lots of visitors for Michaela, including Margit, Denis & their boys, then Selena, Neil & Christopher. I took them to the Flaucher and we had a right old time of it in the water, in the beergarden, and back in the water. I even ran into Bernd & Jo and a bunch of their friends whilst sitting under a waterfall! And then I went to a fabulous performance of Verdi's Requiem in the Wieskirch with Jo, where we heard Martin singing and had a huge slap-up Bavarian meal to celebrate on the way home.

The month ended on yet more culinary notes, as I went to the Auer Dult and then for yummy dinner with Paolo & Keith from Sydney, then went to the Forschungsbrauerei with Michaela & the boys. Summer was finally here. And I was making the most of it!

June was nice. I bought loads of Austrian wine. I had loads of people over for drinks and food. I got freebie drinks at a corporate do. I barbecued. I coffee & caked. I went to a winetasting. I went to France (for Pascale's birthday party). I got screwed about on the trains heading for France because of the huge flooding in northern Germany, which had washed away loads of bridges and caused massive delays.

I went to Michaela's birthday bash at Nockherberg; the weather was mercifully warm & lovely for HER do there! I went to a ball. I sang in a concert. I celebrated the twentieth anniversary of our company (along with about 35 other people - colleagues and freelancers and their partners) in a lovely little hotel on a hill overlooking Chiemsee. We went rafting, we ate, we drank, we made merry.

I bought strawberries. I walked up a hill just by the Tegernsee with Michaela & Sophie. I worked. I played. I slept. I enjoyed Munich and its environs. I even did a bit of sport now and then! Wicked.

May!

It started well, with lovely warm spring weather to accompany a day's cycling in the countryside around Ronald's village, down near the Austrian border. Jo, Colin & I drove down and borrowed bikes off Ronald, who then led us on a merry tour (along with his wife Sara and their three kid) that QUITE COINCIDENTALLY took us part several breweries! That evening Ronald cooked up a storm on the barbie (I LOVE his Romanian garlic sauce!) and we settled in for a night's drinking with delicious beers (including a truly magnificent Bavarian IPA), wines & spirits.

The first Friday night of the month was another culinary tour de force, this time in a small French restaurant called L'Épicerie d'Anne-Marie, not too far from my flat, where I took Bénédicte for her birthday. It was a proper French all-night-long meal, with different wines to accompany each of the many courses - and plenty of time in between courses to talk (and drink). Ah!

The Auer Dult was on again, and I went there with a few different folk. Rosanne & Dave were over from the UK, so we had a few beers with them at the Forshungsbrauerei. I also went to Ryan's school play (where he ruled the stage as Oberon, King of the Faeries in A Midsummer Night's Dream).

Then I headed to the UK for ten days, working "from home" (please note that the quotes don't include the word working - I was in fact very well-behaved and worked a full 40-hour week, albeit from different computers in different people's houses) whilst visiting Justin & Sam, Chris & Kate, Ruth & Andy in Leam and Hugh & Lee and catching up with lots of friends along the way, most excitingly perhaps my old Powergen crew of Frankie, Liza, Tony, Mick & Ali.

It just so happened that my last weekend (in London) was the one before my birthday, so I got together with Justin & a whole load of folk to celebrate putting a 4 at the start of our ages. Photographic evidence of the latter part of the evening suggests we had a good time; I must admit I my recollections are hazy...

Back in Munich, I celebrated my birthday again and again and again and again and again. Stammtisch people on the day itself. Choir people on the Wednesday. Work people on the Thursday. Lisa, Rob, Clare & Sinéad from Dublin plus Christian, Patrik, Béné & Jo on the Friday (with MANY schnapses at Klinglwirt - what a find that restaurant is!). And over forty people on the Saturday, who came to celebrate with me in the Biergarten despite the Arctic conditions and joined me back at Klinglwirt that evening, where I was extremely lucky to get tables at one day's notice despite it being the night of the Champions' League final.

The month drew to a close with more food - with Bernd, with Corinne, with Sabine & Rudi, with Ivo & Rüdiger and with Diane: all in all, my kind of month!

So, here's April in a couple of lines:

Lunches, dinners and drinks with [insert a wide selection of my friends and colleagues new and old].

An absolutely amazing time in Cairo visiting Kate and doing all the touristy stuff at a rate of knots (see the photos I just uploaded).

Buying loads of plants for the office, so we're now working in a much more verdant - and hopefully oxygenated - environment.

Spending a weekend in the Allgäu with my choir for some intensive rehearsals - and some more intensive drinking!! And it snowed while we were there. So much for April being the start of anything springlike.

Hitting the Frühlingsfest with a bunch of guys, just to remember what the Oktoberfest is like (it'd been SO long!)

Wow! That really was just a couple of lines! Perhaps a bit lacking in atmosphere - particularly for anyone who was hoping I might wax lyrical about the splendid and fantastic and astounding (and happily incident-free) time I had in Egypt, exposing myself to thousands of years' worth of human history in just three days. But brevity has a certain beauty of its own. Stop.

Okay, so I've just jumped off the plane from Hong Kong. Let's see what happens to me in wintry Europe.

(And the sad thing is, I could be talking quite literally about today - the weather is DISMAL here!)

Monday was my first day back at the office, and to celebrate we went for a team lunch at Pho Ha Noi. It was so nice to see everyone again! And I think they were pleased to see me too - at least, I remember someone saying "Ah, Richard's back!" in response to some rude-language-larded base comment of mine...

That evening it was time to head back to badminton for the first time in ages, and then on to Stammtisch, which was delightful as always. Later in the week I had Bénédicte over for dinner, I went back to choir, I had dinner with Christian, Sabine & Rudi before they went to the theatre, I caught up with my deaf friend Stephan and my non-deaf friend Oliver, and then I had my kitchen photographed as part of an art/history project documenting everyday life in my part of Munich.

And so the weeks went on! Catching up with folk, eating & drinking, reconnecting with Munich life. And, given the weather, one of the ways to do that was to head to Therme Erding with a bunch of mates and sweat it out whilst admiring the snowy, icy grounds - and occasionally dashing across said grounds in nothing but a towel, to head to the Celtic sauna building...

The highlight for the end of January was a late Christmas at Michaela's, complete with too much food, presents, and telly.

And then it was February: time to get on my skis! I headed out on teh EPO bus to Kitzbühel with Russ, Claire, Nuala & Aibhoin (Michaela I think was ill) and remembered how to get down a mountain with a couple of (high-tech) planks on my feet.

Later that month we had dinner at the Perlacher Hof to celebrate Ryan's birthday. Fifteen! How old I feel! Another ski day with the EPO, this time to Steinplatte and with my darling sister, was good fun - but the full English breakfast the next day at Michaela's with Diane, Christian & Patrick was better!

Goodness! Here I was in the middle of February already, without having stepped on board an aeroplane for almost a month!! Time to change that: so I flew to London, had dinner with Hugh & Justyna, then jumped on a train and went down to North Devon to celebrate Dawnie's wedding to Richard. It was SO LOVELY to catch up with the whole Siobhán crowd - even if Siobhán herself wasn't there!

We drank FAR too much, danced loads, talked a whole lotta shite (with my supersexy deep husky voice - the onset of laryngitis; not that I realised it at the time), and even did a spot of sightseeing around the area, including a visit to the only-just-unveiled Damien Hirst statue at Ilfracombe entitled Verity. And Helena kindly took me part of the way there and back, so I didn't have to sit on a train for quite as long as I thought.

By now, though, I was getting really ill. And that was the way things were going to stay for quite some weeks. No, it wasn't just a fluey coldy thing. The laryngitis really set in after our first chori concert of the year - but I'm really glad I didn't miss the concert itself; we sang such beautiful works. I worked from home for a week. (To be honest, I should have just slept for a week, it would've done me a favour, but hey.) And then slowly, slowly started to feel better.

And then it was March. Time for Starkbierfest, meeting friends old and new in a haze of 9% strength beer. This was followed by a visit by Ruth & Andy for the weekend, my personal highlight of which was getting home on Saturday night and having a craving for shortbread - which I then sated by just bloody well baking some there and then! The weekend also saw an impromptu visit to Munich by the lovely Caroline, who came to our office for coffee before we went round the corner for food at Marc & Frankie's - what a great restaurant that is!

The following week we went to the Nockherberg for an office outing to the Starkbierfest. It was hilarious! Then I headed down to Austria for a long weekend's skiing with 24 - yes, twenty-four! - mates in Maria Alm, all organised by the supremely capable Alexander. It was a total hoot!! I was in the middle chalet of three with Christian, Michael, Alexander, Christian (another one) and Simon; to our right was what ended up being the party chalet with Felix, Sebastian, Frank, Ralf, Thomas, Kay, Tom and Stefan.

How we laughed! How we drank! How we skied! I was actually amazed that on the Friday, when eleven of us set out together to do the entire Hochkönig valley (which is fabulously linked all through with ski lifts), we all managed to stick together for the whole day. In my experience, groups of any more than seven people tend to fall apart. But here we were, all skiing at pretty much the same pace, and loving it!!

I should mention that the weather was ABSOLUTELY PERFECT for skiing: no wind, blue skies, sun, not too cold, not too hot, simply IDEAL. Looking back at that weekend now cheers me up when I glance out of my window and see the rain coming down in torrents.

The following weekend was dominated by the visit of Billy from Hong Kong. He was doing a bit of a pan-Europe tour, and came and spent a few days here. It was so nice to see him again so soon! we had dinner everywhere, including with Béné at Blue Nile and with Felix at Faun; we shopped; we drank; we partied; I showed him the sights of Munich. It was a good weekend.

And it was good training for the last weekend of March, when I had more visitors: Gareth & Gail and Hollie & Marc, who I'd met at G&G's wedding. We ate OBSCENE amounts. I met them at the airport and we had Bavarian sausages etc in the brewery there, then dropped their bags in their apartment, then went for an emergency espresso which turned into pizza, aperol sprizz, and tiramisù - and THEN we went for dinner!

The evening ended in my favourite new Bavarian place - and it's only just up the road! The Klinglwirt is owned by a woman who I knew from when she was working as a waitress in the Alpenhof Italian round the corner from me. Her new place has great organic food, tasty wines - and a DIVINE selection of schnapses.

The weather was unkind to us on the Saturday, when I took G&G and H&M up the Zugspitze. We saw not a single one of the reputed thousand peaks visible from the summit! But we did have a nice meal up there. And the following day we dodged snowflakes to get some culture in the Brandhorst museum and the Alte Pinakothek, before returning to form and stuffing our faces at Sushi Cent (with Béné).

And so a fabulous couple of months full of fun and frolics with visitors and friends drew to a close. April held the promise of more of the same

2013 has been a different kind of year for me so far. But it started off in classic me fashion, with insane amounts of travelling, catching up with friends, eating & drinking, and weddings!

Having seen in the New Year in Wellington with Jamie, Claire, Siobhán, Shona and some friends of friends, I then spent a few days enjoying the city. One highlight was going to Peter Jackson's own art deco cinema, the Roxy, to see The Hobbit in 3D. But actually the 3Dness of it was slightly disappointing: the incredible sense of depth in the foreground made the backgrounds look really flat and fake!

A few days later I flew on to Christchurch to visit Bernard & Amanda and their gorgeous gorgeous kids Erin & Tom. Christchurch is still in a whole lot of a mess, after two earthquakes that have caused the city to reevaluate its whole architectural approach. Lots of holes in the ground, lots of messed-up buildings, lots of people STILL with nowhere to call home.

Heading back to the North Island, I flew to Auckland and popped in on Roz for a night, before catching a bus up into the Bay of Islands for Kate & Simon's stupendous wedding. I got to stay with Lionel & Rob in their delightful boutique hotel in Kerikeri, Moon Gate Villa - and I had an amazing Indian meal with them one night too. Who'd have thought you could find a decent curry in NZ?

The wedding itself was absolutely spectacular, held in the beautiful garden of relatives of Simon's. As one of the two official photographers, I managed to hit the shutter release 2000 times in a day! Ouchy fingers - but it was worth it; a small selection of the photos will be on my site soon.

And then I just had one last night in Auckland - and just enough time to catch up with my mate Juan Ignacio, who (handily!) works at the airport. The next morning I was back on a plane to Melbourne, then back on another plane to Hong Kong. There I spent some more time with Wai Chung & Antoinette and their little angels Darren & Louise, and also caught up again with Billy.

But alas! Soon it was time to head back to wintry Europe. So it was with a heavy heart that I got on my plane back to Munich, arriving home on Sunday 13th January, after a good five weeks of wall-to-wall warmth, fun & amazingness.

Wowzers. Guilts. Must update.

So, basically, the rest of 2012 from the day after my choir concert back in early December was AMAAAAAAAAAAAZING!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Because I got to travel as far as is humanly possible without leaving the Earth's atmosphere: yes folks, I ended the year in New Zealand.

But before I got there I was in Hong Kong, then Alice Springs, then Sydney, then Melbourne (all too briefly), then Adelaide, then Kangaroo Island, then Adelaide again, then Melbourne again (and again all too briefly). And I reached Wellington, on the North Island of New Zealand, on 30th December - just in time to see in the New Year with my dear friends Jamie & Claire and my dear dear forever friend Siobhán and her dear dear forever friend Shona. It was a big-style love-in (no, not THAT way!)!

Hm, tempted to leave it at that. The photos I've put up on my website (okay, on my Google+ - but you can reach them directly from my website at least) tell the story pretty eloquently.

I might just add that I had a FANTASTIC time visiting friends in all those places: Wai Chung & Antoinette and their gorgeous kids in Hong Kong; Rainnie in Alice, who took me out into the bush for the weekend; Johannes, Alan & Kate in Sydney; Peter & Stuart from Melbs, who went to KI with me; dearest cousin Su and her tribe, along with David, in Adelaide; and Fifi, Em & Pete, and Dez & Al in Melbourne. Thanks guys for putting me up / catching up with me while I was over your side of the planet!

I also made heaps of new friends along the way, including Billy, Colin, Ant, Chris, and of course my host in Windy Welly, Hamish. It was a pleasure, peoples - and I hope to see you again soon!

Hello peeps! These are my first words (here) of 2013, so let me start off by saying Happy February to you all! (I mean, it's WAY too late get away with New Year's greetings by now...)

For those who have been waiting with bated breath for the next exciting installment of ME, I'd like to congratulate you on not having keeled over dead of asphyxia a long time since. But your superhuman wait will, I hope, have been worth it as I now finish off the goings-on of last year in a little postette on the theme of December 2012.

Now, if you remember, my last blog entry left you with the cliffhanger of me boarding a flight to Cologne. Strictly speaking, it wasn't December yet - but it was a lovely place to break the story, don't you think? So, anyway, picture it: Thursday 29th November, a crisp late autumn day. I head to the airport and, with plenty of time to spare, having checked in online and decided to travel with hand luggage only (as is now my wont, given my luck in recent years with luggage going astray), I caught up with Felix for a coffee; he was able to slip away from his work for Lufthansa to sit with me awhile sipping coffee in one of the cute little bars on the mezzanine floor that floats in the upper reaches of Munich's Terminal 2.

Then I flew to Cologne Bonn airport, whence a local train whisked me to Cologne and an undergroundy tram thing took me south towards Sülz, where I caught up with my mate Olli. I dumped my bags at his and we headed straight out for a few Kölsch beers and a slap-up dinner of roast goose with red cabbage. Mmm! A bottle of red wine later, we headed back to Olli's for, ahem, a bottle of red wine!

The next day was something of an IT adventure for me: I was working "from home" for the first time with full access to my office PC via the interwebs. And it all worked! A fabulous dry run for my slightly longer-distance escapades later in the month - but of that, more anon. So Olli kindly gave me use of his place as an office while he was at work. And so, with a brief pause for a trip into town for lunch and a wander, I spent the day working, with the slightly bizarre feeling of lounging about at home - even though it wasn't MY home!

When he got back that evening we headed out for a meal at Va Piano (yes, they're in Cologne too) before heading to a few Christmas markets to sample the local Glühwein. One was, to be brutally frank, shite. The other, at a more traditional market, was much tastier. So we stayed there, having got into conversation with a couple of lads there. Who we ended up going for more drinks with. They were a sociable pair - as were we.

I headed back to Munich earlyish on Saturday, so that I could spend plenty of time with Chris, Kate & the girls, who had flown in the night before. Hooray!!! It was a bit of a pre-Christmas family treat, what with the shenanigans I had lined up for later in the month precluding my participation in any festivities nearer the date - but of that, more anon. I headed to PEP to meet them all (the Peterses from Guildford and the Adamses from Munich) in mid-shop, before walking home with Charlie and then heading out with everyone to the delicious Perlacher Hof Austrian restaurant round the corner. Blimey what a fantastic meal - and selection of schnapses!

On Sunday I headed back to Michaela's for coffee, then we all headed to GOP Variété for lunch and a variety show of astonishing acrobats blended with lame humour. After that it was time to hit some more Christmas markets: first the Mediaeval one, then the one in the Residenz. And then - boohoo! - it was time for Chris, Kate & the girls to head back to the airport. I headed home with a heavy heart, knowing that I wouldn't see them again this year. (By which I mean last year, not this year, which was next year).

The next week was full of lunches and dinners, with Bernd, with Bénédicte, with the Stammtisch, with the choir, with my colleagues, and most memorably with everyone from work for our Xmas do in Kreuzberger - where the chef really pulled out all the stops and served us up a gourmet meal the likes of which I was never expecting to find in what is essentially a spit-and-sawdust Bavarian eatery.

At the weekend we had our first choir concert with our new conductor, Michael. It went pretty well! And the mood at the post-concert dinner at YumYum was good. But I was a bit anxious, because I hadn't actually done ANYTHING in the way of preparing for my next adventure, which was about to begin the following day...

Actually, while I'm at it, I could write all about November too. I mean, it's not like I usually find the time to do this, so while I'm sat here in Cologne, having just finished a day of "working from home", I might as well press on...

So, November:

It started with a quick visit to my mate Martin with the unpronounceable surname (which, of course, I can pronounce), then a quick lunch with Johannes, who was back in town to bring Alan to his train. I saw Alan too, but only for about five minutes. Ah well.

The Friday evening was splendid! I was invited to Corinne & Eric's for raclette with Béné, Marie-Laure & Ramón. Much fine wine was consumed - but not TOO much. I actually remember most of the evening this time, which is not something I can say of the last time I was at Corinne's!

I actually had to work at the weekend - yuk! - but still made time to catch up with my mate Oliver on Saturday and my mate Felix on Sunday. The following week I again had dinner with Béné & Bezi, as well as lunch with Michaela. Then Anton & I drove to Stuttgart on business, and on the Thursday night we had dinner in a grubby but delicious Syrian place with Valérie & Melissa.

Back in Munich on the Friday night, I caught up with Marco who was down from Hamburg. I took him along to the 45th anniversary party at the Ochsengarten pub, and a good time was had by all. Even though I didn't get in until 6am, I still had plenty of voice for the choir rehearsal weekend - and enough puff to go for a Thai meal and then to the cinema with Jo to see the new Bond film.

After choir on the Sunday, Jo & I ended up going out on a huge bender! We started in Schall & Rauch, moved on to the Glöcklewirt (where we caught up with Sandi and her esoteric brother), then landed in Kilian's, where we got chatting to some Irish guys and then some Indians. I made it home at 2am. Not bad for a Sunday night!

The next week, I had lunch with Heidrun at Sesto Senso, with Michaela & Jo at Melchers, and with Jo & Dan at Pho Ha Noi. That was on the day of the power cut - yes, we had a huge power cut! And we couldn't do any work either, so we went and played table tennis for an hour!

On the Friday night it was Carmen from choir's birthday, so Jo & I had a cheeky bottle of wine at mine first, then rolled down the hill to her place, and got seriously stuck in to the white wine for the rest of the evening, staggering out again at 4am. OMG!

Saturday was no less alcoholic: after a very sober coffee with Thom from Hamburg at Vits, I went to the Beaujolais Nouveau dinner in a swanky hotel with Béné, Bezi & a few others - then, several bottles of red later, went on to Richard M's Made In Japan party - dressed as a Japanese schoolgirl!

Which all meant I was feeling a little under the weather, shall we say, for Charlie's birthday on the Sunday. But the meal at Roma near their house was tasty, and the afternoon back at M's was lovely and relaxed, with nice chats with Russ & Lisa and the boys.

The next week I met up with Thom again for dinner on the Monday (he was flying home the next day), with Gabe from Buenos Aires on the Tuesday, with Jo for a delicious home-made lamb curry on the Wednesday, with Béné, Corinne, Astrid, Pièrre-Jean, Marie-Laure & Ramón for Mexican food followed by an excellent French play on Thursday, and had Béné round for dinner at mine (turkey breast fillets in a roquefort sauce with a hokkaido squash purée and semmelknödel).

The weekend was - yes, you guessed it - insanely alcoholic again. This time, I was out almost on the Austrian border, just near Passau, in a tiny town called Bad Füssing, for Veronika's 40th birthday. Her sister drove me out there - but it was me who drove us back the next day, as Steffi had had way too much to drink too!

I ended my weekend in a state of calm not just because of the boozy Saturday which left me mostly unable to do anything or even think cogently, but also because of a lovely evening at Christoph's which consisted of eating the gulasch I had cooked (ooh yeah, fantastic), each of us massaging the other for an hour and a half, and then eating the orange crème dessert that Christoph had made (also fabulous).

And then in the last week of November there was just time for lunch at Corso with Christiane, lunch at Pho Ha Noi with Ronald, lunch at the EPO with Michaela & Steen, Stammtisch at Kloster with everyone, a private viewing of the "Magnificent Manuscripts" collection followed by dinner at the Luitpold Café with the Munich Oxford Society, and drinks after choir at the new place that's just opened next door to Da Claudio.

And then I flew to Cologne!!

Helloooo! My October is about to be described in less-than-painstaking detail:

So, I mentioned the all-dayer in the Schottenhamel with Christoph, Lorna, and a bunch of good guys from all over (France, the UK, Germany, Switzerland, Croatia)... Good times! Then Lorna & I snuck in to the Löwenbräu tent to catch up with Michaela & Russell, and there we saw the staff swansong for the year, with loads of lighters and sparklers and all the tent lights dimmed. Really cute!

I should also mention, for the sake of completeness, that Johannes from Sydney was up from Salzburg with his cousin and his cousin's girlfriend. And that Mike Young was also over for a bevvy or several - and it was great to catch up with him on the Friday and introduce him to Lorna.

So, the second week of October was unexpectedly eventful: my bike died! It started with the chain snapping, and ended up me being told I was lucky to be alive, as the front wheel could have snapped off at any time! So now I own a shiny new bike that's bright white; I can't wait for it to get a bit mucky, so it's not quite so gleaming...

At the weekend, Jo & I joined Michaela at the Olympiapark to see Russ finish the half-marathon. While I was there I randomly bumped into Petar, Fadil & a friend from Venezuela. After Russ had come in (we totally failed to spot him on the final lap - oops!) and we had finished our cheeky prosecco aperols, we headed into town for a Persian meal, then had a cheeky coffee in my office.

Did I mention that we are now the proud owners of a snazzy chrome proper Italian shiny sexy espresso machine? Hell, yeah! It makes da good shit.

The following week I was at Babette & Sebastian's wedding celebrations on the Monday, out with the guys from work for beers (and freebie Jägermeisters - we got one for each goal Germany scored on the telly - and they scored four times!) on the Tuesday, at Corso for excellent steak tartare with Jo on the Wednesday, at Rubin for excellent ćevapčići with Sigi on Thursday, and in a crazy nightclub in Zurich for Mirèia's birthday with Lisa & Rob on the Friday!

That weekend I caught up with Marie and Matthias (along with Lisa, Rob, Mirèia & David) in an Irish pub, with Ingmar for delicious cheese fondue, and with Patrick for a tiki tour around his home town of Olten. And Mirèia & David cooked a slap-up Japanese dinner for us all on the Sunday night. Wow. What a weekend!

Back in Munich, I caught up with Béné & Bezi at Bezi's, with Felix, with Sigi for his birthday, and with Anton, Ronald & Birgit for Anton's birthday at a delightful French brasserie that I'd never noticed before. And then it was time for another jaunt abroad, this time back to Blighty for Gareth & Gail's wedding.

It was a FANTASTIC weekend! We had all sorts of weather, all sorts of drinks (but particularly elderflower pressé), and all SORTS of food! There was so much food, we could have fed half of Suffolk. But to begin with, it looked like there wasn't going to be any food at all, as Waitrose cocked up the delivery!! Luckily, Gareth managed to get it all sorted, so all of us staying up at Bruisyard Hall were well catered for for the weekend. And it was a riot too! Lots of chats, board games, and lovely lovely times.

Not to mention the wedding itself, which was fabulous!! I was running around like a mad thing taking photos of everyone and everything. I think I got a few good'uns...

I landed back in Munich on the Monday evening to discover that winter had arrived: there was snow everywhere! (We'd had a bit of sleet and some hail in Suffolk, but no proper proper snow.) I headed straight from the airport to Béné's place to have a spot of dinner with her, her brother & their parents.

On Tuesday night I went to a tiny wine bar in Neuhausen with Jo & Steffi to hear a four-piece balalaika band that played amazing gypsy and klezmer music. It was wild! The fiddler looked like death - and I mean, he REALLY looked like some sort of Vitus Dance corpse, he was so lost in the music - but his skills were off the scale. Respect. And the wine was dangerously tasty, too...

On Wednesday night, after choir, I headed to Steinheil with Anja, Bernd & Heidrun to see in Anja's birthday at midnight. We had a proper giggle! And that, my dears, was October.

Ahem. Oops. Another month has passed. Better get down to it:

September - a month of contrasts. It started on a high note and ended on a sick note. But first things first...

So I was in Riga! Great place! So beautiful, so varied, so tasty. All sorts of beers, insane fried lumps of rye bread, one of the best rums I've ever tasted (okay it wasn't Latvian but Venezuelan). Sun, wind, rain. German friends, English friends, Spanish friends.

I arrived at lunchtime on the Friday - which was just early enough for me to overlap with my good friends Peter & Bernd for a few hours before they flew back to Munich. We did the Art Nouveau quarter in glorious sunshine and finished on a few well-earned beers before driving out to the airport.

There I met Lorna off her plane from Düsseldorf just as I said goodbye to the boys. Lorna & I proceeded to have a delightful weekend - and I even had the warm, glowing feeling of being able to show her around a bit, rather than both of us milling about like, well, freshly arrived tourists!

We walked, we ate, we drank, we walked some more. It's a very walkable city - and our hotel was right in the centre, on the very edge of the the Old Town. On the Friday the highlight was probably the Hangover Bar (no, it's really called that). Or rather, the fact that we survived a) long enough into the night for it to seem like a good idea to go to a bar with a name like that, and b) the nasty nasty drink they served us there: some uber dodgy local spirit that tasted uber yuk!

On Saturday we spent most of the day wandering from café to café, starting in town with an innocent orange-juice stop in a Cuban bar that became a free tasting of Metusalén 23-year-old rum - "a thing of beauty", as our barman so rightly described it. The rest of the day we were in the Art Nouveau district again, whiling away the day in a delightful daze of cafés and beers. Even the rain couldn't dampen our spirits: it made the cobbled streets all the more bijou to photograph.

On Sunday we ventured out to Jurmala, a small seaside resort just a short train ride away. It was fresh but very sunny - yay! We opted to take a boat back to Riga. It was fresh and not at all sunny - shiver! Back in town, we treated ourselves to a slap-up meal in a posh restaurant, then had a few more drinks here and there, ending the night in a Kiwi (no, really!) bar and heading to our hotel at three.

Lorna had to fly home on Monday morning, but I had most of the day still in Riga. Which gave me time to catch up with my friend Juan from Andalucía, who was also in town (why was EVERYONE in Riga???) and with whom I had another few beers round and about before heading off to the airport.

It was a short week in Munich - just time for dinner at Béné's with Ivo & Rüdiger and lunch with Dan & Wendy and drinks with Remco & Ben - before I headed off once more, this time for a weekend in Berlin with Bernd. Bloody bloody Lufthansa decided to strike, so I had to catch a train there on the Friday evening and didn't get in until midnight - but Bernd met me and we still went out for drinks. It's that kind of city.

Saturday was a day of shopping, drinking & eating. Hooray! Not having got in until 8am, Sunday was necessarily a bit of a short one, but I had time for a big breakfast (at 4pm) before my flight back to Munich. There, I headed straight to the Nockherberg beergarden to catch up with Michaela, the boys, and Russ & his parents. After one there, we headed back to mine for manzanilla and whisky (in separate glasses!).

The next week was a week of choir rehearsals for our concert at the end of the month. I felt increasingly ill, but managed to drag myself out to visit Marie with Béné just before she moved away to Zurich with her job. On the Saturday night I was Diane's 50th birthday surprise, dressing up as Frank'n'Furter and doing a mini-striptease in the Brazilian restaurant where Michaela, Jackie & Diane were eating. We then went round the corner to watch the Rocky Horror Picture Show - which has been shown at the Lichtspiel cinema in an unbroken run of over 30 YEARS!

My health was pretty much bobbing along the bottom by now. Another bout of bronchitis - and this after having been ill essentially since July. But I had to pull myself together for the following weekend, because I had Dietmar & Dirk from Leipzig staying for the opening weekend of the Oktoberfest!! We had great fun at the Oktobfearfest Party on Friday night, a quiet one recovering on the Saturday, with dinner in town with Christian and drinks with Norbert, then more fun in the sun all day on Sunday at the Fest, first in the beergarden of the Bräurosl tent, then on various rides, then in the Bräurosl with LOTS of friends...

As soon as Dietmar & Dirk went home, my body collapsed. I was properly, PROPERLY ill that week. I didn't budge all weekend, even though Béné had loads of friends down from Amsterdam. It pained me greatly - but it did me a world of good, after what had been a hectic five months, to just lie still for a bit. And it meant that when Lorna came for the weekend the following Friday, I had the energy to spend the day with her at the Fest on the Sunday, at a table with Christoph in the Schottenhamel like last year.

But I'm getting ahead of myself: that was in October! More on that month in my next blog, peeps.

Folks, I'm ill. I've been coughing and spluttering since July, actually. Perhaps I've been having just too much fun? I mean, I haven't really sat down since May... Hopefully the latest course of antibiotics will get rid of this lingering bronchitis (so not man-flu then!) and let me return to my usual bouncy busy self. Oh and work.

While I've been hanging around dripping snot and lethargy at home, waiting for the bugs to bugger off, I've managed to get pretty up to date with paperwork etc. in between bouts of exhausted sleep. And now I think it's time to get up to date - or at least more up to date - with my blog too.

So here's August!

I'd barely got back from Lake Garda (two hours delayed, in fact, by the bitter experience of running all the way through Verona station, down steps, through tunnels, and up steps, only to press the door opener button my train at exactly the moment it begins to chug off and pull away - although on the plus side I got to rest stretched out on a marble bench on a deserted platform in the partial shade and the warm, mechanical, enticing smell of the railways) before my next adventure began: Em from Melbourne (and at the time of London) came to see me!

I met her at Hauptbahnhof after work on 1st August and we had a drink in the blazing hot sun before wandering off for a quick kebab, a quick coffee, and a yummy Vietnamese feast at Mama with Christian. And then I noticed a brand new gelato bar just round the corner of my house - which we of course sampled, in honour of Lygon Street in Melbourne.

Over the next few days I had to work, but Em looked after herself in the mornings and afternoons and we met for lunches and dinners: at Haguruma, at Vits, at home with Béné, and at the Nockherberg beergarden, where we picnicked it up in true Munich style.

Em had to leave on Saturday, but I barely had time to get sad because that evening I had a big Stammtisch picnic at Nockherberg with 22 great guys, in honour of a visit to Munich by our mutual friend Alexander from Mainz. We got quite a lot of jealous looks from passers-by, not just for the delicious home-made treats that bowed our tables but for the general mirth and hilarity with which we were consuming them!

The next evening I had the huge pleasure of a Thai dinner at Christoph's place. That man has been to Thailand more times than I've had hot dinners (and I don't mean spicy ones!), and his cooking is absolutely delicious.

Another week, another set of visitors: after many, MANY years of threatening to come, I was finally blessed with a visit from John & Carolyn, my dear dear friends from Leamington Spa. We ate, we drank, we laughed, we debated, we had an altogether most civilised and simultaneously hilarious time. I LOVE THEM!!

The Friday night meal at the Eclipse Israeli bar and grill in Schwabing with Felix & Sebastian was a real highlight. But so was the next day's excursion to Lake Tegernsee with Béné, replete with brewery feast and boat trip, followed by dinner at Béné's place.

I distracted myself from the sorrow of their departure on Sunday by having brunch at Christian's place with Patrick and then heading off to the Flaucher for a spot of sunbathing - which turned into a lovely afternoon and evening with mates I ran into there unexpectedly and who I later joined at the Flaucher beergarden until after the sun had set. A most relaxed weekend - and one that I didn't have to jump on a plane for!

Nothing against planes, though: the following weekend I flew down to Madrid (with the briefest of stopoffs in Geneva; just time for a beer and a sandwich at the lakeside) to spend the weekend with Rich from New York, who had been in Spain on business that week. I had the dubious pleasure of being restaurant chooser and guide for his project boss and colleagues - but I think I got away with it.

Well, the tapas in Madrid are just to die for anyway, and luckily their hotel was slap bang in the middle of a fab street full of food options. The next day I showed the guys around, walking pretty much everywhere, and eating & drinking pretty much everything. We took in the Prado museum too, which I hadn't been to in years and which I'd forgotten is chocabloc with amazing cultural treasures.

After an evening of beers in a range of bars with Rich (the others turned in early because they had planes to catch), the next day was slightly less hectic - but we still managed to walk all over Madrid - and find my all-time favourite Asturian restaurant with off-the-scale delicious squid, a place I've searched for in vain every time I've been to Madrid recently!

The good weather continued after I got back to Munich on the Monday lunchtime, and I hit the "beach" a few times during my lunch break - how I love working directly on the river, and being able to cycle ten minutes to get away from the worst of the crowds to have a stretch of waterfront pretty much to myself!

Selena & Neil and little Christopher were in town, so I caught up with them & Michaela & the boys a few times, including a visit to the Olympiapark on the Sunday, where I took Neil up to the top of the tower. I'd forgotten how good the view is from up there - and it's not even expensive!

It was also a week of birthdays: Felix had a do at his one evening, and on the Saturday Heidrun had her 50th in the church hall where we normally rehearse. Holger gave a fascinating tour of the church's two organs and I was reminded of my amazing visit to the organmaker outside Bremen with Olga a few years back.

The last week of August brought me the joy of meeting my mate (oops, colleague now!) Jo's dad. What a lovely lovely man! We hit it off immediately and the banter was pulsing all evening. I'd only meant to pop by for one, as well...

And then, on 31st August, I flew to Riga for the weekend. A corker! But that I'll leave for my next blog.

Another post, another month. Slowly but ... er, no, actually I'm not sure I'm catching up with myself at all really! Still, at least by just typing these words I'm not falling any further behind on telling you all what I've been up to.

But that's what you get when you're just so busy having a good time: there's never a moment to reflect on what's gone by. I think that's a good thing. Well, that and then occasionally writing a few words, just to serve to jog the memory when I'm old and bored and looking back at these photos...

So, to business: July.

It started with breakfast at my place. Harry & Dieter were in town and they swung by at ten for a few hours. The day stuck with the food theme when I had dinner at my nearest Greek restaurant with my mate Oliver.

The following weekend was a bit of a flashback in a way, seeing as it took me to France AGAIN! This time with Bénédicte, Michaela & Russ in the car, to visit Vincent, Hugh, Lee & Steph for a nicely relaxed long weekend in Vincent's family's house near Verdun. The light & sound war memorial show was quite something: looking back at my photos, they all look like a diorama. But in fact they were all live actors, just bizarrely lit so they looked like miniatures.

On the way home we popped in on Pascale & Pepe and their gorgeous twins Daniel & Mateo for a cheeky barbecue. I'd seen them just a few weeks before, at Isa & Andy's party, but we had a bit more time for a proper catch-up this time.

The weather was by now getting really rather lovely in Munich, so now and then I would head up the river at lunchtime from my office and sunbathe. Either alone or with friends: having bumped into my mate Franz once, I subsequently arranged to lie with him on the beach a few times.

There were lunches and dinners, notably with Margit & her boys and her brother Wolfi one evening with Michaela, Russ & the boys in an Italian place just up the road from me. It was really rather pleasant - with a really delicious grappa! Jamie was also in town for meetings so I caught up with him for lunch and dinner one day.

And then I flew to London with Michaela, the boys, and Martha, Hans & their youngest Tobias. The others were all staying for a whole week, but I was just with them for the long weekend. We stayed at Chris & Kate's, went for a walk in Guildford, then spent the next day in Portsmouth (where we saw the Olympic torch from up in the Spinnaker Tower).

On the Sunday night we decamped to London, and on the next day we did a big touristy tour of the city, with a visit to the National Gallery followed by a big tourist bus followed by the London Eye. Pity the weather was so shite really.

Back in Munich the weather was much better again, allowing me to have lunches and dinners again. Our colleague Donal flew over from Cork so Anton, Ronald & I had a fun evening with him. Then Simon came to visit me from Holland. We had a lovely time! I haven't seen him for quite some time, so there was a lot of catching up to do. We were all over Munich, and also had a day out at Tegernsee.

The last weekend of July I caught a train to Italy, so I could spend a long weekend with Michaela, Russ & the boys and Chris, Kate & the girls at Lake Garda. It was SO HOT!! Our hotel was right on the lake. We ate, we drank, we swam, we ate some more. Very much my kind of weekend.

And there you have it: July. It was another action-packed, fun-filled adventure!

June was somehow the Month of France. It felt like I spent my whole time there! The nine days of choir tour to the southwest was an intense time. Six concerts in six evenings. Plus we had loads of excursions, and even found time to go out of an evening a few times too. Not to mention the extra night that Bernd, Martin & I had at the start and end in Toulouse, having opted to fly instead of endure the 16-hour bus haul.

So yes, our itinerary in a nutshell: Toulouse (funky!), Carcassonne (UNESCO World Heritage), Narbonne (our base), Minerve (ravine!), Nîmes (Roman), Leucate (delicious buffet), Perpignan (Catalan), and back to Toulouse (French rugby final). With, as I say, lots of pastis & cocktails & food & more food interspersed. Tasty! Oh, and we sang really rather well - especially by the end of the week, when we really knew our stuff and were almost getting blasé about just rocking up at a new venue and getting on with it.

I'd hardly had a full week's work back in Munich when it was already time to head back to France, this time by train, for Andy & Isa's big party (their 10th anniversary, the kids' 9th, 6th & 3rd birthdays). I had given my services as a present, and so it was with great pleasure that I spent most of Saturday stacking plates in an industrial dishwasher (they had hired the village hall, which was happily blessed with such a device - and lots of crockery).

And there was plenty of time for me to relax with them too: first over dinner in Saarbrücken on Friday night, then after the party over wine with Isa on Saturday night, and then again on Sunday, where breakfast was a leisurely affair followed by a big tidy-up followed by a leisurely lunch followed by a horrendously delayed train journey home. And the weather was cracking!

Then I definitely FAILED to have a whole week's work back in Munich before heading to Amsterdam for a Dutch weekend. It was Kim & Linda's wedding!!!! Such beautiful brides, such tasty booze, such windy weather, such a great time with Nath & Marcel, Mélo & Jonathan, Véro & Erik, Béné, and of course Kim & Linda too! The reception in the amusingly named Slot Assumburg was a truly joyous occasion. Well, the bits I can remember were anyway. Naughty Marcel made me drink beer with a genever chaser. Things got a bit blurry after that...

We had a little time for sightseeing on Saturday in Amsterdam, and I had another quick wander round town on Sunday too, before heading back to Schiphol for my flight home. Having of course made time to eat some fritjes, a wafel, and a few drinks.

And the last week of June - again with delicious weather - at last the summer had arrived! - was spent eating, drinking, making jam, catching up with friends, and hanging out with Michaela & the boys. June came to a glorious end with a day at Feringasee with Bénédicte & Marie (and LOTS of "refreshments") followed by an evening concert hearing Martin sing in his other choir. June was pretty damn good.

May. When was that? A while ago, methinks. Now, what was I up to back then? Ah yes...

I seem to remember drinking quite a lot. The weather was nice, I think. Oh, and I was overseas for my birthday. It's all coming back to me now!

For Frühlingsfest, which is like a miniature rehearsal for the Oktoberfest - but perfectly formed and with far fewer tourists - I had the pleasure of a double whammy of visitors: Claire & Jamie flew in from London, and Geert & Jennifer flew in from Belgium. We were joined in our alcoholic exploits by Jo as well as by Claire's French mates Bénédicte, Petra & Gregory.

Friday lunchtime was a bottle of Schilcher Frizzante, Friday afternoon was a few at the Hofbräuhaus, and Friday evening was quite a lot at the Frühlingsfest: rotating Weißbiers followed by sneaking a table from the New York singer who was entertaining for the US-Bavarian Friendship event in the Hippodrom tent.

Saturday lunchtime was several at Nockherberg, Saturday afternoon was a mad taxi dash to the Frühlingsfest to get there in time for our table booking, Saturday evening was fahaaar too much beer in the Augustiner tent, and Saturday night was swaying to dodgy music in a dodgy club. My bed rushed up to hug me at about four.

Sunday morning was brekkie at Edelweiß round the corner, Sunday lunchtime was a tour round the Andechs monastery (organised by my good friend Thomas), Sunday afternoon was several beers and a few schnapses in the monastery's brewery followed by a cheeky few extra schnapses and beers at the station, Sunday evening was dinner in the Augustiner in town, and Sunday night was drinking games in my house. Another four a.m. ending - yeesh! I had work the next day!

A few lunches with friends later, and it was the weekend again. My poor liver. The choir rehearsal & concert weekend was punctuated on the positive side by Béné's birthday party and on the negative side by me almost losing my voice. Bizarre coldy thing that I had.

There was just time for Bine's birthday dinner at La Fattoria down the hill from me, and then it was time for me to jump on a plane and head across the Pond to New York. For twelve whole days!! What luxury. I saw Rich & Paul, did some shopping, I saw Cincinnati Dan, did some walking, I saw Simon & Hester, did some eating, I saw Doctor Dan, did some moving house, and I spent my last weekend out at Fire Island with Rich & Paul again. Fabulous fabulous fabulous time!!!!

And I just got back to Munich in time to see some terrific thunderstorms. Hooray. But the month was on balance a bloody fantastic one!

Ah, yes, well, ahem, I seem to have savoured for slightly too long the brevity of my last post... Anyhoo, here's another little splash of what I was up to some months ago:

Where were we? March, okay...

I popped over to London for the weekend to celebrate Hugh's birthday. It was great: we did a mini two-man pub crawl starting at - of all places - the British Library, and ending at 2am in some dodgy wine bar near St Paul's. The way you do. Sunday morning was revived with the fantastic fanTAStic coffee of Look Mum No Hands, on Old Street. I had a few drinks in Vauxhall in the afternoon (well it was wet out) and then had a marvellous evening of backgammon at Hugh's to round off a very relaxed few days.

Then it was Starkbierfest time. I imbibed a litre or two of the strong sweet black beer at the Augustinerkeller, bumping into a whole crowd of people I hadn't seen for a while, and finishing up with pizza at Oliver's place (who handily lives quite close by).

I had a lovely walk and sit and do nothing along the Isar the following weekend with Jo on the first hot hot hot day of the year (17th March), followed by a visit out to Ohlstadt to see Matthias, who took me to Christian's Italian delicatessen in Murnau before we all headed to a truly Bavarian hostelry for ooodles of pig and wheat beer. The next morning I did a spot of sunbathing in their garden. It felt like the end of winter at last... That evening I headed for more Starkbier with Jo at Nockherberg.

The last full weekend of March was a choir extra rehearsal weekend - so of course the weather was fabulous again, as it always is when we have to be cooped up indoors singing. But I made the most of the evenings: Friday night with Matthias, Bernhard & Josef; Saturday night with Alexander and his mates; and Sunday night cooking & eating paella at mine with Bénédicte.

And so on to April:

Rasmus, Lene, Johan, Marie and baby Elias drove down from Denmark to visit me!! They came down on Friday 30th and stayed until Wednesday 4th April, and in that time we did lots and lots! We went for walks around here, we went down to Neuschwanstein castle, we went to my Monday Stammtisch for dinner, and we had fab pizzas from Alpenhof, the great Italian round the corner. I was once again amazed by how proficient Johan is in English, and I managed to pick up quite a bit of Danish so I could talk with Marie too. (Although everyone was making fun of my accent boo hoo!)

For the long Easter weekend I flew to Spain with Bénédicte. We had a night in Madrid on the Wednesday (hoovering up culture then tapas in the rain) before flying down to Jerez, where we left our bags in a random hotel (there are no lockers at the station, damnit!) and wandered in the hot sun hoovering up more tapas. A train took us to Seville and we found our way to my colleague Colin's flat, where we were staying while Colin & his family were out of town. Then, after a bite to eat, we had an early night - ten o'clock!

It was early but it wasn't long: we got up again at one in the morning to head into the centre and experience the Madrugá. This is where seven or eight different massive processions wend their way through town following floats carrying Jesus or Mary and carried on the necks of eerily equally-tall stocky guys (well I guess they have to be the same height, otherwise the tall one would break his neck).

I've never seen anything like it, that's for sure. The milling crowds, the feeling of suspense as you wait for the next procession, the dreamlike quality of all this nighttime activity. Meeting up with my colleague James & his young son at five in the morning was bizarre too. In fact the whole thing was crazy. So many photos!!

The weather on Good Friday was poor - in fact, the Mary of la Macarena was literally just being carried back in to her temple when the heavens opened - and that day's processions were cancelled. It sounds banal, but in fact if you've been rehearsing pretty much all year, preparing for the moment of carrying your icon through the streets of your city, and then it all gets called off, I can imagine people aren't happy.

Not that we were in the weather much. After getting back from the Madrugá at about eight, we collapsed (back) into bed until one. Then we had a bit to eat here and there and bought wine & food to have at Colin's that evening. This time, when we went to bed at ten, we didn't get up again any time soon!

Saturday was quite like Madrugá, only by daylight. Same same but different. Still loads of people everywhere, just with better views of the floats. After a slow morning, we headed to the nearby supermarket and picked up some bits for lunch. Then Bénédicte went shopping and I met up with my friend David for a bit.

Later, Béné & I met up with James & his wife Sarah and their two kids Leo and Alma to watch some processions. We scored a table at a tapas bar on a square with a great view down a hill, and managed to stay there all evening eating & drinking, with the occasional jump up out of our seats for the processional highlights of Jesus or Mary being carried past. The evening wore on, we drank more sherry, and finally headed home.

On Sunday we made it up relatively early to go and see the Resurrección processions. Same same but dressed in white. The rest of the day was devoted to more traditional tourism. Fortified with chocolate con churros, we wandered down to the Guadalquivir river to do a boat trip, then headed to Plaza de España and walked through the lovely park there. I met up with James for more drinks & tapas, heading over the river for the first time to the Triana side (where he lives), which is much more Spanish and less touristed. Then I went home.

On Monday we went for tostadas round the corner, then met Colin at the station for a coffee, before jumping on the train to Jerez. We took a taxi straight to the airport, then flew back to Madrid, where we first had a drink at Plaza Mayor, then walked around all over, finishing with a stunning sunset just by the Palacio Real. We headed back to our hotel reasonably early, as we had an early plane the next day. Which we then proceeded to nearly miss. Oh dear. But we made it back in the end.

Okay, that was a whole lot on Spain. I'll try to be briefer for the rest of April:

It was Bezi's birthday the next weekend, and I met a whole bunch of her new work friends at her party in her place in Schwabing on Friday. On Saturday I went clubbing - no, proper clubbing in a real dance party! - with Tom, to the Inxomnia party, and then to the after-party in a sleazy bar behind the station.

The next week I visited Fritz in hospital after his fall; I visited Christian with Andreas and Patrick; I went to a fabulous winetasting at Rot Weiss Rot, an Austrian wine shop, with Jo, Karin & Bine; I went to see Hubert von Goisern live at Zirkus Krone with Michaela, Diane & Vera before we all went for a drink in the Augustinerkerller and met a mad young American lass called Elle, before I went on for drinks with Don, Joshua, Stefan, American Richard and Manfred; I saw my colleague Wendy playing in her big band in Grafrath out on the edge of Munich; and I went to the sauna to recover from all this nasty wet weather.

The last weekend of April was also action-packed: I hit the Nockherberg with my boss Anton on Friday night, then headed into town for drinks with Martin, Tom, Felix, Henning & Jörg; on Saturday after another choir rehearsal I went to Sabine's birthday party with Christian, Patrick, Edith & Chris; and on Sunday after the choir rehearsal I headed to the Chinese Tower beergarden with Bernd for a few.

And that, ladies & gentlemen, dogs, cats & babies, was March & April. Phew!

...but it's a good thing that I'm so far behind myself in my blog, right? I mean, it shows I'm out & about, doing fun things, and not sitting around at home (like I am - shock horror! - this evening...) twiddling my thumbs, or indeed any other parts of my anatomy.

Okay, now where were we? Ah yes, January:

So I got back from Denmark and had one last meal with Ju (picking up my luggage from her house in the process) before flying home to Munich. You might have thought - cos I know I did - that January might be a bit quiet, after all the fun & games in December. But no! Because Dan and her new bloke Dan were over visiting Michaela. And I went to my first ever concert in the Munich Opera with Christoph & Ekke (it was Mahler's 2nd symphony). And that was just in my first three days back!

Matthias was up from Zurich that weekend, so he, I, Bernhard & Jo hit the town in a big way - including an emergency McDonalds trip for Matthias just before bedtime. Saturday was spent singing (an extra choir rehearsal; the first of many for this year's busy concert programme) and in the evening I had a last dinner with Harry & Dieter before Harry moved to Stuttgart with his new job. On Sunday I headed to the Therme Erding with a bunch of guys from the Munich Bears, and in the evening Bénédicte came round for dinner: I did a rather delightful chicken in pistachio sauce!

Highlights of the next week were a Galette des Rois dinner with Corinne at Béné's, a lovely evening with Felix, a lovely lunch with Colin, a visit from Diana who I haven't seen in eight years since NZ, and surviving a sudden snowstorm to cycle into town for drinks at Jo's bar Quattro Tavoli followed by a lovely evening with Richard (no, not me!). The highlight of the highlights was a raclette dinner at Corinne's with Eric, Béné, Franck & Marie-Laure. OMG I haven't drunk that much in a LONG time!

The last week of Jan was marked in particular by a dinner with Christian & Christian from Salzburg, and then crowned by a weekend visiting Matthias in Zurich. We went for dinner to some friends of Andrew's called Pascale & Thomas, where we proceeded to drink two bottles of champagne, six bottles of red wine, and a bottle of Appenzeller schnaps. Oh, and we ate some pizza too! Before getting stuck into the whisky back at Matthias' place with his crazy Greek housemate Niki. Saturday, once my hangover wore off, becamse fabulous as I walked from friend to friend: Andrew to Mirèia & David to Moji to drinks with everyone to the Kitsch Party to more drinks back at Matthias' with Gil, David & Jenny. Sunday was necessarily a little quieter...

And so we hit February: I got new contact lenses!! I can TOTALLY see - without scratchiness at the end of the day yay! This new power of sight was put to excellent use in coffees with Fritz, piano playing with Felix, drinks with Béné & Bezi, and shopping for a trunkload of Austrian wines at V-Markt before coffees with Ingmar & Carlo and then dinner at Michaela's with Russell and the boys. And rounded off with lots of wine & tapas at my place with Béné and Marie.

Week two of February started with Ryan's birthday party at Michaela's, before moving on to drinks with Robert at KraftAkt, lunch with Michaela; Diane & Jackie at Haguruma, an invitation-only piano recital and drinks with Felix at Christoph Hauser's place. It was capped by a ski day - my first and last of the season, will you believe! - at Kitzbühel with Béné, Marie, Fabien & Arnaud. The next day I was still a bit achy, so after a lovely brunch at Moro with Felix, James, Gunnar and Tom and a walk along the Isar in the fantastic crisp winter sun, I treated myself to a couple of hours in the sauna.

The next week started with a lunch with work people at L'Angolo dei Sapori, with Julia, Manu, Wendy, Slava & Jo. It had a decidedly quiet middle (at least, according to my diary) before peaking massively at the weekend: I flew to Hamburg for Martin & Barbara's wedding!! I met Bernd there and on Friday night he took me to a bunch of his old haunts from when he lived there - but not before we'd had a delightful dinner at his friends' place where we were staying. Our hosts Bernd & Wolfgang were extremely generous and entertaining.

The weather on Saturday wasn't the best. But the ice floes on the Elbe looked all the better for the intermittent sun. The wedding was a real delight - both the service in the bijou church out west, and the reception in the Turkish place in the centre. In between the two Bernd showed me the area he used to live in, the Schanzenviertel, and after the reception we had a cheeky drink at Tom's bar before walking home along the Reeperbahn and out through Altona. There was plenty more walking around in store on Sunday, when we hit the HafenCity before I met Marco for a coffee and then had to fly home.

There was no let-up in the last week of February, since as soon as I got back to Munich I had to get stuck in to Fasching, as Carnival is known here. Too many drinks! The Rosenmontagsball on Monday night with Dio, James & Tom was lots of fun (and lots of fancy-dress), and the drinks on the streets on Faschingsdienstag were great too. As is traditional, the weather was sunny and dry for the day, and I met up with LOADS of people, heading to Andy's Krablergarten for a schnitzel dinner with quite a few of them, before continuing the merry-making until after midnight...

And then, to mark Lent with a real bang, I flew with Béné to Dunkerque (okay, to Paris, then by train to Lille where we were met by Kim & Linda from Amsterdam) for Carnaval in her mum's home town. Crazy crazy crazy crazy crazy. The whole town was like a rugby scrum, pretty much the whole time. Organised chaos set to sing-along music with everyone in drag or silly animal costumes, and more champagne (and random bits of pickled animal) than you can possibly imagine. A real experience!

February finished on a slightly quieter note back in Munich, with a dinner for Erik's birthday with Béné and Corinne in the Bavarian place opposite the Opera that I've been meaning to go to for years. Really nice!

I'm going to stop there. Two months in one blog - and not even too babbly a blog at that - is a milestone that's worth savouring.