Apparently, I just can't shake off this fascination with culture at the minute! Back from London on Tuesday, I found myself in a theatre on Wednesday night (with Christian, Sabine & Rudi) to see Kafka's The Trial. And what a show it was!!!! Absolutely mind-blowingly good. The Trial is probably the book I have the most vivid recollections of from my studies at uni. I remember really enjoying the tutorials I had with a world-famous Kafka professor. So I wasn't sure how it would be to see it performed as a play. But in fact it was amazing!

The stage design was fabulous: whilst there was a proscenium area in front of the main curtain that was standard enough, as soon as the curtain was raised you saw a world turned upside-down. They'd actually fixed tables, chairs & a bed onto a rotating platform that was raised up at a dizzying angle, and the actors were having to perform feats of acrobatics to cling on to these furnishings as they turned round & round like a spinning top.

The second splendid bit of innovation was to have Josef K played by several people - simultaneously! There were six or seven Ks running around at any one time, all dressed identically and often talking in unison or in turn, but - and here's the best bit - often talking at crossed purposes! It was a most effective device for bringing out the internal contradictions in K's character as portrayed in the book.

And the third bit of fabness was that ALL the characters were made up to look the same, male or female, with slicked-down short black hair and a dodgy moustache. The male characters all wore dinner jackets, as did some of the female characters. The wardrobe effects - when women WERE in dresses - were sublimely good at conveying Kafka's intentions from the book as well. All in all, a truly excellent piece of theatre!

Last weekend I flew up to Hanover to visit Maggi & Jens and their new dog, Bubble the American bulldog. Lorna & Phil caught the train across from Düsseldorf, so we had a right old Powergen reunion. It was great! Maggi & Jens picked me up from the airport, and we went into town to meet the others at the main station for a quick cocktail in a lovely place called Sol y Mar.

From there, we went to a nearby Belgian restaurant and feasted on delicious Belgian beers & food (I had the mussels), of which the highlight was definitely the chips (fritjes) which were divine: thick, golden, and double-fried, giving them a crisp outer shell and a soft, fluffy inside. How a chip really should be.

Back at Maggi & Jens' beautiful new house, we were greeted at the door by a slobbertastically affectionate Bubble. He might look like a fierce hound, but he's really all heart. Not like your average Scots terrier. Bubble clearly has no self-worth issues going on. Anyway, after giving Bubble some love, we sat down for drinks, snacks & a board game that involves you knowing the other players' way of thinking. Phil seems to know me better than I do myself, that's all I can say! But then again, he's known me for over ten years now. That's quite a while!

On Saturday, after we eventually all emerged from slumber, we had breakfast (Maggi put on a huge spread). As it happened, Maggi & Jens were having some wood delivered that morning. It all reminded me of being a kid in Austria one autumn, when my grandmother's wood arrived for her wood-burning stove and we had to stack it all in the lumber room in the cellar. I couldn't resist: I suggested to Maggi & Jens that we quickly stack their wood too.

There was fully two cubic metres of the stuff, which doesn't sound like much but when it's chopped into bits that are maybe the size of a pencil case, that's a lot of stacking. But between the five of us, we got it done in an hour. It would have taken Maggi & Jens a lot longer on their own, plus it might have got rained on. I think we did a good thing. And it looked so homely, all stacked up neatly along the side of the house!

Our next step was to go into Hannover and walk around its historic old city. I remember being here once in 1991 when I was InterRailing with Stuart Davies from school and we visited a penfriend of his here. She took us through the old town too, but the only bit I could still recall in detail was the model in the New Town Hall showing Hannover before & after World War II. Like so many German cities, Hannover was bombed flat by the Allies towards the end of the war. The explosions and resulting fires left almost 90% of the city in rubble. It's a bit of a miracle that there's any old town left at all! The reconstruction must have taken years.

We stopped in an Irish pub at Phil's suggestion: there was an England rugby game on (against the Pacific Island combined team) and so we had a few pints of Kilkenny/Guinness/black & tan and munched on some crisps whilst watching the sporting endeavours of our kinsmen (they won handsomely). Then we popped home to freshen up for dinner, which was to be tapas in a Spanish part of town, but they were full, so we ended up in a delightful little hip-trendy-urban chic-organic cuisine place called 11a in an up-&-coming part of town. The food was FANTASTIC!

Our evening continued in town, where we met up with an American friend of Maggi's in a superchic (actually a trifle too chic for our liking) cocktail bar where all of Hannover's beautiful people congregate. It was WAY hot in there, so we moved on to another cocktail joint and had a drink, but frankly we were all a bit knackered (getting old!) so we headed home at around 1am. Back home, we had a nightcap and turned in.

Sunday saw a change in the weather from overcast but still to sunny but with a brisk wind. Perfect dog walking weather! So we headed up Hannover's biggest hill (weighing in at some 400m above sea level, it's more of a pimple really from a Municher's perspective) and watched Bubble pull Maggi along this way & that up steep slopes covered in woodland. There were loads of leaves for us all to enjoy kicking up, and it all felt very English actually. I guess it's on the same latitude, so it shouldn't come as too much of a surprise that the light is similar.

Lunch in town was at a nice Greek place, and then it was almost time to go home. We dropped Phil & Lorna off at the station to catch their train back to Düsseldorf, then Maggi, Jens & I wandered around Hannover's brand-new shopping centre right next door. This being a Sunday in Germany, the shops were shut, but nonetheless there were hordes of people window-shopping. And okay, a few of the cafés were open. We had another walk through the old town, enjoying the way they've lit some of the sights by night, and then they took me to the airport.

It was time to say goodbye. The end of a most enjoyable weekend was upon us.