Goodness gracious me! - or, as they've been known to say in these parts, "Cross, pear tree, elderberry bush!" About time for an update. The only thing is, it all happened so long ago that it'll have to be a very brief update - that, or the sheer volume of alcohol has eased the relevant memories from my mind. Because it was a bit of a boozy time, was March...

So after I got back from California it was Shrove Tuesday, or mardi gras, or Fasching. I had to work all day (poor me) but that evening I went into into the mêlée of the streets of the Glockenbach quarter of Munich and enjoyed the general crush of happy people out drinking and laughing. I caught up with Bernhard & Steffi, saw Andreas & Frank, and had a few ales with Felix & an Israeli friend of his.

Felix had taken the whole Fasching thing very seriously, shaving off his beard and wearing a blonde wig and a voluptuous slinky dress. I honestly didn't recognise him when I saw him!

On Ash Wednesday Christian threw his usual Käsespätzle party at his place. This time, he'd cooked for 35 - yes, thirty-five - people. And, needless to say, there was also at least 35 people's worth of wine on offer... A crazy night.

I had another wonderful weekend in Leipzig, visiting Dietmar & Dirk. I was invited up for Dirk's good friend Holger's birthday on the Saturday. It was a lot of fun! So was the walk around Leipzig on Saturday and the tasting of various local alcohols in the Bayerischer Bahnhof beergarden on the Sunday, including Gose wheat beer and Allasch caraway schnaps. But all too soon I had to go home.

There was more booze the following weekend, first on Friday at Matthias & Christian's place out in Uffing (out in the sticks, and lovely for it, replete with cowshit odours and cheeky bar staff) and then on Saturday at Corinne's house. Her birthday party was, shall we say, not Alcolics Anonymous compatible. Neither was it anywhere for people who don't like to eat their bodyweight in crêpes. So I was fine!

I had a visit from Arne from Hannover the following weekend. I haven't seen him for a couple of years, so there was lots of catching up to do. On the Friday I took him to Nockherberg. On Saturday we met up with Michaela & my rellies from Austria who were up for the day for lunch at Spöckmayr. Sadly, I had to leave them then to go for a huge choir rehearsal for the following day's concert...

...which I then managed to miss, because in the night from Saturday to Sunday I fell absolutely hideously ill with such a combined flu and sore throat that I literally couldn't get out of bed! I haven't felt that ill in a very very long time - and I was majorly pissed off that I couldn't sing in the concert that evening, after all the months of rehearsals that we'd been putting in! But I just couldn't leave the house. Until April in fact. Yuk yuk yuk. What a sad end to Arne's visit.

And to the month of March, which on the whole had been really rather splendid.