Okay, so where were we? Oh yes, I was whizzing back to Germany on a speedy French TGV train to visit Matthias in Karlsruhe. Well, that's pretty much what happened! Matthias met me off the train and we headed to a little restaurant in a little village near the French border where all they serve is chicken. Not even chips. Just chicken, and a slice of bread. Oh, and beer of course. And the chicken comes in various grades of spicy. It was really rather tasty.

We spent the night in the caravan Matthias shares with a group of his work colleagues. It's in France - so I was back over the border almost before I'd left! - but still onlny just up the road from Karlsruhe. I love the increasing irrelevance of land borders! I've also never actually stayed overnight in a caravan before. I was a little apprehensive of the titchiness of it all, but in fact it was pretty spacious - and there were two things that were marvellous: the fridge full of beer that night and the fabulous coffee machine the following morning!

Because it was a very early start the next day so Matthias could bring me back to Karlsruhe for my train to Stuttgart, where once again I was spending a few days on business. I was staying in a hotel in Gerlingen, a little suburb-type town out to the northwest of the city, and this time I didn't even bother going in to Stuttgart proper of an evening. Instead I took it easy in Gerlingen, eating at a nice open-air café near the hotel, and generally chilling.

I got back to Munich on the Thursday night - and the Friday was my birthday!!!! Loads and loads of people came, despite the hideous weather - although, ironically, even though the rest of Munich was suffering Biblical deluges and diabolical thunderstorms, it didn't actually rain at all in the beergarden round the corner from my house where I was having my party. Just a few drops, and then dry!

Dry is NOT how I'd describe my beverage choices for the night though: it all started with a cheeky couple of Ramazottis at my place with Julia from work (we'd left before five because I'd said to people I'd be in the beergarden from five). Perhaps I drank them a little too quickly. Or was it the cheeky schnaps that followed them?

Anyway, I'm convinced I didn't have more than three litres of beer at the beergarden - but it seemed to be enough. MAJOR chunks of the evening missing from my head! It all ended really late at mine, fittingly enough, with a few die-hard drinkers seeing me into the first day of my 39th year on this planet...

And the next day I had to party some more, because Franck was having his delayed birthday party in the form of a massive paella cook-up at his place - with plenty of delicious French wine and delicious delicious French cheeses!

The final week of May was lovely. The weather settled back into being warm and sunny, and I did plenty of eating and drinking with friends at lunch and dinner. On the Saturday I caught the train to Augsburg to visit Matthias, who cooked me birthday pizzas - yum! And that was pretty much that.