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!