"You should’ve seen his face,” Anna concluded her tale. The problem of course is that the rest of us don’t know the people involved so whilst we all made polite noises it didn’t amount to the reaction it might’ve merited.

Is this how its going to be? Oh I'm sure we’ll remain friends but we’ll share less of our lives and experiences as a group. Its a bit sad to think that we won’t ever return to those days when we met at the bakery in the morning and interacted as a group sometimes into the evening, five days a week and sometimes the weekend too.

Already we are doing different stuff, instead of being one whole we’re more like one of those circle things we did in maths – Venn diagram, that's it, the interconnecting spheres. We used to all be in one ring with little individual satellites, now its a much more complicated universe, some of us share more than others whether that's the Tanzklub with Pia or the kiosk with Connie. I suppose its inevitable, I'm possibly less affected by it as I've already had a similar experience when I moved here from England – that seems like a lifetime ago.

But less maudlin, we ate, drank (I only had two glasses of wine before changing to lemonade) and talked – where did the time go?

"We catching the Express?” Con queried.
"How else do we get home?” Nen asked in turn.
"We could get the bus,” Anna suggested.
"Really?” Steff and I chorused.
"Didn’t know there was one,” I continued.
"There’s only one journey, I sometimes get it if I'm late coming home,” Anna advised.
"What time?” Bridg enquired.
"Ten fifteen.”
"Well that’d be better than hanging around for the last Express,” P noted.

Oh we could just about get the next Express but we’d have to pretty much run and we haven’t sorted the bill yet. No, the extra twenty minutes or so the ‘Nachtbus’ will give us solves that and will save hanging around best part of an hour. Goodness knows what time we’ll actually get home.

To be honest I rarely use buses these days, trains yes but for me the few services in the Ahrtal are of very limited use. We finished up at da Franco then took a steady walk up into the town and along Marktplatz to the railway station, ironically the departure point for the bus. Well I guess it sort of makes sense, it is sort of running as a rail replacement after all.

And there it was, the 841 to Kreuzberg, not the newest of passenger carriers but that's hardly a deal breaker. The light is starting to go, it’ll be dark well before any of us get home, we gathered at the stop and were soon joined by several other travellers. A well fed chap rolled over from the pizza takeaway place across the road and proceeded to get on the bus before starting it up – our driver I guess.

"How much is it?” Steff asked our bus expert.
"You can use your rail card,” Anna informed us as she searched for her own example.
"Cool,” something you always carry if you don’t want to get stung on the train!

The driver reopened the door and we climbed aboard. What is it with kids and the back seat on buses and coaches? Its like a magnet so of course we made our way back there and claimed not just the rear bench but the row ahead too – there are seven of us after all.

"So how long does it take?” I asked – I'd best ring home and give them an ETA, they should be back from wherever by now.
"Its about an hour to Dernau station,” Anna advised.
"An hour?”
"Never said it was quick, you could wait for the train,” she observed, "It goes along through Kripp to Sinzig and right through Neuenahr.”

Well it does mean we’re all together for another hour.

To be honest though I was almost past sensible cohesive conversation, its been a long day, I've been out over twelve hours, well okay I was home for half an hour this afternoon but you know where I'm coming from. The conversation flowed around me, I nodded off before we reached Kripp, only waking as the bus turned around at the ferry landing. For a moment or two I couldn’t work out where I was, only working it out when the ‘Stadt Linz’ arrived at the landing stage .

I did my best to stay lucid for the rest of the journey, the route visiting each village and bahnhof on its way. Passengers got on and off, few travelling any real distance, from one village to the next or even just across the town once we hit the micro-conurbation of Bad Neuenahr.

"How are you getting up to Esch?” Con asked Anna as the bus transited Ahrweiler Altstadt.
“Mum’ll be waiting at Dernau.”
"I've not seen her for ages,” I allowed.
You remember Gloria? She was Bern’s midwife here in Germany.
"Well unless you’re not saying anything there’s no reason for you to cross paths is there?” Anna pointed out.
"What do you...” I started before the euro cent dropped, “like that’s gonna happen!”

The others of course laughed hysterically at my ad vocation of celibacy.

By the time greetings had been exchanged with Gloria and I'd made the walk back to Bond Towers it was gone eleven thirty. The rest of the household were posed in front of the goggle box watching some load of tosh, looking at the scenery, set down in Bavaria. If you are used to British or American TV, home grown German programmes really are dire and even my fave, Tatort is ridiculous most of the time.

"Good evening?” Mum queried.
"Not bad, how was the ride?” I enquired in turn – not that I was that bothered.
"Gerolstein,” Mand offered from her position curled in one of the armchairs, "I said it was him.”
"The teacher must be involved though,” Mum opined.
"I'm off to bed,” I advised the telly watchers, "Nite.”
"Nite kiddo,” Dad allowed.

"What happened on your ride yesterday?” Dad asked when I hit the kitchen for Fruhstück.
"Happened?”
"The end of your ride, your BPM dropped through the floor.”
"Eh?” I had to think a moment, "Oh I caught the Express back from Remagen, I was like running late.”
"So how far did you go?”
"Dunno, eighty?” I suggested.
"Okay,” my parental unit concurred, "So what’s on the agenda today?”
"Therese is taking us to the wholesalers this morning, as far as I know we’re at the Weinstube working this evening, why?”
"Can’t I be interested?”
"I guess, coffee?”
"Thanks,” he held his mug out to be filled.
"So when do we get the camper?”
"Hopefully before the weekend, they are supposed to call today to confirm.”
"Why the hold up?”
"Well it needed servicing and so on.”
"Oh right.”
"I meant to ask, are you still wanting a Mofa permit?”
"Er yeah.”
"I'll get you the forms when I go to the traffic office later then.”
"Nice.”

I suppose most people are aware of the idea at least of wholesalers, you’ve probably seen their trucks or vans outside the shops, I know I have. That said until today I've never really thought about how the system works.

"So we don’t need to come here ourselves every week or whatever?” I confirmed.
"No, of course not, once we’ve got you sorted out today with a card you can just ring the order through,” Therese advised.
"So why’ve we come today?”
"Well you need to know what you’re ordering, I usually come every few weeks just to keep my finger on the pulse so to speak.”
"Right,” I allowed still not 100% sure what we’re doing today.

Con seemed content to push the trolley thing along – I guess she’s been before, so I trailed along with Therese.

"We can combine some stuff with the bakery in future,” Frau T suggested, "We’ll get some basics today – one of those boxes of dishwasher blocks Gab.”

I heaved the indicated box onto the trolley and set off after the Boss lady.

You can get just about anything here, from frozen chips to sanitary products, marches to fresh veg. Its all a bit mind boggling really.

"We’ll do the baked goods in house of course,” Therese advised as we bypassed shelves of cake, biscuits and breakfast bread, "Some places order their Brötchen through here but we can do them cheaper.”
"Er okay.”

Stuff got added to the trolley, the aforesaid frozen chips, packs of würst and so on, paper towels, packets of sugar, ketchup, mayo – well you sort of get the idea.

"How much?” I looked at the receipt again, nope, its still a fortune, "That’s like two months shopping.”
"Yeah but we will be selling stuff to pay for it,” Con pointed out.
"We haven’t got any soft drinks,” I panicked.
"Dad goes to the warehouse on Saturday for that stuff.”
"Why not get it here?”
“for how much we get through,” Therese started, "We get a better deal at the Getränkemarkt, this isn’t always the cheapest place to get stuff.”
“’Kay,” I agreed.

Looks like there’s more to this stuff than just being able to cook and sell.

"Oh wow, Jo’s done the shutters!”
"Nice,” Therese allowed, “lets get this stuff inside, we can give the coffee machine a try eh?”

I hurried around to the door and for the first time used my keys to open up the kiosk. That sounds really cool, my keys, oh I know simple things and all that but, well it is cool. We unloaded the car directly into freezers, cupboards and shelves, almost two hours at the wholesalers sorted out in ten at the kiosk.

"So what’re we doing about furniture for the garden,” I asked as we waited for the coffee machine to prime itself.
"All in hand,” Therese told us, "One of Helmut Sebenschuh's contacts.”
“Lions,” I surmised.
"Damn,” Con sighed, "We were supposed to pick up the flyers today.”
"There’s time,” her mum allowed, "Anything else?”
"Don’t think so.”

I got first go on the coffee machine, how much easier is it to just press a button rather than all the mucking about with the Gaggia – even Mand could manage this. The machine whirred, gurgled and steamed before a stream of coffee issued into the cup – neat. Mrs T took the cup and gave it a try.

"Hmm, not bad, might need to adjust the temperature a bit.”

I already had the next cup on the go – well its easy enough to make adjustments with this.

"So,” Therese went on, "Sunday. Dress rehearsal, we don’t want any problems on Monday do we, not with this secret guest and the press here.”
"Dress rehearsal?”
"Ga-bee, you know, practice cooking the Pommes and stuff.”
"Oh right, what about a till, we forgot a till.”
"No we didn’t, Tomas is fetching it tomorrow,” Frau Thesing told us.
“Phew!”

Well the coffee is at least drinkable, maybe not quite up to my barista standards but at least as good as some restaurants I've been to. Hang on, did Therese say press?

Maddy Bell © 21.02.17