It almost feels weird being home. I’m lying in my own bed as I’m writing this. The first night at home in almost two weeks away with the camper van. It’s dark early and it’s cold in our home – it feels like late autumn in Germany, but it’s bloody August. I can hear the sound of my son’s soft breathing somewhere next to me. He refuses to sleep alone, and since the recent birth of our daughter, mom is sleeping in the other room with the young baby. We have the same division of space in our camper van, and the kids seem to have gotten used to it. It works for now. We’re gonna have to somehow figure out how to best sleep together in one room without a lot of restlessness in all the sleepers. I digress. I said it felt weird to be home, and it’s true. It’s probably because we’re only here for one reason, a d a short one at that. We arrived in Freising today, about one hour before Heike got her second shot of Pfizer, so she – too – is all vaccinated now. All it took was 2 seconds. Other than that, we have no business being here. But they were of course important seconds! (Get vaccinated people!)
I will only start to work again in October, and our camper van is still ready and packed. We all loved being on the road together. There is hardly any reason to stay here very long…
Initially, we planned to travel from the Netherlands, through Belgium, down the French coast, to enjoy all that la France has to offer. That itinerary got screwed by Heike’s jab, which came up rather spontaneously after the baby was born (they don’t vaccinate pregnant women in Germany). Well. So be it. It’s worth a detour. Or well. A complete change of plans… Currently, we no longer have a plan. We were just checking the weather forecasts, and driving to the Northwest of France will basically be the same dreadful weather experience as here in Freising, so we might opt for something warmer, and a shorter drive. I never gave it much thought, but it’s actually a relatively short trip to get from the Munich area – through Austria and Italy – to the French Mediterranean coast. Life in the Mediterranean tends to be more comfortable in terms of precipitation and temperatures. Oh, and food, I guess.
So we’ll use our quick stop here at home to drop off tons of baby gifts we got on our NL trip. We might as well do some laundry. Maybe some shopping. We’re expecting several package deliveries (including my birthday gift, which should be here tomorrow, and I might write about then). I will certainly also submit a revised manuscript that has been ready for a while but that I didn’t want to resubmit in holiday time. Anyway it’s not so bad to have a couple of days at home. We might depart again on Sunday, maybe.
Robin Heinen 