The Timmerlah Bus Stop in a Heatwave.

The Hopfenhanger bus stop in the Braunschweig direction .

This blog might pass as the least exciting and most boring of the year, but circumstances do not permit me to out gathering exciting blognews in a record heatwave.   Little Miss "High Pressure Zlatka" has come up from the Sahara, to create a weekend of record high temperatures.    Although it is not as hot here as in southern Germany, we expect temperatures today of around 31c, although Stuttgart and München will be sweltering in 37 - 39c.   I´m going to a birthday party today, where hopefully a cool breeze will waft under the garden umbrella, and a cold beer will go down well.

I was waiting at the above bus stop late last Thursday afternoon, for choir friends to pick me up and travel to a care home in Tuckermannstraße.   There we sang German folk songs to the elderly,  while they enjoyed their supper.   The performance of perhaps eight folk songs, went well, and included, "To Wander is the Miller´s Joy,"  a well know folk song in England,  and my favourite German song,  "Little Anne from Taurau."

Everyday, when it is raining or impossible to walk to Weststadt in a heatwave, I catch the bus from the above stop to Donaustraße, where I change and catch the tram into the city.   In the far distance you can see Weststadt, where I do the weekly shopping.   The second house from left, with the white wall is my flat in the roof of the house.     Two buses an hour run from here during the week,  and one an hour at weekends.    The bus runs on time, and is never very busy. 

 Same bus stop, but looking in the opposite direction.

This photo shows the corner of Timmerlahstraße with the turning into Hopfenanger on the right.  The house is a private home, but with an insurance office in one of the rooms.   Outside the house is the bus stop for buses to Lengrede and Geitelde,  two small hamlets further up the road, and out towards Sonnenberg and the Mittelland canal 

My friendly neighbours´ house in Hopfenanger.

 The friendly couple who live here and tend their garden,  always stop for a chat as I go by.   I recently taught them the words, "beer and ale," with the help of some diagrams of a bottle.   I tried to explain the difference, but we ended up agreeing that whatever is your tipple, it tastes good, whether beer or ale.

Along the fence hangs a series of signs, all of which have been useful for learning new vocabulary while standing staring into space at the bus stop.  The first left advertises a carpenter and cabinet maker´s business at the next left turn, the middle advertises a garden centre near Weststadt, and the third the otter centre in Eschede,  where the word  "mittendrin," meaning "in the middle of"  dawned on me last year!    A good "Eureke moment" can arise at  any bus stop in Germany.