Make like a sloth

 

What could the weather possibly be today, I didn’t wonder when I woke up. The sun blazed down again from a blue, blue sky after yet another baking night.

I’m not complaining, just observing, you understand. The view from our balcony is rather nice, looking out over the town and to the low hills beyond.

Breakfast here immediately swung into the top spot, with a huge array of breads, fruit, bacon & eggs, salamis, smoked fish, cheese, roasted veg, cereal, etc etc.  It matters not that I only eat a bit of bread and fruit, I’m looking forward to the lunchtime roll tomorrow! 

No need for a guerilla breakfast today as we’re making full use of the spa hotel’s facilities and staying a second night. I must say that it felt really good to be able to drop off our dirty clothes at the laundry and contemplate nothing more taxing than galumphing like a pair of sea lions between the pool, jacuzzi and shady sun lounger.

We chose a spot overlooking a pond, and I truly chilled out listening to the occasional chirruping cricket, watching dragonflies zip about, and hearing the gentle rumble of the robot mower.

It trundles around all day, occasionally getting caught ping-ponging between a tree, shrub or chair before eventually angling out of its tight spot. No doubt its little robot brain is filled with dreams of wide open prairies where it can travel in an uninterrupted straight line, cutting a joyous swathe though long grass.

We also exerted ourselves as far as the massage table. Oh my days! Mostly a gloriously relaxing experience. I don’t really speak German and the masseuse didn’t speak English. I just said yes to everything that sounded like a question, and it turned out fine. Though I did have to breathe through the pain when she got to my shoulders, sore from the rucksack. “Ai, ai, ai”, she said, eloquently, on discovering the knots in my muscles. I, however, was rendered speechless.

As you can see, bathrobes were provided, though I’m not sure that ‘one size fits all’ quite works!

The only surprise of the day was discovering the use of the A5-sized hessian bag that we discovered in the room yesterday. We got a knock after breakfast from a woman asking if we wanted to have the room cleaned. “Nein, danke ”, says I. Whereupon, after some excellent multi-lingual sign language we were informed that we should hang the bag outside our door.

It seemed like an odd way of signalling that that particular service wasn’t required, until I got back to the room after the massage and found that the bag had been filled with chocolate wafer biscuits. Presumably a reward. No one gives me chocolate biscuits at home when they don’t clean. More’s the pity.

Another tasty dinner sealed an excellent day. Just one slight hitch: on our way back to the room we enquired about our clothes. Much shoulder shrugging, and the woman disappeared briefly, returning with a laundry basket. She started folding our undies at reception (not a sentence I expected to write) and as we started protesting that we could complete the task in the privacy of our room, she exclaimed that none of it was dry, and it would be ready early tomorrow. Here’s hoping.

Em x