More up and down today in the Bavarian Alps, and quite a lot of going round in circles, it felt like, something to do with following the contours, our navigator told me. Anyway, a cool day but big rural landscapes, at times reminiscent of the Scottish uplands. Apparently we climbed 732m in the day and Statto tells me that makes it the 3rd highest climbing day of the trip. Bowls of goulash at an alpine cafe hut helped us along, which was a welcome improvement on our original plan of a picnic lunch which we carried with us, but we just never know whether food will be available en route on Sundays.
There were two prize winning village names today, one the village of Oy, and the other came up on Andy’s GPS navigation screen as Wank. Lucky it was a village name rather than an instruction, said Andy. Juvenile giggles all round.
Rettenberg is not much to tell about, but we are beside the Italian restaurant and it opens at 5pm, that is all we are focused on today.
Track of the day:
When the Sun Goes Down, Arctic Monkeys.
Over the last few days we have talked quite a bit about casework we have been involved in over the years following news stories of the Rotherham report that came out this week. I could write a lot here but just to say that reading again of the experience of young girls in Rotherham made me angry. As usual I agreed with the analysis by Suzanne Moore in The Guardian on Thursday though she is dismissive of social work for reasons that I entirely understand. All this is to say that I feel pretty much ready to get back to work, which is good as there is only a week to go. And I like the anger in the track of the day, on related experiences set in a district close to Rotherham at a similar period.