We’ve crossed a lot of borders in Bertha within the last year. Some crossings have been totally uneventful; you can hardly tell that you’re in a different country. Others have been a little more fun (for example Serbia to Macedonia!), whilst the crossings of other borders have elicited certain feelings, despite no visible boundaries. The move from the Czech Republic back into Germany falls into the latter category; we drove straight past the borders that 15 years ago I had waited at for 4 hours in sweltering temperatures, yet emotions were stirred. On the one hand we were back into familiar territory; it felt a bit like a homecoming, but on the other hand we were sad to be leaving the eastern European cultures.

We stopped just over the border for a quiet night at an aire with free facilities (a rarity in eastern Europe) and had a lie-in until 10am (again a rarity, but this time not location-specific!). And then on to Nürnberg… well, Fürth to be more precise, where we parked up and planned to walk into the centre to watch Germany vs Brazil on a big screen in the central square. It’s not only in England that the best laid plans of mice and men fall apart due to rain… the heavens opened and we didn’t really fancy venturing out. With no TV in Bertha and limited internet data allowance, we couldn’t watch the match, unless…

Yes, that is a neighbouring motorhome, whose owners kindly left the curtains and blinds open and if you squint, you can just about make out a bright rectangle which is their TV. From our vantage point it was impossible to see details of the match (the rain-smeared windows of Bertha and her neighbour making it a vaguely psychedelic experience), but we got the gist once we realised they weren’t just doing multiple replays of one goal. Fürth motorhome neighbours, we thank you.

The following day Kiri was not particularly well, so after I’d been to Lidl to stock our cupboards a little, we decided to cancel our dinner reservation for the evening (ooh, get us… a dinner reservation! More on that later). Instead, we had a short (and soggy) wander around the beautiful old town of Fürth, stopping to stock up on some more tapes for the video camera and treating ourselves to a DVD, which we watched in the evening. The rain conspired against us once again as we ventured into Fürth the following morning, with the main highlight being a council worker killing weeds between cobbles with a flamethrower… und why not?!

Our need for facilities caused us to move 12km down the road to another beautiful town; Cadolzburg where we planned to park up for a few days to do some web design work. By this stage I too had succumbed to the cold, but as we still had our appetites, we decided to venture out to dinner, having made another reservation. Now we haven’t eaten out much on the road (apart from street food) in order to keep costs down, but we’d been given some money by some close friends to spend on a meal on the trip. We wanted to spend the money wisely, so when we found a restaurant where your meal arrives at the table via a rollercoaster, we were sold. Kiri did very well at managing my excitement to make sure that it wouldn’t be an anticlimax when we got there, but even she was excited by the time we stepped through the doors.

Upon arrival, we were given a tablet (of the computer variety, not of the Matrix “red pill” or “blue pill” variety) and an A4 page of instructions and told to find table 5. Once seated, we ordered our drinks via a well-designed user interface on the tablet and within a few minutes, they had whizzed down the rollercoaster track to our table. Very cool. Having ordered our food in the same way, we spent the next 15 minutes open-mouthed as we watched food and drink speed along over our heads to other tables. When our food arrived, we dispensed it from the pots (the delivery mechanism) onto our plates and tucked in, still entertained by the delivery mechanism to other tables. The temptation to order more food and drinks (just so we could see them being delivered) was very strong, but we somehow resisted, taking our tablet to the till to pay before departing with huge smiles etched on our faces.

We shared the aire with another British motorhoming couple overnight and planned to invite them around for drinks the following evening, but sadly they were moving on. Instead, for the first time in nearly a year I settled down to do a bit of paid web design work… and it felt good. I hadn’t realised quite how much I’d missed a task-centric way of life until I started planning out the job in hand; it bodes well for our return to a slightly more conventional way of life when we get back to the UK. I’m learning a lot on this trip from living life in a way that doesn’t come naturally to me and I’ve embraced the chance to experience life at a different pace and in a different style. I’m not sure that I could cope with full-time motorhoming indefinitely though.

Perhaps it’s the crossing back into Germany, or perhaps it’s the addition of some work into our routine, but it feels like the winding up of our adventure has begun. It’s a similar feeling to the one that we had when we crossed into Portugal near the end of the first loop; the finish line was in sight. But whilst there are still teabags in the cupboard, tread on Bertha’s tyres and new beers to taste we’re still having an adventure. We’re not finished yet.