Traveling is the ruin of all happiness!

The title is taken from a quote by Fanny Burney who was actually talking about how dull other buildings are once you have seen what Italy has to offer. The part I've selected seems to sum up my regular commute, especially just lately when the German rail network hasn't been living up to it's fearsome reputation for punctuality.

Getting around

I've written before how easy we found it (outside of rush hour) with our bikes on the trains. But it's not just the trains that are set up for bikes / pushchairs / wheelchairs. The buses, as they are in many other countries, are very funky these days. First of all they have the double doors half-way down the bus which open wide enough to allow a passenger to get their bike, pram or wheelchair onto the vehicle. Secondly they have a hydraulic tilting action so that when the bus is at the stop it tilts towards the pavement so the step up to get on the bus isn't high.

Rollin' rollin' rollin'...

Carless for a week now, I have survived two days of commuting by bike, train and bus and in contrast to the last time I did this it is working out very well.

Monday morning dawned bright and clear, so I jumped enthusiastically onto my bike and peddled off to the station. Since the last time I was a member of the train commuting fraternity I am now equipped with a smart phone. With the Endomondo app so I am now able to race myself to work every day if i want. It turns out that the station is 3.55 miles from my house, and I cycled it on that first enthusiastic morning in 20 minutes and 50 seconds.

Like a bus - you wait ages for a blogpost and then several come at once.

I'm not actually deluding myself that anyone is waiting for me to post but I can't resist some kind of pun or whatever.

First to distract any readers there might be from what's to come - here's a pretty view of the Fernsehturm.

On the way back from looking at this we had to sit on these, again on the U5 - but I'll be kind and put it behind the break...

Just when you thought it was safe to go back onto the internet...

you come back to find that I've been travelling by train. Again. What can I say? I love them.

And even though this has now morphed into a blog about public transport seat covers - which in NO WAY makes me into some kind of nerdy geek, by the way - I hope it's still vaguely interesting. (yeah, only to public transport seat covers geeks. - ed)

Those NZ public-transport seat covers in full

Well, maybe not in full, but I have some new pictures with which to wow you all. Remember, this from the town that gave us the beautiful green fern cover that I posted before.

Number 1:

The blog goes international!

Thanks to Rory over at the Wellington Boots blog, I am now able to share with you the wonder that is a New Zealand bus seat-cover!

This one is lovely, far superior to anything I've seen over here, and I have to admit to not a little jealousy. Note the lovely shading and use of colour (not least because Green is My Favourite Colour and The Best Colour In The World Bar NONE)

It also displays a rather lovely touch of pride in the fern which is something most of us will recognise in the Silver version as worn by New Zealand sports teams and most of their army units.



Now go back and compare that with some of the designs on German busses. How much more relaxing to sit among the cool, green ferns than surrounded by what can only be described as the result of a deranged mind (thinking specifically of the kindergarten-stylee scribbles featuring parachutes).

The Car. It's here.

I just thought I'd mention that now I've got a car there definitely won't be any more blogging about my woeful experiences on German Public Transport.

However, since I've enjoyed the blogging exponentially more than I enjoyed the travelling (except for the fact that it offered a fantastic opportunity to Read More Books) I've decided to carry on.

But first, let's have a respectful silence for SuperPunto.

*the brass band plays Abide With Me in the background*

ALAS AND ALACK! (ha, there they are again!)

I don't have one single photo of the Super Punto. Not one.
Really, it is true: you don't always know what you've got 'till it's gone. There is a photo of the speeedo/milometer when it did 333,333kms and maybe one day I'll find that and post it.

But anyway.

That is the past.

We will move into the future. But before we do that, here's my favourite bike. Yes, indeed. Finally, here it is.



The Shiny New Bike

And now, the moment we've all been waiting for. Some of us more anxiously than others...





The Skoda Octavia Combi/Estate/Station Wagon

I don't know any details apart from the fact that it has a massive boot. Four doors. It runs on Diesel. And I'll be checking the oil a lot more often than I have in the past.

:)

Tempting fate - tempting, isn't it?

A car in the offing

So, this is probably tempting fate, but we're so far along the process I really don't see what harm it could do.

We live in a village, and if there is one thing village people (note lack of capitalisation there - we are not that 70s singing group) are good at it's networking. Obviously being newbies to the village (having only just embarked on our second decade here) we don't actually get spoken to by anyone, or indeed referred to as anything apart from 'The English Family'. But we do use the local car repair guy who has built up a very good business over the last ten years or so.

It started as a kind of small workshop, and he sometimes sold the odd second hand car or two. Now it's a pretty much fully-fledged business taking on things like windscreen repairs and a breakdown service. Anyway, to cut the long, boring story short, he has a car for us and, because he's really working at his business, will register it for me.

In the meantime he has loaned me a cute little Citroen thing - it's tiny but it works, which is more than I can say for the late, lamented Super Punto. This has meant that I haven't been cycling much (it's horribly rainy at the moment) and since my chef is back at work this week we haven't used the trains much either.

So - hopefully, the car will be registered this week which means the blog will be (with any luck) redundant from next week when I go back to work.

Before I hang up my Commuter Blog Hat forever, though, I'll try to post a picture of Super Punto, the tiny Citroen, the new car and - of course - the star of the blog: my Shiny New Bike.

Day 24 - Friday, 6th August 2010

We're all going on a summer holday...

Well, I don't know about you, but this was my last day at work for two whole weeks. During which it was hoped that we'd be able to get a car, which would have made this my last day of commuting by public transport.

Alas and alack, it's not to be as the chap who is selling us the car is away on his hols. Oh well, I can manage a week or two more on the train/bus combo as long as I have an end in sight.

As Friday dawned bright and clear, I decided not to be fooled by appearances and zipped on my fleece before leaving the house. I also abandoned the idea of the early train and went for the usual one at 07:18. And again, yaay, it didn't let me down and everything went swimmingly.

This afternoon I abandoned the idea of the bus and took the offered lift from my colleague who dropped me at Mönchengladbach station and I got the train home from there. It was bright sunshine and very warm, which meant the fleece went into the basket and I cycled home in the lovely weather.

Ready for two weeks jollies.

Now, we'll be using public transport during this time so I may come back and leave a blog entry or two detailing delays and groovy seat covers along the way.

Day 23 - Thusday, 5th August 2010

Train whistle blowing...

Well. Blog-wise today wasn't much cop at all. Sorry about that. I went for the early train (06:18 this morning) because I'm a bit soft in the head. But I also had a workshop this morning starting at 08:30 which meant that leaving at my normal time would have left me huffing and puffing to get there on time.

One thing I haven't mention is that the driver of the 87B which stops leaves Anrath station at 06:55 is very good looking indeedy.

Ohhh, errr!

This afternoon I went for the 16:17, which turned up two minutes late then went like the clappers to make up for it. I swear we took a left hand turn, at a traffic lights, at 70kmh on two wheels! So I used my new tactic of getting off at the earlier stop and then walking, not so briskly today for some reson, to the next stop. That bus, the 87B, was on time and i got the train to Mönchengladbach with no problems.

When I got to my bike I realised that I'd not chained it up this morning. By some miracle it was still there, as was my bicycle lock which was just sitting in the basket. That was a lucky escape.

I even got home without getting wet or anything.

Tomorrow is my last day at work before my annual summer holiday. I'll report periodically on how we get on without a car.

Day 21 - Tuesday, 3rd August 2010

RESULT!

I made it out of the office on time and the 16:17 bus was nearly on time. This time I was fired up and ready to go so when I got to the stop before the one I usually got off, I jumped off the bus in a sprightly manner and walked very briskly to the next stop.

There was another woman walking briskly, but not as briskly as me so I got to the next stop first. When we got there I asked her if she usually went for the 87 from the 71 and she told me that one of the bus drivers had suggested it.

So all was going swimmingly but the 87 was a little late. So that left me on the platform at Anrath at 16:45 with the 16:38 train apparently gone. The next one due that I could take would be at 17:08, which is the one I'd get if I'd missed my bus and had to wait for the next.

Grr.

When, suddenly, a train appeared. Yaayy, the 16:38 was late. But then, that meant I'd miss the 16:49 from Mönchengladbach.* Luckily at that time of day there is a train approximately every 10 minutes - so I caught the 17:11 from Mönchengladbach, got into Erkelenz just after 17:30 and was home before 18:00.

WOO HOO!

It's probably surplus to requirements to mention that my early train catching deal worked out very well again this morning. And there was a large coffee on the way to the station.

*having consulted the interweb this evening I discover that the 16:38 gets to Mönchengladbach at 16:50 and the train I caught was the one I was supposed to catch anyway.

The woman on the Willich omnibus

I want to be a bus seat cover designer. Really. When you see these you will wonder what the qualification for that particular job is. I can only assume that, actually, the designers of bus seat covers are really employed by the automobile industry in a bid to drive people off public-transport and into car-ownership. (see what I did there?)

I'll ease you in gently with something pretty calm. The front is slightly jazzy, and the back is plain grey. They are made of a different fabric than the train-seat covers, very coarse and itchy. This was the 87B from Anrath station to Anrath church one morning.



The next one defies description, but I'll give it a go. The theme is transport, possibly holidays since, although it looks like something from the fevered imagination of a Jackson Pollock admirer, it is possible to discern an aeroplane and something that could possibly be a beach-ball. Actually, even the bastard lovechild of Stephen Fry and Clive James could not do this seat-cover justice. Prepare to be astounded - and my apologies, probably the general awfulness of this seatcover put me off a little and it's slightly out of focus.



This one could possibly have been inspired by Picasso. Or maybe not.



The next one has too much blue. And possibly too much red. Definitely the overall effect is too much. And didn't really help my bad temper - this bus was ten minutes late and the seat covers contributed to the light raising of my blood pressure. If you look very carefully at the bottom left of the picture you can see a little lad's bike. He was so funny talking to his mum about how he was going to ride round the park that evening that even I managed to have my mind taken off the sheer awfulness of those horrible seat covers.



For the next one all I can say is this: someone got PAID to make this? Really, there is a reason that the bus company name is shown in this design - in mirror image but who on Earth could possibly imagine what it is?



And finally. My favourites. Not only does this mad bus have seats in the front half that can accommodate one person and one extra buttock (because, obviously, there are a lot of people here with three-buttocked bottoms) but the seat cover design is like little planets. Or Smarties. Or M&Ms. Or maybe it's just a load of balls.



(That's quite enough seat covers, now. - Ed.)

Those train seat covers in full!

So, here they are then. Those seat covers you've all been waiting for! And if you look carefully you'll see that the only one I've described in detail is described totally badly and incorrectly.

Let's look at that one then, and get it over with. It's a jazzy, modern design which seems to be on the newer trains. Usually I see them on the Aachen-Duisburg train in the morning.



The next one is one of the older versions, green is a much more relaxing colour to look at, and the headrest parts are a faux-leather (or horrible plastic) kind of thing.



Finally the seat covers on the spiffy double-decker trains are a relaxing but horribly bland and boring grey/green affair.



I suppose I should be glad that there are a) seats and that b) they are not all slashed up.

The bus seat covers are way more jazzy and therefore get their own blog post.

Day 20 - Monday, 2nd August 2010

I woke up this morning... got out of bed...

This week the Gruesome Twosome are at home with their dad who has a week off, so I decided to take advantage of our new hours at work (7am~4pm) in the hope of getting home an hour earlier.

Which meant that 05:00 ("what does the '0' stand for?" - yep "Oh my god it's early!") saw me falling out of bed and into the shower in the vain hope of waking myself up enough to cycle to the station. Actually, it wasn't as hard as I'd anticipated and at 05:45 I was on the Shiny New Bike, with my Shiny New Lights working away, zipped into my fleece and pedalling away.

The first thing that struck me is that it was very very quiet, but that as I cycled down the endless road to the next village I was overtaken by six cars - usually when I go an hour later it's a maximum of two. The next thing I noticed was that there were an awful lot of crows around, but almost no other birds. I think the herons have gone since I haven't seen them for a while, but there was a huge buzzard in that field today so that might have something to do with their absence.

The other thing I noticed, sitting on the steps to the door of the flat behind the Greek restaurant in town, was what looked like the owner, rather the worse for wear. He waved as I cycled past and I couldn't help but wonder how long he'd been there.

I had time to stop for a coffee from a kiosk opposite the station, and the rest of the journey went like clockwork. Just the same as every day but with fewer people - presumably because it was so early. The journey home, typically, was messed up by the 71 bus being very late, too late for me to even think about walking to the next stop in the hope of catching the 87. So I waited at the stop for the 38 and read a goodly chunk of my Jeeves and Wooster book.

And now to the exciting part of the blog.

I've been assiduously photographing the seat covers on bus and train, usually to the bemusement of my fellow passengers. If I can work out how to upload them, they will be in a blog post all of their own especially for the poster to my previous blog entry who called me an anorak. Indeed.

Day 15 - Monday, 26th July 2010

Water water all around

The forecast was for rain this morning, rain this lunchtime and rain this afternoon and evening. I didn't get a good night's sleep partly due to an extended Sunday afternoon nap, and partly due to worrying about cycling to the station in the rain.

My thinking is: cycling home in the rain isn't too bad because after twenty or so minutes it's over, you're home and warm and can get dry and have a nice cup of tea. Cycling to the station in the rain, sitting dripping in a train and two buses: not my idea of fun.

In the event this morning was cool and clouded over, but not cold. Indeed I left my cardigan behind as a last minute thing because I didn't want to arrive at the station all hot and sweaty. Yes, I'm fussy about how I arrive at the station.

It was a nice cycle ride, actually, until I got to the fields which have until so recently been full of the juciest reddest strawberries it's possible to imagine. It was lovely cycling past them with the smell of strawberries in the air, knowing that we usually had a big basket of them at home.

But, alas. Strawberry season ended a few weeks ago and the fields have been ploughed up. And, in order that we get a similar crop of jucy red strawberries next year, the fields have also been covered in poo. Or, if it's not poo, it is something that smelly terribly like poo. I have two children. I know what poo smells like.

Yum.

Really, you don't need that first thing in the morning so there's only one thing for it, mad peddaling and trying to breathe through your mouth. With all the insect-eating danger that entails. That's the part about living in the country that people don't tell you about. I think most townies are reconciled to the fact that here in the countryside it's noisy. Blimey it's noisy. What with the dogs, the cows, the tractors and the milk trucks. Not to mention the flipping rooster. But the big secret - not so secret now I've spilled the beans - is that the countryside stinks to high heaven for a lot of the year.

The train/bus/bus combo went well this morning. It went well this afternoon too, but the promised rain decided to show up and promptly made up for not having ruined my morning by coming down in buckets.

Not a good time to find out your waterproof jacket isn't as waterproof as you thought.

Day 14 - Friday, 23rd July 2010

Thank goodness - it's the end of the week already

Morning journey: fine. Evening Journey: left the office late, but worked like clockwork. Result.

This morning there were a couple of people conducting some kind of passenger survey which consisted of about 5 nearly useless questions (where did you get on, where will you get off, what's your final destination, how did you get to the station, how will you get from your end station to your final destination).

Unfortunately, despite wonderful travel connections today, the actual day (work) was really scabby, and my after work training didn't go well. Which just goes to show.

Something or other!

Day 12 - Wednesday, 21st July 2010

Bergfest!

That's German for we have reached the summit (of the week) and it's all downhill from here.

This morning - no issues with transport. This evening - no issues with transport. A bit of light drizzle on my way back, but I had a waterproof jacket, although, to be honest, I didn't really need it.

So today I thought I'd do a little bit of pondering the designs of the seat covers on public transport. I sure do know how to have a good time!

On my morning train, which is vaguely modern, the seats are covered with a royal blue plush affair. But not just royal blue. There are navy blue squares - about 1.5cm square, all over the royal blue about 1cm apart. Now, I'm not a fan of blue. In fact, out of all the colours it's probably my least favourite. Mostly because when I wear it my green eyes look blue.

But it's not an offensive design, although the scratchy plush material does get very warm on hot days. The bus companies, however, really go to town on their scratchy plush material. The first one this morning had a grey background, graphite sort of colour, with splashes and squiggly lines in red, green, blue (dratted royal blue again) and yellow. Jackson Pollock, though, it ain't. It is just the sort of horrible design that looks like someone was trying to reference Pollock, and then failed spectacularly. At least I'm only on that one for 5 minutes.

The second bus, though, if possible was worse. The same scratchy plush material. The same basic grey background. But, for some reason, the name of the bus company was the design - and it is MöBus. Like that. Written Vertically on the seats. Just say no, folks!

The return buses were similar to the not-quite-Jackson-Pollock design, but muted colours instead which made it less offensive. and the train home was one of the spiffy double deckers with a very pale grey-green sort of design. And it wasn't quite as scratchy. Which is good because I fell asleep and it was digging into my cheek the whole way home.

Day 10 - Monday, 19th July 2010

I thought it was too good to last...

This morning I had planned to go on the train earlier than my usual one, but Monday mornings are never (in my experience) a good day to try anything new.

Pity, though, because today would have been a good day to start. It all began so well, sunny, not too warm, left the house on time - and even remembered to put the bin out.

As I approached the station the 07:09 pulled out on its merry way to Düsseldorf. at 07:17 there came a crackly announcement. The 07:18 to Duisburg wouldn't be coming due to some kind of (unexplained) technical failure. Hrumph. Oh well, I could take the 07:33 to Düsseldorf, change at Neuss and head off to Osterath, from whence I could take the number 71 bus to my office.

Yippee, a new combination I haven't tried before. Only - after the drenching I and my baggage had on Friday I'd left my printed timetable at home to dry out. Curses! Not knowing what the margin of error is for that particular combination I decided to chance it and get off at Mönchengladbach and go via Neersen Schloß on the 36 and the 56.

That was a mistake. I managed to get a bus reasonably well (08:08 right outside the train station) but after that it was a bit of a disaster. When I go to Schloß Neersen I realised that my next bus would leave in half an hour. Well, it was a nice day, and there was a bakery nearby so I got a coffee and read some more of my book.

Not much though because very soon after I settled down four rather fat ducks waddled up and started tapping the glass of the bus shelter. An old fellow sitting by me said that they would do that for a while then wander off to the bakery where they would quack for a while until someone came out and gave them some crumbs.

But finally my bus arrived and I got to work at 09:15. Not a jourey I care to repeat.

Going home the 71 was late (that seems to be usual) so I missed the 87 and therefore my first train. But I got the 18:08 from Anrath directly to Erkelenz and managed to get a bit of food shopping done on the way home.

Despite the missing train, not a bad day, travel-wise.

Day 8 - Thursday, 15th July 2010

Nothing to see here, move along please

Despite the storms yesterday which have rendered several hundred kilometers of track useless, my train was just about on time today. I knew that because I looked at the Deutsche Bahn website and, because I absolutely don't trust it, I persisted with the hotline until I managed to speak to a nice young man about my train. Indeed, he reassured me, it's running a couple of minutes late, but it will make that up by the time you get to your stop.

In the event when we got to Viersen, which is the stop before mine, I lost my nerve and got off there. It meant I got to work about 25 minutes later than planned, but if I'd gone for my double-bus combo and missed it I would have been waiting at least an hour.

Coming home my journey was only made later by someone wanting me to do some work, how cheeky, so instead of doing my morning journey in reverse, I did the one where i have to wait 20 minutes at a middle bus stop. I had a little snigger as we passed Donk - as usual - then spent a nice 20 minutes sitting in a cool, shady bus stop reading my book.

How boring!