Wall and Bubble

”We need to take the next exit,” I told Timo, raising my eyes from the satnav. ”Hmm… the exit seems to be on the other side of that wall...” We were driving along a German autobahn, towards Berlin. The road was under construction and we were driving in a temporary lane. We looked over the thick wall and saw other cars taking the exit. And the next one. After 15 kilometres the construction work ended and we were finally able to leave the autobahn. A small detour to the campsite.

Cool Berlin Con
Berlin Boardgame Con was held in a building called the ”Kühlhaus” - cool house. It looked cool: old brick walls, iron stairways and a 2 level high opening hall in the middle, with wide balconies on each side. Due to the heat bubble covering the whole of Europe, though, it was anything but cool inside.

Since we are now very professional participants of gaming conventions, we were well prepared. Among other booth furniture, we carried our portable fridge to the site. So during the hot fair days, we had cold drinks available. It also protected the Hunter & Cron chocolates, that we got from the organiser, from melting!

Berlin Con was the fourth convention in Germany for us, this year. I don’t know if it was because of the warm weather, summertime or just the lively atmosphere of Berlin, but people there were really happy and relaxed. We had the very first copies of Darwinning! there and the feedback was extremely positive. An overview of Darwinning! can be seen soon on Hunter & Cron’s site.

Heat and Flood

Butterfly reading Kindle with Timo.

The heat wave forced us to replan our schedules. We have been avoiding travelling and choosing camping sites with swimming pools. We don’t have air conditioning in the caravan, so during the daytime, it is really hot. It is difficult to work when your brain’s melting and the computer gets overheated.

Entrepreneur can
work in bikinis!

Fortunately, the nights have been cooler. In the evenings it’s nice to sit outside and play board games. I bought Azul – the game of the year - from Berlin and so far I have lost all but one game against Timo.

Finland has also got its share of the heat and Lapland has had the warmest summer ever. My garden is there on its own. Our neighbour sent me some pictures, and despite the drought, it’s blooming.

Lovely neighbours fixing our road at home.

One morning, I read on the news that it had been raining at home. A lot. 27.6 mm in one hour and over 46 mm over the day. Just for reference: ”heavy rain” is categorised as 7 mm/hour. I asked our neighbour if everything was ok at our place (I knew the tenant was on vacation). The reply was two pictures from our courtyard road. Part of the sandy road had been washed downhill. Just like I had feared. Even before I asked for help, our neighbour sent me another picture - of them fixing the road. Some people are just pure gold!

This summer will be remembered as the warmest and driest for decades.

PS. When we left Berlin, we noticed one of the caravan tires had a screw in it… I’ve lost count of these. We used the same procedure as with the previous ones: Google the closest garage, get the tire fixed, continue. It delayed us for about 30 minutes. Like the autobahn wall coming into Berlin.