Bavarian Buddha

 

Hello everyone and thank you for leaving so many comments in my absence. I have to go back and read them all - what a nice thing to return to!

In truth, though, I didn't go far. I was actually physically here, but mentally absent - tied to my desk, correcting final exams. In the midst of the horrors of correction, I was whisked away to southern Bavaria for the celebration of my father-in-law's 65th birthday. His wife, my mother-in-law, planned a lovely day out for us all. She's a tip-top planner and regularly flexes her organisational muscles when Mr Gingerbread and I come to visit because we are - to his parents' eternal disappointment - utter sloths. While they'd rather  be whizzing around the country, Looking At Stuff, or trekking across Azerbaijan, Looking At Stuff (I do not jest), Mr Gingerbread and I would rather be in the comfort of our own home, Not Looking At Stuff.

In any case, we visited a Nepalese temple in the depths of the Bavarian countryside. The owner bought the temple after the Expo in Germany a few years ago, and transported it back down to the middle of nowhere and set it in a beautiful park, complete with an array of reclining Buddhas, prayer scrolls and wind-chimes.

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The only problem was, we weren't the only one with this idea. There were hundreds of people there and the majority of them were over 65. German senior citizens travel by the bus-load, you see . Irish seniors tend to travel with their families - you often see older people out with their children and grandchildren. Here in Germany, they're a very mobile bunch of people and it's not unusual to see coaches pull up at sights of interest and fifty pensioners disembark, in a variety of shades of beige and brandishing the most high-tech photographic equipment on the market . This country's ageing population means that the Grey Euro is much-courted.

In any case, I enjoyed the rare pleasure of being the youngest person in sight and strolled along the pathways, trying to stay out of people's photos. I have tremendous admiration for people, like the owner, who put such obvious care and pride into their work. The park is beautiful, even if it's a bit bizarre to see a Nepalese temple in a field of German ferns and heather.