Gaby Book 28  Balancing Trick by Maddy Bell Copyright© 2023 Madeline Bell

 
I was woken at what felt like the crack of silly by car doors and voices failing in their attempts at quiet. A glance at the clock suggested it wasn’t that early, well seven thirty but it was Sunday so early enough. It took a moment for the grey matter to gather all the clues, a pang of guilt slipping in as the answer was announced, one of the parental units was taking Mand up to the Tanzklub to get the bus to the Cheer competition.

Han said they didn’t need me there but I still felt guilty dumping them in favour of a day doing ‘stuff’ with my parents.

"You getting up Gabrielle?” Mum called from the landing, "Breakfast is nearly on the table.”
“’kay.”
"And put on something decent.”

Damn, she always slips in a caveat like that, you’d think I dressed like a slob all the time.

"Yes Mum,” I groaned back.

 
From the call to food to reaching the kitchen took me like twenty minutes, I couldn’t find my boot socks okay.

"There you are, can you sort out the tea, your Dad should be back in a minute and we can start.”

I surveyed the table, she’d gone to town, that was for sure. Fruit salad, muesli, joghurt, breakfast cheese and meat, the whole nine yards. Its not so much that Mum can’t do this stuff more that she doesn’t, as far back as I remember its always been that way, if we wanted something we had to get it ourselves. So yeah, the fact that she appeared to be doing scrambled eggs was, well, unusual.

"Er sure,” I agreed, "So what’s the occasion?”
"Does there need to be a reason?”
I shrugged, "Guess not.”
"When you’ve done that can you check the bacon, I daren’t leave these eggs.”

Hmmm, bacon, not something we have often, its not something you get in Germany very much. Maybe we should go greasy spoon at the Kabin mind you, I should actually be there a bit more before coming up with more culinary delights. Dad arrived as I was turning the bacon, a bag of fresh brötchen suggested he’d stopped off at Thesing’s on the way back.

Okay, it wasn’t a full English, some of us are finely honed sportswomen after all, but everyone tucked into their Frühstück with gusto. I think Mum got a bit carried away with the scrambled eggs, I had to have two sandwiches and even then I had to mop up with a slice of toast. I think its fair to say we were all well sated by the time we were done.

"What’s the plan then?” I enquired before draining the last of my tea.
"Over to Linz, do the train ride, get some lunch.” Mum stated.
"Cool.”
"You might want to put your walking boots on,” Dad suggested.
"For why?”
"There might be some hiking involved?” Mum hinted.

Great, my favourite pastime, not.

"Okay,” I sighed. On the plus side, whilst not exactly high fashion, they wouldn’t be too out of place with the needlecord pinafore I’d picked for the day although perhaps some thicker socks might be a good idea.

 
"We going over on foot?” I queried when Dad finished his parking manouevres in the car park at Kripp.
"No point in taking the car over just to pay to park it on the other side,” Pater advised.
"Guess not,” I allowed with a sigh.
"Oh come on Gaby,” Mum encouraged, "Its only a short walk on the other side to the Bahnhof.”
"I guess.”
"Well chop chop then, the ferry will be back over in a couple of minutes.”

I’ve told you about the ferry before, we sometimes use it on training rides, making a loop either north with the Bad Honnef ferry or south with the ferry at Bad Breisig. During the week there’s usually two boats running continuously but on Sundays its just one about every fifteen minutes. I guess it doesn’t make much sense to just take the car over to park it up but walking, really?

Clearly we weren’t the only ones heading out for some Westerwald exercise, it was only just coming up to nine thirty but there were probably forty other ‘hikers’ and maybe twenty assorted cyclists running from a dad with two toddlers in a trailer to a middle aged couple with bikes loaded with the kitchen sink. Can’t see the enjoyment in that myself but each to their own.
 

After a slightly murky start, it was turning into a bright day, warm enough to not need a coat certainly. Mind you, out on the river, the wind felt quite chilly, I was tempted to go into the tiny salon but the Rents seemed quite content to get all lovey dovey outside – and its only like five minutes to get across. The shore came up quicker than you’d think and we joined the surge of passengers heading back onto terra firma.

"We can walk along the river,” Mum suggested.
"Whatever.”
"You didn’t have to come kiddo,” Dad pointed out.
"I wanted to, I just wasn’t expecting a five mile hike.”

My parents exchanged one of those looks, ot oh, what have I let myself in for?

"I bet it’s not even five hundred metres to the station,” Mum pointed out, "We need to shake a leg though, the train only runs once an hour, if we miss the first one the next one’s not till eleven.”
"When did you become the expert?”
"When I picked up a flyer last week,” Mum shot back.

I checked my watch, twenty to ten, we needed to get a move on!
 

The walk along the river wasn’t bad, it’s a proper tarmac path and I guess it’s a bit nicer than walking along the main road which, even on a Sunday, is quite busy. Some of our fellow ferry passengers were headed the same direction, as there isn’t much along the river itself, they were almost certainly aiming for the same destination. Even at a good wiggle, by the time we’d waited to cross the main road and made our way to Gleis Drei it was five to ten – some of the others heading this way weren’t going to make it.

The Kasbachtalbahn might be an historic line but if you thought they all have steam trains well think again, this one has funny little diesel railcar things. There were two coupled together waiting on the platform, the engines chuckling to themselves as passengers and staff milled about chatting and taking photographs. Some people were already in the vehicles so we climbed aboard, not literally, you know what I mean.

"Its a bit, er, rustic,” I suggested as we slid into a vacant bench seat.
"That’s history for you Gab,” Dad told me.

Look, I don’t mind looking at old stuff occasionally but actually using it? Okay, maybe I am a bit of a Philistine, if other people want to get all sloppy over this sort of stuff they can, I’ll have the twenty first century stuff.

"Your Grandad used to go to work on something like this when they lived in Yeovil,” Dad supplied.
"Yeah right,” I scoffed, "A German train in Somerset!”
"German built,” Dad confirmed.

A whistle sounded and all those on the platform hurried on board, still scrabbling for seats when the doors closed and with a hearty growl, we set off. This thing really was more like a bus, the driver was just sat at the controls at the front, there was no separation from the passengers at all. We chugged along for a couple of minutes alongside the mainline before clattering across several sets of points and branching off away from the river.

"So how did Grandad know they were German?” despite myself, my interest was piqued.
"They had a plate inside with all the details on.”
"I bet that went down well just after the war,” Mum suggested.
"Don’t suppose most people noticed or even cared, there were plenty of Volkswagens about.”
"True,” Mum agreed, "There was all that ‘buy British’ malarky in the seventies but look at things now, everyone back home wants a Porsche or Mercedes.”
"Times change,” Dad confirmed.

I’d already turned my attention to what was outside, not a lot to begin with before it opened out as we approached the first stop at Kalbach. A couple more people were waiting to get on but no one got off before we growled on. The village was quickly replaced by woodland, first to one side then the other as we steadily climbed up the valley.

The next stop came quite quickly and this time there was a bit more movement. There was a board suggesting some hiking routes and a finger post directing you to a restaurant or something, I couldn’t really see it properly. The railcar was certainly quieter as we set off again, I reckon we’d lost half the passengers there.

"We’ll get off there on the way back,” Mum advised.
"Tell me there’s somewhere to eat.”
"After all that breakfast you had?”
"That was hours ago.”
"Barely two,” Dad put in.
"And?”
"Keep a look out, there’re supposed to be deer in the woods,” Mum suggested, deftly changing the subject.

There wasn’t, in my opinion, a lot to see as we chugged ever upwards, there were trees and more trees with a side of trees. Eventually there was a bit excitement in the form of a road a little above us through the trees, we only really broke free of the woodland just before we reached the terminus at Kalenborn. I’ve been here before, I think we even had a race through here once but I was unaware there was a railway, why would there be, its in the middle of nowhere.

Everyone got off, the ‘train spotters’ rushing to get their photographs of the same train in a different place.

"Come on Kiddo,” Dad instructed, "Might as well get into the spirit!”
"Eh?”
"Photograph? Jen, you too.”

Now don’t get me wrong, I’m hardly camera shy but I’d say ninety nine percent of pictures of Gabrielle Bond are either on a bike or in a bike context, we‘ve never been a family that records every event on film or whatever. Yes we’ve all got cameras but the images captured are mostly ‘things’, you know, views, castles, flowers, gravel rash, certainly not the family posing for some sort of portrait. Maybe we’re a bit weird.

"Really?” Mum queried.
"Why not?” Dad riposted.
"No reason I guess,” Mater allowed, "Come on Gab’s, best humour him.”

And so we did, a couple of awkward shots by Dad holding the camera at arms length and another taken by another passenger which actually got the three of us and the railcar in.

With nothing to keep us in Kalenborn for another hour, when the whistle sounded we rejoined the train, taking the same row of seats which had been flipped to face the other direction. The driver had moved to the other car and we found ourselves with just a couple of the rail anoraks for company as we set off back down the hill.
 

Just over fifteen minutes later we watched as our motorised transport disappeared down the hill before leaving the platform.

"Where to now?”
"Lunch?” Mum proposed.
"At last, how far is it?”
"Ten minutes according to the sign.”
"Well what’re we waiting for, come on,” I set off with a purposeful stride.
"Where are you going daughter?” Mum called after me.
"To the restaurant?”
"You can go that way but me and your Dad are going this way.”
"What for?”
"Because the sign says to,” Dad chipped in.
Okay, so I wasn’t paying attention, I mean you’d think the wide, well trodden path would be the one right, not the narrow one half hidden by a holly tree.

"Just testing, seeing if you were paying attention.”

Mum rolled her eyes, Dad just shook his head.

"Come on, I’m ready for a coffee,” Mum told us as I retraced to the platform.
 

It really was just a short walk to the refreshment stop, the Alte Brauerei Kasbachtal turned out to be quite a grand place, part hotel, part museum but mostly what you would call a Brauhaus for the Steffens Privat Brauerei next door. Dad was entranced, yesterday the Vulkan brewery, today Steffens, two more to tick off the list of fifteen hundred German breweries!

Being a nice day you might think we’d make a bee line for the bier garten but there was a bit of a breeze and the chairs looked less than comfy so we headed inside to where several tables were already occupied.

"This looks nice,” Mum mentioned as we settled around a, um, round table.
"Interesting décor,” Dad noted, which indeed it is, well if you like old stuff, I just find it a bit passé.
"They don’t do food until eleven,” I told the rents after checking the menu card.
"We’re not in a hurry, its only, what, ten minutes,” Mum advised.
"More time to decide what to have,” Dad added.
"I guess.”

Dunno about you but I prefer to get in, get ordered and then muse on things, if I have too long to check out the menu I end up changing my mind about a dozen times, especially if its a Chinese or Indian restaurant – so many options and variations.
 

What can I say? They might not start in the kitchen until eleven but they were happy enough to take our orders beforehand which at least meant I actually got the Wildroulade, venison roulade, that i’d spotted as the daily special when we came in. Mum and i stuck to coffee but Dad had a small beer despite the early hour, it is after all a brew house.

The food was good when it eventually arrived, by the time we’d had a second post meal coffee, well first for Dad, it was just turned twelve.

"Back to the train then?“ i suggested to Dad as Mum sorted the bill.
"Well i want a look at the Museumshofladen while we’re here and i think your mother has ideas of walking back to Linz.“
"Really?“
"Yes really,“ Mum confirmed rejoining us, "There’re some nice walks, it won’t hurt you to do something different for a change.“
"Yes Mum,“ i sighed.
"Go and keep your Dad company in the museum, i’ll wait out in the garden.“

Huh! Talk about the short straw.

The museum collection was in two parts, the inside bit was a collection of stuff, everything from a load of assorted old pepper mills to a collection of floor wax tins, everyday stuff that usually gets thrown out. I guess it was interesting in its own way but it was like the decoration in the main building, a bit eclectic for me. The outside stuff was a bit more interesting, half a dozen assorted tractors and cars once used as dreys or guest transport, okay, they did look kind of cool but i’ll stick to my models, the real things take up too much space.

"Done?“ Mum asked when we wandered back into the beer garden.
"Yep,“ Dad agreed, "I need the facilities before we go anywhere though.“
"To the left of the bar, what about you kiddo?“
"Guess i’d better.“
 

The walk back to the ferry wasn’t really that far, back to the railway then a gentle stroll through the woods to Kalbach, through the village and then more woodland to Ockenfels. Of course, Dad wanted a better look at Burg Ockenfels which meant a bit of an uphill hike. Its not like you can even go in but the gate onto the terrace was open so we snuck in anyway.

Okay, the view was pretty good, i’m sure they are missing a trick not having it open with a snack bar in the summer. You can see clear up to Bad Neuenahr across the river and straight up the river towards Bad Breisig. I would’ve happily sat here with a Sprite® for a while, my feet were starting to ache! That not being an option, we made good our escape and headed back down to Ockenfels and through the fields back to Linz.
 
It was still quite early, well coming up to two thirty, so rather than go directly to the ferry, i was dragged, screaming and complaining into the centre of Linz. Just kidding, there was method in my madness, it didn’t take too much, well a promise i’d pay, to land at the Eis Cafe Valentino on the market square. There was no reprieve from my promise, it cost me over fifteen euros for three assorted sundaes but it was worth it.

If Mum had intended the day to take Dad’s mind off our upcoming trip to England, I think it partly worked. Dad’s not been his usual self since I took that call up at Bremen, at least today we’ve seen a smile there again.

We got home just before four, Manda wasn’t due back for ages, the rents cuddled up on the sofa which left me at a bit of a loose end. I probably should pack my case for Wednesday but instead, after a quick change of togs, I headed to the bike cave and pulled out my ‘artistic’ machine. I reckon I can crack the standing on the saddle bit with a few go’s around the yard.
 
Maddy Bell © 15.06.2023