I'm about 2 weeks behind in wriitng stuff up, so the date at the top of the page is the date things happened, not the date it appears on the webternet.

(in the style of Rammstein)

Möchtst du erdbeeren?
Möchtst du mein erdbeeren essen?
Möchtst du erdbeeren?
Möchtst du mein erdbeeren, freund?

Slight depair yesterday, trip lacking Forwards. I was stuck in Offenburg, an unhitchable little south-German town. Very nice, but eminently leavable (emotionally if not practically).
Then I met a couple of tanned, skinny buskers - Jörn, yellow tartan shorts and a goatee, on accordian, and Rodiger (the first syllable is mostly phelgm), battered, brightly painted army boots and dready multicoloured hair, on guitar. They've been wandering together for around five years, playing a kind of bouncy, melancholy polka punk.
Flipping a euro into their guitar case, I sat down and listened for a bit, grinning merrily, then asked if they knew a good place to camp around Offenburg.

'We are camping now in an occupied land near here.'
'Awesome, may I stay with you?'
'Ja, natürlich,' smiled Rodiger gleefully.
'Have you ever been to England?'
'Nein, we want to. We want to go across France to Ireland.'
'Where I live, in Bradford, it is a dead city, so there are tons of abandoned mills, warehouses, abandoned factories. Often lots of squats, and huge squat parties, massive speakers,' miming DJing.

Jörn and Rodiger got quite excited about this, so I wrote 'Bradford' on a piece of paper, as well as the names of the 1-in-12 Club and the Treehouse Cafe where they could meet crazies. They broke into a slow, swinging Greensleeves, Rodiger's voice guttural and Scottish-tinted.

Greensleeves was my heart of gold, my lady Greensleeves.

I've always liked the song, but I never heard the love in it before I heard it played by two German vagabonds.

The busker's eye view, crosslegged on the sunny pavement, was interesting. Most people reacted well - the musicians were good - but some looked with such contempt, not trying at all to hide their stares. I saw how much it meant when someone gave a coin; even the smallest change brought big smiles and renewed energy.

I set up my tent with the help of a tall, dreadlocked vegetarian called Max, who leant me a couple of tent pegs. The squat, 25m from the footpath in the long grass of a rough park, contained two large tents and about ten people. They sat around a fire, passing round whatever food they had. Like a colony of ants, every sandwich, apple and campfire-roasted egg was broken down and distributed to everyone
I pushed my strawberries and baguette, which I had bought when thebuskers popped into a budget supermarket to spend their afternoon's earnings of €15 on beer and tobacco, towards the center.

'Möchtst du erdbeeren?'
'Erdbeeren!' exclaimed a dark Tijuana lady with Cleopatra eyes, the only thing I heard her say all night. The food was received gratefully, and a sunken guy in a beanie who I felt, though I don't know why, was a kind of leader figure impaled impaled some strawberries on a stick and propped them over the fire.

'Ist gut, warme erdbeeren?' I asked.
'Ja sehr gut. You would like a drink?'
Swirling its contents slowly, he passed me a large tin mug filled with something brown and steamy. The attention of the group focussed perceptibly in my direction.

'Ist kaffee?' I inquired.
'Ja, its kaffee.' Various giggles.
It tasted a bit odd.
'Ah, ist special kaffee.' General laughter and smiles as I sipped and passed the mug on.

Later, it turned out that hot strawberries are excellent. I helped to gather firewood, Beanie Guy made a longbow and arrows and Rodiger took a hit on a massive bong and spent an hour being pleased at photos on my phone. I mostly sat, drank and listened, aware of imposing English on the group. Skindred and Ephel Duath went down extremely well.


When I woke at nine in the morning, I crawled from my tent to find them all curled up together, asleep in sleeping bags beneath the young sun. Amazing people with no plans or email addresses, lives on the edge, life by the day.

I considered the idea of staying a few days, making myself useful buying food and collecting firewood. A few things held me back. I had an offer of a house in Frankfurt, the owner going on holiday and leaving the keys by the back door, which is not the kind of trust and generosity that you should turn down. I didn't have forever for the trip, and I wanted to get at least to Lübeck in the North to see Shaun and his Schön Frau before heading down to Slovenia.
The ultimate reason for not staying was the significant possibility that I would never leave them. Staying with them is probably the only way to maintain any contact at all - they'd be gone from Offenburg within a week. As I packed up my tent, I thought about the quote, from Icantrememberwho; 'Luck happens when you leave room for it.'

I left silently at about 10am, leaving a note held up by Max's tent pegs. 'Auf viedersehen, viel glück'