Day 6: still in the Black Forrest
I woke up and realised it’s my wedding anniversary. I’ve been married for 30 years!
Last night it rained waking me up but of course the brand new tent was fine. Today is cool so far but with a blue sky. I noticed people walking about with little paper bags and strolled down to the main road to investigate. I saw a queue of people in what looked from the outside like a post office but on closer inspection it was a bakery so now I have some pastries for lunch in absence of any other open shop. There is another solitary man a few tents away from me here travelling by motorbike from Germany to the French alps he says. I complemented him on his light and minimal approach to packing. He has a sensible small tent (unlike the monstrosity I am trying out this year) but on closer inspection I see he carries a large rucksack on his back as he rides and I have to say he is rather overweight, so probably we equal out in terms of weight being carried (only Bertha is larger and more powerful than his Japanese dirt bike).
This campsite is aimed at and is full of young families and it reminds me of the few times we camped when my children were small. In the toilets a father was guiding his toddler to not wee on the floor while the little boy sang a song throughout. How strange that life is all a game to the small. Adults aren’t often to be found singing while doing life’s chores, mostly it’s builders next door who do the singing (the first couple of lines of a pop song) but the rest of us learn to be serious and focused.
I finished Where Angels fear to Tread with breakfast. It is nicely written but rather dated of course.
This morning I plan to take a short walk up the hill before it gets too hot….
It was very cool up there with a convenient little hut, ready-to-hand as Heidegger might say, with its pitched roof just when I needed it after walking up a few miles of steep path (also tackled by moutain cyclists who all greeted me though out of breath).
This afternoon I’ve spent reading Reissman’s book on narrative analysis (one of my students is using it), with a degree of scepticism I have to say. Published in 1990, Derrida, Freud, Foucault, Levi Strauss and a host of post structuralist thinkers don’t appear in the index. For me this is a rather parochial investigation, rooted in US feminist sociology without even the continental feminists like Kristeva influencing the ideas.