Hello my lovely booklovers,

how are you? Welcome to the Weekend Coffee Share, a blog hop by the lovely Diana over at Part Time Monster. Every weekend we get together for virtual coffees and a little casual chat. How has this past week been for you?

If we were having coffee today, we’d meet at the Naturfreundehaus Solingen-Theegarten, the local meeting house of the Friends of Nature in my district (Solingen-Theegarten). I’ve been a member there for the past 20-odd years, and members do run a volunteer weekend service there, offering coffee and cake to hikers and everyone else who comes by.

Today, it’s my best friend’s turn to run the shop and he asked whether I’d like to keep him company. So I said yes. It gets me out of the house, he’s great company and let me tell you, he knows his way around a kitchen. His cakes are amazing! No word of a lie!

I’d hoped we could sit outside in my favourite spot under the trees out front, looking towards the forest and fields, but alas it’s raining today.

If we were having coffee today, we’d enjoy Nils’ apricot cake with copious amounts of coffee. I’d probably sit there working on my M.A. thesis. I decided to take my printed-out journal articles with me and some paper, to hand-write one of my case studies. I hoped that the lack of laptop and internet would get me to work without distractions. And it did. Sort of. I managed about 1.500 words total today, despite talking to Nils and his fiancée, his family (who came by on a surprise visit) and the Naturfreunde Music Group, who nobody knew had a practice there today. Especially the singing was distracting, but I still covered a lot of ground, so I just have to type everything up now that I’m home.

If we were having coffee today, I’d tell you that I met up with my godfather this week after not seeing him in 8 years. He’s from my hometown but now lives in Reno, Nevada. The last time we saw each other, we spent a few days in London together in 2008, after that I was either in Britain or on holiday every time he came to visit. And last time I met his son Phillip, Phillip was 13 and more than a head shorter than me. So now, eight years later, he’s about 2 heads taller than me and an adult. While our parents spoke to each other, we had a lovely talk. I’d like to think he was glad that there was someone at that table who was fluent in English to talk to him. We talked for four hours straight, found out we have a lot more in common now than we would have thought when we were 13 / 21, and he taught me a lot about coffee as he’s training to be a barista and hoping to open his own coffee shop one day. We’ll actually meet up again next week, as my godfather is getting all his friends together again for a meal before they head back to the States. I’m really looking forward to talking to Phil again. We’ve got the same taste in coffee, books and films/TV, so we actually have a lot to talk about. I just told him that if he ever visited my home, I’d offer him tea, rather than coffee. Mainly because I don’t think my coffee can compete with that of a barista trained in latte art. He just laughed.

Ah well. Anyway, if we were having coffee today, that’d be it from me for now. I’ve got to get back to my thesis transcript. I’m sure the other Weekend Coffee Sharers would love to see you as well.

Thank you for having coffee with me. Same time, next week?