Getting to know people

Today we met a professional cyclist who is the champion of the Trans Alp Challenge, earlier in the week we met the founding member of the Cambridge Waldorf Steiner school who is now a sculptor, and also an astrophysicist who is friends with Steven Hawkins. It all sounds quite far fetched, and to be honest, had you told me this is the way this whole thing would pan out in Germany I would've laughed at the far fetched ideas. But this is all true, and it seems at every turn and corner at the moment, there are more fascinating people with fascinating stories. Another fine example is our neighbour here in Munich, who told us a brilliant story of him having a Smart car. He used it to travel to his house in Spain, and to help, he removed the passenger seat in order to allow him to have a bed for a quick sleep. Through much mirth and joking, he continued to tell us that his girlfriend needed picking up from the airport. Needing a second seat for her, he took a normal wooden dining room chair and bolted it to the seat fixing and covered it in a blanket to hide the fact is was not a proper car seat. 

It prompts me to speculate who we may meet tomorrow. Could it be one of the Apollo 16 astronauts who now runs a coffee shop, a Red Arrows pilot who now runs a charitable cause to save pandas, or whomever we could conjur up....although the reality seems to be far more interesting than the things we can dream up. This has added to enrich our discussions and meeting with these people who have gone out and grabbed life by the throat and gone for it. I'm not sure if I can also do that, I can only speculate how life will 'land' for us when we arrive back in Ilminster. But if I can take only a smidgen of the 'getting hold of life' like the people we have met, then I would be happy. But who knows?