The ‘Kendal Mint Cake Express’ arrives in Rinteln.

Tuesday 24th September 2024. Punctuation Day.

Hameln to Rinteln – 37km.

As the Tuesday is Punctuation Day. I thought I needed to do two things….firstly apologise for my poor punctuation in the blog. Janice normally corrects my errors and I have no Janice on the trip. I know I use far too many !!!’s and too many ‘…..’ when it has no place in English Grammar. Secondly, I complement myself for being punctual by arriving to this point on the date I provisionally arranged with my twinners. I know punctuation and punctual are not quite the same thing but let’s not split hairs. Talking of splitting hairs I got my hair cut in the morning….

On Tuesday lunchtime I met with Ursula and Hartmut at Hameln for lunch and a guided tour of the historic and pretty city. Ursula is my host from Rinteln Twinning Committee and Hartmut is from a local cycle association.

Ursula and her husband Gunter have kindly offered to look after me for two nights. The only thing I have to offer in return is….

We cycled half way to Rinteln to go to a cafe for lunch. Hartmut recommended the curry wurst so I joined him. We were joined by other members of the twinning and cycle groups, Heike, Bernard and Helga for the remainder of the ride into Rinteln. I was starting to feel like royalty. As we approached Rinteln Ursula casually told me that local newspaper journalists were waiting for my arrival. I thought, ‘it’s a good job that I had a hair cut but I should have worn a nicer shirt’!

On first impression Rinteln was an equally pretty and historic town to Hameln, without the rats.

I was greeted by the two newspaper people. They were both lovely, interested and engaging people.

The article for one of the newspapers is already online….here is the link….

Von Bratislava nach Kendal mit dem Fahrrad: Richard Vernon legt einen Zwischenstopp in Rinteln ein

You can translate it by highlighting sections and choosing the translate options. I feel like a celebrity.

I returned with Ursula to her home on….

Ursula and Gunter are great hosts. Ursula is a retired teacher and now considers her job to be running the Rinteln Twinning Association. Gunter is a local solicitor.

I am getting all the local history and connections with Kendal. I will summarise the history a little in tomorrow’s blog. I just need to reread my blog for correct grammar before I publish it….!!!!