Ah, and I almost forgot to mention that there was a birthday in August (earlier than the exhibition, actually), and we went to Bochum to celebrate with the "birthday child", just Daughter and I, since Son was working on engine parts for Mercedes cars at the time ...
So we two "girls" made a cake, never mentioned we were planning to drive down, made sure the "birthday child" would be at home on that very day (which he had to be since he was waiting for some furniture to arrive), and rang at his door as a total surprise! Worked marvellously well! He almost fell over when suddenly we were there.
So we had that cake, went round the furniture shops to look for even more necessary things...
...and in the evening walked round the little lake not too far from his "weekday-place-to-live" for dinner and a beer in the lovely beer garden on the banks of that lake.
Oh yes, and one of "girls" had made up her hair in some elaborate style around those days, though she did not stay like this for too long.
Cheers, "birthday child"!
