The banadges of are off my nose. So now I have German shoes, a German jacket and a German nose. It's not a bad job, you can tell it's been broken if you know where to look, but it won't cause little children to scream and run away or anything. No more so than before anyway. The HNO Arzt I saw this morning was a really good chap. He told me he worked in North Wales for a year. Still, he spoke German to me which was nice. He said I spoke good German, which is a first - probably because I've had a lot of practice at explaining how my nose got broken.

Weather beautiful again today. It was warm enough at lunch time to sit in front of the Schloss and watch leaves fall. A lot of people had the same idea.

There isn't a Starbucks in Karlsruhe, but there are about a dozen outlets of German coffee shop barons Tchibo. They sell the usual [thing]acino coffee, but also have a selection of household items such as saucepans, pillows, socks. This seemed kind of weird, until I realised it's basically a ploy to get around the restrictive opening hours here. Cafes can stay open as late as they like, but a housewares shop has to be closed early, until recently it was something ridiculous like 5pm but over the summer that was changed to 8pm. A lot of shops still close early, usually about 5 minutes before I arrive, but I'm glad I wasn't here when everything closed at 5.

Anyway, Tchibo are slowly taking over Germany. A week or so ago I heard on the radio they had bought the cosmetics company Nivea. How that fits into their plan for world domination I'm not quite sure, but if it means wider availability of soothing aftershave balm, count me in.