Well it would appear that it is my last day in Paderborn. It seems likely that my contract will not be renewed next Friday. It's been great working on this project and I have learned a lot. I t appears that I have also made a significant contribution which agains appears to have been well received. Most of the people I've worked with have been people I would forward to working with again. The others, unfortuanately, I have had little contact with and no chance to get to know them. My German colleagues have been great and made me very welcome and at home. My attempts to learn German have been praised despite my success being limited in the main due to their good English. I do hope I have the chance to work in Germany again and I hope I am as well received wherever I go next.

If my contract is not renewed then I shall take a break before Christams and try to get to work on my websites. I keep promising to do more work on them but seem to make little progress. This time, however, I have some assistance and hope that I will make more progress. Watch this space for news of my efforts.

Well a very restful weekend. The most energetic thing I did was to work around the route of the old walls of Paderborn. Something I should, perhaps, do every day but never seem to be able to make the time. The town centre is getting geared up for Christmas. All of the shops are putting on their winter and Christams displays. Despite not liking too early a display of Christmas decor I find this pleasaqnter than what I'm used to. Perhaps it's the fact that it is more subtle and less in your face. That added to the fact that I watch such little TV when I'm out here and therefore don't see so much Christmas advertising. I wandered around the shops and strayed into the Rathaus Passage. It's a very pleasant area and I suspect it's just as well the shops were closed. There were too many nice things to buys to give as gifts. Still on my next visit, if there is one, I can probably afford to buy a few things.

I bought my wife an umbrella on Saturday. I should know better by now. She asked me to buy her a strong umbrella. So I bought a fairly expensive foldaway that she could easily put in a bag. When I spoke to her that night she disclosed that she actually wanted one that was similar to the one I had brought back from Germany some years ago. One that had cost me all of 3 Euros and was almost the size of a golfing umbrella. So my 40 Euro purchase will not fit the bill. I think she needs it for when she takes my grandson to school to protect both of them from the rain. Perhaps I should simply buy a small one for him.

In work early this morning. I need to get one of my websites sorted out. I had it almost working yesterday evening but kept getting a script error which I couldn't seem to fix. I re-installed a later version of the scripts and found that didn't work at all. So it may be back to basics. I seem to have done everything absolutely correctly but no luck.

Still having fun with my iPAQ. I have a few patience games on it and have downloaded a couple of e-books. It's really convenient for that. I shall need to see if I can make more use of it for more practical things.

More fun with my iPAQ, not only does it have two kinds of Graffiti type text entry systems it has a real handwriting recognition system. It's fairly good but I think I'll have to learn to write more clearly before I let you guys see any of the output. Some characters are definitely more difficult to interpret. I've downloaded a couple of simple games and I'm going to try some e-books. That way I'll always have something to stop me getting bored. I'm easily amused. It's a great little toy in that it's so easy to carry, it's up and running as soon as you sitch it on. You can leave a game of checkers half way through and it's still waiting when you switch back on. It's light enough to use when you're stood waiting for someone and it's more convenient to use than some toys I've had in the past. If I get around to using some of the more business related features I think it could be a very handy tool as well. I'm wondering if it will reach the level of success, with relation to my purchasing, that Sky + has. Sky + is so far one of the best toys I've ever bought. Easy to use, allows me to record TV programmes and watch when I can. Allows me to timeslip progammes, watch on programme and record another, even watch a programme I've recorded and record another.

I arrived at Paderborn Lipstadt airport at 9.30 in the evening. Karl was waiting to drive me to the hotel Ibis in Paderborn. Despite waking at 3.30 a.m. I was still awake. We decied to have a beer before bed. Unfortunately, one beer turned into three. Then a couple of guys came into the bar. They had obviously been out on the town and were already quite drunk. We got talking and soon a few more beers had been consumed. Bad mistake. This morning I woke at 6.00 and felt really rough. I just wanted to stay in bed and sleep it off. No such luck. I have to work. I eventually got up at 7.15. A hot and cold shower went some way to sobering me up. Breakfast was minimalist to say the least. All I really wanted was accouple of soluble aspirin. I just hope my brain will start working before I get to work. I havetoo much to do to spend the day brain dead. It looks as if Karl is suffering too. No sign of him yet and it`s already 8.15

Today I bought an hp iPAQ. I thought it might be useful to use it to make notes towards adding to my blog. It requires a real hunt and peck method of inputting text. It also uses predictive text so that it`s possible to save a few keystrokes. It certainly seems a versatile machine. I`ve fancied one for ages. Now I have one. I used to have an early Palm Pilot with Graffiti. I did become reasonably proficient with that but it did occasionally decide not to recognise my pen strokes. To a degree the iPAQ seems more accurate and a little faster. I will need to watch when I`m hitting the spacebar as it`s too easy to miss and hit the control that enlarges the text and removes the keyboard.

Well I have eventually uploaded some pictures of Paderborn to my Typepad site at http://morgan.typepad.com/photos/germany/ . As yet I haven't managed to give them all titles or descriptions and most of them are still quite large files. Unfortunately, I don't have the software with me to reduce the filesize. I shall try to upload some more this evening and hopefully get some titles in.

Still working in Germany. I shall be returning to UK late Friday evening. I shall be able to meet my friend from India, Ashish, who is arriving at my house tomorrow. I hope he doesn't mind having to entertain himself for two evenings.

Wotk is still work. More spreadsheets created and modified and updated. The request was for a pushbutton solution so I've given them buttons enough or at least links. I just hope they're happy with my efforts.

Paderborn has the best KFC ever. I used to be keen on KFC but the version sold in the UK has deteriorated. However, the spicy KFC in Paderborn is crispy and tasty and well worth a visit. When you are living away from home and all of your meals are in restaurants and hotels you need to find a reasonable variety of good places.

Let me know what you think of my pictures.

Yesterday, Sunday, I walked all of the way around the centre of Paderborn along what must be the original walls of the town. I took my camera with me and took quite a few photos. I hope later today to upload these to my Typepad site and I will create a link from here.

I returned to Paderborn last Tuesday evening and on Wednesday morning tried to update my blog. However, the technology fooled me and my finally crafted prose disappeared into the ether. I shall try to recreate what I can recall from memory, although it will be but a poor imitation of the original.

As I was flying from Heathrow on Tuesday, and my colleague was unable to pick me up from home, I decided to travel, to the office, by train. This is something I haven't done for a long time so it was with some trepidation that I boarded the train. For those unaware of the vagaries of train travel in the South East of England, I had first to travel North East to Clapham Junction in order to catch a second train in a West-South-Westerly direction to Bracknell. As the train I should catch from Epsom was at 7.23, and I invariably arrive very early. I rose at 4.45 a.m. I packed my bags and had a very light breakfast, a cup of tea. My wife had arisen by the time I was ready to go and offerred to drive me to the station. It's not far but carrying a heavy laptop case as well as a rucksack made the offer of a lift double desirable. As a result I arrived at the station in time to catch the 7.00 a.m. train to Clapham Junction. This was probably just as well as I had no idea which platform to go to to catch the Bracknell train. In the good old days when British Rail owned everything from the tea rooms to the track there would have been a large board listing all departures and arrivals together with details of which platform was used. However, in these days of private enterprise and cheapest bids the only way to find out the correct platform was to consult the Oracle. The Oracle, in this case, turned out to be a young man collecting tickets at the exit to the station. Oracle duly consulted I headed for the indicated platform and confirmed the information with the guard on the platform. Both members of staff were extremely cheerful and helpful.

During my journey on these two trains my eyes were opened to the vagaries of travel on today's modern railway system. One day they will get rid of all the 1930's slam door carriages and replace them with the new rolling stock that was built but still is too fragile for our rail network. Apparently the German company building the rolling stock had to deliberately damage their test track in order to simulate the state of Britain's rail network. Thank God they didn't have to simulate a crash or they would have had to destroy the track completely. Anyway, I digress. The oddity of rail travel that caught my attention was the almost unknown sport of carriage surfing. As a traveller inexperienced in the etiquette of modern rail travel and burdened with two heavy bags I tried to leave my luggage as much out of the way as possible. I needn't have worried. Travellers like myself are a godsend to the elite carriage surfer. The surfer, with his intimate knowledge of railway platforms and train lengths, positions himself so as to board the train at one end. His task is then to follow the course from his chosen carriage, over and through all obstacles, to the carriage at the opposite end of the train. He scores in a simple fashion: forcing a fellow traveller to move aside scores 1 point; if his fellow passenger has to move his luggage aside that scores 5 points; if, however, the fellow passenger has to lift his luggage from the floor that scores 25 points. All of this must be achieved silently. Penalty points are deducted at 1 for an unintelligible grunt, 3 points for an "Excuse me", and 50 points for a clear request to move so the participant can pass. Real experts are often able to reach the far end of the train and return to the original carriage before reaching their destination station. There are, of course, frauds and cheats amongst the amateur participants in the sport. You can spot them because they force their way through to the next carriage and merely turn around straight away to return to their starting point. One of the more interesting aspects of carriage surfing is that the spectators not only form an important part of the course but also participate in a way not seen in any other sport. If spectators spot a favourite surfer they deliberately move into his way so that they can readily move aside to allow him to score higher. Some even deliberately place luggage on the floor instead of in the racks to allow high points to be scored. The less favoured competitors frequently find themselves looking at the backs of spectators who seem unusually to be mostly deaf to grunts and muttered, "Excuse me"s and only move, with a satisfied smile after a particularly clear, "Please, can I get by". Scoring is the responsibility of the individual surfers who are remarkably honest perhaps because of the penalties for cheating. Any surfer caught cheating by his fellow will have his season ticket torn in half and will have to travel by a later train for the rest of the season.

More on the rest of the week later.