I have decided growing old is not all that it’s cracked up to be. Forgetting peoples names, appointments and where I’ve put things, are all signs that like many of my generation, I am gradually losing it. Finding out that brain ageing to some extent is inevitable, is quite depressing. So is brain ageing a slippery slope that we just need to accept? Or are there things we can do to reduce the rate of decline?

A quick internet trawl and you find a growing body of evidence suggesting that people who experience the least decline in cognition and memory all share certain characteristics

• regular physical activity
• pursuing intellectually stimulating activities
• staying socially active
• managing stress
• eating healthily
• sleeping well

So to encourage you with some intellectually stimulating activity I have found 3 riddles I thought might help? If you don’t want the exercise ,the answers are at the end of this post….

1, A murderer is condemned to death. He has to choose between three rooms. The first is full of raging fires, the second is full of assassins with loaded guns, and the third is full of lions that haven’t eaten in 3 years. Which room is safest for him?

2. Can you name three consecutive days without using the words Wednesday, Friday, or Sunday?

3. This is an unusual paragraph. I’m curious as to just how quickly you can find out what is so unusual about it. It looks so ordinary and plain that you would think nothing was wrong with it. In fact, nothing is wrong with it! It is highly unusual though. Study it and think about it, but you still may not find anything odd. But if you work at it a bit, you might find out. Try to do so without any coaching!

Today we are slowly making our way down through Bavaria to the spa town of Bad Waldsee to visit the Hymer Museum. Hymer is one of the most well known and best quality motorhome manufacturers, so after finding they had a museum we decided to to add it to our plan.

The museum is not all about Hymer but more a history of caravanning from its earliest beginnings.

The Trabant is often vilified as being among the worst cars ever made, but during German communism, it was a status symbol. If you wanted to buy a new Trabi the waiting period was between 11 and 18 years. And it cost as much as one year’s salary. Which seems pretty expensive, but the Trabi had an average lifespan of 28 years because if you were lucky enough to own a Trabi you took meticulous care of it

You could tell this caravan was the ‘dogs doodah’s’ with all its ‘mod cons’ and a hefty price tag to match. Lesley now wants a bath in our van!

The Brits were some of the early pioneers in the motorhome world, entering the field with a “Timeless classic”.

Carthago City

Hymer has a huge factory in Bad Waldsee, but a few miles down the road in the town of Aulendorf is Carthago City. Deciding it’s ok to take ‘coals to Newcastle’ a few weeks ago we managed to book ourselves on an unscheduled Carthago factory tour with a free place for the night to park Charlie II amongst a few of his brothers and sisters.

They say confession is good for the soul, and yes it is probably a bit weird, but as both of us have spent a large part of our working lives in factories, even now we are retired, Lesley and I both still enjoy going around factories.

Manufactured beside the assembly line, the side panels are made from a hard foam sandwiched between 2 aluminium skins. The roof is the same, except the upper surface is made from hail resistant GRP. The use of a complete aluminium exterior forms a Faraday cage that is alleged will protect against a lighting strike (but not wolves and bears).

We both went away quite impressed and reassured with the construction methods Carthago use to make their motorhomes.

A Motorcaravaner’s lament

Last night I sold my motorhome, today, the tear drops flowed;
Tomorrow’s urge will surely be, to get on down the road.

No longer can I sit up high, in that roomy Captain’s chair;
No longer meet the friendly folk, in campsite here and there.

To mountains, towns and seashores, where we often went to look;
We’ll long remember all famous places, written in our log book.

Through many years and many vans, our travels have been vast;
But the time has come to hang it up, sad now those years have passed.

If you get caught by wanderlust, or pressured by life’s load;
Just buy, or rent a motorhome, and get on down the road.

Before leaving the area we went back to Bad Waldsee to pay a visit the thermal baths. With dedicated overnight parking outside, it would have been rude not to!

The thermal baths were excellent – boil your head steam rooms, outdoor jacuzzis, water massage jets and a fast flowing river

Each of the Town Hall’s 24 blue windows were numbered and were being opened in turn during Advent.

Ravensburg

Once again our Moho parking spot was only a 15 minute walk to the centre of town. So we had a good wander around the traditional and the Christmas markets during the day managing to avoid the many temptations (felt handbags) although unable to resist enticing smells coming from the food stalls.

Merry Christmas to all our readers…

Toodle Pip

D&L

Oh yeah the answers to the three easy riddles Ans 1 – The third room. Lions that haven’t eaten in three years are dead. Ans 2 – The three consecutive days, yesterday, today, and tomorrow.Ans 3 – The letter e, which is the most commonly used letter in the English language, does not appear even once in the paragraph. Post a comment if you got all three