My first ever blogpost from a high speed train

Dr B and I are sitting in the restaurant carriage of a German ICE train which left Berlin Hauptbahnhof and goes all the way to Interlaken - we'll probably get off in Olten or Bern to catch a connection to Geneva and then take the F bus all the way home. It's been a great time away and also the final phase in Dr B's healing process. On Monday he's going to go back to work, it will have been nearly three months. This week in Berlin has been a real holiday and re-integration to life for him and he seems to have grown in strength as the week progressed - being in his favourite city no doubt helped that, as did having the family from Merseyside with us, it was great fun.

As you can tell this post is really just an excuse to show off how totally connected we now are thanks to our splendid little vodaphone prepaid "surf stick" (I assure you that is a German word!). Bizarrely this German provider will not only give us good value 3G connectivity in Germany but also cheaper connectivity in France than any of the solutions available there. Sometimes cartel capitalism offers the consumer no choice at all and that's the case with mobile connectivity in France at the moment, so we are returning from Berlin with two of these surfsticks. However this is perhaps the moment to launch the campaign for a common European mobile phone with roaming at no extra cost.
You can find out more about sim card deals and options in various countries from a great blog on mobile connectivity here. The guy writing it has 8 sim cards just for Germany which seems a bit over the top to me, he even has one to switch on the heater in his car. Not something we need, we just take the bus.