… is an early riser, so it’s just as well that I am.

He came into the living room just as I was slowly stirring and he put the coffee on. We sat around and drank it first thing in the morning and had a good chat about people whom we knew in our younger days. And you’d be amazed by how many there were.

But first job today, after a very welcome shower, was to attack the Gibson bass.

Regular readers of this rubbish will recall that leaving it in a wooden box for 30 years hasn’t done it much good. The machine heads are stiff and the paintwork is mottled. There’s a potentiometer that is seized too.

We took off the strings and sprayed the machine heads with silicon spray, lubricated the switches with WD40 and applied copious coats of leather polish to the woodwork.

And while everything was soaking in, we headed off for breakfast.

Hans knew a little bakery down the road where they served up some reasonable bread rolls, jam, coffee and orange juice. And you can’t ask for fairer than that.

And afterwards we leapt aboard Caliburn and headed to the nearest metro station, a couple of miles away at Garching.

He told me an exciting story about how the metro line extension out here had been planned years ago but construction was delayed and delayed after objections were raised that if it were built overground, children could possibly run on the line and be killed.

That is, of course, nothing that can’t be cured by giving the survivors a good old-fashioned clip around the ear, and they can run on the tram lines anywhere they like in the city centre.

But apparently the argument led to years of delay and the line out to here was only opened a few years ago.

But with it passing through the student and University quarter, the rolling stock is still of a previous generation.

What surprised me too is that it isn’t cheap to travel on the Munich metro. The much-maligned Paris and Brussels city transport systems are much more affordable than here.

Last time that we’d been sightseeing in Munich, I’d forgotten my camera so there weren’t any photos. This year, however, I had managed to remember to bring the camera so I took several pictures.

But this will be a case of when I have more time to sit and relax, I’ll post them all on-line and let you see what I saw on our travels.

The most important was the restaurant for lunch.

Ulli works at a travel agent’s out on the Munchener Freiheit so we went to say hello to her, and right next door was a small restaurant advertising today’s special on a blackboard outside.

“Veganisch curry”.

That was too good an opportunity to turn down and so we went and partook. And delicious it was too.

We headed for home after that and set about attacking the guitar. A bit more spray everywhere and while that was working its way into the crevices I gave the woodwork a really good polish and clean until it shone.

Some metal polish wouldn’t go amiss either but we didn’t have any of that.

Finally the strings went on, and it now looks and sounds like a different machine, and I am well-impressed with that.

Ulli came round with Hans’s birthday cake and we all went down to the beer garden.

Hans and his mate Reinhardt were giving a little concert – acoustic of course because there is no electricity there.

I’d been asked if I would like to play too, and it’s for this that I have been rehearsing for the last few months.

But for this I needed the acoustic bass but regular readers of this rubbish will recall the story about where that is and why I don’t have it with me.

But it’s not six months of my life wasted, as you might think. I did enjoy picking up the bass again, even if I didn’t get to play it live on stage again.

And I’m not sure if I ever shall now.

But we all had a really good time and plenty of fun.

Including Strawberry Moose and Selfie Ted who got together to share a few beers and to swap a few yarns.

And I met a couple of nice ladies. Shame that they were already spoken for, but that’s how it goes, isn’t it? It’s not been my lucky week, has it?

We all toddled off to bed afterwards, where I intend to sleep the Sleep Of The Dead. It’s been a very long day.