Nienburg

I was accompanied all the way from Hannover to my next stop in Nienburg (so even I couldn't get lost!) by members of the ADFC (the German cyclists' club), with Heiko taking me from Hannover to Neustadt along a beautiful route through woodlands (where he had to push me up a steep muddy bank) and along the River Weser, and Berthold and Ralf (on recumbents, Berthold on a bike and Ralf on a trike) taking me on to Nienburg, where we were met at the Umweltzentrum (environment centre) by Johanne, Günther, Helmut and Mechthild from BUND (Friends of the Earth) Nienburg. Johanne teaches cooking, and she had cooked us a delicious meal of pasta, cheese and spinach with a tomato sauce, followed by tiramisou (not that I needed much encouragement to eat after a 65 km bike ride).
I spent the night at Helmut and Mechthild's house, and the next day more members of BUND Nienburg joined us - Johanne and Günther again, and also Manfred and Kurt. We put the world to rights, and finished off the remains of my birthday cake.
Helmut had done a good job with the press - there was a nice story about me in the local free Sunday newspaper, and I practised my German translating it (with a lot of help - it's over 40 years since I learned German at school)
Before I left Nienburg on Monday morning I met the mayor. He isn't in a political party, and is directly elected by the people. He is very keen to do something about climate change, and was very interested in my journey. He asked if I had noticed any differences between the countries I had travelled to, and the first thing that came to mind was cycle tracks - virtually non-existent in Britain; quite a few, but often very narrow, in Belgium; the best in Holland; and a lot in Germany, but sometimes not with very good surfaces.