I used to think Germans behaved strangely in the sun (their manner suspicious, vaguely panicky, a little startled) for the fundamental reason they see very little of it (except for those living in the country’s sunniest city, Freiburg). But living up North these past few months, I have added a second prong to my theorising about the Germans and weather. I now suspect they behave the way they do because one can never be sure, when the sun does eventually come out, whether it will last for 30 seconds, three minutes or three hours and whether, when it disappears, it will be seen again for days or, possibly, weeks.

At the moment, we are edging tremulously into summer. Sort of. There’s no rush here, we don’t want to over-commit too soon. We have had a couple of blindingly beautiful days upon which all and sundry have fired up their mini-grills and grilled mountains of sausages and turkey breasts and pork steaks, occupying every square metre of every public park in the city. And we have had some splendid afternoons that last until 9pm, lighting the entire apartment so it feels like 3pm for hours. But mostly we have had days that cover the entire spectrum of weather possibilities, sometimes within fifteen minutes; rain, wind, hail, sun, dense cloud cover, big, blue skies.

As a consequence, I have adopted the necessary behaviour to deal with this; that is to say, I behave in a suspicious manner when the clouds start to thin (could the sun be coming out?) a little startled when it becomes apparent the sun will come out (but it was just hailing?) and in vaguely panicky manner when the sun arrives (holy shit, I am not in a place I can sunbathe, I need to get to a park and/or bench and/or Strandkorb). Mid-panic, I peel off any unnecessary layers and run outside, power walking/jogging until I find an unoccupied bench – not easy when most are taken up by working bees doing the same panic-Vitamin D-bath that I am, their stockinged legs glinting in the sun. And there I sit, face tipped to the sun, like a real German, until the clouds roll in again.

It’s precisely what I did yesterday, a day which for all intents and purposes was a cool, cloudy one when I set out for work in the morning. Come 1pm, I had a break and, strolling downstairs and outside, it began to spit. So I sought cover in H&M and then wandered back to work, dodging little bullets of rain. I had been back at work with my book for about fifteen minutes when the sun came out. Clocking the cloud cover, it was evident the sunny period was going to last longer than half and hour, so I sprinted to the park, past the working bees with their glinting stockings and warm-looking suits and to an empty bench right up the back. There I sat, smearing myself in the sun’s vitamins, soaking in all of its goodness. The sun lasted until I got home, at which point I lay prone on the couch underneath the window, until the clouds came and stole the light. That night a huge storm rolled in and this morning as I am pondering what to wear to work, the sky is still spitting, with slithers of blue peering through.

What I’m saying is, now I get it Germans. I get it.

The thing with trying new things, or finding homeless puppies, or living in new cities, is you get attached. You get attached and you don’t want to give these new things back, or you want to take the puppy home, or you want to stay somewhere a little longer than you’re allowed. First comes the little pinch as you realise something has to and soon will, end. Then comes the rip, the walk-away. And it stings every single time, no matter how calloused your skin or how conditioned your mind for departure.

Life is starting to give us the wind-up hand here in Kiel. Of the six months it allocated us in SG’s home city, three and a half are up. That leaves us with two and a half. It will, as is time’s habit, disappear overnight. It will snap, like an elastic band, shrink to smaller proportions in a sip of wine, over the course of a sunny afternoon spent with friends and family; one busy, work-filled week will deliver us to the final handful of days, the goodbye drinks, the taping up of boxes, the turning onto the autobahn with take away coffees and a 7 hour drive ahead. The hand that seems leisurely now, will soon be the one pushing us down the autobahn, back to Bavaria, back to another allotment of time that will itself, before long, wind up and shrivel to the approximate size and shape of a collection of memories. Just like Kiel has done. And Sydney and Münster and everything else before it.

So it’s time to gear up again. There has been a lot of gearing up over the past 3 years, a lot of winding up and moving on. And the easiest rip of them all was the first one, when I had everything in front of me and the vague assumption that, when ready, I would simply return to the home I was leaving behind and it would be easy. After that, it just got harder because as we get older, we get heavier, weighted to the ground by all we have collected and assumed, by all we have put down, those roots tucked into the earth and less flexible, less supple, less willing to be pulled up time and time again. And you only need the first time to learn how tired gearing up, moving out and moving in, settling down – all of those phrasal verbs associated with newness, with change, with motion – makes you. And the second time. And the third time.

That’s not to say a little part of me likes the gear up, needs the gear up. I have become accustomed to it, since life began sorting itself out into distinct increments of time, post Münster. Six months in Weiden. Six months in Sydney. Six months in Kiel. Twelve more months in Weiden until the next location gets fixed. These allotments of time have all had rhythms of their own, rhythms I recognise as they play out and tempo changes I feel the moment they occur. The gear up, the move, the settling, the new normal, wind up, the gear up, the move.

The tempo has changed. I can feel it. We’re settled, but we’re starting to brace. Those roots have to come back up again. The wind up has begun.

The novelty of Spring refuses to wear off. The handful of truly glorious days we have had since Spring announced her arrival, have been enough to replenish stocks of good cheer and tide us through the inevitable cloudier, rainier days. A boot has not graced my foot in a fortnight. The Germans are slowly stopping staring at my ballet flats (and thus half-naked feet) but I won’t be cracking out the sparkly gold ones for a while, that was almost too much. Never have my feet been such a point of public interest. I asked SG the other day, why Germans stare so. And he said, ‘Us Germs have a set of norms that we like. And step out of that norm even a little bit and we stare.’ Das stimmt.

The big, beautiful street off which we reside, has burst into song, all the trees heavy with green. People sitting beneath them with their coffees and beers are no longer shivering beneath felt blankets, instead they are sitting jacket-less with their faces following the sun. Naked trees are a part of winter I have never liked. Glühwein I can do. Snow for a week or two, sure. But those black, bare sticks reaching toward a white sky, I have never been able to fall for. Most available patches of green in parks are dotted with chairs, blankets and grills. The national past time of raiding Edeka for all available types of meat and throwing them on a mini grill, is in full swing. And ice-cream. Ice-cream is back on the streets, clutched by every second Kieler.

But, perhaps most significantly, people are happy. They’re smiling at each other, there’s a sense of renewed energy in all public spaces. There are no hunched shoulders, no chins dipped into scarves, no hurrying down the street to get out of the cold. People stroll, shoulders open, faces open. There is no rush, no being driven into warmer spaces because the warmer spaces are all outside and every available moment is to be spent there. No one celebrates the sun more than those who don’t see it enough.

We went to Laboe last weekend. Last time I was there, in April last year, it looked like this. This time, it was blue and sunny and the Strandkörbe were full of people. The queue to the ice cream shop snaked out the door. We waited patiently for our two scoops and then took them to the pier.

No, the novelty of Spring will never wear off.