Donald MacInnes: I'll be wearing lederhosen as I sing to the Moon

In The Red

Ah, June – the month which, according to old-time songs, sees tunes crooned at the Moon as lovers spoon. Now, I don't think they meant "spooning" in the modern sense – namely, two people on a bed, facing the same way and getting their cuddle on. No, it is more an antique description of fairly chaste canoodling. Of course, this original meaning of spooning refers to a type of behaviour that only exists in songs from old musicals. Like "pitching woo".

Anyhoo (to keep the rhymes going), this month the missus and I will take our public displays of affection outwith the UK and proceed to throw many euros into the German economy. Yup, it's road trip time. Ausgezeichnet! (Google it).

We fly to Munich, where we pick up our car. Avid fans will recall when Mrs Mac and I hit Italy's Amalfi Coast last September on honeymoon, we did so in a red convertible Fiat Barchetta.

Now, while I don't recall how much we paid for said flash wee motor, I know it was a sizeable portion of our budget.

And that will certainly be the case in Germany. We wanted to make sure the road part of the trip was as slick as possible, so we have again thrown money at the situation like good little capitalists and hired a convertible Volkswagen Golf. Can you picture us, top down, zipping through the heavenly highlands of Bavaria? We're even going to do a day trip to Salzburg, just over the Austrian border.

Our next port of call is Neuschwanstein Castle, the omni-spired fairytale keep featured in Chitty Chitty Bang Bang. Heidelberg is next, then we're off to Nuremberg, Dresden and finally Berlin. Can't wait.

Anyway, the point of all this is to contextualise a tale from my past.

The first time I went abroad was on a school trip to Munich and Heidelberg when I was 13.

I had saved for months and, on the last night in Germany, I had most of it left. My mother had warned me to make sure I bought something authentically German to remember my trip by, so of course I ended up with a pair of blue and yellow roller boots.

And while my mother looked at me like I was a maniac when she saw my purchase, I reckon it was better this than some lederhosen.

Mind you …

Twitter.com/DonaldAMacInnes

d.macinnes@independent.co.uk