I love it here.

Germany is full of surprises. I love that. What do you make of this place? Maybe you've seen a few blog posts elsewhere about all the abandoned places in Berlin that people like to sneak into, crawl under the fencing, slip past the security, and explore and photograph before they get bought up by developers and turned into luxury apartments or spas for all the horrible people like us who are turning up and causing all the gentrification in this quite lovely tumbledown city.

I've visited this place 3 or 4 times in the past month, pretty much weekly to be honest. It's got a cool vibe: like the place just shut its gates at 5:30pm one night, security locked up, and no one remembered to come back. All the buildings are falling apart, the greenery is taking over, nature reclaiming what was previously there, swallowing the man made bit by bit. I've often looked at locations like this online and wished I was brave enough to visit one and go a bit mad with my camera. Top of my list would the old GDR amusement park (Spreepark) at Treptower Park. But I'm not that brave. Too scared of getting caught and dragged off by the polizei. I don't go to this place alone. Not a chance. It would defeat the purpose. I take Hamish.

We're going back on Monday. Because this is where we meet Dr Pistor. Hamish's hernia surgeon. That building in the first picture? That's where he works. It's where we go to see how Hamish is progressing post-surgery each week. Mad, isn't it? He's a really nice man, great manner, excellent surgeon, and he's one of the last people working on this hospital site. According to one of the nurses I spoke to it won't be long before even Dr Pistor is edged out by the undergrowth. Well, not the undergrowth, by the people who are going to tur the place into a spa apparently.