"Tagesschau" spokeswoman Judith Rakers (47) says she has deliberately turned her back on the city and decided to live "on the arse of the world".

"As I approached 40, I realized that my life in the city, which really felt right for two decades, no longer corresponds to me," said the presenter of the "Neue Osnabrücker Zeitung" (Thursday). "I think it's good if you then try to adjust the circumstances so that you can stay with yourself." After a long search, she bought a small house with a large garden near Hamburg. She described the situation as "in the arse of the world".

Within a very short time she became self-sufficient "without any previous experience". "I was just recently divorced - it took courage to do it alone as a woman." But since she grew up with a "pragmatic hands-on father", she was completely free of fear. For weeks, he's been laughing at the fact that she wrote a cookbook with recipes using ingredients from the garden, Rakers told the newspaper. After all, she had previously been more of a fan of canned ravioli.