A clean sweep

It's ten minutes to eight in the morning and there's a MAN ON MY ROOF. Yes, really. Not that I'm scared, at least not now that I've ascertained that it's the dreaded chimney sweep. I used to see them as romantic, Dick Van Dyke figures who would merrily poke their brush up the chimney a bit, scatter a bit of soot and scintillate with their cockney banter. The modern German breed is a merciless money-grabbing creature - they don't give you the chance to book an appointment (or whatever you do with a chimney sweep - a session? A brushing? A clean?); no, they just arrive and get on with their job and present you with a bill for a hundred euros afterwards. I remember the first time this happened to me - I was completely flummoxed, as I wasn't even aware I had a chimney. Maybe I didn't. Being a law-abiding citizen, I paid the bill anyway. Then there was the time when we did have a chimney, and our fireplace was smoking terribly, but the chimney sweep said nothing was wrong, swore blind he did, and it was CG who discovered the dead squirrel blocking the flue, poor thing, I mean of course the squirrel. And we had paid to be told nothing was wrong.

Writing this has called to mind my London days, when the window cleaner would also simply arrive and start cleaning, always at the most inopportune of moments. Don't tell me that appearing at somebody's upstairs window, while said person is dressing, is down to pure coincidence. I would love to hear the stories swapped at the annual window cleaner convention, or whatever they have. To my shame I remember hiding in the bathroom (small, frosted pane, hard to reach) while Andy/Steve/Gary rang the doorbell for his twenty quid. I never had it to hand, and as a result received red bills in the post for hundreds of pounds. Could it be that the fault lay with... me? Could I have been a little more organised? Nay! Never explain, never apologise, a la Maggie Thatcher. Life's so much simpler that way.

Tread carefully

Although it is only February, it seems like spring is on its way to Bovinia. This means good and bad things. Good - snowdrops. Bad - all the farmers in the vicinity (and there are hordes, believe me) have decided to monitor and rearrange their manure supplies, which involves ferrying it around by the trailer-load from one barn to another, dropping most of it on the road as they go, and stirring it up to produce steaming brown piles everywhere, marring the bucolic idyll and probably covering up half the snowdrops.

I should tread carefully - both literally and metaphorically. Those who know better, i.e. the true Bavarians, are darkly predicting more onslaughts of snow, perhaps until the middle of April. This means CG and I might get the chance to work on our skiing technique, or should I say develop one in the first place, but it also means goodbye (again) to the short-lived pleasures of inline-skating and bike riding.

Today is just grey. But even this has its advantages - no neighbours to be seen in the street. Extremes tend to bring them out - snow, which needs shovelling away, or sun, which means gardening and hanging stuff out to dry. In-between days see them staying inside quietly, doing whatever they do; I don't quite like to speculate.

Gaia, the girl-woman

Gaia complained recently that I never write about her, and that my anecdotes concern mainly Titus, and on reflection I think she is right. However, and it is a big however, I had to point out to her, in my defence, that I generally write about things I have personally seen or experienced. This rules out people who stay in their bedroom for hours on end. I am sure she's having loads of fun in there, whatever she might be doing - to date I have never been invited in to join in. My visits to her boudoir mainly involve laundry delivery, checking that the heating is not on 'high' next to an open window, and telling her that dinner is ready, having shouted from downstairs several times only to find she's plugged into her iPod.

The other restricting factor is the teenager's rock-bottom embarrassment threshold. Practically anything I do or say is likely to be a faux pas of the worst possible kind, so I thus feel rather constrained in mentioning my dear daughter at all, but I know she reads this, so here you are Gaia - you are the star of today's post! I have written about how and why I don't write about you!

Teenagers are a strange breed. Do we all remember being one, or are we just aware that we were - there is a difference. When I think really hard about how I was at Gaia's age, I feel so removed from that person that I might as well be watching my younger self in a film. I was so convinced of my beliefs, yet at the same time insecure and completely self-obsessed; a hundred times more than I am today. At twenty I wrote in my diary: "I have finally realised that I know absolutely nothing about anything at all - I have SO much left to learn!" This, in retrospect, was a turning point in my life.

It is funny, both peculiar and ha ha (as we Brits love to say), to observe your own child turning into you and doing all the things you did, and to hear yourself react in the way adults did to you, although you swore you never would, should you ever get old enough to be a parent! Gaia has several advantages over my teenage self, though: 1) the internet, 2) the tumble dryer, 3) affordable air travel, and 4) a mother with fashion sense - I have never recovered from having to wear a rust-coloured anorak with a fluffy reindeer-print lining, and a hood, when all the other girls in my class were wearing donkey jackets in inconspicuous dark blue and black. It still crops up in my worst nightmares.

Saint Val aftermath

Aaahhh... the card was worth waiting for - cute wobbly writing from doing it in the car but who cares; it's the thought that counts! In case you are feeling sorry for CG, please stop - I decided against the dog food and made him a cherry cheesecake instead. And I got a beautiful bouquet. So all is well and we can relax for another 364 days.

Am torn between really wanting to go swimming, but then I'll be confronted by the nudes in the showers, and staying here in the warm (fully clothed) and eating an omelette. My stomach is pushing me to the latter, my conscience to the former. Have got to overcome this British prudishness if I am going to survive here for any length of time, for what will I do in the summer, when nude lake-bathing overtakes nordic walking as the favoured pastime? And while I'm on the subject, why is it always the wrinkled, withered, slack-bellied (and other assorted body parts) people who throw caution and their undergarments to the wind and parade around unselfconsciously? Nobody would mind too much if young, nubile people did it, but mostly, I'm sorry to say, it's the older generation who put themselves on display. Perhaps they are beyond caring.

Love is in the air....

... every time you look around; a completely nonsensical lyric designed to irritate the cynics of this world, as indeed was Valentine's Day. A commercial circus without which, however, the red rose industry would wither and die, and sales figures at Hallmark would take a nosedive. You can probably guess by now that Bovinia is an exception to the rule - you would never know that it is February 14th at all, unless you check your calendar, of course. The only reference to the day of love appears in the flyer for our local supermarket. Right at the top of the page there's a gaudy reminder: "Valentinstag - 14 Februar" surrounded by blurred red hearts. Directly underneath is a technicolour pastiche of fishfingers, washing powder and dog food, all at discount prices and guaranteed to set pulses racing. I shall have to pop in there later and get CG a tin of Pedigree Chum.

Over the years, CG and I have reached an uneasy truce concerning Valentine's Day and the obligations attached. So when he asked me yesterday if we could "do the card thing after work tomorrow, not before", I knew this was man-speak for "haven't bought the damn thing yet so please don't embarrass me by giving me a card tomorrow morning" and nodded graciously. Then I said he didn't have to get one, which is woman-speak for "no card, you die", as most men must know, and if they don't know that by now, they'd better learn fast for self-protection purposes. (Do they teach you things like that at pre-marital counselling? They should!)

I did have a card already, but that was in case he turned romantic on me (I mean, even more so than usual, in case he's reading this at work). I guess I'll scribble a few lines in it now and put the envelope next to the dog food to greet him when he gets home later.

Human speed controls

Had you heard that such things are currently being trialled around the country? Me neither. But I am living proof of the fact that they exist. While many towns and villages have one of those lit-up display signs to monitor your speed on entering (no inuendoes please), one place not too far away from here is obviously trying to cut costs by using bored pensioners instead. I was driving along at 52 kmph, just behind someone else who was proceeding in an equally stately and legal fashion, when our eyes were drawn to a bespectacled personage - I think female, but you can never be sure with the German pensioner's penchant for unisex haircuts and drab trekking clothes - who appeared, at first glance, to be waving. But only for a second, as his-her fingers were splayed, as you do when signalling the number 5, and then he-she theatrically mouthed the word fifty and gave us a beady, reprimanding look.

I could tell that the driver ahead had, like me, assumed he-she was kindly warning us about an upcoming speed camera, so we continued through the village at camel's pace*, eyes scanning the road for the offending object. The village petered out and I found myself on the other side. No speed camera, no policeman with scary gun thing... nothing at all. I realised that I had been well and truly had by an archetypal do-gooder, someone who, when they aren't doing evening courses in serviette folding or watching slideshows of a cruise to the Arctic Circle, derives pleasure from patronising others in the interests of community, or whatever. Resisting the temptation to turn my car round and race past him-her at 70 kmph in the other direction, I carried on with my journey - to where I forget now; probably to some dimly-lit supermarket where other busybodies would be waiting to crash their trolleys into my ankles, or tut audibly at my family-of-five groceries as they pay for their one cabbage and stick of salami ("this'll last me at least a week") in one-cent coins.

But as I've often said, I'm not bitter. Without such characters my life would be nothing but a rich pasture of gaiety and carefree happiness. Wouldn't that be dull?

*Just to clarify, I mean camels walking, not when they're doing that wacky running across the desert with a person bumping around on their back.

No rest for the wicked

Titus has finally got rid of his stomach complaint and gone back to kindergarten. I was waiting for a sign that he felt better, and that sign was a knock at my door, 5 a.m. today. What's wrong? I asked groggily. I'll tell you what's wrong, Mummy (big sigh) - I'm BORED! Can't you get up and play with me?

What is this world coming to. Obviously he was feeling much, much better so I packed him off to the fierce and devout teacher for a bit of breakfast analysis and evaluation. I am expecting top marks today, as I used horrible, tough wholegrain bread, the sort that looks like a miller made the flour by rubbing wheat in between two grimy stones. I shall go and rescue him soon.

Today is a good day, despite the pre-dawn start. I got my child-free morning, finally; the sun is shining, and CG should be on his way home soon from six days of slumming it in Bucharest. Hope he's got me a good souvenir. I have one more thing to endure, however, before I can relax. The parents evening. Still, it can't be as bad as last time. I have learned some Bavarian words since then; useful ones such as prison (Cafe Viereck), poodle (Nuttenfiffi) and orthodontist (Foznschbangla) which are bound to serve me well in any discussions arising tonight. I shall set myself a challenge - to use all three in the same sentence without giving the impression that I'm completely nuts.