Cow on a stick

Really I mean cow AND a stick, but I thought 'on' sounded more interesting.  I chose this title for, on my way home from my new job this afternoon, I had to slow down for a very fat farmer, who was wobbling along on a bike and prodding a reluctant cow along with a big stick.  The cow looked most displeased at being prodded, and I wondered why she didn't kick out slyly and send Bauer Sepp (as farmers are known round here) flying.  Prodding cows along the road is a prominent feature of the summer months in Bovinia.  If you are unlucky, and particularly if you are already running late, you will get stuck behind as many as three different herds, all meandering slowly either to or from their byre, dropping dollops of cow-pat on the road and trying to eat  the hedge.

But enough of cows.  A few weeks back, I had the bright idea of asking the local dressmaker (yet another of the cottage industries in our street) to alter some clothes for me.  I went along with Titus and explained what needed doing, and she promised to have it done in a jiffy.  I am now questioning what a Bavarian jiffy entails, since I have heard absolutely nothing from her, though I pass her house regularly.  Rather than spying her bent over a hot sewing machine, I usually see her engaging in the local sport of chatting to the neighbours over the fence.  I look hopeful and try to catch her eye, but she is always preoccupied with swapping lawnmower tips or comparing chainsaws/tractor tyres/window boxes with Frau Schmidt next door.  Titus did try to warn me - he was aghast that I simply handed over my as yet unworn purchases - "she didn't even give you any money for them Mummy!  She just took them!"  Indeed.  As we are leaving for a sunny Croatian island at three tomorrow morning, I have had to abandon all hope of getting my summer dress back in time to take with me.  I had to poke around my bare wardrobe for some paltry alternatives.  CG had absolutely no sympathy.  Incomprehensibly, he thinks I have far too many clothes.  This, although I warned him years ago in the first flush of new marriage that a woman can and will never have too many clothes, shoes, or earrings.

So, in exactly six hours our alarm clock will ring, and we shall leap out of bed with zest and zeal and reach blindly for the coffee machine.  If I am going to learn some Croatian I'd better hurry up.  I feel rather unmotivated, it is true to say, but at the very least I shall try and master 'a glass of cold dry white wine please' or, failing that, just 'please' and point at the bottle.  Adieu, dear readers.  I'll be back browner, and probably plumper, in a week's time.