Why won't anyone steal the bike?

 I don't understand it. Bikes are stolen all the time, but not this one.

About a month ago, before I planted some kalanchoe out into the street, a men's bicycle was dumped on the ground next to the tree. No bike chain. A broken bike.

After a few days, I used one of its pedals to prop it up on the curbstone next to the street, and it's been there ever since. No-one has taken it. 

Okay, so the bike is broken, but surely it's worth something as scrap metal, so why won't anyone take it? Whenever there is a bulky rubbish collection and people put their junk on the street, anything that is made of metal is the first to go.

Why won't anyone take this bike? I don't understand it.

No plants = no dog pooh??

When I leave this building, the first thing I see is a lime tree (Linden). It stands in a good-sized bit of land. Behind the tree, near the street, there are evergreen shrubs. In front of the tree, there are no bushes or shrubs. 

Over the last few years, I've tried to make it a green space: I've planted lots of flowers out there. When I wake early in the morning - say 5 a.m. - I often go up and down two flights of stairs with a bucket and watering can (5 litres of water in each) and water the thirsty plants.

What I cannot understand is why people throw litter onto them. Loads of cigarette butts, bottles, wrappers - they all land in between the flowers and grass. 

And don't get me started with dog pooh. I sometimes look out of the window and I often see dog owners letting their dogs trample over the flowers and do their business there. If the dog poohed on the pavement, they would pick it up. But poohing on flowers - no problem. Let it stay there.

As I mentioned before, there are shrubs in the street and twice a year - in May and October - the town gardening department comes by with strimmers and trims everything. The first man who came by in mid-May recognised the flowers I had planted and let them stand and just cut the grass around them. The second man who came a week or two later didn't and so every flower was cut right down to the ground. 

For weeks now, the ground in front of the tree looks as though it's been subjected to napalm or Agent Orange. Talk about a 'scorched earth' policy.

And the weird thing is...no dog pooh. None. Not even litter!

I don't get it. Flowers and greenery - let the dogs pooh on them. Cover it with litter with gay abandon. Bare, arid earth - no pooh and no litter.

Nevertheless, I can't stand the sight of bare earth, so early on Sunday morning I did a bit of 'guerrilla gardening' (or undercover gardening) and planted some flowers out in the street again: five kalanchoe from a local flower shop and two flowers from my balcony that keep self-seeding. After today's temperatures of over 30 C, I'll have to get up super early tomorrow to water them again.

I wonder how much dog pooh and litter I'll find.

What airport chaos?

On Sunday 19 June, I flew from Germany to Palma de Mallorca. For the first time in my life, I checked in online and printed off my boarding card the evening before departure. A little while after that, I received an e-mail stating that I could hand in my suitcase between 6 and 8 p.m. that very evening. Given that I had bought a 9 euro ticket for the month, I thought, "Why not?" I therefore took a bus to the airport and found that the queue was long. 

In the end, I stood in line for an hour before I handed in my suitcase. As I said to the woman at the counter, though, "If you think this is chaos, you've not seen Manchester Airport in pre-pandemic times." She looked a bit startled and then informed me that I should allow two to two-and-a-half hours for the security check tomorrow.

Duly warned, I arrived at the airport the next morning with plenty of time to spare. I joined a queue at the security area at 7.36 a.m. and was through at...7.46 a.m. And that included an officer pulling my rucksack to one side and taking out a pencil case (I had intended to do some sketching) and then testing the artist's eraser that I had. Admittedly, it does look a bit strange: rather like putty.

That means, however, that it took me a lot less time to go through security at the airport than in previous times. And Manchester Airport....I remember flying back to Germany with my youngest cousin at Easter 2017 and we didn't move from the spot for over 30 minutes. Only two security officers were on duty. It was horrendous. And the check-in at Manchester returning at Easter 2019 was chaotic and horrible. I got shouted at by a member of staff, who didn't apologise for her bad behaviour at all. One Dutch woman said it was the most confusing airport she had been to; an English man said it was the worst airport in the world.

When I arrived at Palma Airport, by the time I had walked a few kilometres to get to the luggage carousel (the airport is HUGE), the luggage was already coming out.

On the way back, I bought a ticket in 10 minutes. Handed in my luggage and got a boarding card in 2 minutes and went through security in 2 minutes, too. I then had 5 hours to kill.

All that worrying...and all for nothing in the end. The media can really whip up people's emotions.