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.

Serendipity - one of the spices of life

In the English language - or in the UK at least - there is a saying that states that 'variety is the spice of life'. That is to say that if you want to spice up your life, you should try out new things and activities.

I'd argue that serendipity also adds a bit of spice to one's life. "What is serendipity?" I hear you cry. The dictionary definition of serendipity is "the occurrence and development of events by chance in a happy or beneficial way". For example, your bicycle is stolen and you're not sure how you can afford to buy a new one. By chance, you meet your next-door neighbour who is having a bit of a clear out and doesn't know what to do with an old bicycle. When the neighbour hears of your misfortune, you are given the old bike free of charge. 

Ever since we had to study a work by Swiss novelist and playwright Friedrich Dürrenmatt at school for German A level, I've very much been a fan of 'chance' or 'coincidence' (a major theme in Dürrenmatt's work), and serendipity is basically based on happy coincidences. 

As you may know, I loathe the new German public library in town. So much so that I am considering not renewing my membership of it. Instead, I thought I might give the 'Bücherschränke' a chance to provide me with books. 

Yesterday, after running a few errands in town, I passed by the glass cabinet closest to my flat and thought I'd take a peek inside. Imagine to my delight finding books by two authors I like to read: a 2021 book by Donna Leon (an Inspector Brunetti book naturally) and a 2002 book from Ingrid Noll (who basically always writes about women killing men and - this is the best bit - getting away with it). And both books were in great condition. As new practically!

As yesterday was a public holiday in this part of Germany, I took great pleasure in spending the afternoon and evening on the sofa, reading both books one after the other. 

Serendipity really can give one great pleasure.

The price of freedom is EUR 9 a month

The lovely German government has come up with a scheme to encourage people to leave the car at home and use public transport more: a ticket that costs EUR 9 a month and allows you to travel across Germany on regional transport. Just so long as you don't use InterCity trains or InterCity Express trains, then you can travel on buses, trams, underground trains and normal trains for as long as you like and as far as you like in the months of June, July and August - for EUR 9 a month.

Yesterday, therefore, I decided to go to the Middle Age market and "Ritterspiele" (jousts) at Schloss Burg, a rebuilt castle originally constructed in the 13th century. Just going there and back would have cost me just over EUR 12. 

A EUR 10 ticket got me into the castle and then, as the courtyard looked like a building site as maintenance work on the castle's structure was being done, I had to trudge a while through woodland and up a hill to get to the site of where all the mediaeval market stuff was. 

Unfortunately, not long after my arrival at the castle, the heavens opened and kept raining until I was on my way home. When I got to the field, it was a muddy area of the red grit you get on tennis courts. Lots of little puddles everywhere. Everything damp and dismal and very disappointing. I did get a carnelian pendant and a lump of amethyst crystals, so the journey was not all in vain.

Anyway, I made my way down the steep hillside and got the bus back to Wuppertal-Vohwinkel station and then got onto the S28 train towards D'dorf. 

The S28 runs between Wuppertal and Kaarster See, right on the other side of Neuss, to the west of the Rhine. I've always wanted to go that far and now, thanks to this new ticket, I had the chance. As did the woman who sat next to me on the train. It turns out that she was travelling here and there, making the most of the new cheap monthly ticket, so we travelled to the end of the line and then took the same train back two minutes later. 

I think we won't be the only two people in Germany just taking rides at random, especially not when you consider that by the end of May, a day before the first month's cheap ticket was valid, 7 million Germans had already bought it. Including me.

Punctuation is...fun?!

Last Friday, I did an entire lesson on punctuation. The focus was on the use of the comma, semi-colon and colon. I always get nervous at the thought of having to teach this subject as it can be as dry as dust. To my amazement, however, there was laughter in the classroom since some of the examples in the handouts and some that I came up with on the spur of the moment were actually amusing.

At the end of the lesson, I said, "I hope a few lights have gone in your head now." And to my surprise, one student agreed wholeheartedly. And the two 16-year-olds in the group laughed and said it had been fun and that it would be useful for their creative writing. 

I can honestly say that no-one has ever called punctuation fun. Well, not since Victor Borge's sketch on phonetic punctuation, which is here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qf_TDuhk3No

To explain the colon, I used the sound 'da da dahhhhh' to show that that piece of punctuation could be used to dramatic effect. I like to believe that now, whenever anyone in that class comes across a colon in a text, they will hear the sound 'da da dahhhh'. 

A nightmare comes true

In anticipation of my summer holiday, I checked the news for Cala Mondrago on Mallorca and found articles in three languages on the same incidence that happened three weeks ago:

In English - complete with a video:

https://www.majorcadailybulletin.com/news/local/2022/05/07/100877/mallorca-shark-scare.html

In German - with the same video:

https://www.mallorcamagazin.com/nachrichten/lokales/2022/05/07/101875/hai-alarm-der-playa-cala-mondrago-auf-mallorca-1.html

And in Spanish - ditto:

https://www.ultimahora.es/noticias/part-forana/2022/05/07/1730771/alarma-por-presencia-tiburon-playa-cala-mondrago-santanyi.html

Yes, folks, for the first time that anyone is aware of, a shark has been spotted in precisely my favourite place to swim. 

It's 'only' a small, 1.5 m blue shark, but still...

The question is this: am I brave enough to enter the water when I get there? I thought the jellyfish were bad enough, but sharks?!