contemplations

Well isn’t life just a dally, one step at a time.

Here’s a tidy little interlude to the vast quantities of silence that I have been providing you on a daily basis. It will and does contain all the traits that you would look for in my posts: intrigue, thoughts, emotion, reminiscence. Well, it’ll have 50% of that for sure. I’ve had thousands of moments since my last post, thousands of imagination sparks and maybe 3 severe impulses to write something here, but as we all know by now (wish I could stop repeating it), I am lacking one home computer to convert all these things into words on the webpage. Sorry. Moving on.

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I’ve been in Germany working, like a bee that has half of his bee brothers on strike due to wax prices, for almost a year now. So, hard. It’s not really been an eye-opener (to say it had would have been far too cliché). I came here knowing what to expect and happily, I’ve been served it on a delicious plate of creative translation, wheaty beers and a heck of a lot of Knödel. But there are still things that surprise me, or rather, things that completely fulfil all of my expectations to an extent that I’m left thinking “wow, it IS true…”. Mostly, I’m impressed: things function without that sense of muddle here. No-one, nobody in Germany seems to muddle along. Well, maybe some of the old people. But they have NORDIC WALKING STICKS for that. Oh, you not sure about the latest trend sweeping the post-50 German generation? Well, not a trend, more of a constant. Basically, there’s 3 steps to learn: #1 buy some Nordic walking sticks, #2 grasp those bad boys firmly in each hand and #3 walk down the street with them. Oh, yeah, mountains can be cool, but at the weekends, definitely the street is where you need to be to show off your stick cred.

As an insane English person, I have insane and robustly English ideas. Personal space counts in my list of “things that I do that no other devil does in this country I live in”, along with other classics such as not sharing tables at bars/restaurants, buying rounds and not staring directly at people’s FACES. People walk way too close to me here, like crash collision courses set for my toes and then last-minute, thinking “doing it doing it doi- NONONO BAIL!” as they walk towards and then past me. I’d understand it if space was at a premium, but there is plenty of space. Ooodles of space. Trundles. Lots. Meh. Personal discomfort: par for the course.

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Having already said that I’ve been living in Germany for almost a year, the more loyal readers will remember I am, in actual fact, not lying, 100% have the certificate and everything, married. This initial fact has an unwanted side effect, in that my wife is almost constantly 500 miles away from me. Well, 530 to be more exact. I checked. This sucks. It’s even more frustrating at the moment because we have to sort out so much over the phone, stuff that using said method takes days (of planning, calling and executing plans made in calls). This stuff could probably be sorted in an afternoon were we together.

It also sucks because together we are a team.

I’m still trying to work out what I bring to the team. I think, at a hazarded guess, I am the muscle without muscle. I carry out the tasks that the boss dictates. Not in a weird way mind, don’t even start THAT thought process. More that, like an obedient puppy, I have been trained in the art of being married to my wife, and I’d like to think that I’m good at it. I’ve mastered the rinsing of the dishes, I automatically wash my own clothes now (including the cleaning of the machine after every wash) and I also relate moments of monument to her as necessary (“my contract got renewed” – “it did?” – “yep” – “YAY”). Anyway, on topic, the thing is, (ooh continuity!) I’m now a little bit like a lost obedient puppy. I tend to be able to follow up everything learnt so far, but I do really miss having her here, even if it was to tell me to do the dishes right! Most evenings I return to an empty flat, no an actual empty flat (couch check, TV check, rest of normal things in a flat negatory) and I feel lonely without her there.

I love her. I miss her too.

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It is, Europe wide, cold. Verrrry cold. Bit of a waste of section this, stating the obvious. Message to anybody that can possibly affect the coldness, please make it stop. Looking at you, Russians. Turn your heating up and open your windows please.

It doesn’t work like that? Oh.

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So, I’m heading home soon and needs must. Time to wrap it up. On a positive note, I will be in Germany another year (did you see the clue?). This of course means that I’ll still be dishing out plenty of silence here, but lest ye forget: Twoface tells us in Batman that the night is darkest before the dawn. Although in his case, after saying that, things kinda just got, well, darker.

Bis bald!