In the middle of cleaning my teeth this morning the cold water stopped running. The trouble is the hot water in this place runs at a scalding temperature so it’s impossible to use it without adding cold. The other morning it wasn’t the water but the power that cut off. I was on the toilet at the time. The bathroom was suddenly plunged into pitch black darkness and I was left trying to get my bearings in a tiny room that I realised I knew absolutely nothing about. I mean, how many times had I used that toilet roll and now I didn’t have a clue which wall it was on or even where the damn wall was.
Two German couples have arrived in the apartment above us.
The first we knew about it was the sound of these very loud German voices wafting across the stillness of the morning. I was sitting on the communal lawn outside our apartment getting some sun when I heard them. I heard them but I couldn’t see them. By God I heard them, but it wasn’t until a few minutes after the tranquillity had been shattered by all this shouting and laughing that I actually saw them. They appeared from around a corner, suitcases in hand, striding across the grass towards us. The two men nodded as they strode past me and all four marched into their apartment.
It seemed like only a few seconds to me when the two men emerged again, both wearing that strangely Germanic casual wear of black singlet, black shorts, black socks and black shoes. Each was swinging a golf club, not a putter but a heavy looking driver and they started to shout out things to each other while flexing their arms and performing masterful imaginary golf swings. They also carried a small brightly coloured lightweight plastic pretend golf ball.
They looked to me like an old black and white photo, the sort you used to see in Health and Efficiency years ago where people would be photographed standing in serious poses as if they’d just been caught right in the middle of some strenuous activity or standing to attention holding a pipe to their mouth while shading their eyes with the other hand and gazing into the distance with a look of concentrated concentration. In fact if there’d been a couple more thousand of them outside on the lawn swinging their golf clubs it would have been a scene reminiscent of those old newsreels of the Hitler youth movement when everybody was in a big field hopping around waving big long sticks with even longer ribbons tied on the end.
Each man took it in turns to whack his silly light plastic golf ball as hard as he could along the stretch of public walkway and grass that stretched all the way outside our apartment separating our row from the next row of buildings. There seemed to be no regard for the passing public, particularly for any children walking past.
The man whose turn it wasn’t would make a great show of standing perfectly still and concentrating really hard on what the other man was doing. The man whose turn it was, made an equally great show of preparing his shot by flexing his shoulders, staring along the imaginary fairway, shuffling and re-positioning his feet, bending his knees, stopping everything in mid flow as if he’d just lost his concentration, starting the whole ridiculous charade again and finally giving the ball an enormous thwack. Because of the lightness of the ball it didn’t really travel very far but to them I guess, it had landed on the green a few inches from the hole because as soon as the shot had been taken both men animatedly discussed the shot until it was the turn of the other man to show what he could do. Then off they’d march briskly to where their golf balls had landed and repeated the whole pantomime again to hit the balls back to where they started from.
This wasn’t a relaxed casual practice I was witnessing, this was extremely serious stuff and they went about the whole thing with a vigorous no-nonsense approach which just made me smile. Germans eh?
From this moment on we were to see both couples trooping out officiously from their apartment every morning and rapidly marching off into the distance, each carrying a bag of clubs about the size of a roll of carpet, backs bent under the weight of it, still managing to make more shouty noise than the rest of us residents put together and still managing to project an air of false bonhomie like ‘look at us, aren’t we all having a jolly good time’.
And do you know what? They probably were.
The Germans had some visitors this afternoon. Two more couples showed up and started laughing and shouting before we’d even seen them come around the corner just like the other lot did. Why do they do this? What are they laughing at? Everyone knows Germans have no sense of humour. And then, you’ll never guess, one of the visiting couples emerged onto the grass in front of the apartments with beach bats and a ball and started hitting the ball backwards and forwards to each other. Click-clack, click-clack. Jesus aren’t they happy unless they’re disturbing the shit out of everyone within earshot? Each click-clack was accompanied by shouts, laughter and encouraging grunts from all the other Germans. Bloody hell, you’d have thought it was the bloody German Davis Cup or whatever it is that they have over there.
Tonight we went back to a restaurant we’d tried about a week ago. Most places here, at the end of the meal, will bring up a small glass of flavoured schnapps. It’s not very alcoholic but it’s a nice gesture. If you’ve got children with you they’ll also hand the child a sticky lollipop. Because I’d been joshing with the waiter during the meal, he brought the schnapps to the table but gave me a lollipop instead. Lots of laughter all round and he hurried away. As we were leaving I hid the lollipop in my right hand and went inside the restaurant. I was going to shake hands with the jolly waiter and palm the lollipop back to him. As I walked in hand out-stretched, the head waiter was standing there beaming at me with his hand out-stretched too. Oh no, I don’t want to shake hands with him, I’ve got this gag set up for the jolly waiter who we know, not this person who has no idea who I am. What am I going to do? I can’t give a strange man a lollipop, why should I? He’ll think I fancy him won’t he? But it’s too late, he’s reaching out to grab my hand.
I dropped the lollipop onto the floor, ignored it and shook the head waiter’s hand. He smiled and nodded and I bent down to pick up the lollipop, he couldn’t understand why and I gave him an embarrassed smile and raised my eyebrows as if to say, “Lollipops eh? Keep dropping them all over the place.” Meanwhile I still wanted to do what I intended to do so after scrabbling around on the floor for the lollipop I jumped up and with a flourish shook the hand of the jolly waiter. He was slightly surprised to be holding a lollipop but joined in and we all had another really good laugh.
OK it’s not a very interesting story, there’s no punch line and it just fizzles out at the end but that’s what happened and we all went home happy. Can’t speak for the waiter but we all did and that’s what matters isn’t it?
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