Summer, elle arrive

And so, with sylph like grace summer has arriven, brushing back the clouds and warming us all with blue skies and endless hazy days, lazing in meadows eating daisies. Or, in the non fairy tale world which we sometimes have to endure, it’s grey and cold. One of these two sentences is true to my current situation.

We went to a house party a couple of nights ago, where the aforementioned spaghetti bolognaise was liberally applied. I have fairly strong opinions on the creation of spaghetti bolognaise, which comes in myriad formations (I prefer the addition of most of a bottle of wine, some chopped bacon and if we’re feeling crazy, even a dash of liver) but the chef who had created this particular blend of Italian spices and minced meat was clearly no stranger to the chopping board and hob, having created a dish of sublime excellence. Suffice to say, the party was off to a fine start.

Beer was also liberally applied, another excellent part of any house party. I have observed that the concept of a bottle opener is not really something that the inhabitants of Germany are totally up to date with, instead I believe training occurs from an early age as to the use of a lighter and ones knuckle in order to prise the bottle cap from it’s location. I have damaged many lighters in an attempt to learn this technique, I am currently relying on the “pass the bottle to the girlfriend who knows what she is doing” philosophy of bottle openage.

I have also learnt that the addition of some form of pet can really help with the whole language barrier thing. Someone on your side who doesn’t speak German either really smoothes things along. Admittedly my ability to speak cat isn’t really any better than my ability to speak German, but you can at least stroke cats rather than talk to them, an approach which doesn’t work so well on people. For the most part. There were also some dogs at the party, but they were too busy stealing duck eggs to chat with me about the weather. A fire was another welcome addition, I can stare into a fire for hours, mesmerised. So that was all good.

Today as well as Summer and her accompanying solstice, we are marking the start of Wimbledon. The ball, the flying through the air, the net. It’s just like football really, as viewed through some form of reality distortion field, with the addition of rackets. Strawberries and cream all round.