Here be Dragons*

Yesterday, whilst drinking a cup of coffee I browsed through the local midweek newspaper, pausing only to look closer at certain photos (in case I recognised someone) and very occasionally to read something that peaked my interest (not often).

My attention was however grabbed by the half page spread (and this is a full scale BIG paper, non of this namby pamby A3 size for the Germans) all about the October rowing regatta and the accompanying dragon boat competition.

This little fest is of course a yearly occurrence, the rowing club is very active and I believe quite well thought of, the regatta is a two day extravaganza of lycra clad young men (and women) beer, bbqs and music.  On the Saturday there's the dragon boat racing for all comers and on Sunday a duck race in aid of charity.

Every year I've seen the signs and thought to myself, "that could be amusing" but either forgotten about it, not been here for the date (usually mid half term) or been too late.

Not this year.

Oh no.

Saw the article.  Texted another crazy expat, KM (as we call her, to differentiate between the 2 Karens).  And acted on her almost instantaneous positive response by contacting my other expat friends and signing up for a 10 (wo)man boat.

I then set up the event on a Facebook page and invited all those who expressed an interest/those whose arms I twisted, and less than 24 hours later I'm wondering what I've unleashed on the unsuspecting inhabitants of Kettwig.

First off we needed a team name, as a matter of urgency as well because that's part of the signing up process, team name...KM didn't hesitate, "Puff the Magic Dragon" it is and I believe all those rowing/paddling** Puff will be known as "Puff's Power Girls" (although this could of course be subject to change).

The team is pretty much set, we have a definite nine with three possibles and a teenage daughter or two in backup.

Costumes are the BIG issue, we're going loud and distracting, thinking big and fairly tasteless...pink wigs have been talked about, tutus in either pink or green*** are happening, hoodies with an emblem of Puff have been mentioned and I think somewhere along the line we're going to need to incorporate our many, varied national flags**** as a reminder to all the Germans that we're expats and proud of it.

A German friend of mine sent me a message last night, having seen my message on Facebook and offered to put us in contact with a couple of her friends who are members of a proper dragonboat team, because they could help us train...apparently we're supposed to be taking this seriously rather than an opportunity to get together on a weekend and lark about, in a boat, surrounded by lots of young guys in lycra...I think that once we turn up with bright pink bobbed wigs and flourescent pink tutus our aim will be obvious, although maybe a bit of training wouldn't go amiss, then we might manage not to disgrace ourselves totally!

* as seen on ancient maps apparently, quite appropriate for what we're planning.
** whatever the term is for the powering along of a dragon boat.
*** and this is pink/green in flourescent, not pastel tones, oh no.
**** U.S., Mexico, Singapore, Australia, England, France and Scotland are all possibly in the mix.

Kettwigers*

Wherever you live there are...characters, be they old or young, there are always people that the rest of the community "twitches" about, just because they don't seem to fit in with the rest of the crowd.

Kettwig isn't big and isn't small either, large enough to have two primary schools and two seconary schools, two (and a half) petrol stations, more bakeries than I can think of and at least seven "super"markets.  

The perfect goldfish bowl.

The first person who springs to mind to a guy known as "the walker".  A well kept gentleman who is in his 60's (I think.  I'm not German, I don't like to stare)  he always has on a pale (creamy coloured) trench coat and light coloured trousers.  He seems to spend his days walking around, I come across him many times when I'm out with the dog.  The first time Logan met him he approached him as he does all strangers, with the singular thought "I wonder if they'll be my friend, maybe they have food"**.  But Logan hadn't gotten with two feet of him when he (the dog) veered away, spooked.  The guy had done nothing, but there's something peculiar about the way he walks, he's clearly injured one leg many years ago and it kicks out from the knee with each step.

Then there's the cat lady.  About five minutes walk from us is a fancy, Michellin starred restaurant, it has a waist high wall running around its gardens next to the pavement.  Every day (and possibly more than once a day) this little old (70's surely) biddy comes along with a plastic supermarket bag and sets out bowls of food for local cats along this wall.  What makes it even more bizarre is that she wears her hair contained in a big net, it looks like a white conical beehive do.

Another unusual lady is someone I see often at the bakery in the supermarket, sitting having coffee and cake (I presume, I don't like to look too close in case she catches my eye and starts to chat - been there, done that, never again)  Jas has met her several times at the swimming pool when she was told off for splashing her and getting her wet.  Nothing so unusual about this woman I can hear you thinking, until I tell you that she always, always wears big white sunglasses (think Elton John) with palm trees on the sides of them.  Always, even in the pool.

Jas has just started a new school, so now she gets to experience first hand all the teachers that her big brother has been telling us about for the past four years, more specifically a certain arts teacher.  These new students have now met the teacher who infamously turned up to lessons once dressed as a bee and said she was going to jump out of the window and fly away.

The final Kettwig character I shall introduce you to is normally seen in our favourite bar, Lulu.  Another eldery gentleman, he's probably lovely when sober, but we only ever seem to meet him when he's three sheets to the wind.  He will approach a group of women, all happily chatting away, engrossed in their girly conversation and start talking to the closest one to him, trying his damnedest to chat them up.  Fortunately, Lesley the owner is very good at reeling him in and getting him back to the other end of the bar, although last week when we were there he kept sneaking back.

I have no doubt that the Kettwigers all gossip about us "foreigners", although they don't seem to manage to tell us all apart, we're always being confused for one another.

*  I really, really wanted to title this "Kettwig Crazies" or "Kettwig Krazies", but although it sounds good to the ear, it looks nasty written down and also, in retrospect, it's not very P.C.
**  He's a golden retriever, bascially a stomach with legs.

Sunday Snaps 126

We've seen a couple of this rather sleek sportscar around in the area in the last month or so and have been wondering what it is, then a neighbour backed one out of his garage, the engine sounds almost as good as the car looks.

High School

My little girl started high school today, or rather I should be more precise and say "gymnasium", because here there are four different types of high school here, with gymnasium being the one for the more academic, those more likely to go onto uni, or at least that's my understanding of the system.

The first day at high school is as big a deal as the first day at primary school here, although without the whole schultüte nonsense*.

Because we weren't due at church (!) until 10:15 we arranged to meet with friends at our favourite eiscafé at 9 for breakfast (how German are we?) I have to confess that we're at Romeo's on a regular basis and so when we turned up (8 of us in total, the 2 children are starting together, going into the same bilingual class, poor teacher) Enzo and his wife were very sweet, making sure to serve the special guests first.

Jas had dressed specially for her first day, white cropped trousers and her green German football team goalie shirt, it could have been more pointed, afterall she does have an England shirt and a couple of Liverpool ones too! But I think most of the children had dressed with thought, there was one little boy who looked as though he'd come straight out of an American clothing catalogue, hair parted and smooth, chinos and shirt, I bet he had deck shoes on too or loafers but I couldn't see his feet so I can't comment - I could imagine he was dressed by his mother. Another girl had on a long vest top (over another t-shirt) with a sparkly union jack on it, I'd have put money pn her going into the pure bilingual class, but I'd have lost.

We got to church around 10 to find people milling around in the sunshine outside, fortunately we made the decision to go straight in rather than stand around making small talk, because five minutes later the church was full. 99 children each bringing two parents and maybe a couple of grandparents/godparents/hangers on = a lot of people crowded into a not huge church on a warm August morning.

The service seemed interminable, two priests (in order to keep both the catholics and the evangelists happy I guess) we had a story about Abraham, I can't remember why, I clearly got distracted and lost the plot. Then there was a whole thing about some slices of a tree trunk, there was a chunk of wood for each of the three classes, I think we were supposed to relate childhood and schooling and learning and development with a bit of dead tree...must have got distracted again - the light can be so pretty when it comes through coloured glass, don't you find? Of course we sang...well, some people sang, we even had song sheets but that didn't seem to help anyone in the congregation because everyone seemed quite happy to chat to their neighbour during the musical interval, they should have had a karaoke screen with a bouncing ball, might have made it more obvious that we were supposed to participate!

An hour in the church was followed by almost an hour in the school sports hall (hot and stuffy but at least there were seats for everyone who wanted them). There was music (but we weren't expected to join in) and more oration - head of year and head of school, and then the children were called out by their teachers, one by one, to stand on the stage before disappearing into the bowels of the school for schooling to begin.

The parents were then expected to hang about drinking coffee and chatting to their friends for the 45 - 60 minutes of schooling that took place before the children emerged, blinking into the bright sunshine.

We learned from Jasmine that her teacher got married over the holidays, there are twins in her class that are almost identical but not quite, the classroom was horribly warm, there's a girl in her class who she hates and tomorrow they are spending the day running around the school...and she only has one 'full' day of school compared to Ben's two.

A successful day I think!


* it's not really nonsense, it's a lovely part of a special day for the child and it's very funny to watch all the dads having to carry these great big cones down the street to and from school.