Blooming

Lovely day, the bees enjoying the great flying weather and the fresh supply of my EU beet sugar solution - best of both worlds. Happened to re-read an item again how the Norfolk/East Anglian farmer's were duped by the Leave campaign's self-interested mafia mob (Tate & Lyle's ex-employee David Davis as well as Belize patron Arron Banks, Belize diplomat Andy Wigmore). The awful irony is that Tate & Lyle has belonged to a US company since 2012. It especially hurts to see how anti-EU Norfolk is (was?) as it is my UK home county.

Having been born in Trinidad, a country reliant back then on sugar exports, I always felt the UK had done a terrible job when negotiating their EEC/EU entry back in the 1970s. They left their (former) colonies out to dry, unlike France.

I digress. On my way out for Luna's evening swim & walk stopped off at a house on our road - we share the same official postal street name -but nobody would consider us to be in the village. I didn't know the people but now know it's an old, now renovated, ex-farmhouse with the elderly (please note they probably are not that much older than I am) ex-farmers couple living downstairs and the daughter, a dog & possibly family upstairs.

I rang the bell and was answered by a voice from a ground floor window & after a bit of ornament removing (all German windows open inwards - how do the English clean their windows?) was greeted with scepticism by the lady of the house. No wonder it was after 19:00 on a Sunday. Our conversation followed over the window sill.

I introduced myself with name and where I lived followed by handing over a jar of last week's harvested honey and the words "Just a small thank you from the thousands of girls at my place for your lovely wildflowers in the front garden".

There followed some interesting talk but what impressed and pleased me was the attitude towards nature & the environment. Even if this couple was one of the 50 or so very small farmers in the village after the war, they had given up their cows, then later pigs but I somehow still expected them to be of the "modern" post-war, machines, faster, chemicals generation which is still the dominant voice in agriculture. Farmers in Germany are still considered in many circles as being brutal (to animals usually but not exclusively) & self-centred - there are several everyday expressions that underline this. They do not have the high regard most enjoy in the UK from non-rural people. In the villages where they are known personally, the attitude is usually the reverse as they often play a key role in the life of the community.

But I was to be proven very wrong and not because the lady made any "In the Good Old Days" references at all. She bloomed at my words on her flowers and said that was nothing compared to what needed to be done, reinforcing my words about maize/mono-culture yesterday but she also laid into our County Council suggesting (probably rightly) that they had been negligent in their duties of animal welfare in a case close by that blew up in July and made/is making headlines throughout Bavaria.

As it happens Angie "bumped" into the Leader of the County Council yesterday as he relaxed naked in the sauna of an Ottobeuren hotel where he was staying for some do. Beforehand he had asked Angie something, (while still dressed!) and she looked at him and said: "Sorry, but I think I know you from somewhere, I think I have seen you on TV?". They had quite a long chat but not about the environment, mainly about commuting from here to Munich where he often has to attend meetings. His position is very important in local politics, elected by all county residents (even all EU residents). It's a double-headed position as an elected representative serving the people but also as the leader of the many administrative functions - from building/planning permission, everything water & sewage, vehicle licensing, people licensing (I got my citizenship through the council offices/officers) and a multitude more. He has been in office since 2006 (I have voted for him) from a then small rural party that had split away from the Bavarian Conservatives acting almost as Independents. Now much larger and although at times a bit too right-wing, still in acceptable limits especially as the party is now in the Bavarian coalition government and are being faced with facts. I actually like the work he has done for the county and think he is anything but right-wing. Strikes me as being more left-wing. Not sure if he plans to run in the next election in 2020 (he's a young 1959 born boy) but if so he does need to repair a lot of damage caused by the lax official county veterinary department.

Anyway, I had to stop our chat as Luna was getting impatient and asked if I could take a photo of the garden, explaining why. That did make her a bit nervous, she phoned daughter who didn't answer but after I reassured her it would only be the garden and that almost every farmer in the village had posed for a Blip, she agreed. I didn't risk anything & quickly shot today's photo into the setting sun and only after I got home did I see how bad it was. Doing a better shot with the sun behind me from the road showing the lovely flowers properly would have meant the house being in the photo.

Instead, you get to see the 1730 "old" Pfarrhof - whatever a catholic vicarage is called in English -  which is now the village kindergarten and was until Napolean came by in 1803, the summer residence of the Abbot of Ottobeuren. A very interesting building that I have only been inside once & fleetingly. We also have a "new" Pfarrhof just one year older than I am but also no longer used by the church.

Then a mad dash to the one lake one can use with dogs. It's not used by many but the spot we go to the water is tiny and has enough room for about three couples & often they are elderly nudists. At that time of evening it is usually empty but today at nearly 20:00 there were 3 couples. I had to squeeze between one nudist pair who had spread themselves out over two of the four spaces where one can get to the water and one dressed pair about to leave but in conversation with the other. You could sense the anger of the nudist pair that a dog was there. I did have to fight to keep Luna from shaking herself all over them and was ready with a mouth full of venom if they actually said more than they already had done: "Keep that dog away".

As I left, I saw the third couple emerge from behind sun-umbrellas at the other end packing-up and the lady screamed out "Luna, come here", grabbed the tennis ball and threw it in the water followed by loud hoots of laughter as Luna shook herself off directly over her newspapers, magazines and towels. Her bathing companion added his hoots to the almighty din. I had briefly had a charming chat to the lady a week or two ago at that spot when she had been planting some wild flowering water mint on the lake edge which she had brought from home. She isn't from the village but from the county capital, 20km away.

She had clearly read the situation and said loudly: "Why didn't you come to us in the first place?". Did me a power of good as I walked past the other couples to the car! I am sure that they a) aren't local and b) the neighbouring vast lake is the unofficial "official" nudist lake with masses of space for angry oldies to complain about everything. 

Lesson - not all of us Oldies are sour, screwed up, anti-everything that we don't personally like people. Some of us don't always vote Tory.