Mousing

Rather late "Schickling walk" route in Ottobeuren. On the way found two dog tags in a field. Strange that they had clearly simply become detached from the collar. The small holes were intact. One of them was the council dog licence marker but I couldn't read which council and the other one had a name "Mila" and a mobile phone number.

As there are often visitors in town & I couldn't think of a parish with the part-name that I could discern, phoned the number on the spot but there was no reply. Left a voice mail.

Later back home with the help of glasses made out the parish was in northern Bavaria, near Würzburg, 270km away. Sent a text message and half an hour later a lady phoned to say they were hers and she would come over straight away. Yes, she was visiting her parents who lived in Ottobeuren and had been dog-sitting for a few days while she had been away. She was driving home tomorrow.

I said I would light up the drive as the house was difficult to find but she was confident her SatNav would do the trick. And it did but even she admitted if I hadn't put on the lights and stood on the road with my mobile phone torch on, she wouldn't have trusted it.

A very pleasant 10-minute conversation in the pitch black at the entrance. Thinking about it afterwards, very trusting of a young lady (as the German's say "build year" 1972) even getting out of a car to talk to a strange man in middle of nowhere, with nobody around and in the darkness.

Talked much too much about me but she was curious having picked up my non-German twang fairly quickly. I suspect she may be a teacher, university lecturer. Also helped that she has an English friend/neighbour who has been here over 20 years. Naturally, Brexit was mentioned and like me, the friend has now been "forced" to get German citizenship as he has his own company here.

For my efforts, she gave me a large bar of Ritter Sport chocolate! I suspect my gain is probably the "Star Singer's" loss - the children will be coming around the houses over the weekend and Monday (Epiphany) collecting money for children's charity. As a reward, the children themselves traditionally get sweets & chocolates. I suspect the only thing in the parent's house she could grab at that time of night as a (not necessary) token of thanks.

Star Singers reward was the reason I had gone for the walk in Ottobeuren, to pop into the supermarket and stock up!