Waal & Wahl

Germany is in the closing stages of a long, confused General Election campaign which ends in 2 weeks on 26th September. It's a rollercoaster where it looks like the winner will be the one who makes the least PR mistakes. The likely winner, even if massively reduced percentage, was a few months ago the Conservative party of retiring Angela Merkel, but her successor has made huge blunders and his numbers are dropping off at an amazing rate. The Greens, who also looked like they could win a few months ago, picked the wrong candidate and are losing share. All very strange.

In German, a vote is "Wahl". Pronounced exactly the same is a village near here named "Waal" where there is a big annual garden show this coming weekend.