The flirtatious kind

I happened to get volunteered to be an English-speaking parent at the school today. It seems to be book week again, and the kids have a reading competition happening. Parents are to donate a 'small amount' for every book read, with all funds going towards the library. I'm in trouble at school for not actually specifying what my small amount would be in advance, but I like to think this was a clever choice. As a child I would typically decide that a hundred books in a week would be a good goal to strive towards, and I didn't fancy impoverishing myself. Especially considering the school also counts books read to the kids. Tricky. I have it on good authority that Jill didn't understand any of the books read to her during her German lessons this week.

I escaped relatively unscathed with Maddyn and attempted to food shop. (He threw a tantrum because he thought we were going bike riding instead of shopping, and Frau Doktor saved the day by giving him a puzzle as a gift. Hurry up and grow, little strawberries, before I have to have her over for coffee!) Maddyn made friends with an old German man at the train station who, when I let him know we're foreign, switched to perfect English and said, 'Ah, with that red hair I thought you might have been Irish.' I'll never fail to be amazed by the number of bi- or trilingual people here. Which, in light of my rather boring day, brings to mind an anecdote.

Shortly after moving here I happened to make friends with a very talented singer called Amy from Vox Nostra. She invited me to a solo concert she was doing on Good Friday at Kloster Chorin, an old Abbey in Brandenburg. There don't seem to be many English-language links around, but here is the google translated link to the German wikipedia page. The show was amazing, the Kloster was beautiful, and an especially huge treat considering I hadn't been out of Berlin itself before that day.

After the show I was introduced to some of her friends, including a friend who had brought her flowers. Her flower friend spoke a bit of English, so he and I hung for a bit over the tables in the Kloster courtyard and ate fish on bread from a fishmonger who'd set up a stall there. When Amy needed to do a bit more work after the show FF suggested she meet us at a local cafe. We set off with her harp and her flowers and, after a short walk in my blue shoes down a little cobblestone road to a cafe by a lake.

It was a beautiful day and I, unsure of what one wears to a concert by an opera singer held at a monastery, had worn a black dress with conservative sleeves but not necessarily a conservative neckline that, I must admit, absolutely prohibited wearing a bra. You can't see the neckline in that photo, but such is life. The bodice is very supportive, and not particularly unsuitable, but it turns out I was spectacularly overdressed and I fear I stood out. I sat down with FF at the cafe at a table, and FF thoughtfully asked the waitress for a vase in which to put the flowers. We worked a tad awkwardly through our small store of shared language and ordered dessert. I must admit here to having no idea what was really on the menu, so I went with the safe option and ordered the chocolate-based dessert, which turned out to be ice cream topped with whipped cream and syrup.

When our desserts arrived I noticed that the few looks we'd had from the next table--two elderly ladies with a very elderly man who I presume was their father--had turned into glares. The foul kind of glares you get when you may well be doing something indecent. It was then that I realised I was dressed up yet displaying a fair bit of décolletage and eating cream off a spoon whilst at a cafe with a man thirty-odd years my senior with flowers on the table. Better yet, the bouquet even included roses. FF was well and truly old enough to be my father, but the lack of common language meant we couldn't be related. Add to that my sparkly wedding ring and FF's unadorned finger, we were clearly engaged in some manner of public display that was not only lascivious but also unseemly.

FF, facing the other way, was completely oblivious, but I was mightily amused. I don't, of course, have enough German to defend myself to nosy old ladies, so I settled for eating my ice cream whilst smiling a lot. To make it even better, Amy was busy and didn't meet us until after they'd left, so the women were forced to pay their bill and shuffle off in a huff without any hint that their outing hadn't actually been tainted by a flirtatious foreign, married woman trying to take advantage of an older German man.