"There
must be a German word for
it," I said, as we breezed
past the entrance gate. The
magnificent sandstone facade of
the house, basking in the evening
sun, suddenly shot into in my rear
view mirror."German word for
what?" asked my wife.
"Realising
that was your turning, just after
you've gone past it."
"Hoffnungslosverloren
probably."
No harm, this
wasn't Junction 6 of the M25,
after all. I reversed the 250
meters and wound the window
down.
"Nice place,
Kale-Havel. when you can
bloody find it."
Being the
expert linguist, I pronounced
the word the Australian way.
Like Luga-Barrugah for
Loughborough; Kale-Havel.
"Silly,"
said Alice who had just arrived
at the gate to welcome us,
"you should say Kai-a-vel. And
don't say bloody."
"You
could do with a simple web site,
you know the kind of thing,
maps, idiot-proof directions,
that sort of stuff. It'll only
take 10 minutes, I'll knock one
out before breakfast
tomorrow."
"I'm
afraid that won't be
possible," said Alice's
mother, "Mike has got you
booked in for the mountain bike
pursuit along the canal at 7:15."
I
knew that Pam
was only trying to save me from
the consequences of a reckless propensity to
underestimate the nature of
simple tasks. There must be a
German word for that, I thought.
