Hiking Into a Stupor

„Basteln, Wandern and Putzen” is the name of the second edition of my book in Germany. The name comes from a chapter in my book listing the things I negatively associate with living in Germany.

"She pokes fun at her own inability to spotlessly clean her house, make anything with her hands or go on compulsory but torturous hikes - all prerequisites to living in the country", the publicity blurb said.

With some wonderfully warm days here in Trier, the wandern (hiking) season is truly upon us. With May and June full of public holidays, the season is traditionally opened on May 1, when families go on loooong hiking outings with friends. It is definitely a group activity, which involves a picnic or a meal somewhere. As I wrote in my book I am completely allergic to this type of activity.

As I sat on my stoep with my laptop last Friday, Labour Day, trying to overcome my writer’s block and write in some wonderful spring weather: group after hiking group went past our gate as the afternoon dragged on. Our problem is that just beyond our house is a wine farm, vineyards and some woods with wonderful hiking paths - and on public holidays the traffic increase considerably.

If these groups, by late afternoon already fairly pickled, would just have gone past quietly, I could maybe have worked in peace. But no - they were fairly noisy and not only that, many felt they had to comment on me sitting there trying to write.

"Mommy why is that lady sitting outside at her laptop”, Mommy would stop and try and peer through our shrubs, to get a better view of me, so she could answer her brat’s question. While staring she would come up with some stupid answer, totally distracting me.

Or people would stop and comment on my wonderful spring garden of tulips and daffodils which because of the sudden heat have now dried and died. “One should cut these dead flowers, otherwise they do not bloom next year,” one know-it-all told her group. By now I felt like storming to the gate, wagging my finger at them and saying: “No, they bloom every year and more beautiful than the year before, and guess what: I do nothing, but just let nature take its course!!!”

Worst of all are still the male chauvinists already VERY, very pickled from all the schnapps supplies in their rucksacks, laughing out loud at someone so stupid: Just imagine writing on what should be one’s day off!!

Sadly for me this was just a practise run for Ascension Day, also Father’s Day in Germany. It involves men-only hiking groups, who by late afternoon would walk past our gate, pissed out of their minds and commenting rudely on whatever takes their fancy.

Luckily modern fathers, who increasingly do take care of their off-springs, do not participate in such folly – Father's Day male-only hikes are strictly an activity for male dinosaurs.