The past two weeks have been sunny with just the right amount of rain, so the hedge next to my
parking spot has exploded with growth. Add to that a fully packed calendar, and
I haven't had time to trim it. Two days ago, one of my kids could barely get in
the car. Yikes.
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| image by Wayne Stadler via Flickr - not an actual picture of the state of my yard ;-) |
Today is Sunday—the first day I had time get out the hedge
clippers.
BUT—today is Sunday,
and I live in Germany.
It probably depends on where you live in Germany, but where
I live, Sunday is quiet time. Seriously,
quiet, like to the point of having to pay a fine if you're reported for doing
something loud like mowing your lawn. In addition, there's no shopping (stores
are all closed on Sundays!). No washing or vacuuming the car. No repairs around
the house.
On the one hand, this forced quiet time can be nice. At
least once a week, you're guaranteed a day of downtime. Take a bike
ride to a biergarten. Drink coffee and eat cake with friends. Maybe go out to a matinee with
the kids.
On the other hand, it means any work you need to do on a weekend all has to be done on Saturday. Grocery store aisles are packed, store
parking lots are even worse. Then there's mowing the lawn and trimming the
yard, fixing the bike, washing the windows, etc. All packed in on Saturday.
A lot of farmers live in the village where my husband grew
up, and if a person rides by on a tractor on Sunday, you can bet someone in the
family will go to the window to identify who dared to do that. One of my
neighbors said she's been chastised by others in the neighborhood for doing yard
work on a Sunday.
So here's me, an expat with this knowledge, standing in
front of my overgrown hedge on Sunday. I know next week will be hectic once again, so I
went ahead and trimmed the shrubbery (with manual clippers! I wouldn't dare use
electric ones!). In the twenty minutes it took to do that, no less
than five neighbors walked or drove by my house and eyed my quiet, yet verboten work. No one said anything. And
I kept it short.
So that was my Sunday, living dangerously during quiet time.
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| Bonus pic: proof that using Sunday for coffee and cake can be worthwhile :-) |
All pics by me or my family if not otherwise indicated.
