NINE!

Things are clearly going on around me that I should know about, but don’t; yesterday was a case in point.

And today as I left work I found a blank piece of bright orange paper carefully placed under the windscreen wiper. I removed it, turned it over and looked around the deserted car park.

Could it be a new form of subliminal advertising for the company Orange?

Is it a message from Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh?

Puzzled I drove home.

An hour or so later -I stopped for an ice cream – I parked under the oak tree and started to walk to the house.

And I found this piece of paper (above) soaking in a puddle next to the rose bush.

“It’s German”, I thought (the message, not the rose bush). “Weird.”

Now I don’t speak very much German. I was embarrassed once, traveling on a train from Amsterdam to Copenhagen, when I found myself to even say: please, thank you or can you pass the mustard, as I tucked into some of the best sausages I have ever eaten in a buffet car, or anywhere else for that matter.

I was a strict vegetarian at the time and I just cracked!

Since then I have made some efforts to learn bits of the language, collecting useful phrases and sticking them up on the wall around the bath – learning through warm osmosis.

But most of my German Is guesswork and it’s a technique that I frequently turn to.

I could go and look for the dictionary, we do own one, but if some mysterious Teutonic entity is leaving cryptic notes in my puddles (maybe it’s that person that secretly lives in the cellar) I think guessing the meaning is more in the spirit.

Let’s see - Hey Girl, was it sage that is (for) the absolution of the Night Witch?

Hmm witchcraft!

There is a map on the other side – a small place called Merfeld – clearly an invitation?