and so we continue

It is a well known fact that if a man wants to entice a woman out of the nest she has been exquisitely happy in for several decades, he had better be offering something pretty fantastic. Many would think of a home in Tuscany, or the mountains, or some sunny paradise perhaps in the Indian Ocean. Only a brave man with an unusual vision would offer the equivalent of a turtle’s shell and the world. Your trampess is married to such a man. The vehicle that awaited me at Hahn airport is some shell and it was equipped with all the things a man could want on his journey – and many that the trampess herself was thrilled to have – from satellite dish to shower. And the missing items, cooking utensils, pots and pans are things I much prefer to select myself – the tramp knows better than to select such items of great import and ones on which his chances of a cooked meal at the end of a long day depend! Happily while the Germans are not famous for their cuisine (unless you consider the beer, which I don’t), their pots, pans and knives are second to none. The WLW now has the best equipped kitchen outside of Tom Aikens – if only he sat on my shoulder in the kitchen! The tramp was delighted (no doubt in no small part due to having survived on fruit, nuts and ryevita for a week) with his first cooked meal of zander filet, french beans and salad (there is some advantage in having a man who is easy to please). The trampess was content as well with the addition of a glass of Riesling.
It is also well known to sailors that living in a small space requires extreme organisation and discipline. These are not necessary your trampess’s greatest strengths. On the other hand, choosing a German as a husband has enabled her to make up for these deficiencies (of course, not always without testing her otherwise good nature – and to be fair, his, for the same reason in reverse). So moving into a shell significantly smaller than the current living room (never mind kitchen , dining room and countless other useful rooms as well) requires enormous effort. It will not surprise you that the tramp, in an effort to entice the trampess, made every attempt to create the appearance of structure and clarity in the WLW. Suffice it to say that a day later, lulled into a sense of security, I was asked to join in the task of total re-organisation. I can only say that the reputation of blondes as being somewhat slow and dimwitted is totally unjustified and that much can be achieved through diligence and application. Were it not for the tramp’s total aversion to diamonds I might be wearing some tonight – inappropriate as they might be for the current accommodation.

Tomorrow, having been assigned (divide and conquer) the responsibility for mastering all AV equipment (including I suppose the navigation system which competes with the radio – which in Germany cannot be turned off if the NS is on – the only solution being to find a reasonable classical music station which soothes the anguish of having to exit the motorway in the next 150m without prior warning), could prove trying for your trampess. I encourage you to pray for diligence over blondeness.