harlekins spirit

Tulip mania

Like every year in late autumn, bulb planting day is approaching. I usually get things moving by giving my husband a whole sackful for his birthday, and selecting and shopping for the bulbs at the garden centre is definitely the more attractive part of this project for me.

We know the truth

We can’t explain why, but a whistleblower has granted our platform Harlekin.blog access to documents from whose content sounds so absurd that we thought it was a joke at first. But it is no joke. The documents are genuine, as insiders have confirmed to us; we must of course keep their identity secret for their protection.

An answer to everything?

But the question is simply, “Which one?”

Here in the Netherlands I am often asked very interesting questions. Older relatives of my husband’s, who are not familiar with navigation devices (or even Google Maps), call and ask me for the best route to drive from Würzburg to Tauberbischofsheim. Now, I haven’t been to this – undoubtedly very beautiful – region of Germany very often and can’t do much to enlighten them. That’s why I almost have a guilty conscience.

4 minutes

I was at the baker‘s again recently. In our town they are all pretty flabby (the rolls, not the bakers). So on Sunday mornings I like to cycle a longer distance to the next town and hunt for rolls. Besides, the local entertainment is remarkable. So here’s my latest experience…

About flour in the meal swallow and flying shit

Today I have brought you an article from the category: Knowledge we don’t actually need in everyday life and that is precisely why we keep it in mind.

Those who know me well know that ornithology has long been close to my heart and that in this context I make a tiny contribution to improving the climate, at least in my garden. Recently, when I was looking for a gift for a friend with whom I share a passion for observing wild birds, I came across the German book “The Names of European Birds” by Viktor Wember. It is scientifically structured, with a lot of diverse information and an attempt to derive or explain both the German and scientific names of the birds.

Scenes of an forced partnership

She was already there when I occupied my allocated hospital bed. She had already been there for some time, for five days. And she was in a bad way. She quickly found in me a compliant victim for her protracted medical history. I was a good listener after all.

Even more lost for words

Living in a multilingual environment

Harlequin Beate wrote a while ago of her trials and tribulations with language attrition. I am sure many of our readers will recognize the struggle we have maintaining our command of our first language when spending long periods abroad. And the longer we stay, the Wurst it gets!

Election campaign in children’s news

Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte as a little boy

A while ago, elections were held in the Netherlands – and as in Germany, this fact had a great impact on all the news programmes and political talk shows in the weeks beforehand, where viewers were confronted with rather contrived and tiring battles of words. The situation in the Netherlands is somewhat confusing simply because it takes four or five parties to form a government (out of a total of 18 (!) parties represented in parliament) rather than two or three as in Germany.

A breath of fresh air came from the Dutch “Jeugdjournaal” – the daily children’s news programme I became a fan of when I started learning Dutch years ago. The top candidates of the six largest parties were guests there three days before election day, along with children, of course (this time only a dozen, due to Corona).

… lost for words

Let’s be clear from the start: This post is not about the excessive use of alcohol! This time it’s actually exactly what it says.

Several years ago, a former colleague and still good friend of mine, a Frenchwoman who lives in Germany, came into the office in the morning completely shocked. She told me that she had spoken to her mother in France on the phone that morning and in the course of the conversation wanted to tell her that she had bought a new bathrobe. But she couldn’t think of the French word for “bathrobe”! She was very startled by this and feared that she was forgetting her mother tongue.

Respect (part 3)

Harlequin “mix”

As this topic is very close to our hearts, several harlequins have commented on it. Here is our “Harlequin mix” with the collected comments: