Yesterday afternoon, T. and I cycled through a quiet Berlin-Mitte to Volkspark Friedrichshain to meet with a colleague. It was greyish weather, and light drops felt like the harbinger of a proper rainfall, but the weather forecast had insisted that at most 0.2 L of precipitation would fall per square metre for the next hour.
We reached the corner of the Volkspark where the plane trees and others embowered the pale brown stone and frothing white waters of the Märchenbrunnen, then pedalled along the sidewalk outside the park, then through the fence along the dirt paths into the park itself.
In the park there were throngs of pedestrians, joggers and cyclists that flirted with the boundaries of social distancing.
There were brooding lines of shadow underneath the old trees, dark red berries glowed from the underbrush; and in the flower gardens, a few roses in yellow or pink still flowered. The first touches of yellow and orange and even brown were tinging the foliage.
Then we reached the area where a sunken swimming pool has been reused for beach volleyball courts — the sands were deserted that day. The crown of a bouldering ring rises above it like the footprint of a modern megalith, and children were climbing all over it.
At the side of the park, the berry-dark brick of a church tower rose above the old, tired autumn green of the trees. It might have been a village church if it were not for the pale grey and white street lamp posts, bus stop, apartment house façades, cars, etc. between the tree trunks.
T. and I passed the time armchair-critiquing two parents, a twenty- or thirty-something gentleman in a black hoodie and a baseball cap and a lady in a rainbow woven poncho and blonde hair. They let a boy barely two or three years old ride a mechanical scooter in his size down an asphalt hill, and a girl who was two or three years older rode a bicycle. Other people were coming and going on the path, and it can be chaotic with cyclists, joggers, dogs, etc. It's true that the girl-cyclist was wearing a helmet and a puffer jacket and gloves, and the toddler-scooter driver was also padded, although I think he had no gloves. The parents stood at the top and bottom of the hill and didn't take their eyes off the children... But I think I've developed a pretty good radar for Playtime Ideas We Will Regret, as the eldest of five children; and this pinged the radar. Of course the children fell off their vehicles, nearly tripped over their machinery, and burst into tears at least twice, then cheered up again, while T. and I tut-tutted.
Then playtime was over. The father lifted his boy-toddler under his right arm like a sack of potatoes (or like a disgruntled gnome), as the infant screamed. The two adults retreated in defeat, the girl riding her bicycle more philosophically ahead of the others. As an armchair critic, I felt that this illustrated the virtue of parents who are willing to say no when it's in a good cause.
Working-class Berliners in their forties were sitting on a bench near ours and they were undoubtedly German. A thin man in a metal-studded jacket pedalled up on a bicycle with a wagon behind it, as a wolfish-looking black dog trotted alongside. We heard American-accented English from a few 20- or 30-somethings nearby. And a French-looking lady in an elegant red coat was throwing something to another dog who might have been a Jack Russell terrier and who galloped across the knotweed and grasses with the grace (but fortunately not the purpose) of a fox-hunter.
It began to rain more and more, until a large-dropping silvery torrent poured out of the clouds that looked like a shower in early spring; the park looked more English than ever and it was a little like being submerged into a storybook. A glimpse of blue sky kept beckoning, and lingering off to the side.
We took shelter underneath an oak tree — the ground was peppered with dark brown acorns, which have been noisily falling from other trees where we live still this past week — alongside the French-looking lady.
As the thickest rain subsided, the weather forecast on T.'s smartphone changed and suggested belatedly that the precipitation would amount to over 1 L per square metre...
Then we saw the colleague and began talking and walking through the park, past a white pillar with a greenish-black bronze bust that must have been from the Napoleonic era judging by the three-cornered hat, over slopes and down slopes and over the gravel. Finally we reached the restaurant.
It was crowded to an irresponsible-looking degree, but we waited patiently. The tables were smallish so that I felt like I was risking the health of the other two a bit by directly speaking across ours, but I was happy to remove my scarf... Sparrows were almost as plentiful as the people. There were larger ones that I _think_ were males, and littler, spryer ones that may have been females. They were not impertinent, I think. Aside from gathering on one tabletop as if it were a birdhouse full of fresh seeds, they skipped and pecked at the blotchy ground that the rain had wetted.
We ordered Kaiserschmarrn, fried chicken, and — because the kitchen had run out of their pumpkin crème brûlée — a salad. I thought the menu was hipster-Teutonic-Bavarian-Austrian, to which I have no objection.
My salad: baby red beet leaves, lamb's lettuce drenched in the vinaigrette, and purple carrot cut into long pale ribbons; deep orange, roasted pumpkin with a rich, salty flavour, wedges of plump fig, and golden-brown pine nuts. Maybe also arugula. It was nice, filling, seasonal, and definitely a dish I would not really want to go to the trouble of making myself.
I also peeked at what the others ate. T.'s fried chicken was presented almost as if it were molecular gastronomy. But it just had three little dabs of lemon mayonnaise spread along the rectangular serving dish, so I figured the kitchen hadn't gone too wild. And P.'s Kaiserschmarrn seemed to consist of halved cooked plums, the fluffy golden pancake itself, snow-clouds worth of powdered sugar, and a vanilla ice cream that looked like it might be the lighter (some might say, less indulgent) kind that tastes like it's made of quark or something similar. I had non-traditional ice cream of that sort when I went to München in 2008, and felt that it was a little like eating flavored scrapings of a freezer box; but that may just be because I'm a philistine.
It became really cold later on, and the terrace was more sparsely attended; the waiter still ran back and forth.
*
T. and I had a little adventure as we were cycling both to the park and back, as the chain jumped off the sprockets of my bicycle — well, Mama's bicycle — when I hit two bumps. (I guess it's another time one could misquote Oscar Wilde: To lose the chain once may be counted a misfortune, to lose it twice begins to look like carelessness.) It was useful to find out how to fix the problem and I felt like a skilled handyman for once.
When we arrived at home, I ate a few (as much as I could manage under the circumstances) leftovers from the Oktoberfest dinner that the brothers and Mama had been eating: two or more sausage varieties roasted in the oven, sauerkraut, red cabbage, mashed potatoes with carrot, malt beer and regular beer.
Then I baked vegan cookies, two different types; and rather regretted not making a cake, which seems like a grander and more elaborate gesture; for a cake-eating today.
***
Today I went on a bicycle tour to the office again. I felt silly keeping on my scarf as a mask inside the office; but as I'd felt a bit sniffly earlier in the day, did so anyway. In retrospect I probably felt sniffly because the corner room I was working in at home was extremely cold; before I left the coal stove had been turned on and I 'magically' felt much better. Another case of the triumph of hypochondria over common sense! I feel a little exhausted, but to be honest really welcome a break from just thinking about work all the time. Meeting with colleagues again and eating nice food and talking made me realize that there is more to life: serious things that are also enjoyable.
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