Studies and Sloe Bushes

This week I submitted one of my university essays, the Greek written and spoken exams are over as of yesterday, and I've restarted the work on the second university essay — a comparison of the 1970s transitions from dictatorship to democracy in Greece and Spain.

On the work front, I did a 7-hour shift with a 1/2 hour break at a grocery store out in Brandenburg, near Potsdam. Waking up at 6:08 a.m. to get ready and catch the train after a night where I was so anxious about missing the right time to get up that I woke up every two hours, learning how to handle idiosyncrasies of the new grocery store like customized buttons and clients who bring back crates of empty water and beer bottles, and stocking shelves — these parts of the job were so exhausting that I've been a little limp ever since. Besides I didn't stay hydrated, so that even the 'isotonic drink' that I made for myself in the evening wasn't enough to quench the perpetual thirst afterward. On the bright side, it was sunny weather, none of the customers or colleagues were unfriendly, the sight of lush trees and leisure boats on the sparkling blue river was nice, and the trains ran almost like clockwork. A customer handed me a Mozartkugel, and after clearing it with my supervisor to make sure it wouldn't be considered a bribe, I ate it as a reward after the written exam. And, of course, I earned a little over €100.

That said, the Greek exams revealed large lacunae in my grammar skills. Besides I'd like to improve my listening comprehension. So I've borrowed from the 'Spanish self-teaching bootcamp' that I set up in 2024 to get into a B1 class at university, and begun a daily schedule of copying out verb charts and listening to Greek language videos on YouTube. Writing the history essay might also help...

To unwind, I went to the allotment gardens earlier today. (There was a cloud cover, but the forecast thunderstorms have not yet descended.) The gardens themselves were quiet and cheery. Two orange-coloured water tank trucks from the city's fleet were watering trees with a generous spray. Sweet peas, roses, echinacea, late-flowering butterfly bushes, marigolds, hibiscus, calendula, and other flowers are still in season; gold-green and blue grapes are hanging in ripening clusters; plums and early pears are ripening on the trees, as quinces and apples follow. Rosebush twigs had been left outside an open gate, and I wanted to take one home with me; but I didn't see anyone to ask for permission.

A gardener was watering his plot with the traditional hose. It's an activity I'm always skeptical of when it's between 10 a.m. and 5 p.m. Firstly, my paternal grandfather (who after all studied agriculture, and later planted and tended a half acre of all kinds of decorative bushes as well as vegetables and fruit) always watered late in the evening — when the sun had crept past the garden to spotlight the tall firs behind the neighbour's yard, upslope on the mountain. Besides, growing up in a dry part of Canada, we were always told by the municipal authorities that drip hoses that lie along the soil and gradually infuse water into it are a far more efficient way to tend plants. Of course, watering early in the morning is also fine.

The plot where a gardener generously gave me fruit last week was locked, the baskets hanging at the gate empty. In fact all the 'zum Verschenken' baskets around the gardens were empty; considering that it's not the weekend, when more people putter about in their gardens, and that apple season is not in full swing yet, this is to be expected. But I picked up three sweet, peachy-tasting mirabelle plums that had fallen at the next corner of the garden path.

Along the way home, I glanced at the blackberry bushes that grow beside the train tracks. They have been harvested ruthlessly. But the dusty-blue sloe berries are ripening intact on their bushes; I wondered if this year is the year when I'll finally take a leaf from the British gardener's book and make sloe gin.