Friday, April 20, 2012

Meticulous

I have always had ‘a knack’ for foreign languages. So it isn’t really surprising that I have gone from country to country and been coping with a new language. We had English in school, but then – nothing happened. And by ‘nothing’ I mean I had no use for English. I had 4 years of French as well and the same thing happened, it was of no use to me. Now the difference between English and French is that English is a world language, while French is not. Computers are all about English, Pilots are having English as their work language – not French or Spanish.
When I chose to leave Germany I went to Norway, not United Kingdom or Australia. Instead of having a benefit of English I had to start it all over again. I was in a job and I had to learn Norwegian, pronto! And I did. Took me all of 6 weeks to get the hang of it. And since I stayed on for 25 years it made kind of sense to grab it.
But then we moved to Canada. Western Canada. Luckily French isn’t spoken there.
But English!

I had some working knowledge of English as I had worked with an American a couple of years and HIS knowledge of Norwegian was sketchy. Good for me!

So I dusted of the English I knew and have recently made it into blog land, which I am happy about.

But even after 10 years (May30)  there are still a few words I stumble over every time I shall write them. ‘Meticulously’ is one of them. Another one is miscellenous, no wait: miscellous, miscellos, darn, there is still a red line under that word and the worst is that software’s spelling feature does not offer a solution. Do YOU know what I tried to spell out here? Well then i don’t need to write that word anymore. Geez, I get a headache.
 
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                                                   Taking a break…     
Alright, lets leave that behind. Today I did not make it very long in that raspberry patch. Got a headache! Again! Bea ordered me to stop, so I stopped and went to talk to Dad. Dad told a very nice story.

After mothers death there was her electronic piano. Since Dad doesn’t play it and nobody in the family does, it was advertised for sale. 300 Euros for that instrument didn’t seem much. It was like new. After 3 weeks nobody had called to inquire about it. My brother had just suggested to reduce the price to 200 Euros, which would really have been a steal, when the phone rang. On the other end a young woman inquired about the piano and whether it still was available. That could be confirmed and the lady came out the same evening to take a look. She was very impressed and forked over 300 Euros. When Dad also gave her the piano chair and all the music books Mother had gathered through more than 60 years – all for free, she threw up her hands and I bet she would have loved to give Dad a hug. But people don’t do that in Germany. Instead she ran out to her vehicle and came back with a flower bouquet.
She gave it to Dad and asked him to put them on mothers grave, which surly would make HER happy. That was almost too much for Dad, and when he told me the story it almost was too much for me.

In the evening we went for a stroll to Herring Cove Provincial Park. It is hardly worth to get into the car. It really is that close.
The park offers a very nice campground with water/electricity and a dump station. It is still some time before the campground will open and the park still seems to be in hibernation.
The pictures beneath are all from the park.

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Lots of room in the campground
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Dump Station

If you ever come to Campobello, bring your RV and stay for a while.

Meanwhile, thanks for taking a break here!

7 comments:

  1. Loved your story about the flowers. It was beautiful.

    Learning several languages in the US has never been something a lot of folks do. We were amazed in Europe how so many of the people spoke several languages. To me it's amazing but it seemed effortless. Good for you.

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  2. what a beautiful thing for her to do for your dad and mom...I live in a bilingual city and I'm not french...:(..oh well I've managed this long with my english have a super weekend....we're almost home

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  3. looks like a nice campground with great neighbors, named Peter, Bea and Molly!!

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    1. Every year when we arrive at the Holtville LTVA word goes around: Molly, Bea and Peter have arrived!

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  4. Can this Provincial Park handle big rigs like ours ??

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    1. No problem Denise. They can handle any size there. The park opens 01. of June If you be here earlier there is a boondocking site where you can stay between the Prov.Park and the Roosevelt Park.

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  5. This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.

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