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Kate Fox writes in her Watching the English that there is nothing worse than taking yourself too seriously. Why not put the proverbial English sense of humour to the test?

Many of the people we’ve met, mostly parents of Emil and Theo’s class mates, ask how it came to be that we can come over here for eight weeks. Of course they would never be so blunt. Most of the time they use wording like “Is it your work or your wife’s work that takes you over here?” My standard answer, “Erm uh, I’m afraid it’s neither. We’re not working at all while we’re here.” And then I have to go on explaining the German concept of Elternzeit (maternity/paternity leave) to them: twelve months paid leave, under certain conditions fourteen, so much for the mum, so much for the dad, one after another, together… lots of questions. And yes, we do feel very lucky. It gets tedious.

When next this topic comes up I am resolved to go a different path: “I used to work as an undercover agent for the German police, spying on Nazi groups in East Germany. But I was made and now I’m in witness protection. Well, at least I see more of my boys now.”

Or maybe this: “Well, actually, I’m a drug dealer from East Germany and there were threats from a Russian competitor and now my family and I need to lie low for a while until it has all blown over. You know, two months here, then two months in Scotland, after that somewhere in Mediterranean area. Oh my, now I have told you. Guess that means I’ll have to kill you.”

I’ll come back to you on how it went.

This entry was posted on Friday, November 18th, 2011 at 22:28 and is filed under english stuff, hingekritzeltes, trips. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.