More German lemons

The German obsession with lemons continues.

We were standing down in the garage-that-isn’t-a-garage this week talking about the next work to be done when a group of German tourists walked by.  They peeked through the gate as they walked past; we said hello as we always do.  Ian commented that, before they’d seen him, the two adult males of the group had tried unsuccessfully to pick a lemon overhanging the wall.  That’s fine, as far as we’re concerned the lemons hanging over the wall are fair game; we pruned the tree to leave them there, referring to them as the tourist lemons.

As we were discussing the ongoing tourist love of the lemons one of the German men walked back to the house accompanied by one of the children, a boy aged perhaps six or seven.  We hello’d once more, or rather Guten Tag’d to be polite, and the small boy launched into a carefully prepared question.

Could he … would it be possible … would we mind

he said before getting caught up with both nerves and speaking in English to strangers.   We helped out by preempting his second attempt.  Did he, perhaps, want to pick a lemon?  His face split into a huge smile, indeed it was a lemon he wanted.

At this time of year there are very few ripe yellow lemons about.  The next crop are coming along well but they are currently small and green and without a drop of juice.  They look very much like limes.  Still we managed to find one of the remaining ripe lemons and his father lifted him up so he could pull it off the tree.

Satisfied with his possession he and his father both thanked us politely and went on their way to catch up with the rest of their group.

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