I just made 90 € in one three-minute phone call! Hooray! O.K. I only saved them. For the heavily indebted town of which I am an official resident since the beginning of May sent me a letter demanding 90 € from me for my 40-liter rubbish bin. Only I have none! Everyone told me that I probably had to pay it since I ought to have one (I don’t need it, as my landlady has enough space in her’s for what rubbish I produce). With a set resolve to fight to the blood against this injustice I phoned the city council (?) up - and marvellously, they immediately discovered they had made a mistake as this is only my secondary place of residence. The drawback is that I will probably loose money through all this, as I am going to spend these “extra” 90 € at least three times (”O, I saved those 90€! Which means I can buy this…”)

On another topic: WordPress will no longer be my friend soon. First this “related posts” nonsense, now this stupid automatically generated avatars! And I didn’t even get a green one! Grrr. It positively blackmailed me into adopting this nice picture of my namesake, St Notburga, patron saint of farm labourers, farmers, and for not working overtime. Complete with the hovering sickle next to her. For once in her life she worked for a farmer under the condition that she would be allowed to pursue her devotions after the end of work. When one Saturday evening at the ringing of the church bells she wanted to leave the field the farmer told her to work on. Refusing this, she said that God should judge between the two of them, held up her sickle, let it go - and it remained hovering in the air. That was impressive enough to make resorting to the Farm Labourers Union quite superfluous. She generally was a very diligent worker, choosing the hardest chores for herself, fasted to give the food to the poor, and nursed the Countess who had been particularly nasty to her on her deathbed, where that lady converted, preferred. No roses, I am sorry to say, in her case: once when she was caught on her way of almsgiving, bread had turned to wood shavings and wine to brine. Less romantic, somehow. But I love the sickle.