I know Mand and I had Schnitzel earlier and we had cake at Ron’s but by the time we reached the Ahrtal my stomach was rumbling.

"What’re we having for dinner?”
"You can’t be hungry again,” Mand opined.

There was an exchange of looks between the parental units, a shrug and an application of brakes.

"The Mill,” Dad suggested as we dropped around the Roman villa , under the bypass and round past my old school.
Well it’s better than me cooking at home, "Suits me.”

"Your dad says all the equipment arrives tomorrow,” Mum prompted.

Der Mühle was particularly busy this evening, a couple of other family groups with a few locals propping up the bar.

"Er yeah,” I agreed as I decided on my food, Eva does a good Roulade which will fill a hole nicely. "It’s s’posed to arrive about ten so it can all be plumbed and wired and stuff.”
"Best practice your sausage grilling, Tom’s apparently quite a connoisseur.”
"Are you gonna be here?”
"We should be back, we’re only over at Leipzig.”
"So you’re here all week?” Mand queried.
"I think we’re going Friday,” Mum suggested, "You fancying another ride with the seniors?”
"It was kinda kewl,” de Vreen allowed.
"Gab?”
"I think Steff’s organised something Tuesday.”
"Well let me know tomorrow.”
"Er yeah,” I agreed.
"So what’s it to be guys?” Chris enquired.

Therese was in charge this morning, Tomas had bakery type things to attend to.

"Who painted the fence?” Con asked as her mum swung into Seilbahn to park.
I shrugged, "Dunno.”
"Didn’t your dad tell you, Gaby, he came up with the von Strechau lad on Saturday.”
“Max!”

Con stifled a chuckle.

"Is Uncle Jo coming?” Con enquired as we had yet another cleaning session.
"He’ll be up later,” Therese advised.
"Hello?” a voice enquired from the door.
"Herr Haaner,” Therese greeted our visitor.
“Marius please, Frau Thesing, so, it’s looking very smart.”

You’ll remember Herr Haaner from the shopfitters of course.

"Largely down to the girls,” Frau T suggested, bit of a porky but I'm not gonna contradict the boss. "We weren’t expecting to see you today.”
"I try to show my face if I can, gets me out of the showroom for a couple of hours, the lads should be here in a few minutes.”

Right on cue the sounds of a truck pulling up outside announced our delivery.

I guess shifting fridges and stuff is everyday stuff when you work for shopfitters, the ‘lads’ made short work of the unloading for which they were rewarded with coffee. Therese went over the delivery with Marius and signed it off, by twelve we were on our own again.

"I didn’t think there was this much,” I stated picking my way through a veritable mountain of boxes still piled outside, "Where’s it all gonna go?”
"Well it won’t be in boxes for starters,” Frau T observed, “once my brother’s got the shelving up it’ll just disappear.”
"So what do we do now?” Con asked her mum.
"You could make a start on washing the crockery.”
"Why’s it need washing, it’s all new?”
"You need to ask, Connie Thesing?”
"Can’t we just put it through the dishwasher?” I suggested.
"Which needs plumbing in,” Therese stated, "No it all needs unpacking and checking anyhow so we might as well do a first wash whilst we’re at it.”

"Urgh,” I eased my load of plates into the sink, "That’s the last.”
"You sure you haven’t missed a box,” Con, up to the elbows in suds, noted sarcastically.
"It was free choice,” I pointed out, not my fault she lost the coin toss.

Jo arrived half way through the exercise and Therese had been co-opted as his assistant. There was a lot of laughing coming from the stock room between power tool use and the occasional bit of cursing. The Metzinger siblings certainly seem to get on well.

"Right, ladies,” Jo addressed us, "If you want to get some lunch I'll start in here, at least get your shelves up.”
We didn’t need a second invite.

“P said you won on Saturday,” Con mentioned.
"Yeah, bit of a surprise really I didn’t think we’d even podium.”
Con chuckled.
"What?”
"You, everything you do gets converted into bike speak.”
"Doesn’t.”
"It so does, Gaby Bond, no one else talks like that, ‘didn’t think we’d podium’.
"I don’t talk like that.”
"You do!” she insisted, "You want more Kartoffel salat?”

Mrs T had packed us up with salad, frikadel and Brötchen, enough to be filling but not too filling.

I took the offered container of food, "Thanks.”
"Good job we had the plates, eh?”

Good job indeed or we’d have been eating out of the bowl.

"How’d you get on yesterday? You were up the Rhein somewhere, yeah?”
"Far side of Düsseldorf, not too bad.”
"You won then,” she stated.

I guess she’s known me long enough to pick up the vibes.

"Eventually,” I allowed warming to my subject.

"You two doing anything this afternoon?” Therese called from the servery.
"Coming.”

Well we’d finished eating a bit back, we’d been talking about the proposed ‘road trip’ for the last fifteen minutes.

"Wow!” I allowed on re-entering the kiosk, "How’d you do it so quick?”
"You like?” Jo asked back.
"It’s brill, Unc!” Con gave him a hug.
"There’s still some stuff to finish off,” he told us, "Bit of plumbing for the coffee machine and washer tomorrow and a bit of panelling around after.”

I'm guessing he’d pre-fabricated everything, a few screws and the shelves, fascias etc. were installed in double quick time.

"Right girls, let’s get everything put away,” Therese prompted, "Thanks, Jo, you coming to eat tonight?”
"Six?”
"Fine, we’ll see you later.”

With somewhere to actually put the crockery and so on we re-emptied boxes, stacked and sorted, unwrapped and examined. Therese was right, the pile of boxes became instead a much smaller stack of cardboard by the door, the cupboards and shelves easily swallowing everything. Of course there’s still the actual supplies to come but as a lot will be in the fridge and freezer that's not gonna be a problem – they coped before after all.

"Ready?” Frau Thesing enquired.

I double checked the lock and set the newly installed alarm.

"Yep.”

The alarm beeped to confirm it was set and I offered her the keys.

"Nope, it’s not my place, those are your set, Gaby, Jo has a set which will be Connie’s and there’s a spare set at the bakery.”

I looked at the keys in my hand, this is real; it’s really happening. I've got keys to the kiosk, my responsibility.

"Um. Thanks, I think.”
"We trust you, Gaby,” she stated, "You didn’t think we’d be coming up here to open up and lock up every day did you?”

To be honest I hadn’t really thought about it at all, we’re really gonna be running this place on our own aren’t we?

"You guys ready?” Con asked returning from the recycling across on the bahnhof ‘forecourt’.

"That’s never gonna stay in there,” Mand opined.

The oversize trophy’s journey up to the Tanzklub looks like being quite precarious balanced badly in the Schauff’s basket.

"Well what do you suggest,” I asked pointedly.
"Dunno,” she admitted, "Get a lift up?”
"Dur, the olds are going to the Pinger’s tonight.”
"Get Han to pick it up?”

Well it would be better than trying to balance it on the bike.

"Worth a call.”

"You alright there, Gab?” Hannah enquired as we pootled up the valley.
"Er sure,” I allowed from the tiny hole I was wedged in.

My co-coaches tiny Volkswagen Fox was otherwise stuffed with bags of uniforms, towels, a huge trophy, Mand and Han.

"You should’ve left it with me on Saturday.”
"Yeah,” I agreed – I couldn’t tell you how it ended up under my arm.
"We’ll have to get a bigger trophy cabinet,” she joked.
"You should see Gab’s collection at home,” Mand suggested.
"They’re not all mine.”
"Just most of them.”

Even in the Fox the journey was but a few minutes however I had to wait for the car to be partly unloaded before I could escape its confines.

"We’ll probably get some new recruits you know, when the Ahr Zeitung comes out,” Han advised as we perched on the edge of the stage watching the girls warm down.
"We will?”
"Happens all the time – even with the Garde, we do a show or win something and they’ll turn up wanting to join.”
"Well we could do with some extra bods, we’d’ve been up poo river if I'd not been there Saturday.”
"And Amanda,” Han added.
"Yeah, so we should recruit them? They’re gonna take a while to train up.”
"Well my bet is there’ll be a few from Garde, I can think of about three who will likely ask, who knows what else we’ll get.”

You’d think things would calm down a bit wouldn’t you.

“Oh, I nearly forgot, we’ve been volunteered for a display at the family day up in Adenau.”

Maddy Bell © 17.02.17