There are those that do the bare minimum, becoming bored easily; and there are others who live life to the full, looking on any situation as an opportunity.
Namibian, therefore, dozes off to a DVD whilst I make a Grand Tour of Sulfeld.
This sleepy hamlet is not a village, our host Frank assures me, but a bustling metropolis. Well, I’ll be the judge of that.
Aha! There are two bakeries: a sure sign of a town worth visiting as far as I’m concerned. And one can even have a haircut here. A walk round the communal pond seems a little safer than trekking alongside the golf course where stray balls have been known to maim the odd pedestrian.
On my return, Namibian is wheezing in his sleep. A pal through thick and thin, I take a photograph and wake him. And do you know what he says? He makes the daft suggestion that I start making my own tea.
We gloss over this height of audacity, get the kettle boiling, and then it’s time for some music. A few trombone scales, admittedly a little shaky and tuneless, cement my banishment to the garage – which is cold.
Frankly, I’m always amazed that people – and plump people, at that – can go the whole day without anything to eat. Frank, at 11am, without so much as a croissant to commence the day, is quite content to wait until dinner when I ask what he would like from the bakery.
I query how he can be so much fatter than me; we put it down to booze and lack of exercise.
The rest of the day is spent deciding how to word an email to a Russian girl – a stunner from behind the Iron Curtain. She has latched onto my internet dating profile like a Cape Fur Seal eyeing up a plump young gannet.
Presumably she wo
uld like a passport through marriage, but one shouldn’t judge a book by its cover. There is a chance – OK, perhaps just a mere scintilla of a possibility – that this could be true lust, I mean love.
As I’m pontificating on how best to find out her intentions without appearing too callous, Namibian quite literally explodes at the dining table.
‘Oh, I can sit and burp for hours,’ he says, sipping a cappuccino and lighting up yet another West cigarette. How nice it is, we think sitting here in comfort, to be paid every day, and have friends all over Europe..