Gentlewoman

Actually getting a bit mixed up with all my gate work. Yesterday I had only placed the tiles on the top of the pillars to see how they looked. Today I actually got around to fixing them in place.

To do this needed mortar and so set off with Flash for a morning walk in Ottobeuren and a quick shop. Coming out of the supermarket and about to cross the parking area, a lady in a "peppermint green" or perhaps "British Racing Green" Mini stopped to let the old man cross. I nodded my thanks and was still unloading the trolley when the driver came by on foot. I bowed my head and said while pointing to her car "Thank You, Very British Gentlewoman" (in English). She smiled and said "That is how it should be" (in German).

The Mini is becoming increasingly popular here but courtesy, politeness and gentleman-like behaviour, hallmarks of the British are being tarnished at the hands of the British government and press. I think After Eight which has been one of the few, once "British", foodstuffs commonly available here since the mid 1960s, for which the later Swiss owners developed the slogan for their TV advertising of the 80s and 90s - "Die feine englische Art"  - fine English Style. In fact the saying is commonlyy used in the negative form when someone does something unfairly "Nicht die feine englische Art"!

You need to be even older than me to have heard Helen Shapiro sing in German about the bloke who was not a Gentleman in her single " Das ist nicht die feine englishe Art"