I don't know - I never answer it!

Ducks Stadtpark 

Well none of you answered the question as to why I get so many unusual followers. So people pick me from the BoN list and follow me – for no particular reason. So it is a mystery that remains unanswered.

           

None of them appear to be homicidal and I am effectively invisible. As far as I am aware I am not in any phone book or directory in the known world so I defy anyone to track me down.

We do have a landline (is that what you call a fixed telephone line in your apartment?) which came with our package when we moved in. We had a TV/Internet/Telephone Package. (Nothing is in my name.) Now here is a challenge for you esby! See if you can find me!

We got high speed Internet plus 100 odd channels of German TV. But it does include BBC World News and a couple of other useful things in English - and a telephone landline which we have never used.

I have no idea what the telephone number is. I have never given it to anyone. Cate did give it to her brother and he is the only person who has ever called and been answered – by accident.

Now it does ring – every day in fact. In the early days I used to answer it – but people used to speak to me in German so I would say – in English  ‘I don’t speak German – can you speak to me in English’ and they would hang up.

So I assumed that they were selling the usual crap that people sell the world over. ‘Hi my name is Gertrude and I have a very special offer for you today Herr… may I ask what your name is…?’

So after a couple of calls I stopped answering the telephone altogether.

I have not answered it now for more than three years.

So each day or night when I get home I see that there has been a call or calls and that a message has been left – because the light is blinking.

I imagine that it has been Gertrude or Traudi or one of her colleagues who has a special offer for me and would like me to call her back.

So I reset the phone until it does not blink – until the next time.

But – I hear you ask – does it not sometimes ring when you are there? Well – it probably does – but I have the ringer set so low that I cannot hear it. 

So Cate leaves tomorrow for her voyage of discovery. She will actually be back in Vienna on a couple of occasions – for 4 hours on Saturday so we can have a cup of tea together and she can brush the cats – before she flies to Istanbul and then for about the same amount of time next Wednesday before she flies to Delhi or (shudder) Mumbai.

There are valid reasons for her doing this and I know what they are and they are to do with clothes and flight schedules and tides and phases of the moon, stuff like that. 

I am on strict instructions to be on my best behavior. But I am going out on the town on Friday night with my friend Yum Cha.

Molly was supposed to come from Paris to look after me but this has turned into one of those Goat things. More of that tomorrow.