A Farewell Party

There are good ships

And there are wood ships,

And there are ships that sail the sea.

But the best ships

Are Friendships,

And may that ever be.

After 20+ years, I decided to hang up my hat with the Platjenwerbers.  We've had a great run, but it was time to "retire."

Corona put the squeeze on us a bit, too.  We all have one risk factor in common - age - and then you can pick from a wide range of things to add to that for each of us+. So, it would always be a bit risky to keep meeting.  That said, I know all these folks are very, very careful and all are really good following the rules.  We stopped our regular classes last March when most everything shut down and though there have been a medical issue or two in the group there's been no Corona in our midst.  That's good news.

But we needed to say good-bye in an organized way, so we had a little get-together in a safe way.  Rüdiger offered his place - they have a lovely, large garden and a nice "Wintergarten" so that was our locale.  No masks, you'll notice, though we tried to keep our distance.

The evening started out sunny - coolish, but not wet.

We took a stroll around the garden and admired all the plants and flowers and veggies.

The obligatory group picture.  Unfortunately, two of our regulars couldn't be with us.

Then we ate.  We're good at that and have had lots of practice, especially with our annual Christmas feast.  

There were toasts and a nice speech from Detlef and a response from me.  And some gifts - a little plaque with each of their names, a collection of pictures over the years, and a fragrant rose bush with a blossom for each person there.  How thoughtful! 

Each of them got a gift from me as well:  a home-made potholder in a US flag design.  I'd tried to be fancy and back it with a Bremen flag, but that got a bit complicated.  No matter, they were all very pleased with a little remembrance from their favorite English teacher - me!  

What a funny and fun-loving and just plain nice group of people.  We'll get together again, but we won't talk grammar!!

P.S.  Blogger has changed their interface, and it seems either they still have some bugs to work out or I have yet to figure out some of the controls so excuse the stretched pics and the occasional formatting glitches.