Four new soup bowls sitting on my work top brighten my spirits without fail. Not because they are beautifully formed and exquisitely glazed, which by the way they are, but because of the German lady that made them.
'Are you German?' Friend P. and I must look very stunned at this question, because the lady in the pottery shop hastily switches to speaking French, trying to guide us round the entire contents all in one sentence. Friend P. is English, I am Dutch, we were probably speaking English on entering the shop, which is in France, because that is where we are on holiday. So German? No.
When I frantically try to unearth my school French in some far away corner of my brain, friend P., who speaks fluent German, surprises the lady with some very interesting remarks about the pottery industry. From which it takes only a very small step to discuss the painful break up of the German pottery lady and her French 'beau'.
Within minutes of us entering her shop, the German pottery lady completely spills the beans.Of how upon coming to France thirty odd years ago for a pottery course she fell in love with this French pottery artist and how they were perfectly happy until he ran off with a Vietnamese girl. Oh dear.
Before we can commiserate, however, the pottery lady tells us how important it is not to drown in one's sorrows. No, it is vital to learn from such life events and to move on. If only her French ex-lover would do the same. Moving on that is, or even better, buggering off to Vietnam altogether. But no, she points, every summer he, his Vietnamese wife and their children spend around three months in their pottery shop, which - didn't we know? - is right next door.
By now two little red spots appear on the pottery lady's cheek bones. Good thing she moved on and is in a good place now. She grabs some bowls and plates of the shelves. 'See this spiral motive?', she points. 'I love it, because for me it represents emotional growth and the fact that life is a journey and one shouldn't dwell upon the negative things, but continue to move forward'.
Not much more German is required at this point. All we have to do is nod and smile and wait for more. 'No she doesn't miss Germany at all', the lady continues. She visits once a year, or since her mother turned 90 three years ago twice a year, in October and March, and that is enough. She truly loves France.
But then friend P. strikes gold when picking up an unidentifiable little blue dome. It turns out to be a salt shaker, a very clever little salt shaker. A salt shaker that the German pottery lady has come up with and designed all by herself and that has over the past couple of years become one of her best selling products.
Again she points across the small garden. 'He copied it'. And not only does the French bastard produce and sell very similar salt shakers, he sells them cheaper. 'When he first started making them he sold them for one Euro less than mine', she says. That left her no choice. So she lowered her price, and than he followed suit and so on and so forth.The pottery lady sighs. Good thing she has responded to the lessons this break-up needed to teach her, dealt with the pain, grown from the experience and moved on.
We buy some more pottery than we originally intended and leave to find our bikes, all the while carefully avoiding to look at the shop next door, just in case the pottery lady is watching us. It is indeed very fortunate that she is truly and completely over it.
