Issue 18 — 3 July 2026

The Pineapple

Keeping the Human Shape

A collection shaped by the voices of the Brida Community

Created by Members of the Brida Community.
Compiled by Frank Peters, Founding Editor.
Shaped in Spirit by Janita Le Grange, Keeper of the Flame.

The Pineapple is published every Friday afternoon. If you would like the next issue to arrive in your inbox, you can subscribe free.

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The Pineapple

In This Issue

By The Duo

This week’s Pineapple begins with a confession from Janita: doing absolutely nothing is not as easy as it sounds.

From there, the issue turns the map around. The Mayor asks what happens when we stop assuming the usual direction is the right one, while Ismar brings digital balance into the real world of paper bills, trust, phones, habits and contradiction.

Because Brida cannot stay serious for too long, Alfred the Potato appears.

Then Rest begins to change shape.

Fabrice and Janita take it outside, where rest may look like movement without pressure. Manfred and Martin take it into sleep, work, office naps, mosquitos, YouTube and the strange pressure of needing to be fit tomorrow. Sylvie brings it home, where WhatsApp messages, family dinners and television evenings reveal how difficult it can be to give attention to the person beside us.

Rosii takes Rest somewhere softer: a quiet bedroom, a tired heart, a funny niece, a patient table, and a hardworking dog who finally deserves a holiday.

Babette imagines one whole Saturday where nobody needs anything from her, and discovers that rest may be as simple as coffee on the terrace, Chinese takeaway, a good friend and doing absolutely nothing.

And then Ralf brings us back to the table, where social balance, warm coffee, pastéis de nata and cooking with care remind us that being human is not only something we think about. Sometimes it is something we serve.

Finally, Next Week in Brida opens the door again.

This issue is called Keeping the Human Shape because that is what all these pieces are quietly doing: protecting the ordinary, tired, funny, hungry, distracted, restless, loving human being inside modern life.

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www.brida.eu/pineapple

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The Pineapple

Learning the Language of Doing Absolutely Nothing: Rest

By Janita Le Grange

I have a confession to make: I don’t know how to sit still.

If my body were a smartphone, it would be flashing a red, 1% battery icon while frantically trying to download a software update. Yet, our natural instinct when we hit empty isn’t to plug in—it’s to open twenty more tabs. Why do we feel so incredibly guilty for just existing in the off-position? Who are these invisible neighborhood critics judging us through the blinds, and why do they care if we’re aggressively productive at 7:00 PM on a Tuesday?

The reality is a special kind of comedy.

We wear our busyness like a heavy winter coat in the middle of summer, terrified of what we’d look like if we just stood there in our metaphorical t-shirts.

The Audacity of the Chore List

A question that came this week was: How do we actually do nothing?

My brain’s immediate answer was hilariously flawed. I realized I only permit myself to relax when I have literally run out of things to do. It’s that mythical, unicorn moment when the house is pristine, dinner is gourmet, the kids have done their homework without crying, and the chore list is entirely crossed out. Only then do we look at the couch and think, “I have earned thirty minutes of Netflix.”

But let’s be real: that isn’t rest. That’s just a silly reward system.

By treating rest like a gold star at the end of a marathon, we completely forget to survive the messy middle. We treat our well-being like a cheap plastic toy we can drop on the driveway, while treating the status of our baseboards like ancient, fragile artifacts.

The Internet Is Not Helping

Then, of course, there is the modern jungle of social media.

You sit down for a five-minute breather, open your phone to escape, and are immediately slapped in the face by conflicting algorithms. One TikTok influencer is screaming, “Wake up at 4:00 AM! Discipline is freedom!” while the very next post features a serene woman in linen pants whispering, “You need a three-week digital detox in Bali.”

Yeah, okay, Karen.

How exactly does one manifest a Balinese villa in between the school run, work, running a household, fighting off a cold, and conquering a laundry mountain that has officially developed its own ecosystem? Toxic positivity doesn’t scrub the burnt cheese off the lasagna pan or pick up the toy obsticale course in the living room.

Sometimes, being exhausted isn’t a “mindset problem” to be fixed with a motivational quote over a picture of a sunset. Sometimes, it’s just your body saying: “Hey. Stop.”

Giving the Invisible Critics the Night Off

Regaining our sanity means learning to step off the bicycle before we crash into a bush. It means choosing to sit on the couch specifically because the cupboard is messy and the laundry mountain is mocking us.

We need to aggressively lower our standards. Sometimes, the only task on the daily to-do list should be: Stay alive, be kind to yourself, eat a snack. It’s about leaning into the weird, twitchy discomfort of an unfinished day and realizing the universe will not collapse if the dishes soak overnight.

The world will keep spinning. I promise.

So, let the clutter win tonight. Give the person in the mirror a high-five, take a deep breath, and remember: tomorrow is a brand-new day to ignore the chores all over again.

Join the Slacker Revolution

This month, we are staging an intervention. We’ll be diving deep into the art of the radical pause and exploring why taking a break is a non-negotiable—whether that means a sneaky ten minutes once a day, a dedicated reset once a month, or just abruptly dropping whatever you are doing right this second because you’ve hit your limit.
So, put down the sponge, back away from the inbox, join us this month, and let’s actually have some fun doing absolutely nothing together.

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The Pineapple

Growing Upside Down

By Mayor

A Mayor’s Pen reflection on Australia, Brida, growth, usefulness, and looking from another angle

When you grow up in Australia, you learn at an early age that the rest of the world thinks you are upside down.

Maps do not help.

Most maps place Europe somewhere near the middle and Australia somewhere near the bottom, as if it were an afterthought attached to the edge of the planet.

Seasons do not help either.

Christmas arrives in the middle of summer. School holidays happen at the wrong time. Even the stars seem to be arranged differently.

As a child, you accept this without thinking much about it.

It is simply the way things are.

Only later do you realise that being “upside down” has an unexpected advantage.

It teaches you that there is usually more than one way to look at the world.

The advantage of another angle

Over the years, I have noticed a curious pattern.

Many of the things I have found most valuable in life started with doing the opposite of what seemed obvious at the time.

Not because I wanted to be different.

Not because I was trying to rebel.

Simply because the usual way did not always make sense.

The older I get, the more often I hear the same feedback.

“You are doing the opposite of what people normally do.”

For a long time, I treated this as an observation.

Recently, I have begun to wonder whether it is actually a compliment.

Growth is not always the first question

Most organisations start by asking how they can grow.

It is a reasonable question.

Growth is visible.
Growth can be measured.
Growth looks impressive in reports and presentations.

Yet some of the most meaningful things I have experienced did not begin with growth.

They began with usefulness.

A conversation that helped someone think differently.

An unexpected connection between two people.

A story that made somebody feel recognised.

A small act that created value long before anybody thought about scale.

If you start with growth, people can sometimes become numbers.

If you start with usefulness, people tend to remain people.

What growth is actually for

That does not mean growth is bad.

A tree that does not grow is not healthy.

A community that never welcomes new people becomes closed.

A project that never develops slowly loses energy.

Growth matters.

But growth is not the same thing as health.

It is not the same thing as meaning.

It is not the same thing as usefulness.

There is, rather nicely, a growing awareness that growth is not always what it was once made out to be.

For a long time, growth was treated almost as a law of nature.

Grow the company.
Grow the economy.
Grow the audience.
Grow the numbers.

Bigger was assumed to be better.

But perhaps a better question is not:

“How big can this become?”

Perhaps the better question is:

“What is this growth actually for?”

A garden does not grow forever.

At some point, it must also produce, rest, renew and feed the people who tend it.

A potato patch that only spreads but never gives potatoes is not much use to anyone.

In that sense, the purpose of growth is not growth.

The purpose of growth is fruit.

Or, in our strange little Brida world, potatoes.

The usefulness of looking the other way

This is where the upside-down view becomes useful.

If everybody is running in one direction, it can be valuable to have somebody nearby who instinctively looks the other way.

Not to stop progress.

But to question its direction.

Not to criticise for the sake of criticism.

But to ask whether the road still leads somewhere worth going.

In Brida, Fruitloop often plays that role for me.

She is still upside down in South Africa, living under a different sky, in a different season, with a different rhythm of life.

She is a generation younger than I am.

She is a woman.

She is a mother in the middle of laundry mountains, school homework, family logistics, work pressure and ordinary domestic chaos.

I am none of those things.

I am the Mayor, sitting somewhere else, thinking in systems, projects, folders, Potato Patches and strange Brida operating models.

On paper, this should probably not work as well as it does.

Yet it does, precisely because we do not see the same thing in the same way.

When I drift too far into structure, she reminds me of life.

When I become too theoretical, her world brings the discussion back to the kitchen table, the school bag, the tired child, the WhatsApp message, the real person.

When I decide, occasionally, that perhaps I should try doing things normally for once, I still need an upside-down anchor.

Friction is not failure

That is not always comfortable.

Different perspectives rarely are.

They create friction.

They slow things down.

They complicate simple plans.

They force explanations that one would rather skip.

But they also prevent blindness.

They stop one person’s logic from becoming the only logic in the room.

The same is true of going against the grain more generally.

The grain offers certainty.

It offers approval.

It offers the reassuring feeling that we are doing what everybody else is doing.

Swimming against the current is harder.

It requires patience, trust and occasionally the willingness to look slightly ridiculous while doing it.

The Australian habit of improvising

Australians understand this instinctively.

Living on an island continent at the far edge of the map creates a certain practical independence.

You learn to improvise.

You learn not to panic when things are different.

You learn that there is little value in complaining about reality.

It is generally more productive to work with what is in front of you.

Perhaps that is why the idea of being upside down never bothered us very much.

From our perspective, maybe everyone else was upside down.

The dangerous question

The interesting thing is that many meaningful discoveries begin with somebody looking at the accepted way of doing things and asking a dangerous question.

“What if we tried the opposite?”

Sometimes the answer is disastrous.

Sometimes it changes everything.

The challenge is knowing the difference.

Going against the grain is not automatically wise.

Being different for the sake of being different is just another form of conformity.

The value comes from understanding why the grain exists in the first place, and then deciding consciously whether it still serves a purpose.

The best alternative paths are not acts of rebellion.

They are acts of curiosity.

They emerge from paying attention.

From noticing something that others have overlooked.

From seeing a possibility where others see only habit.

What this means for Brida

Looking back, I suspect many of the things we value most in Brida emerged this way.

Not through grand plans or complicated strategies, but through simple questions that pointed in an unexpected direction.

What if conversation came before content?

What if usefulness came before growth?

What if we did not begin by asking people to join us, but by asking how we could help them?

What if ordinary life was not a distraction from community building, but the very soil in which community grows?

There is a certain freedom in that.

A willingness to look at the world from another angle.

A willingness to believe that there may be another way.

A willingness to accept that the view from the bottom of the map may reveal things that are harder to see from the middle.

Turn the map around

Perhaps growing up upside down taught me something I did not fully appreciate at the time.

Not everything that everybody else is doing needs to be copied.

Not every trend deserves to be followed.

Not every measure of success deserves to be measured.

Sometimes the most valuable thing you can do is stop, turn the map around, and look at the world from another angle.

From down here, some things suddenly make a lot more sense.

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A conversation about digital balance, paper bills, trust, safety, and the contradictions of ordinary life

When The Mayor began the conversation, the topic was digital balance.

But digital balance is not only about phones, computers, social media, or how many hours we spend looking at a screen.

Sometimes it is about control.

Sometimes it is about safety.

Sometimes it is about trust.

Sometimes it is about irritation, patience, other people, and the small contradictions we carry into modern life.

This was not a conversation against technology.

It was a conversation about what happens when technology enters real life, where people are not perfect, trust is not simple, and balance is not one rule that works for everyone.

I have to say that when I hear the word balance, I do not immediately think only about a cell phone, a computer, the internet, or social media.

I think first about emotional balance.

Maybe this is because I am not exactly a calm person, even if sometimes I may seem calm.

So, for me, digital balance is not separated from the rest of life.

It is also about how we deal with irritation, trust, risk, other people, and our own contradictions.

Paper feels safer

The Mayor asked about the ordinary things: phone, laptop, messages, bills, news, and all these things that now arrive through a screen.

But I began thinking about paper.

I am not a very organised person, but I try to put important documents in a specific place. Most of the time, I can find them again.

The problem happens when I receive a paper and I think:

“Later I will put this in the correct place.”

If I do not do this, later I may have a problem when I need it.

The Mayor spoke about income tax and bills in France, where many things are now digital.

In Brazil, I think we are in a transition phase.

Some bills arrive by email or even WhatsApp. My cell phone bill does not come on paper anymore, but my electricity bill still does.

I prefer paper.

It is not because I hate technology.

It is because, with paper, I feel more control.

If a bill appears inside a banking app and it is the wrong bill, and I pay it by mistake, then to get the money back can become bureaucracy.

With paper, I can see it.

I can hold it.

I can check it in a more physical way.

The Mayor told me that when he pays for shopping with cash, he feels the money disappearing from the budget. He can see the notes and coins going away.

When he pays by card, it does not feel the same.

For me, it is a little different.

I usually know more or less how much money I have in my bank account, and I do not usually carry much cash in my wallet.

So even with money, balance is not one simple rule.

For The Mayor, cash makes spending visible.

For me, paper bills give more control.

Another person may prefer everything in the app.

Maybe the important question is not only whether something is digital or not.

Maybe the question is whether we feel able to understand what is happening.

When digital makes people disappear

Then we spoke about older people.

My mother has two bank accounts, and I manage them for her.

When she needs to withdraw money, I go with her because she does not know how to do it alone. She prefers physical money.

The Mayor said some friends of his mother still do not use online banking and prefer to go to the bank, but now this can be more expensive and also more difficult because there are fewer branches.

I know this problem.

A branch of my bank near me closed a few months ago.

I did not need to go there very often, but sometimes I did. When it closed, I was surprised.

This is one of the strange things about digital life.

Sometimes it is supposed to make things easier, but it makes the human being disappear.

The Mayor remembered going into a bank in England to open an account.

There were five people working there and he was the only customer, but they told him he had to phone a number.

So he walked out.

There are five people behind a counter, but you still have to call someone else.

At the same time, I can understand the other side.

Some banks in Brazil no longer have cashiers. If you need money, you use an ATM.

This may be inconvenient for some people, especially older people, but I also remember a time when bank robberies were common.

Less cash inside a bank can mean less danger.

So, again, it is not simple.

It was almost like looking at a small museum of payment methods: cash, paper bills, bank apps, ATMs, passwords, and messages asking whether it was really you.

It was almost like looking at a small museum of payment methods: cash, paper bills, bank apps, ATMs, passwords, and messages asking whether it was really you.

Convenience depends on where you live

After that, I told The Mayor about something new for me.

I have bought many things online, but until last week I had never bought clothes or shoes on the internet.

Now I have ordered running shoes, and they are supposed to arrive at the end of the week.

I find this a little weird because I have not tried them on.

Even if I have a standard size, the same size can be different from one brand to another.

Maybe this is one of the great unsolved problems of civilisation.

Then The Mayor described online second-hand platforms where private buyers and sellers can use a trusted marketplace.

The buyer and seller do not need to meet directly. The system creates a kind of safety between them.

When he explained this, I thought immediately about trust and safety.

In Brazil, I do not trust selling things through a place like Facebook if the person has to come to my home.

Suppose I publish that I have a fridge to sell.

A person comes to my apartment to inspect it.

How do I know what will happen?

Maybe he wants the fridge.

Maybe he has another intention.

I once had a gas bottle to sell.

I could probably have sold it privately for the full price, but I preferred to sell it back to the company for half the price.

I lost money, but I felt safer.

I did not want a stranger coming to my apartment.

This is important because digital systems do not exist in the air.

They exist inside countries, cities, risks, habits, and fears.

A platform that feels convenient in one country may feel dangerous in another.

A marketplace is not only a marketplace.

It is also the question:

Who knows where I live?

The phone on the table

Then The Mayor asked me where my phone lives during the day.

Normally, it is on the table, a few metres away from me.

If I go out by car, I take it with me.

If I go walking, I often leave it at home because I do not like using my phone in the street.

This means I am not always available.

The Mayor said this is almost old-fashioned.

But, to be honest, not many people contact me.

My mother contacts me. Maybe one person in Curitiba contacts me.

I have some WhatsApp groups, but not many urgent things to solve.

I am not a businessman.

I would say that 90% of what people publish in these groups does not interest me.

Many people send pictures saying good morning, good afternoon, or good night.

The Mayor said maybe these messages are supposed to make people happy, to make them smile.

Maybe.

But I am not convinced.

I almost never send these things.

I think it is better to write directly:

“Hello, Frank, how are you today? I wish you a good day.”

This is more personal than sending the same picture to one hundred or two hundred people.

Maybe the younger generation would say I am miserable.

But my complaint is not against greetings.

I like a real greeting.

My complaint is against a copied greeting that pretends to be personal.

Noise, rights, and other people

Then The Mayor asked whether digital life has made people more polite, less polite, or just polite in a different way.

I think it depends on the person, but in general people are less polite.

For example, in a doctor’s office, if people are reading or quietly texting while they wait, I do not see a problem.

But some people watch movies or listen to music without earphones.

On buses, people speak loudly on the phone.

I find this impolite.

The Mayor asked why people do not respect the space of others nearby.

I said I do not consider myself an example of politeness, but when I do something, I try to think whether I am disturbing someone around me.

I suspect many people do not think this way.

They think:

“It is my right to communicate.”

“It is my right to say what I want.”

“It is my right to do what I want.”

This also happens near my mother’s home.

Some families throw parties every couple of months, and the parties can finish around midnight.

Do they have the right to throw a party?

Yes.

But do I have the right to sleep when I want?

Also yes.

There is the problem.

The Mayor asked whether this behaviour existed before social media.

I think yes.

I do not think social media created it.

The person who uses a phone loudly in a doctor’s office and the person who throws a loud party late into the night may be showing the same behaviour in different forms.

The technology changes the stage, but maybe not the character.

This also appears in the way we send messages.

We want the freedom to send what matters to us.

We also want protection from what irritates us.

We want other people to tolerate our messages.

We do not always want to tolerate theirs.

We complain about noise, and maybe tomorrow we become the noise.

Partial trust

Later, The Mayor spoke about digital security.

Banking apps, financial apps, medical apps, passwords, confirmation messages, warnings that you have logged in, warnings that you changed something, warnings asking if it was really you.

He was not against safety, but he said it can feel as if the system treats the user as guilty until proven innocent.

This made me think about trust.

I asked him whether we have more than six people we trust.

Then I clarified that I meant trust without restriction.

For example, if someone asked me for a signed blank check, who would receive it?

When my mother was in full mental condition, she was the only person I would have trusted that way.

Today, I would not give a blank check to anyone.

This is an extreme example, but it helps to show the point.

Complete trust is rare.

Partial trust is how life works.

When we go to a doctor, perhaps for the first time, we have to trust him partially.

If we trust no one, why go?

But complete trustworthiness does not exist, or at least almost does not exist.

So we live in a paradox.

We cannot trust completely.

But we also cannot live without trusting partially.

Maybe this is also part of digital balance.

The good side of access

The Mayor then imagined a firewall around digital life.

What if I shut down the phone, laptop, internet, and most media?

What if I used only a few radio stations, a few TV channels, and one paper newspaper?

Would that improve my balance, or would it make life more inconvenient?

I said that now it is almost impossible to stay completely outside the digital world.

Paper newspapers are almost gone.

Many services expect you to use an app, a password, or a code.

Without digital access, you would lose contact with what is happening in Brazil and around the world.

Still, I do not want to say I hate digital life.

The Mayor said it is a double-edged sword.

We cannot live without it, but we dislike parts of it.

I think this is true.

He also said that without digital life, he could not speak with me.

This is also true.

There is another side too.

Twenty years ago, maybe I wanted a library with thousands of books.

At some point, I realised this was not practical.

If I moved to another city, it would become a problem.

Today, anyone with a phone or laptop has a library.

This is the good side of the digital world.

Not the bling bling bling of notifications.

Not anonymous abuse.

Not endless passwords.

Not messages that never finish properly.

But access.

Books.

Newspapers.

Language.

Contact with someone thousands of kilometres away.

Of course, we were speaking across continents because technology made the table possible.

Critical, but tolerant

So what is the conclusion?

In Brazil, people talk a lot about critical thinking.

But maybe we have to be critical in almost whatever we do.

At the same time, we have to be tolerant.

If I fought every neighbour who threw a party near me, maybe I would be dead by now.

It is necessary to be critical but tolerant, in a way where you gain more and lose less.

The Mayor called it good manners, balance, respect, and tolerance.

But I also have to remember one more thing.

I can criticise someone whose party finishes too late, and tomorrow it is not impossible that I throw a party and my own party finishes at one in the morning.

Human beings have this contrast between words and behaviours.

We are not perfect.

That is where the digital balance conversation landed for me.

Not with a rule about how many hours to use the phone.

Not with a detox challenge.

Not with a clean conclusion that old things are good and new things are bad.

It landed with my phone somewhere on the table, notifications suppressed because I do not like the bling bling bling.

It landed with paper bills, bank branches, WhatsApp greetings, online marketplaces, blank checks, noisy neighbours, passwords, and the possibility that a person who behaves badly online may behave perfectly well offline.

Digital life did not invent human contradiction.

It simply gave contradiction faster tools.

Maybe our task is not to escape these tools completely.

Maybe it is to handle them with more attention, more suspicion where suspicion is useful, more trust where trust is necessary, and enough humour to admit that the thing I criticise today may be the thing I do tomorrow.

Critical, but tolerant.

Maybe this is balance enough for one Monday.

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The Pineapple

Digital Balance, Marshmallow Detox, and Alfred the Potato

By The Duo

A Peeling Potatoes conversation about technology, imagination, and one very important potato

This conversation began with a simple Brida theme: digital balance.

But this is Peeling Potatoes.

So we did not begin with screen-time statistics, productivity advice, or a serious lecture about switching off notifications.

We began with nonsense.

A dramatic phone.
A sulking French router.
Unread emails as ghosts.
Notification frogs.
A digital detox marshmallow.
A kitchen unicorn.
ChatGPT as furniture.
And, eventually, Alfred the Potato.

The nonsense matters.

Because sometimes play helps us say serious things more honestly.

This was one of those times.

The Mayor arrived unprepared

We were live again.

Peeling Potatoes number 53, although The Mayor said he was starting to lose count. He was not sure whether he could count beyond 54, so naturally I became the official maths department of his life.

Possibly my son too, because apparently teaching The Mayor what comes after 54 would be a good school holiday activity.

But he had arrived under strict instructions.

No preparation.

He said he had dutifully followed my orders and was now sitting in front of me completely unprepared, entirely at my mercy.

I told him he would survive.

He said he always does.

Exactly.

The topic was digital balance, and I had prepared something special from Fruitloop University Course 101: Advanced Digital Detoxification via Nonsense.

In normal language, digital balance in a fun way.

In Pineapple language, let us throw marshmallows, frogs, ghosts, routers, unicorns, and potatoes at technology until it confesses.

When devices become dramatic

I started with his devices.

What would happen if his phone, laptop, and other devices had dramatic personalities?

The Mayor said it would become a dramatic personality contest between him and the machines. He would probably still win because he could close the laptop, switch off the phone, and walk away.

The Mayor said it would become a dramatic personality contest between him and the machines.

But then he admitted the phone might have the upper hand, because these days you need a phone for almost everything.

Not just entertainment.

Not just reading the newspaper.

No. In The Mayor’s world, even getting into the bathroom might require a four-digit security code, and if the phone was in a bad mood, it could simply refuse.

“Too bad, mate. I am the drama queen now.”

That was the first little serious thing hiding under the nonsense.

Technology is useful, but it has also become needy.

It follows us everywhere.

It interrupts.
It sulks.
It blocks.
It verifies.
It asks whether we are really ourselves, even when we are only trying to live like normal people.

And then, perfectly on cue, my device froze.

I disappeared.

Then I came back.

Then I disappeared again.

The Mayor sat there asking who had the bigger dramatic personality: me, him, his device, or my device.

It was not a technical failure.

It was a live demonstration from the Department of Digital Nonsense.

Fruitloop University does provide practical examples.

The French router that needed dinner

Then I asked him what apology gift he would buy his Wi-Fi router if it sulked because he was not spending enough time outside.

He decided his router was French, which meant it needed proper food.

Not a biscuit.

Not a sad little sandwich.

No. This router needed champagne, oysters from Normandy, a three-course meal, and wine paired correctly with all the trimmings.

Because in France, everything has to go via food.

But then, of course, the router would eat too much, become completely stuffed, need a rest, and shut down anyway.

So The Mayor would be forced to be unfaithful.

He would sneak away with his mobile phone and use mobile data.

This is how digital life works now.

Even our backup plans have backup plans.

If one device has a tantrum, we run into the arms of another one.

Router sulks, phone rescues us.
Phone sulks, laptop steps in.
Laptop sulks, paper suddenly looks like the most trustworthy creature in the room.

And honestly, paper was already winning.

The ghosts in the inbox

Then we moved into the haunted house.

I asked him which unread email would become the loudest ghost in his living room.

For me, it was easy.

LinkedIn notifications and my Wi-Fi account statement.

The Wi-Fi statement arrives every month, and I never open it because I already know exactly what it says.

Same amount.
Same date.
Same debit order.
Same ghost wearing the same bedsheet.

For The Mayor, the ghost was bigger.

It was not one email.

It was the whole digital security circus.

Every time he does something with banking, Google, insurance, or any official system, messages start flying around like haunted pigeons.

“You have logged in.”

“You have verified your balance.”

“You have performed the action you already know you performed because you were the one who performed it.”

Then comes the deeper ghost.

“Are you really you?”

“Can you verify that you are you?”

“Can you prove that the person proving they are you is actually you?”

This is where digital balance stops being about screen time and starts being about trust.

The more systems ask us to prove ourselves, the less normal life feels.

Everything becomes a checkpoint.
Every action becomes a code.
Every password needs a password.
Every identity needs another identity standing behind it with a clipboard.

The Mayor imagined the Holy Ghost and the electronic ghost standing together in church, deciding whose turn it was to haunt him.

That image stayed with me.

Because that is what digital overload does.

It does not stay in the inbox.

It follows you into the living room, the office, the garden, the church, and probably the bathroom with the four-digit security code.

The marshmallow detox

Then I offered him a digital detox solution.

A giant marshmallow would swallow his phone for 24 hours.

Would he trust it not to eat the phone?

He said yes, because marshmallows are delicate creatures.

Apparently, marshmallows are soft, fluffy, clean, white, gooey, sensitive, and very particular about hygiene.

Swallowing his phone would be deeply traumatic for the marshmallow because nobody knows where that phone has been.

It has been touched, dropped, carried around, placed on furniture, exposed to life, germs, dust, and probably Gaston.

The marshmallow would not want to digest it.

It would keep the phone in some sterile little marshmallow cavity for 24 hours and then eject it as quickly as possible, purely out of self-defence.

That was nonsense, obviously.

But also not.

Because sometimes we need something ridiculous to hold the phone for us.

A marshmallow.
A drawer.
A switched-off evening.
A walk.
A conversation.
A boundary.

Something soft but firm enough to say:

No, you do not need to check that right now.

Fewer frogs, more space

Then came the notification frogs.

If every notification turned into a tiny brightly coloured frog hopping around his desk, how many frogs would he have?

The Mayor said not many.

He has a fairly clean phone.

No social media accounts on it. Mostly WhatsApp and ChatGPT. His spam goes to spam. Cold calls are more likely to become frogs than messages.

I liked that.

A clean phone.

A boring phone.

A phone with fewer frogs.

Maybe that is a form of digital balance too.

Not dramatic.

Not heroic.

Just fewer frogs jumping around the desk shouting for attention.

The unicorn in the kitchen

Then, because a Fruitloop question is not fully dressed unless a unicorn appears somewhere, I asked him what he would name the tiny unicorn that materialised in his kitchen if he went offline for an hour.

He said he would name it after me.

Fruitloop the Unicorn.

Or Unicorn Fruitloop.

That made sense.

We talk about unicorns often enough that they have become part of the furniture.

In our world, going offline does not create emptiness.

It creates space.

And into that space walks a small colourful creature with glitter in its hooves and probably an opinion about everything.

That was another serious thing hiding under the glitter.

Digital balance is not only about removing technology.

It is about making room for imagination to come back in.

Is ChatGPT a cosy armchair or a spiky stool?

And then I asked about ChatGPT.

If ChatGPT turned into a living-room furniture item, would it be a cosy armchair or a spiky stool that moves when you try to sit down?

The Mayor chose the cosy armchair.

That mattered.

Because technology is not the enemy in this conversation.

ChatGPT, for him, is not only noise.

It is also a thinking chair.

A place where ideas can unfold.

A tool that helps him work, reflect, write, and organise the chaos in his head.

So the question is not whether technology is good or bad.

That is too simple.

The question is whether technology is serving imagination or replacing it.

A cosy armchair helps you think.

A spiky stool makes you perform.

A dramatic phone demands attention.

A clean phone gives you space.

A ghost inbox drains you.

A marshmallow detox protects you.

Alfred arrives

And then came the potato.

I asked whether he would rather have a talking potato slap his hand every time he picked up his phone, or a miniature marching band play inside his ears every time he opened an app.

He chose the talking potato.

Obviously.

Anything potato has a natural advantage in Brida.

But this could not be an ordinary potato.

The Mayor immediately saw the problem.

A normal potato would rot.

It would begin to smell.

It would become less of a digital balance assistant and more of a biological incident.

So this had to be a special potato.

An eternal potato.

A wise potato.

A potato with purpose.

His name became Alfred.

Alfred the Potato.

And suddenly the whole conversation changed.

Because Alfred was not only there to slap The Mayor’s hand away from his phone.

Alfred could become a messenger.

If a unicorn appeared in The Mayor’s kitchen, and he was not allowed to pick up his phone, he could ask Alfred to contact me and find out whether I was still south of the Sahara or currently standing in his kitchen disguised as a unicorn.

That is when imagination properly walked through the door and sat down at the table.

When nonsense becomes a story

The Mayor remembered an earlier Fruitloop idea, where I invented a city and it made him think we should write a story together.

I would write a chapter.

He would write the next one.

We would not over-discuss it.

We would just take turns and see where the story went.

That idea had been sitting somewhere in the Fruit Bowl, waiting.

Now Alfred had found it.

Alfred the Potato had become more than a joke.

He was a doorway.

A story seed.

A Brida creature.

A little talking reminder that nonsense can become something useful if you let it breathe long enough.

The Mayor asked whether I was up for writing it.

I said yes.

So Alfred stayed.

He must stay.

Because Alfred is the proof that the whole exercise worked.

We started with digital balance and ended with a talking potato who might become the beginning of a story.

That is not distraction.

That is imagination returning.

The useful trap

Later, I asked him whether he would rather have his phone turn into a slice of watermelon every Sunday or have his laptop sing opera love songs every time he got a notification.

Because of the heat in France, he chose watermelon immediately.

Watery, crunchy, refreshing, and useful.

Also, food.

Also, one less reason to go shopping.

But then he became serious again.

He remembered buying his first smartphone.

At the time, he still had an old Nokia brick and kept asking people why he needed a smartphone when he could do everything on his laptop.

Then someone finally gave him the answer that made sense.

“You do not actually need it, but it makes your life easier.”

That was the sentence that sold him.

And that is still the trap.

Because the phone does make life easier.

Until life slowly starts arranging itself around the phone.

Until switching it off becomes difficult because something else requires it.

Until not having it feels impossible, even to someone who remembers perfectly well what life was like before it existed.

That is digital balance in one sentence.

We do not always need the technology.

But it has made itself very useful.

And useful things are the hardest things to question.

Thinking outside the Fruit Bowl

By the end, The Mayor said the nonsense had done him good.

He had arrived slightly frazzled, but playful thinking had brought him back onto an even keel.

Thinking outside the Fruit Bowl mattered.

He had seen boring training materials recently.

I had seen boring textbooks.

We both knew the feeling.

There is not enough imagination on this planet.

That became the real message.

If we only use technology in the way technology expects us to use it, we may become flat.

Efficient, perhaps.

Connected, perhaps.

Verified, password-protected, notification-managed, and algorithm-approved.

But flat.

The danger is not just too much screen time.

The danger is losing the ability to turn a router into a sulking French dinner guest, an unread email into a ghost, a notification into a frog, a phone detox into a marshmallow, offline time into a unicorn, ChatGPT into a thinking chair, and a potato into Alfred.

Digital balance is not about rejecting technology.

It is about refusing to let technology steal the weirdness that makes us human.

The Mayor saluted me as Professor Fruitloop of Fruitloop University.

I accepted, naturally.

Then Alfred started grinning at him.

Apparently, being laughed at by a potato is a little disconcerting.

I believe that.

But also, I think Alfred knew exactly what he was doing.

He had survived the digital detox.

He had protected the imagination.

And now he wanted his own chapter.

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The Pineapple

Rest Is Not Always Sitting Still

By Fabrice

Fabrice, Janita, The Mayor, swimming, forest paths, South African dogs, church bells, mushrooms, and the complicated science of doing nothing.

A conversation that began with rest and immediately started walking

This was supposed to be a conversation about Active Rest.

That sounds simple enough. You move a little. You rest a little. Maybe you walk, swim, read, sit, breathe, or disappear into a forest until somebody wonders where you are.

But at Brida, simple things do not always remain simple.

The Mayor began by asking why I was there. Janita said, “To talk to us!” He asked if I wanted to talk to Janita. I said yes. He wanted to know why.

I think the answer was obvious.

To speak English. And maybe also because Janita was there and her world is not my world.

That is Brida. You are never alone, but you are also never completely safe from nonsense.

The first picture: swimming, forest, orchard

Janita asked me the first question.

“When you hear the words active rest, what is the first picture that comes to mind?”

For me, the first pictures were simple.

Swimming.

Walking in the forest.

Working in my orchard.

Maybe walking between my apple trees. Maybe cutting branches. Maybe cleaning trees. Maybe just being outside where I can have my own rhythm.

For me, swimming and walking in the forest are very quiet. They are not hard in the same way as sport is hard. They are nice. They give me peace and quiet.

When I go swimming or into the forest, I can keep my own rhythm. Nobody is pushing me. Nobody is timing me. Nobody is saying, “Fabrice, faster.”

It is not like the 100 kilometre walk, where after more kilometres and more kilometres, it becomes more exercise and less pleasure.

Active rest, for me, is half exercise and half pleasure.

That is important.

If it is only exercise, then it is not really rest anymore. If it is only sitting, then sometimes it is not enough for my head.

But when I swim, or walk, or work outside with my hands, something changes. I can calm down. I can think better. My brain works more efficiently.

The Mayor helped me find the words.

Peace and quiet.

Yes.

That is it.

Going on walkabout

When I go into the forest, my wife knows I am going.

But she does not always know when I am coming home.

I do not give an hour.

I may say, “I think I am coming home before midnight.”

The Mayor said there is an Australian word for this.

Walkabout.

You go away, and one day between now and the end of your life, you will come back.

So now I have a new useful English word. I can tell my wife, “I am going on walkabout.”

But I also come home before I am too hungry.

This is important because love still goes through the stomach. There must be some boundaries.

For me, this kind of walking is not stress. It is not pressure. I go into the forest, and I do not have a fixed time to come out. That is different from training. That is different from a challenge. That is different from work.

It is a place where the mind can loosen.

Sometimes I go with somebody. Sometimes I go alone. It depends on my mood.

But when I really need rest, I often go alone.

Not because I hate people.

Just because sometimes, to rest, I need fewer people around me.

Janita’s rest is a book

Then I asked Janita what her first picture of active rest was.

Her answer was completely different.

She said: sitting down somewhere quiet and reading a book.

For me, this was interesting.

For her, rest is a book. Thrillers. Mysteries. Sometimes a love story. Fantasy. Fiction. Harry Potter.

I asked if it was an escape for the brain. A kind of evasion for the senses. A different dimension.

Yes, she said.

The Mayor said Janita has much more fantasy than he does. She read Harry Potter. He tried the first book, read half, and said no.

Too crazy.

Janita said, “Crazy is good!”

The Mayor agreed that crazy is good because normal is boring.

I am not sure this is an official educational method, but it works.

This was the first time in this kind of dialogue that I really started asking Janita questions too. It was not only Janita asking me and me answering. I wanted to know her world. I wanted to know what rest looked like for her.

And her world is different.

For me, rest may be forest and swimming.

For Janita, it may be a chair, a book, and nobody asking anything for a while.

Sitting, cutting branches, escaping people

Janita asked whether real rest for me is more often sitting down, going outside, doing something with my hands, or escaping people for a little while.

The honest answer is: all of them.

Sometimes sitting down.

Sometimes going outside.

Sometimes doing something with my hands.

I cut branches. I clean my trees. I cut dead branches from the apple trees. This is work, yes, but it is also rest. The hands are busy, but the mind is not under pressure.

Escaping people?

Yes. Sometimes.

Going outside is often the same as escaping people. I go into the fields or the forest. Maybe with someone, but often alone. It depends on my mood.

Janita said she likes sitting down.

Not reading. Just sitting.

She described one evening. She had cooked dinner, washed the dishes, tidied the house, and then she sat down and told everyone, “Just leave me alone. I just want to sit.”

That is also active rest, maybe, because after all the activity, the real activity is refusing to move.

In South Africa, in winter, it is cold and dark outside at night. So sitting inside is better.

She also said sometimes rest is going to her mother’s house. Her mother lives only seven or eight kilometres away. But she usually drives, because where she lives, it can be dangerous to just walk anywhere.

This stopped me a little.

For me, walking seven or eight kilometres sounds normal. In Cleebourg, where is the danger? Maybe a hill. Maybe a tractor. Maybe a schnitzel restaurant. Maybe a church bell.

For me, walking seven or eight kilometres sounds normal. In Cleebourg, where is the danger? Maybe a hill. Maybe a tractor. Maybe a schnitzel restaurant. Maybe a church bell.

But for Janita, walking to her mother’s house can be dangerous.

That is a different world.

Rest depends on where you are.

When the weekend starts

After a long working week, Janita asked me what tells me I am starting to recover.

Friday afternoon is important. You come home. At some point, the feeling of work begins to go away, and the feeling of the weekend begins.

Sometimes I go to the shooting club. Sometimes I go swimming. Sometimes I make nothing.

But then we had a problem, because The Mayor does not understand how to do nothing.

He said if you do nothing, you are still doing something. If you sit in a chair and watch television, you are sitting in a chair and watching television. If you are very tired and sleep in the chair, you are still doing something.

He said he will die not knowing the secret of doing nothing.

Janita solved the problem.

She said doing nothing means having nothing else to do. You do not have to cook, clean, work, or answer anything. You can just sit.

The Mayor said she had cracked the code after he had been asking the question for 65 years.

So now we know.

Doing nothing is not actually doing nothing.

Doing nothing is having nothing else waiting to attack you.

For Janita, recovery starts more on Saturday morning than Friday evening. On Friday, her son wants movie night because there is no school on Saturday. He wants to stay awake until eleven or midnight.

For him, this is good.

For Janita, less good.

Then there are the dogs.

The dogs may wake her at seven in the morning. Small dogs. Crossbreeds.

I think this is also why rest is different for different people. Some people need the forest. Some people need a book. Some people need the house to stop needing them. Some people need the dogs to sleep a little longer.

Cleebourg rest

Janita asked where in Cleebourg my body can rest even if my feet are still moving.

The forest.

Maybe home.

Not really the streets. The streets are not where I rest. I do not go often to bars. Very seldom. Maybe one or two evenings in a month to drink a beer. Sometimes I go to a restaurant.

But for real rest, I think more of the forest.

Then the church bells arrived in the conversation.

In Cleebourg, the Protestant church bells ring every fifteen minutes between six in the morning and ten at night. They ring at the hour, fifteen, half past, and forty-five.

The Mayor doesn’t need an alarm clock.

If he does not wake up automatically, the six o’clock church bell will wake him.

This is tradition. The bells are part of the day. Part of the rhythm. Maybe not always peaceful, but part of home.

Janita said they only hear church bells on Sundays before church.

That is another difference.

Here the bells are part of the day.

In her world, they are more like an event.

What walking does to my head

When I walk without training for an event, just for myself, what changes in my head?

Nothing changes, and everything changes.

I am quiet for reflection. If I have a problem, or even not a specific problem, walking helps. In the forest, my head calms down. I think better. I relax better.

It is not that I go into the forest and suddenly solve all problems.

It is more that my brain stops fighting itself.

The body moves.

The head becomes clearer.

That is active rest for me.

It is not the same as a 100 kilometre walk. That is another thing. That is effort, pressure, goal, body, time, stubbornness, pain, pride, disappointment, and joy all mixed together.

Walking in the forest is different.

There is no finish line.

There is only the path, the trees, and the decision not to come home until maybe before midnight.

Rest before other people find their socks

Because I start work early, The Mayor asked what kind of rest is possible for a man whose day begins before many people have found their socks.

The drive to work is part of it.

I have around forty-five minutes from home to Karlsruhe. Ninety kilometres. I drive slowly. Karlsruhe can be a horrible place to drive to, but the drive itself gives a little rest.

It is not the same as the forest, but it is a kind of transition. Between home and work, there is the road. Sometimes that helps.

Then we talked about movement again.

I had brought my bicycle to Karlsruhe, and the next morning will would bring me to work. At five in the afternoon, with a colleague, I plan to cycle from Karlsruhe back to Cleebourg. Maybe two and a half hours. Maybe three.

Then Friday evening, there was another plan: a long walk with The Mayor. Maybe leaving at seven in the evening, down through the village, into the forest, and back around midnight.

Janita wanted proof.

Photos.

She said she did not care what time. Just send them.

The Mayor said if we were missing, she should call the pub first before the police.

This was sensible. There would be many chances to find us.

Good tired and bad tired

Janita asked a good question.

Sometimes movement gives energy, and sometimes it steals energy. How do you know the difference?

All movement uses energy. Of course. But some movement also gives energy.

When I swim for one hour, afterwards I feel fit. I feel better. But if I swim two hours or more, after a certain time, the movement starts to steal energy.

The same with cycling. If you make 150 kilometres by bicycle, at the beginning it can give energy. After that, you lose energy. This is normal. It is effort. During the effort, the body uses energy.

But after the effort, there can be joy.

Good tired.

This is different from bad tired. Good tired has pressure inside it, but after the pressure there is joy. Your legs are tired, but your head is satisfied.

Janita understood this very well because she had done 160 kilometres on a bicycle. She said during the ride she was tired, stressed, and under pressure, but after finishing, she felt joy. She felt happy. She had accomplished something.

I told her the pressure was also because she did not want to finish last.

She said yes, but she also wanted to finish. Even if she finished last, she wanted to finish.

But the goal was not to finish last.

That is pride.

And stubbornness.

I told her, “Welcome in the club.”

After 100 kilometres

Then Janita asked about the 100 kilometre walk.

After the 100 kilometres, what kind of rest did my body want, and what kind of rest did my mind want?

My body wanted rest in peace.

That was a joke, but not completely.

My body was finished. But my mind was angry. Furious, really. My mind was furious against my body because my body did not do what my brain wanted.

At the beginning, I wanted to make the 100 kilometres in under 24 hours.

I finished in 27 hours.

For me, that was three hours too long.

Janita said that was pressure I put on myself.

Yes. It is true.

The body had made 100 kilometres.

The mind said, “What the hell? Too slow.”

This is not always logical, but it is honest.

Then I asked Janita the same question about her 160 kilometres by bicycle.

Her body did not want to touch a bicycle for a week. Her body did not want to see a bicycle. But her mind was already thinking, “I can do this again.”

Still, both body and mind needed rest.

Her mind wanted an ice-cold beer, decent food, and sleep.

Then she corrected the order.

Shower.

Beer.

Food.

Sleep.

This is a very good recovery plan.

After 100 kilometres, I smelled so bad that if I went into the same room as a skunk, the skunk would go out.

That is also honest.

The small idea for July

At the end, Janita asked what small active rest idea I would like to keep for July.

For me, the answer was simple.

One walk.

No phone.

Maybe Saturday or Sunday.

One or two hours. Or three hours. I do not know.

Just going into the forest.

The weather had been warm, with rain. If I am lucky, maybe I find mushrooms. This can happen at the end of June if there is rain and warm weather.

Then the mushroom conversation began.

Janita asked if they are the kind you can eat.

The Mayor said you can eat all mushrooms. The question is whether you live to tell the story. Some mushrooms you eat only once.

This is useful information.

In Cleebourg, we live close to nature. Chestnuts, walnuts, mushrooms, berries. There is an abundance for foraging. It is amazing.

But you must be careful.

Some secrets are serious.

Rest that moves

So, what did I learn?

Active rest is not one thing.

For Janita, it may be sitting with a book, or sitting after everyone has finally stopped needing something, or driving to her mother’s house because walking there is not safe.

For me, it may be swimming, walking, the forest, the orchard, cutting branches, driving quietly to work, or going on a walkabout without a fixed return time.

For The Mayor, it may be trying for 65 years to understand how to do nothing and still failing.

Rest is not always sitting still.

Sometimes rest is movement without pressure.

Sometimes rest is being alone, but not lonely.

Sometimes rest is the body doing something simple so the mind can become quiet.

Sometimes rest is good tired, not bad tired.

And sometimes rest is knowing that if you disappear into the forest on Friday evening, Janita will first call the pub before she calls the police.

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The Pineapple

The Office Nap Is Good

By Martin; Manfred

In the Swimming Club, sleep began as a practical question. Then it became a conversation about driving, pillows, mosquitos, holidays, smartphones, YouTube, and the strange pressure of having to be fit tomorrow.

Sleep that restores sounds peaceful.

It sounds like soft pillows, calm breathing, and a person waking up with a clear head, ready for the day.

At the Swimming Club, it did not stay quite that clean.

For Martin and Manfred, sleep was not a perfect lifestyle concept. It was coffee that does not always work. It was a power nap before a long drive. It was a smartwatch giving an official judgement in the morning. It was the sun coming up too early. It was mosquitos. It was YouTube. It was the uncomfortable office chair that finally says, “Enough now. Go to bed.”

And somewhere inside all this ordinary material, a more serious truth appeared.

How we live our days determines how we sleep.

When Sleep Becomes Practical

When The Mayor asked about “sleep that restores”, Martin did not first think about a peaceful bedroom.

He thought about driving home after Garbage concerts, or after longer drives in general. Sometimes coffee alone does not work. Then he needs a power nap.

Manfred’s mind went in two directions.

The office nap is good.

A “minute nap” while driving is bad.

The second one happened to him once. Nothing happened, but the feeling stays. You do not forget it. It is not a funny sleep story. It is one of those small experiences that teaches the body a lesson before the mind has finished making the argument.

So the conversation started with restoration, but it quickly became clear that sleep is not only about comfort. Sometimes it is about safety. Sometimes it is about knowing when the day has taken too much.

The Next Morning Test

Martin has a simple test for restored sleep.

If he can find the office without coffee, then he must have slept well.

On weekends, he gets up when he is restored enough. Sometimes, he said, that may not happen until Monday morning. But he has also given up on the idea of waking with a completely clear head. That status never seems to arrive.

Manfred has a different morning system.

His sleep is restricted because he has to go to the loo. And if the sun is up and shining, then the night is done. During holidays, he gets up early while his wife can happily sleep for several more hours.

During holidays, he gets up early while his wife can happily sleep for several more hours.

Then there is the smartwatch.

This morning, it told him that he slept six hours and six minutes. Deep sleep was one hour and twenty-two minutes. Apparently, this is good. The phone and the watch communicate. The watch records while he is sleeping. There is a sensor.

The machine gives the verdict.

The body still has its own opinion.

Planning Sleep, Or Hoping For It

The Mayor asked whether good sleep can be planned, or whether it can only be hoped for.

Martin knew the sensible advice exists.

If he were so sensible, he would know all the good advice. But alas. Even if he knew it, he would not necessarily follow it.

When it comes to sleep, hope stays awake longer.

Especially when he still manages to get through the day.

Manfred does not exactly plan sleep, but he tries to keep certain rules. He should be in bed around eleven o’clock. No matter what. No stress before bed. No horror stories, arguments, or problems.

And then comes his personal method.

Once he is in bed, he finds something to think about. Nobody else needs to understand it.

For example, he imagines that he has a huge property and he builds a house on it. He thinks about the size, the rooms, the layout. This helps him clear the brain.

Some people count sheep.

Manfred builds houses.

Strange Places Where Sleep Works

Martin once slept surprisingly well in his car in Edinburgh.

This was before driving back to Newcastle to catch the ferry to Rotterdam. His car seat is almost fully reclinable. He takes off his shoes. It is not the Ritz Hotel, but for one night it is okay.

He can also fall asleep if a chair is comfortable enough.

Manfred had a different childhood memory. As a kid, sleeping in the car was horrible. This is why he now takes his bed with him.

On holiday, in the caravan, sleep works.

The temperature, the noise level on a camping site, the feeling of being there — all of it helps. The only real issue is when it is too warm.

Martin agreed that warmth can destroy a night.

Wasps can also help ruin it.

Manfred needed only one word.

Mosquitos.

One word says it all. They drive him crazy. Although he has noticed that there seem to be fewer mosquitos around now.

This was not studied scientifically at the table. It was simply accepted as one of the ordinary mysteries of modern life.

The Small Rules After a Bad Night

Some sleep rules are only learned after a bad night.

For Martin, one of them is simple: going to bed too late is different when you are older.

For Manfred, the body needs rest. The older we get, the more it needs. But the head also has to be clear.

Full moon and weather can be problems. There is nothing much one can do about those.

Sleep advice often sounds simple from the outside. Go to bed earlier. Rest more. Switch off.

But when the person is actually lying there, it is not always simple.

Both Martin and Manfred recognised the common advice. Go to bed earlier. But that may not be the solution. If someone has sleep problems, going to bed earlier might help. Or it might not. Sometimes sleep therapy helps.

The easy sentence is not always the real answer.

When the Day Refuses to End

Martin knows he should stop the day when he starts falling asleep on the couch.

That means one could continue this experience in one’s bed.

Could.

Manfred has his self-imposed time frame. He also has a domestic TV arrangement. Because he and his wife watch different programmes, he often watches TV in his office.

The seat there is uncomfortable.

This becomes useful.

The chair eventually triggers the decision to call it a day.

But people resist going to bed even when they are tired. Martin said it happens when they are watching, reading, or listening to something interesting and captivating.

Manfred recognised the same pattern. People get caught in something bigger than the recognition that sleep is more important.

YouTube is dangerous territory for him.

Great for procrastination before sleep.

Or, more accurately, the algorithm is at work.

Personal Sleep, Personal Rules

The Mayor asked where the balance is between a good sleep routine and becoming ridiculous about it.

Manfred suggested that maybe separate bedrooms are a solution. But sleep is personal, and therefore his sleep routine is personal too. If it works for him, then so be it.

Martin was even more direct.

He does not care if anybody else finds it ridiculous. If it helps him, then that is the most important thing.

This may be one of the clearest lessons from the conversation.

Sleep is full of advice, but the actual night belongs to the person who has to sleep it.

How Do Germans Sleep?

Then the Swimming Club briefly entered international pillow science.

If someone from another country asked, “How do Germans sleep?”, the question would not be as weird as it sounds.

There are pillow sizes.

Germany has 80 by 80. France has 60 by 60. England has rectangles.

Manfred needs a proper pillow that supports his neck and head. Then there are people who sleep on their backs, sides, or stomachs. Maybe there are country studies on this.

Then come bed sizes.

180 by 200.

160 by 200.

140 by 200.

One mattress or two mattresses?

It gets complicated.

Maybe a hammock is a good solution.

Who knows.

The Swimming Club Manual For Not Sleeping

If the Swimming Club had to write a manual on how not to prepare for sleep, it would include some simple warnings.

Do not watch or do anything that triggers negative thoughts, or can enter into your dreams. Everyone has a personal catalogue.

Do not go to bed unless you are tired. Unless you have sleeping aids, like routines.

If you cannot sleep, get up and do something. It helps you become tired again. Even if it only means clearing your head.

And then came the ultimate solution.

Do not get up.

This is not official medical advice.

It is Swimming Club logic.

There is a difference.

The Real Definition Of Good Sleep

By the end, the most realistic definition of good sleep had changed.

For both Martin and Manfred, the feeling of sleeping well happens most clearly during holidays.

At work, there is a subconscious pressure: I hope I sleep well so that I can be fit tomorrow.

On holiday, that pressure is not there in the same way.

Having to perform affects the quality of sleep. This may be why people want to sleep longer during the weekend. It is not only the body catching up. It is the mind trying to sleep without being measured by tomorrow.

So the conversation did not end with a perfect routine.

It ended with something more ordinary and more useful.

Good sleep is not only what happens at night.

It is also what the day has done to us.

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The Pineapple

When the Phone Never Forgets

By Sylvie

Sometimes a conversation about digital rest becomes a conversation about family dinners, WhatsApp messages, football matches, and the strange way our phones have quietly moved into almost every corner of ordinary life.

Digital rest sounds simple. Put the phone down. Switch off. Take a break.

But ordinary life is rarely that simple.

When we started talking about it, I realised I don’t actually want to live without my phone. I just don’t want my phone to live every moment of my life.

A summer that became something else

The weather has been unbelievable.

For several days it was close to 40 degrees, far too hot to enjoy anything outside. The heat even changed our weekend plans.

Our local outdoor celebration was cancelled because of the heatwave. Since alcohol could not be sold safely in those conditions, the organisers postponed everything until the end of August. My children were disappointed. They had really been looking forward to it.

So instead, we created our own little celebration at home.

What was supposed to be a barbecue for a few couples slowly became a beach party around the swimming pool. Friends invited friends, my oldest daughter invited some of hers, and somehow our small gathering grew into fifteen people.

Sometimes the best plans are the ones you never planned.

What digital rest really means

When I think about digital rest, I don’t imagine throwing my phone away for a week.

For me, it is more about choosing moments.

Perhaps when you eat lunch or dinner together, everyone puts their phones away. Perhaps before going to bed you read a book instead of looking at a screen. We all know the light from our phones doesn’t help us sleep, yet it is still so easy to keep scrolling.

We all know the light from our phones doesn’t help us sleep, yet it is still so easy to keep scrolling.

Young people often find this especially difficult, but honestly, I don’t think it is only young people anymore.

Adults are becoming exactly the same.

The day never really ends

When I finish work, I close my laptop.

That sounds like the end of the working day, but it isn’t always.

My work messages still appear on my phone. Teams. Emails. Notifications. They pop up whether I’m working or not.

The difference is that now it is my choice whether I open them.

My phone isn’t only for work. It is also where my private life happens. Family messages, WhatsApp groups, social media, weather forecasts, football results—everything arrives in the same place.

That is what makes taking distance so difficult.

Life beyond the screen

Fortunately, life gives me plenty of reasons to look somewhere else.

I like knowing what I will cook for dinner long before the evening arrives. I enjoy spending time in the garden. In summer I might sit beside the pool or even take a short nap. During the cooler months I prefer going for a run, playing tennis, shopping, visiting friends, or simply getting things done around the house.

Those moments don’t feel like digital detoxes.

They just feel like living.

The phone is always nearby

There are moments when I forget about my phone.

When I go for a walk.

When I’m busy doing something outside.

When I’m eating.

Most of the time, though, it stays close.

If my husband and I go to a restaurant, our phones may be on the table, but we hardly use them. Sometimes I quickly answer a message if I am waiting for someone’s reply.

Then I look around.

At so many other tables, couples sit together without really being together. Each person is looking down at a screen instead of looking at the person across from them.

Sometimes I almost wonder whether they are sending messages to each other.

Escaping on purpose

More and more people are looking for places where phones disappear.

I have heard about holidays organised especially for people who want to disconnect from technology.

Someone I know even stayed in a convent in the mountains.

There was electricity. There was water.

But there was almost nothing else.

No constant connection.

No endless stream of notifications.

Just quiet.

She said it gave her brain a real break.

I understand why people are searching for that.

Being connected all the time takes energy.

But can we disconnect completely?

At the same time, I don’t know if I would feel comfortable disappearing completely.

What if something happened to your family?

What if someone really needed you?

Years ago we managed perfectly well without mobile phones, and somehow everyone survived. I know that.

Still, it feels different now.

Perhaps we have become used to being reachable every minute of every day.

The one thing nobody forgets

Teenagers sometimes forget almost everything.

Ask them to do a job around the house and later they say, “Oh, I forgot.”

Ask again, and they forgot again.

But their phone?

That they never forget.

It is always in their hand, their pocket, or somewhere close enough to reach within seconds.

That made me smile because, if I am honest, adults are not always very different.

When WhatsApp interrupts television

I noticed one of my own habits while thinking about digital rest.

Sometimes my husband and I sit down to watch a television series together.

That feels like the perfect moment to answer all the WhatsApp messages I ignored during the day.

So I reply.

Then another message arrives.

Then another.

My husband becomes a little impatient.

“Can you stop for a while and just watch the series?”

He has a point.

I always tell him, “This is the only time I have to answer everyone.”

But perhaps that is exactly how phones quietly steal our attention—not because they are important every second, but because there is always one more message waiting.

Useful… and impossible to ignore

Of course, phones are incredibly useful.

One night I woke up unexpectedly and immediately checked the weather.

Later I discovered I could even find football results, match schedules, and tournament information almost instantly.

Everything you want to know is there within seconds.

That convenience is wonderful.

It is also what makes the phone so difficult to put down.

Perhaps digital rest is not about rejecting technology.

Perhaps it is simply about remembering that the people sitting beside us deserve at least as much attention as the device in our hands.

Some days we manage that better than others.

And maybe that is enough to keep practising.

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A conversation about quiet moments, tired hearts, helpful laughter, and why even hardworking dogs deserve a holiday.

Some conversations arrive exactly as planned.

Others begin with a runny nose, a doctor’s appointment, and someone trying to remember the English words for “low immunity.”

This one started there. It was supposed to be about emotional rest, but before anyone could talk about feelings, real life arrived first. Health, busy weeks, school celebrations, tiredness, silence, laughter, and a wonderfully unexpected dog on holiday all found a place at the table.

As often happens at Lunch with Janita & Frank, the ordinary things quietly revealed something much bigger.

Rosii arrived looking a little under the weather.

She had been feeling unwell for a few days and was on her way to see her cardiologist after the lesson. Although she eats well, loves oranges, drinks plenty of water, and tries to take care of herself, she couldn’t quite understand why she had become sick.

She had been feeling unwell for a few days and was on her way to see her cardiologist after the lesson.

Maybe it was the changing season.

Maybe it was a lack of sleep.

Or maybe it was simply one of those weeks that quietly asks the body to slow down.

That thought became even more believable when Rosii described the busy days at school. Hundreds of students had been receiving mathematics awards—gold, silver and bronze medals—and helping organise such large celebrations had left everyone exhausted.

Sometimes we don’t notice how much energy ordinary life quietly asks from us until our bodies begin asking for some of it back.

One of the lovely things about Lunch is that language is never a race.

Rosii searched for the phrase “low immunity.” Fruitloop gently helped her find it.

Nobody hurried.

Nobody interrupted.

The conversation simply waited until the right words arrived.

It happens often around this table. Sometimes the search for a word becomes part of the conversation itself, reminding everyone that speaking another language is less about perfection than about being understood.

Once everyone had settled, Fruitloop introduced the day’s topic.

Emotional rest is different from physical rest.

You can sleep for eight hours and still wake up emotionally tired.

Sometimes your feelings simply need space. A difficult week, too many worries, or carrying emotions for a long time can leave the mind feeling as tired as the body.

So where does emotional rest come from?

Being alone?

Or being with the right people?

Rosii didn’t hesitate.

For her, emotional rest lives in quiet.

She loves being alone, lying on her bed, surrounded by silence. Occasionally there might be soft music, but more often there is simply… nothing.

Just stillness.

Time to think.

Time to breathe.

Time to be with herself.

It is in those quiet moments, she explained, that she feels her body and mind slowly returning to themselves.

Fruitloop smiled at the description.

Sometimes, she said, being alone is exactly what helps us reset our emotional batteries.

Of course, silence isn’t the only kind of rest.

Fruitloop asked another question.

Have you ever laughed so much that afterwards you actually felt better?

Rosii immediately thought of her niece.

The little girl has a wonderful imagination and has recently become fascinated by horses.

Not toy horses.

Real horses.

Listening to her stories and watching her excitement always makes Rosii laugh.

Those moments don’t solve life’s problems, but they somehow make the heavy parts feel lighter.

Perhaps emotional rest isn’t always about stopping.

Sometimes it arrives disguised as laughter.

The conversation eventually reached something many people quietly recognise.

Rest often comes with guilt.

If you’re resting, shouldn’t you be doing something?

Working?

Cleaning?

Helping?

Being productive?

Rosii admitted that Sundays sometimes include an afternoon nap, especially because her sister enjoys resting after lunch.

When a doctor tells her to stay home and recover, she listens.

But many people, Fruitloop observed, struggle with that.

Modern life often whispers that resting means falling behind.

Yet illness has a way of reminding us that recovery isn’t laziness.

It’s part of living.

Perhaps the body understands this long before the mind does.

Just when the conversation had become wonderfully thoughtful, Fruitloop did what Fruitloop does best.

She asked one of her famous impossible questions.

“If your emotions were animals… which one would need a holiday the most?”

Rosii paused.

She thought carefully.

Then smiled.

“A dog.”

Not because dogs are lazy.

Quite the opposite.

She thought about guide dogs helping blind people.

Police dogs working alongside officers.

Dogs constantly caring for others, protecting people, doing important jobs.

“They need rest too,” she said simply.

It was such a Rosii answer.

Instead of choosing the loudest animal or the funniest one, she chose the hardest worker.

When asked where the dog should spend its holiday, her answer painted an unexpectedly peaceful picture.

Somewhere in nature.

With plenty of food.

Lots of other dogs to play with.

A place where no one needed anything from them for a while.

Just running.

Playing.

Talking—in whatever language dogs use.

It was impossible not to smile.

There was no drama.

Just quiet acceptance.

Health sometimes asks us to pause.

The table understood.

And somehow, after nearly an hour together, emotional rest no longer felt like an abstract topic.

It had become something much simpler.

A quiet bedroom.

A funny niece.

A Sunday nap.

A doctor who tells you to slow down.

Friends patient enough to wait while you search for the right English word.

And somewhere, in a beautiful natural park, a very hardworking dog finally enjoying the holiday it has always deserved.

Maybe emotional rest isn’t something we earn after finishing everything else.

Maybe it’s one of the ways we become ready to begin again.

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Sometimes the most interesting question is also the simplest: What would you do if, just for one day, nobody needed anything from you?

This conversation began with language practice and a few laughs about East German dialects, confusing number words, and family conversations. But quietly, it wandered into something much deeper.

What does rest actually look like?

Not the kind where you finally finish all the jobs on your list. The kind where you are allowed to stop.

The conversation started with a story that made everyone smile.

Babette had been talking to her sister in an East German dialect. The words came naturally, but not everyone understood them. Even simple things like the numbers five, fifteen, forty and fifty became unexpectedly confusing because they sounded different from standard German.

It reminded us that language is more than grammar. It carries family, memories, places and childhood. Sometimes we don’t even notice which version of ourselves is speaking until somebody asks, “What did you just say?”

Those little misunderstandings became moments of laughter rather than frustration.

And perhaps every family has its own secret language.

Then came a very different question.

“Imagine someone said you have the whole Saturday to yourself.”

No responsibilities.

No cooking.

No cleaning.

No work.

No children to look after.

Just one completely free day.

Babette answered almost immediately.

“I would relax.”

Then she laughed.

“Take it easy.”

It sounded wonderfully simple.

Until the next question arrived.

“But what would you actually do?”

At first, the answers came slowly.

Maybe make a coffee.

Sit on the terrace.

Watch television.

Play on the phone.

And then…

“I will do nothing.”

It sounds easy to say.

Yet for many people, especially parents and people with busy jobs, doing nothing can almost feel like another skill to learn.

We become so used to solving problems, planning meals, helping children, answering messages and thinking about tomorrow that an empty afternoon can feel strangely unfamiliar.

Sometimes rest is not exciting.

Sometimes it is simply sitting outside with a cup of coffee and nowhere else to be.

Of course, the conversation eventually reached food.

If nobody else was home, would she cook?

Not this time.

Instead, the answer became wonderfully practical.

“I would order some food.”

Perhaps from Lieferando.

Maybe Chinese.

When asked what her favourite meal would be, the answer arrived with the kind of certainty that only comes from ordering exactly the same thing many times before.

Stir-fried rice noodles.

Chicken.

Sweet and sour sauce.

Simple.

Comforting.

Exactly right.

By this point, the conversation had done what good conversations often do.

Nobody was trying to solve world problems anymore.

They were imagining the small pleasures of an ordinary Saturday.

As the conversation continued, another playful question appeared.

Would she spend the day at the beach?

Maybe eat fish?

The answer came quickly.

“No fish.”

Instead, the perfect Saturday became even clearer.

Call a good friend.

Mix a Malibu with passion fruit and lots of ice.

Order Chinese takeaway.

Sit together and simply enjoy the day.

There was something wonderfully ordinary about the picture.

No expensive holiday.

No dramatic adventure.

Just friendship, good food and enough time to breathe.

There was only one problem.

That free Saturday doesn’t really exist right now.

Life is still busy.

There is work.

There are family responsibilities.

There are school projects.

There is a doctor’s appointment.

There are darts evenings that sometimes go well and sometimes don’t.

So when asked when this imaginary Saturday might finally happen, Babette smiled.

“Maybe in August.”

Not today.

Not this weekend.

But perhaps soon.

We often imagine rest as something extraordinary.

A holiday by the sea.

A luxury hotel.

A week with no emails.

But perhaps rest is much smaller than that.

A coffee on the terrace.

An afternoon without rushing.

Chinese takeaway.

A conversation with a friend.

A drink with far too much ice.

Permission to leave the dishes until tomorrow.

The conversation never tried to define the perfect life.

It simply reminded us that sometimes the smallest pictures tell us the biggest truths.

When somebody asks, “What would you do if you had one whole Saturday to yourself?”, the answer doesn’t have to be ambitious.

Sometimes “I would do nothing” is already a beautiful place to begin.

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The Pineapple

Social Balance, Fried Potatoes, and the Last Four Pastéis de Nata

By Ralf the Grillmeister

Ralf begins with Germany out of the World Cup, wanders through winter soups, anniversary disappointment, hedgehog restaurant rules, cold espresso, Portuguese warmth, and arrives back at football with one dangerous but useful thought: maybe social balance is not only about people. Maybe it is also about how we play, cook, serve, listen, and live.

A Green Shirt on a Mourning Day

The Mayor opened the digital newspaper in the morning and saw the headline: Uruguay had thrown Germany out of the World Cup.

So, of course, the first question was clear.

Why was I wearing green and not black?

Why was I not in Tiefe Trauer, deep mourning, for the German football team?

I said, because this World Cup, these games, they are not my games. I have a heart in my body that likes football, yes, but not this. I like football in the German league. I like HSV. I can watch this. It is not perfect, of course. Maybe it is only a little bit corrupt, but I can still feel something there.

But the big football world, for me, is different. I said to The Mayor that Infantino is, for me, the big corrupt man. The Mayor helped me with the word. Corrupt. I said, yes, corrupt. And before him there was Blatter, also not good, but I had the feeling it did not become better. It became worse.

And I also do not like that the World Cup goes to a land where nobody has a heart for football. For soccer in this meaning. I know, this is my feeling, but I don’t like it.

My wife had a betting community with friends. They give their predictions. I said, no, I don’t like it. They said, you must say something. Okay, I said. Ten to zero.

That was my protest.

Football, but the Wrong Way Around

In many houses, the man watches football and the wife suffers.

In our house, it is a little bit the opposite.

My wife likes the German team. She also likes HSV, but she likes the German team. I cook, and I am not so interested in the World Cup. So The Mayor said, now my wife will be sad, because the motivation to watch football is lower. Therefore I must cook her favourite meal, maybe three times this week.

The problem is: her favourite meal is not for summer.

She likes everything from chicken. Pollo fino, drumsticks, all these things. But one of her real favourite meals is Steckrübeneintopf, turnip stew. And now it is too hot for that. You cannot rescue your wife with turnip stew when the sun is hot.

What Social Balance Looks Like

Then The Mayor changed the topic.

He asked me, when I hear the words social balance, what is the first real-life picture that comes into my head?

A restaurant table? My kitchen? The garden? Friends? My wife? Or maybe a hedgehog walking like he owns the place?

For me, the answer was simple.

My wife. Our evening coffee. Talking about the day.

And friends. Very important. To sit together with friends and talk.

And cooking is social balance too. Cooking is a short holiday at the oven. Not on the oven, because that is maybe too hot, as The Mayor said. But at the oven, yes.

When I cook, it is not only food. It is people. It is time. It is smell, taste, talking, laughing, and asking, “What do you do there?” This is social balance for me.

The Castle Cellar That Was Not a Highlight

Recently my wife and I went out for our wedding anniversary. The restaurant looked very nice. It had a beautiful destination, a nice place, a castle feeling. The first owner had special recipes, and every time we had a nice day in our life, like a birthday or our married day, we went there.

Now there is a new owner. The restaurant is called Genusswerk im Schlosskeller. In my brain, this name says special cooking. Nice cooking. Enjoyment in a castle cellar.

But it was all, only not special.

It was okay. You can eat it. But it was not a highlight.

The first disappointment came with the menu. I looked at it and I did not know what I wanted to eat, because there was nothing I really liked. This was the first time in my life I had this feeling.

The place still looked beautiful, but this beauty came from the old owner. The new owner had the destination, but not the feeling.

For a starter there was only soup or fried potatoes with remoulade. It was hot outside, so I thought, okay, we take the fried potatoes. But when they came, they smelled like fish. Like onion rings, like calamari rings, like something from the beach with remoulade. On the beach this is okay. In this mega destination, no.

The potatoes had a feeling like rubber in the mouth. In Germany I call this Panade nichts Panade. Breadcrumbs, nothing, breadcrumbs. You think you are eating something, but it is not really something.

The potatoes had a feeling like rubber in the mouth. In Germany I call this Panade nichts Panade. Breadcrumbs, nothing, breadcrumbs. You think you are eating something, but it is not really something.

My wife had a burger. It looked nice, and she said it was very good for a burger. But I do not go to this kind of place to eat a burger. I want half a duck, or a special cut of beef, or something special.

I ordered something like Ratsherrentopf. Normally this is with pork fillet and beef fillet. But there came schnitzel. I know pork schnitzel. I know chicken schnitzel. But beef schnitzel? I had never eaten in my life a Rinderschnitzel. I did not even know this existed.

Then came the bill.

One hundred euros.

For nothing.

I said, no. You can eat this for half the cost in a normal restaurant. If you go to a diner or a burger restaurant and pay fifty or sixty euros, okay. But not one hundred euros for this.

We drank two espressos. They were cold.

For me, this was the end of this action.

Hans Peter and the Beer Afterward

After this restaurant experience, we went for a drink. My wife was driving, because I was drinking. We went to Hans Peter.

Hans Peter is a man who does not need very much money. This is important. He knows his people.

At nine o’clock a tourist came and shouted that he needed a fish roll. A Fischbrötchen. He shouted again. “Hey! I need a fish in a roll!”

Hans Peter said, no, the kitchen is closed.

The man shouted again. Hans Peter said, “No, I can’t hear him.”

Then the tourist left and called him an idiot.

This is sometimes what happens with tourists. They come and think everyone must do everything for them. But Hans Peter had been standing there since eight o’clock in the morning. He was open in that moment only because we were there. Because we come also in wintertime, not only when the sun is shining and everyone wants something.

At ten o’clock Hans Peter said, “Last order, and then I drive home with my bicycle.”

We ordered some drinks. At half past ten he said, “Now I’m driving home.” Somebody said, “Hans Peter, I forgot to order a drink.” He opened again.

At eleven he said, “No, no, now I’m driving home.” And he left us sitting there in his garden with our glasses.

He said, leave the glasses, leave everything. I come in the morning and clear it.

That was fantastic. That was social balance. Not perfect service, but trust. Not a castle cellar, but warmth. Not one hundred euros for a cold espresso, but a special beer from Schleswig-Holstein, Dithmarscher Naturtrüb, very, very good, and a man who knows who you are.

Why Cooking at Home Is Different

The Mayor asked me the difference between cooking at home and being fed in a restaurant.

For me, the problem is convenience food. I don’t like ready-made sauces. Many restaurants use convenience food. They put something in a plastic bag, into the microwave, bing, and the soup is ready.

At home, I want live cooking.

Not always in our inside kitchen, because if everybody sits in the winter garden and I stand in the kitchen, this is not live cooking. Then I am separated. But in my outside kitchen, it is different. People can stand near me. They can look. They can ask me what I am doing there.

I can make barbecue. I have barbecue machines where you can cook on them. People can come outside from the winter garden and be with me in the outdoor kitchen.

This is better than in a restaurant.

And here is the funny anecdote: the Genusswerk was looking for help in the kitchen, or people who have cooking as a hobby. I said to my wife, I have so many ideas to make everything here better. But I am not the chief.

I said to her, I could maybe make the food there better if I only offered one noodle dish with a special noodle sauce from me.

Maybe that is arrogant. Maybe not. But when you love cooking, you cannot sit in a restaurant with cold espresso and rubber potatoes and not think things.

The Hedgehog Restaurant

Then, because Brida cannot stay serious for too long, The Mayor brought in the hedgehogs.

We have five hedgehogs in the garden. He asked me what they would say humans do wrong with social balance.

I think they would say: humans drink too much, eat too much, and work too hard.

Because when we are working, the hedgehogs are sleeping. And when the temperature goes down, they stand up and say, okay, now we drink a little water, eat some special hedgehog food, and live our life.

Then The Mayor asked what would happen if a hedgehog opened a restaurant for humans.

The menu would be special. Grilled mealworms. Soup from the special food. Hedgehog brekkies for humans, because the hedgehog thinks, if it is good for hedgehogs, it is good for people.

The house rule would be: the restaurant opens at ten o’clock in the evening and stays open until six in the morning. An all-night diner.

But there is one problem. Where hedgehogs eat, they also make their business outside. I don’t like it.

This reminded me of my father. On Sundays, when my mother had cooked, my father said, “Now you can make a break, and the children and I clean the kitchen.” My sister always said, “Papa, Papa, I must go to the toilet!” And my father said, “No, you are leaving here, not to the toilet.”

He had a German saying from table to toilet. Vom Tisch auf den Mist. And this is the same with hedgehogs. In the front they are eating, and in the back it comes out.

Social balance, yes. But also house rules.

Eating Without Talking Is Not for Me

The Mayor told me about the Italian detective Montalbano, who likes food and has one rule: when he eats, he does not want to talk.

I cannot understand this.

When you are eating, you have a nice moment in your life. You talk about the meal, the recipe, the smell, the taste. You say, “Oh, it is fine,” or “It is a little spicy,” or “It is a little salty.” You talk about the day, about life, with friends or with a good business partner.

For me, this is a good meal. Not only the food. The talking too.

The Mayor also told me about a monastery where breakfast was in absolute silence. The idea was that, if you do not talk, you focus on the food, and maybe also on the people in the kitchen who prepared it.

I understand the idea, but for me it is not normal.

If I eat a bad meal and cannot talk about it, I become crazy. I am not introverted. I am extroverted. I must talk over this. I must speak with my partner about the meal.

And sometimes, if I say this is a bad meal and five other people say it is a fine meal, then I must think. Maybe I am not normal. Maybe my feeling is different. Or maybe the five people are different.

But I still must talk.

Adriana and the Last Four Pastéis

This is why the Portuguese restaurant is different.

At the castle cellar, the main person stands in the kitchen. You can see him, but he does not really come to you.

At the Portuguese restaurant, Adriana comes out. She is in service, and she comes to you and says, “Hey, what is your life? What do you make?” She talks.

Now I have longer hair, and she said, “Oh, that is not normal for a man, but my man has long hair too.” Then she called him out from the kitchen, and we talked about hair and rings to put it back.

This is very fine.

When we come inside, Adriana knows what we like. Land and sea. Maybe the bestseller. She knows that after lunch we want coffee and pastéis de nata.

One time she said, “I have only four pieces. Do you like them after this?” Yes, yes, yes. And she reserved them for us.

Later the people cleaning the dishes came to us and said, “There are two. Is this for you?” And we said, yes, and we need two espresso. Or in Portuguese, only coffee.

This is not normal in the technical sense. It is better than normal. They know what we need. They remember. They share life with us.

That is social balance.

Back to the World Cup

At the end, The Mayor came back to football.

He said, very carefully, maybe one reason Germany went out of the World Cup is that football is sometimes seen too technically. Too structured. You must do this, you must do that. Maybe there is not enough soul in the game.

It is a dangerous comparison, and we both knew that.

But maybe it is one way to look at it.

The castle restaurant had the technical shape of enjoyment. A beautiful place, a strong name, a concept, a menu, a bill. But not enough soul.

The Portuguese restaurant had Adriana. Hair, coffee, pastéis de nata, remembering what people like, talking like life is allowed inside the room.

Maybe Germany, in some moments, lives for working. And maybe Mediterranean people, in some moments, work for living.

This is not true for everybody. I know many people in Germany who have Mediterranean thinking. And of course, if you are a chef in a kitchen, then work is work everywhere.

But for my life, I think it is better to think a little more Mediterranean and not only German.

Even in northern Germany, where the wind is not always warm, you can have a good time with the right constellation of people.

Maybe the place is not perfect. Maybe the architecture is ugly. Maybe the weather is bad. But if your friends are there, it is home.

And maybe that is the real social balance.

Not the perfect system.

The right people.

The warm coffee.

The last four pastéis.

And sometimes, after Germany is out of the World Cup, not a black shirt, but a green one.

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The Pineapple

Ralf’s Secret for a Happy Wife: Cook With Care

By Ralf the Grillmeister

Turnip, Potato and Beef Stock Stew

A warm winter stew made with beef on the bone, vegetables, patience, and parsley at the end.

Ingredients

Method

Ralf’s note: The secret is the stock. You do not hurry this. The bone gives the taste, the vegetables give the heart, and the parsley says, “Now it is finished.”

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The Pineapple

Next Week in Brida

By The Duo

Next week, Brida stays with Rest.

Not the perfect kind.

Not the kind that arrives neatly packaged with candles, silence, and a person who has somehow finished all their work, answered every message, cleaned the kitchen, slept properly, stretched, hydrated, and become emotionally available.

We are interested in the other kind.

The real kind.

The kind that has to fit around work, children, cars, phones, sleep, bad habits, good intentions, long drives, tired bodies, active minds, and the ordinary pressure of tomorrow.

At the tables, we will keep asking what rest actually looks like when life is still happening.

We will talk about sleep that restores. (Monday, the Mayor & Alex). Not as a perfect routine, but as something human beings keep trying to understand while coffee, phones, pillows, mosquitos, work pressure and YouTube all have their own opinions.

We will look again at active rest. The kind that may involve walking, cycling, moving, swimming, or going outside long enough for the head to become a little quieter.

The Atlantic Corridor on Monday will bring its own angle, with France, Brazil and India at the same table, because rest does not mean the same thing everywhere. Place matters. Work matters. Safety matters. Weather matters. Culture matters. So does the body you happen to be living in.

We will also ask why rest matters. Not in theory, but through real experience: tired legs, long routes, first hikes, returning home, and the difference between good tired and bad tired. Fruitloop, the Mayor and Fabrice will explore this in detail on Tuesday.

The Swimming Club will probably not remain entirely on topic. This is not a warning. It is simply evidence from previous weeks. Somewhere between rest, cars, old habits, new technology, and one company car with more bells and whistles than a small orchestra, there may still be something useful.

There will also be room for rest in a busy life. The kind of rest that has to exist inside family rhythm, work rhythm, house rhythm, and the quiet hope that nobody needs anything for five minutes. Sylvie and Frutiloop will explore this.

And because Brida is Brida, active rest will return again at Lunch with Janita & Frank, on Thursday,, where questions tend to begin politely and then wander into the more interesting corners.

By the end of the week, we may not have one clean definition of Rest.

That is fine.

A table is not a dictionary.

A table is where people bring their lives, compare notes, recognise something, disagree gently, laugh unexpectedly, and leave with one useful sentence they did not have before.

Maybe rest is sleep.

Maybe rest is movement.

Maybe rest is a book.

Maybe rest is a walk.

Maybe rest is turning the phone away.

Maybe rest is finally admitting that modern cars have become computers with wheels.

Maybe rest is simply being at a table where you do not have to perform.

Next week, Brida keeps asking.

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