Of all the German words that I encountered when I first moved to Germany, it was ‘pflegeleicht’ that struck me.

I first saw it on the washing machine. Then stamped in giant letters on a box in our temporary apartment (I wasn’t rifling through the owner’s things – the boxes were on the landing).

So I decided to look it up.

According to the dictionary, ‘pflegeleicht’ was ‘adj easy-care’.

I got two things from this.

One, life here would involve having to decipher the meaning of EVERYTHING.

But two – everything being filled with symbolism in those first months – was it a sign that adapting to our new life would be pflegeleicht?

With the wisdom of hindsight, the first was true and the second wasn’t. But a don’t-worry-be-happy attitude did help with both. ω