Let me just say: I like Germany. This country has welcomed me with open arms, a loan of its slippers, and a puff on its pipe.

But.

There are some things that I just can’t get used to. Germans are so very strict: they have a lot of rules and the people that are entrusted to enforce them are old ladies. My landlady is a sterling example and terrorises me from the comfort of her overly ornamented living room.

To illustrate the Germans' poker-up-the-backside, jobsworth approach to law abiding and life in general, I will use the example of bin day.

Bin day in England sees the neighbourhood’s wheelie bins dragged willy nilly to the curb and arranged such that a dot-to-dot pattern drawn between them would trace a similar path to one Scouse Mark might follow after a heavy night on the shandy.

People paint on their bins the number of their house in enormous white figures, so rife is wheelie-bin theft among the British (I am chiefly drawing on my own experiences of Manchester and Leeds living).

Examples:

In this last example, ignoring the lewd purple colour (another antitheft technqiue?), note the irregular and haphazard arrnagement of the wheelie bins; note that, apart from the first one, the bins have taken up position in the exact centre of the pavement, causing maximum inconvenience to wheelchair users, blind people, and pedestrians in general. A typical example of an urban street on bin day in Britain.

For comparison, this is bin day in Germany:

Note the small, neat numbers painted on the front. They are the same size on each bin, which suggests to me that when Jürg decided to paint his house number onto his wheelie bin (as recommended in the council newsletter) he offered to do his neighbours’ at the same time. Considerate.

Note how, although the bin further along the street stands alone and is thus free to take up a jaunty, carefree stance not regulated by the immediate presence of other, more uniform bins, it is nevertheless perfectly aligned with the curb and the other bins.

The pile of rubbish next to it (a special council pick up; the green bins are for recycling and anything not on the list must be collected by prearranged appointment; I have lived here this long) has been thoughtfully positioned so as to occupy as little pavement as possible, and doesn’t look as if someone has upended a skip and poured some canal scum on top.

They may be very keen on regulation but note the corner of paper protruding from the bin in the forefront of the picture; I mean, come on – they’re not freaks.

These things I can deal with. Admirably righteous in principle and achingly tiresome in practice, I sort my rubbish into four different bins and wrap food waste in newspaper or paper bags (the correct size, of course) because it’s the rules and I’ll get fined if I don’t, warned my landlady though it was unclear whether it was her or the state that would be fining me. I’d rather not find out.

It is on pain of death by battering with a zimmer frame and shopping bag that I cross the road on a red man, and heaven forbid I put the washing machine on in the middle of the day. Fine - I can live with that. But some things are too much.

It was recently my mother’s birthday. I purchased and packaged a gift and went to the post office, being ever wary of the Handelstrassers lurking nearby (I will get a photo one day, I promise). By absolutely no chance at all I got the same woman as always, and no doubt her heart sank as much as mine when she saw me approach.

“Hello. It’s me again. I’d like to send this,” I said, putting my parcel on the counter, “to England please.”

She looked at me and then at the parcel. It was almost as if she was trying to think of a reason not to help me. She looked up.

“Sorry, we can’t. It’s the wrong shape,” she said sharply.

“I’m sorry – wrong shape? What do you mean?”

“We don’t take things with three corners.”

I couldn’t. Believe. My ears! Was this the OCD branch of the postal service? She was winding me up again, surely.

“Why not, what’s wrong with three corners?” I asked, trying to keep the rising frustration from my voice.

She said something about not being able to price how much it would be due to the irregular shape and it not stacking properly in the van. By the time I’d fully understand she was already peering behind me, indicating the next person in the queue to move forward.

I went home, cursing this land and its anal regulations and ridiculously pedantic natives. I emptied a cereal box, shoved the present and an explanatory note to Mum inside, and caught the tram to a different post office at the Rhein Neckar centre; I now had the required quota of right angles and was able to post to England a box of Special K with only the meanest of questioning glances from the cashier.

The outrageously shaped package that does not conform to the German postal pricing or transportation system.

Got im Himmel.