Hindsight...

 Dear You, 

I fear that I tried to bite off more than I can chew - to write everyday a post is too much for me (especially in the days before Christmas) - and evidently for you too: we all have so many things to do!  

I will return to normal posting and use the time to read and comment yours, to follow my many interests and tasks - in short: have a good time. 

And that is what I wish for you too: a very good time, stay healthy, don't overdo the preparations for Christmas - just enjoy! 

Yours truly,   Britta  

Very sweet "Kitsch"

 

Dear You, 

I love Japan and the relaxing atmosphere of calmness in their houses. 

To create calmness in a room, one needs space and order.  As dear William Morris said "Have nothing in your house that you do not know to be useful, or believe to be beautiful", (I love "or believe to be" - so undogmatic!).

Yet sometimes I need a little bit of heartwarming "Kitsch". 

I smile when I see my very kitsch cat-bank - it has two 'golden' bells in its paws which wobble when I put money into the bank. The cat sits fat on a little silk cushion and smiles (in a minimalist's way). 

So: A little bit of kitsch: fine. But one has to beware of too much. 

"Beguiling beauty - Betörend schön: Chinese reverse glass paintings from the Mei-Lin Collection" in Munich

 

Dear You, 

yesterday I finally succeeded to visit the exhibition "Betörend schön" - Beguiling beauty" Chinese reverse glass paintings from the Mei-Lin Collection" in the grand old Museum Fünf Kontinente in Munich.

Reverse glass painting was adopted from Europe to China in the 18th century.   

Specialised studios painted on the back of glass or mirrors - and the colours become especially bright and radiant. 

"So-called 'shinü hua' (...) are among the established themes of Chinese painting and often associated with seduction and the world of the courtesans" - write the curators of the exhibition and ask themselves - and us - "What makes a woman beautiful?" - and answer evasively with "Beauty lies in the eye of the beholder". You bet. 

Shown are 70 works from the Mei - Lin Collection (Rupprecht Mayer and his wife Haitang Mayer-Liem - they hunted them in antique shops and on flea markets in Peking (Beijing) in the 80's. 

I loved the exhibition. Well represented, completed with gowns and shoes etc. 

Well, well, well: the shoes... In my home city Bremen, where the "Übersee- Museum" displayed all the treasures that captains and rich merchants had brought home from Africa and all the world (I wonder how they deal with those treasures nowadays), I saw those tiny shoes and shuddered... the feet of the poor women were bounded from earliest youth to keep them crippled. 

Those women (even in the 19th century it was done!) could not walk on those feet, size of a baby foot - they were transported in litters, and men thought it very sexy and the forced gait of it, so I read in a novel, were good for circulation - everywhere... 

And I saw those very very long nails of all the depicted women (shuddering again - yet I see them nowadays too when I travel by train - on young women!) 

One meaning, of course, is: "I don't have to work". Another ... a special group of men will be able to work that out in a second.  

In the left edge of the display above you see jewelled "nail protectors". 

There is a lot more to tell about the exhibition, but I see you look a bit weary. Sorry! 

(Want a little scratch to become wide awake again?) 

 

  

My teeny weeny little new coffee machine

 

Dear You,

if I were free to show you photos of the triplets when they  opened their presents on St.Nick's Day - having polished all their shoes so well that Shunmyo Masuno, the Zen Priest would be convinced of their "radiant hearts through cleaning", I would be happy - but of course I do understand the wish for privacy. 

So I show you another cute thing instead: the Melitta "Aromaboy". 

Because I drink only one cup of coffee in the morning, I bought the tiniest coffee maker of Germany: you can only prepare two normal cups with it. 

Wonderful! Quick! Delicious! And: no waste.

But a lot of fun, if you take this teeny weeny little coffee pot into your hands! 

PS: Today I came back from a trip Munich, thus I am a bit tired. I promise something "substantial" for tomorrow.   

Matt Haig: The Midnight Library

 

Dear You, 

this is what I read at the moment. 

I love Matt Haig's fascinating idea: to be able to test different lives that would have been the result of not choosing the one option you actually took. 

Consequences of choices that one made - or didn't take. 

Makes me think a lot ... what would have been if... 

On the other hand - to stay content and sane - my motto is: 

"Yesterday is over and the door to tomorrow is still closed. Today is all you (really) have."

That was a close shave!

 

Dear You, 

saved by the bell!  

To become a little bit more "green",  one thing I decided was to bid adieu to my Nespresso capsules (aluminium) and use an old fashion manual Italian coffee pot instead. 

From Berlin I took one with me. It had an added electric plate beneath, no need to use the stove. It worked fine. 

In Bavaria I thought: might be quicker without that plate, put on the stove. 

It wasn't. Instead lots of fume in my kitchen!  Big clouds of grey fume! and a fire!  

I hadn't seen that underneath this special espresso cooker was a rubber plate. Well: rubber on a hot stove = fume. 

The flames were a hand's breadth high - and a hand's breadth wide. I thought: this might be the first time that I have to use my little fire extinguisher, Uii, uiii, uii. 

But luckily I could extinguish it without that.  I've been very, very lucky. 

And then I was very, very busy - to clean all those stinking sticky particles from the stove. 

Voyage Cancelled

 

Dear You, 

Here in Bavaria we have many many storks. 

They go south in late autumn, and return in spring to their old stork's nests. 

So yesterday I was surprised to hear very loud clatter (if that word is right): 

one pair of storks has decided to remain here, sent back their tickets for a ride to Africa and thus thankfully reduced their carbon footprint. 

Though, sitting on the best place of town - the church tower - maybe they only were afraid that if they leave others would squatter their nest?