Without Monty Python's irony: my life, more than ever, is made of contrasts.
Yin and Yang.
In June 2021 Berlin had 3.766.089 inhabitants (3.880 had left the city at the end of 2020 - due to the now very high rents, and some in Covid-time became tired of city life with their little children in tiny apartments).
I am lucky to have the cake and eat it (well - it might happen that on a very stressful baking-day you can hear me grumble over crumb & trifle. What do you expect from the translator of 'LEON: Baking & Puddings')?
Half of the month - or a little more - I now live in a tiny but beautiful village in Bavaria - together with 511 very friendly inhabitants. Yesterday the desperate customer consultant of a big Sunday paper - which I now have subscribed to - called: "Sorry - we cannot send you our Sunday paper, because in your village we have no newspaper deliverer. We can only send it to you on Monday, by mail". I said "Who Wants Yesterday's Papers?" - and he answered: "The Postman Always Rings Twice" .
My sister gave good advice through WhatsApp: "Go to the bakery on Sunday and buy the paper there."
The thing is: we don't have a bakery here. We have no shop whatsoever. The nearest are 3 km further, in the two little towns near by, but to go there you have to use the sweet red train, if you don't want to run on an A-Road - as Google Map friendly advised me: that road has NO sidewalk - but a lot of quick traffic - and I do not want to reduce the number of Berlin's inhabitants even more...
Don't get me wrong: I'm not complaining. I am utterly happy here - and I mean: HAPPY - with the triplets and Son & DiL so near, and beautiful nature all around. Bliss!
And if I want to take a "Walk on the Wild Side", I can do that here too:
Country life carries challenges of remote living. The landscape is beautiful but the quiet countryside is in great contrast with city life. Having homes in both the countryside and the city combines the best of both. City life does have lots of appeal.
ReplyDeleteThat is the way I see it too, Susan! I read in a book that it is ageing to do all things the same way, sit on the same chair, forming tight habits - well - maybe fate will hinder me to do just that :-)
DeleteAnd yes: the contrast is huge.
Three ks away from the closest facilities and no car? Someone in the household will have to ride a bike each Sunday to buy the big weekend newspaper! Otherwise, tell them that the big Sunday breakfast, espresso and cake will be cancelled.
ReplyDeleteDear Helen, haha, a good advice!
DeleteI tried it with a bike once (one town is also quite safe to go to through the meadows) - but I didn't enjoy the bulks of goods on my bike, anxious to lose balance... The thing with the Sunday paper is: all shops in the 2 little towns are closed on Sunday! So I will have to order the once-a-week paper that comes on Thursday...
I empathize. My little town has about 400 inhabitants. There is a post office, a city hall, a bar(of course), and a gas station. No grocery store. Daily news is available online only. I still like it.
ReplyDeleteDear Emma, I am so glad that by now I know the feeling of living in a small community: here most people know each other (and are quite curious :-), and if we meet, every one is greeted by "Grüß Gott!" - that is nice and makes one feel friendly and safe. Here we have no post office, no city hall, 1 tavern - The Red Horse - but that it at the moment closed, no gas station - but a church and a very big sports complex. But the facilities you have are found three kilometres further in the little towns.
DeleteOnline I tried - I do not like that, I want to "feel" my paper :-)
Yin and yang, indeed, dear Britta! And no, hiking through the verge of your busy A-road is not a solution to the hollow space your newspaper occupies in your country Sundays. Some enterprising solution will eventually present itself ... Perhaps entice one of the 511 friendly inhabitants to offer their services to your august publication to become the Official Village Deliverer?
ReplyDeleteDear Pipistrello, I am vain enough to imagine that I might find a friendly driver for hiking - you gave me the idea (in young years my husband was a "noble hitchhiker", he could predict exactly the time he would arrive coming from Frankfurt to Bremen - and he came with the best cars - but nowadays hitchhiking is "out", I fear - and mentioning fear: to read as many detective novels as I do are counterproductive - I just think of "Last Bus to Woodstock" (Inspector Morse - good as DVD and even better as novel by Colin Dexter).
DeleteIn spring I will buy a second-hand car - that I decided. Not only to fetch a paper (Sunday: no way, everything closed!), but to carry my rucksack and heavy bags up the quite steeply hill!
Country life is so different from city life, and you could spend the rest of your life enumerating those differences.
ReplyDeleteDo Not Fear! dear Joanne :-) And maybe the rest of my life - even if it lasts longer than I might imagine - would definitely not be long enough.
DeleteBut one thing I found out: for about 20 years I lived in a small city (about 100.000 inhabitants), otherwise I flipped through Germany, moving 17 times - most always big cities - like Hamburg or Berlin - and I wish: give me Black or White, meaning: very big, or really tiny - that is best for me (when offered together - otherwise the City, please, as I am definitely a Big-City-Girl)
Visiting Americans used to assure me that they understood Monty Python and I would say, "That's strange, because none of us do." I don't think even Monty Python understood Monty Python.
ReplyDeleteHi Tom - I recently bought the Complete DVD collection of Monty Python - and found that my memory of the past, (then I saw them on TV) had gold-plated them.
DeleteSometimes I saw the same sort of humour we thought funny as high-school graduates (though of course Monty Python were miles better in visual presentation) - but some sketches were really funny!
I wonder how I would react to Marty Feldman nowadays.
(WHAT is really funny: I couldn't remember his name, gave into Google just "British actor of the 60s who squinted" and the first name that appeared was his!)