No Fast Food

 

Dear You, 

I am back from Berlin - and have enjoyed my friends and the beautiful big flat, the fine weather and breathed culture in the capital. 

The gaps between my visits are still long - sometimes I float in a feeling of unreality: in the kitchen I grab for a pitcher - and it isn't there, it stands on another board (though I tried to make arrangements in both flats as similar as possible) - I feel a bit alien in a place where I live for more than ten years. So reassuring that I still can enter - do you know the weird feeling when you pass a house in a city where you once lived - and now are standing "outdoors", no way to get in? 

In the Bavarian village I see the opposite way of life - which also has its charms: families living in houses their ancestors built hundred of years before, never moving, and almost all of them know each other quite well and are often related in a remote way. 

Now to the zucchinis above: I planted one on my balcony (escorted by a cherry tomato) - and am happily surprised: too late I had read that you need two of them to get "fruits", but this one seems to "Live Alone And Like It", as Marjory Hillis called her very sweet book. 

The zucchino (shouldn't be that the correct term? - but the spellchecker refuses, having no Italian connections) spreads its huge leaves and enjoys parthenogenesis - with convincing results. 

Yours Truly 

Orchids on Your Budget

 

Three years ago Michou, a friend of mine, gave me a tip for the right caring for orchids. It is simple: put them once a week for 10 minutes into a bucket full of water (and give them fertiliser as recommended) - and they will thrive. 

At least mine do - two in the Bavarian kitchen (window facing North) are flowering a second time this year, and that very vigorous on the photo above, a present from the Flying Dutchman, is doing that too abundantly in my East facing study. 

Do you remember the sleuth Nero Wolfe, a private detective created by Rex Stout (first appearance in 1933), all his adventures are told by his cheeky Assistant Archie Goodwin? When Wolfe had to think he went up (with an elevator because he was incredibly fat) into the large attic and spritzed a mist of water over his huge collection of orchids. They were very valuable. 

Since years orchids (at least the phalaenopsis) now have become very cheap. 

In Hildesheim where I lived for 20 years in my Art Deco house (still mine) on a half island I always visited with joy one of the oldest orchid nurseries of the world, Hennis Orchideen (since 1891, which always was a treat (now they also sell online too).  

In 1937 a little book was published: 

Orchids On Your Budget  

Or live Smartly on What You Have 

( by Marjorie Hills, a Virago Classic now). 

This book is full of wisdom how to economise and still have fun. Valuable tips as: Don't economise on butter, that will make feel you miserable - cut costs where it really saves money, such as moving from the place you live in now to a smaller one or a less posh neighbourhood or a smaller town). 

I love "Live Alone And Like It", the first book written by Hills, a Vogue journalist, and published in 1936, even more: 

"Whether you view your one-woman ménage as Doom or Adventure, you need a plan, if you are going to make the best of it."  

Both books elevate your spirits, make you laugh, but are deep down full of wisdom and can be given as a present to married woman also  :-) 

As orchids.