Gratitude

Dear You, 
I thought for a while before chosing this photo to illustrate "gratitude".
It shows that being grateful is like being a mirror: you notice what is around you, you reflect it - and don't take it just for granted. (Well - the image is a bit wobbly...)
Which we often do instead of being thankful.
When we feel down we sometimes narrow our vision and become unfair: we see only the half-empty glass, only 'poor-little-me'.
Actually I wanted to show here a video with the song of Ralph Mctell, "Streets of London" - but both versions on youtube were - so I think - exploiting and preying on private misfortune, so I choose another video instead, which even as a child I thought of as "pure envy" - the contrary of gratefulness: Peter Sarstedt's song "Where Do You Go To (My Lovely)?" Our 'captain' on the narrowboat on the Leeds-Liverpool-Canal, Matti, a musician, could perform it very well - the highlight was the little bitter laugh - ahahaha - in between. But hear yourself - what is the singer accusing the girl of? That she got what they both(!) aimed for - "with burning ambition"?
I hate it when people claim "I can look into your head" - (though nowadays, with all those people shouting their thoughts into their cellphone, we almost can - for a moment).

Back to gratitude: yes,  I write (almost every day) into a Gratitude Journal. I do it in the morning (being a morning person) and recall the blessings of the day before. At least five items.
I always find more.
Sometimes very trivial things - "first little violet opened her eyes - thanks she survived the hard winter!" (I am on good footing with it - so I am allowed to say "her") - or very important things.
The small things predominate - but that is just the trick, the charm: by being able to see that so much beauty and good surrounds you in everyday life one recognises that one must be a very dull person not to notice it.
A French proverb says:
                                          "Gratitude is the heart's memory." 
                                                                                                         So it is.

A Toothless Tiger In My Cabinet

This morning I read Gwil's poem "That Fruit May Grow Upon Your Trees" on http://poet-in-residence.blogspot.de/. So I took a photo of the little Kumquat on my windowsill - I admire its strength: 10 bulging little fruits, and still 9 to come. 

In the warmer season it is on the balcony - otherwise you might be overpowered by the scent of neroli. 

This morning I woke up incredibly late (for my schedule): 8 o'clock - can't remember that in the last ten years I ever managed to wake up that late. 

And what did I do with my exuberant energy? 

I polished the old silver fruit basket, the silver candle holder (five arms), and a beautiful little blue enamel bowl on a silver foot. 

Ah, and not to forget the little Lady Pistol from the French armourer 'Le Page à Paris' (official armourer of the Dukes of Orléans)  - founded at the beginning of the 18th century.

Don't fear,  I used up my energy in polishing - and: it has a pyrite lock (a bit broken), the cock is artfully recessed into the walnut and ebony wood and needs a whole lock to come out. 

It is just a very beautiful useless antique - and that is good, as I love peace.  

And oranges. 

(...that come all the way from China...)

What to Do With Heaps of Diaries?

Dear You, 

I started diary writing when I was almost twelve years old. I wrote a lot, and draw for a long time: family life, friends, and school were important (the drawings a bit pale): 

Here you see me with my (then) best friend Atie:

and little misfortunes as The Curious Incident of the Dog, who mistook our sledge for a tree were described meticulously in word and picture:

Atie and I wanted to stay together for all our life, thus I, then 13, was willing to marry her brother, so we would be relatives, Michael was five years older than I and allowed to drive the Merc of his father - here you see an interested young man with a tall, but very young girl:

Sorry to say that my family did a lot to sabotage my plans. Long walking tours (with my little sister),

Lots of sport:

And then Atie's father was called to Karlsruhe to become a Federal Public Prosecutor, so we wrote each other volumes of letters (with drawings, of course).
I wrote (almost) all my life. So: the question is what to do with all those diaries? Of course I will keep the childhood diaries - and the many ones that I wrote (with lots of quotations) during the time when our son lived at home.
But the others? Even now I still write. And as you see: I have always the intention to "Make it short!", but...  By now there are over 150 diaries. I will think quite a while what I will do with them.
I still remember that I was utterly downcast when my family told me that my great grandmother Anne-Marie von Kroge had written some diaries and that one had fulfilled her last will and put them with her into her coffin. (In my case I would need a mausoleum...)

As I promised, Rachel

A few days ago I told Rachel, who had published some of her drawings on a wall of her house that it reminded me of a wallpaper I had seen in Kensington Palace.
I had to look through some photos... (glad: the visual brain still works - I took the photograph in 2013 - thought: I do a lot to avoid learning Italian -just kidding, will start in a few minutes, diligently).
This part I absolutely love:

The Brand New Testament

Dear You, 
I started this year with fine resolutions, and so I packed many, many photos (2011 - 2014) onto a HDD - to make my computer run quicker. Well - and now I would have to search for a while to find a picture of the "Zoo-Palast" as illustration for 'cinema'. ..
Berlin is snowed in - or do you say: under?  We have two-figure minus Celsius degrees - together with what the BILD-Zeitung (the German equivalent of the SUN) calls "the Russian whip" - ice-cold wind, that makes us all grab our scarves after 10 minutes walk and put them in front of our faces - water running from our eyes... One feels a deep desire to hibernate. And on the radio they tell people who live in villages outside to start two (2!!) hours earlier to get here...
Why I go outside at all?
Well, I had a beautiful birthday present: a cinema card that allows me to visit 12 cinemas (some of them with 4 different cinema halls - and very good films) as often as I want for a whole year!
Yours Truly is in Heaven!
(Guess what I saw today?) 

Are You With Me? Always On My Mind...

You might know this song "Are You With Me?" from the 'Lost Frequencies' - and then you might wish you didn't - in it there is a simple little sound sequence with a catchy tone that won't leave you for days...
Why I ask?
Well, I think of you, my dear bloggers, 'Wherever you go, whatever you do'.
So while visiting Schloss Neuschwanstein.
When we walked I thought instantly of Joanne Noragon.
Look!

"A Birdhouse for Winter Bird Feeding" - with "voltage LED" - www.schreinerei-mair-pfronten.com    
And the advertising text ends with some well-known words:
                                      "yes we can! - build your dreams! 

Royal Christmas / Königliche Weihnachten

Dear You, 
this was the view from our hotel room at the Hopfensee (Allgäu), where we spent Christmas. A very new experience for me, not to celebrate at home - but you drive 8 hours and a half by train - we didn't want to ask that from our 'children', who live in Kempten now, and have to work on Monday again.
It was utterly beautiful - sun as in May.
On the trip to the Hopfensee I thought for a moment that I was in the wrong film: a red little train passed us, coming from Füssen - and it was filled up to the last place with dark-haired young Asians. Japanese mostly, but also Chinese.
I wondered. Then, of course, the penny dropped.
Allgäu - Füssen - der Kini - König Ludwig II. - and: Schloß Neuschwanstein.

Which we saw for the very first time. To understand its bizzare architecture one look at the face of Ludwig might help:

Pfiat di! 
Britta  xxx

Today is my birthday

Another one!
The little pendant I found a year ago - it is made of enamel, and is even older than I :-)
Of course I don't wear it - I'm not into astronomy astrology (proof: I knew only very few birthsigns of friend - and when I know them I often am not sure what they mean. Strange was only for a long period of my life the clustering of Virgos).
You might remember my last birthday post, where I told you of that friend of mine who pays lots of money for learning astrology, in Suisse - and still is adamant about me being a Gemini.
Which I am not, but if it makes her happy...
Being a Capricorn - that much I learned - means
a) you better not tell
b) you are ambitious, and climb up to the summit
c) you are stubborn
d) and very resilient
e) and more. (Should take a course in Suisse).
Best:
They say a Capricorn grows younger while ageing. Young they are very eager to do the right things, thinking brain is everything - growing older they relax and start to enjoy life with all senses. . .
As I do.

I thank you all for following, and wish you a Happy New Year!
Britta xxx

PS: Please allowe me one birthday wish: of course Rachel was right when she asked 'Why not integrate "Rise and Shine!" into this blog?" (Answer: c)
Now I will. It's not that I don't have nough topics to write about - I have - but I found out that I mumbled all the time - happily only in my head -- in plain (though admittedly: broken) English!
I talked all the time to you! 
Stop! I also have a real life! And work to do!
So : easier for you to have this one blog (with from now on a few shorter posts, and some long ones), and easier for me. Thank you!

I like this one better!

         The whole family: my father and I, my mother and my sister. The way it always was.

Merry Christmas!

I wish all of  Dear You a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

Thank you for your wonderful blogs and so many letters comments. 

These two photos I took at my last visit to Hamburg:
- at the central station (above) and at the Levante Haus (isn't that beautiful?)

 During the Christmas Holidays I might not blog - and then again: I might.

                          In keeping with Lord Peter Death Bradon Wimsey's heraldic motto:

                                                   "As my whimsy takes me."

Commenting Comments

Dear You, 

Comments are bit like letters, and I've chosen "Dear You" with the hope to get 'letters' back. 

Often we talk more freely about ourselves in a blog than in real life (I sometimes forget completely that "all the world" might read it - though luckily the world has other things to care about).  I even start to worry, if a blogger who normally comments eagerly, remains silent - have I said something stupid? or is he ill? 

Till now I was lucky not to have a troll, an evil commenter on my blog, as Rachel has. 

A rough classification of commenters is:  

- bloggers who don't allow comments. 

- bloggers who promise to answer all comments - and then don't. In that case I wait for a while - (e.g. John, whose blog I really like - and then I withdraw. Not sulkingly, but with time management in mind: I have to invest so much time to a comment - not only because I write in a foreign language, but also because I look up ideas, quotes etc. and reread and polish - so often a tiny weeny comment takes me a quarter of an hour. Or more). And there are so many blogs I want to comment on! 

- bloggers who allow comments, but don't answer. That is utterly understandable as in Pondside's case (she often gets more than 60 comments on one post - that would be a fulltime job to answer them all). Maybe the famous Hattats gave up their blog because the wonderful way they answered each of their zillions of commenters profoundly was too strenuous - I suspect that even they have only 24 hours a day? Often bloggers with many comments don't answer, but comment on my blog - a very fair exchange. 

Some bloggers give short comments, other long ones. 

I'm often a bit wordy. And Tom was right, when I complained in a comment - in a general way - that some posts are just too long (because one wants to read so many) to answer: Yours are often not short either. So true! (Look at this one!) 

Some bloggers blog every day. That is exciting - but often I cannot comment every day, though I read them - which makes me feel that I might appear as a bit fickle, though I am not. 

On Facebook I have the strange phenomenon that a bright young author whom I know in person complains that one often does not comment on his posts - but he never comments himself on anything we write, even to click "Like" seems to be too much. Well - I might think: He just doesn't like it! - but no: recently he told me that he reads every bit and everything I post. Strange. Worse: if a person answers on a comment in the printed version "above your comment", and on the one "under your comment" - but not on your own comment - that I take personal :-) 

I too love to write each day. 

Thus I invented a new blog - "Rise and Shine!" (a quote from "Vera", when she enters police headquarters in Newcastle). If you go to that blog you do it at your own risk - I warned you! no photos, just morsels from everyday life, mine of course :-) . You find that blog on my blogroll at the right - or under the blog-address http://mandelrosen.blogspot.de/ . Of course comments are very welcome - but I don't expect any. 

Ah - and to humour. I love the English authors for their wit and irony. And when I use some (irony), I often put one of these daft emoticons behind it - otherwise there is a fat chance you might think I meant it the way one could read it also. 

Conclusion: Comments are fantastic. They brighten up our day. 

Or as Eeyore put it: 

“I might have known,” said Eeyore. “After all, one can’t complain. I have my friends. Somebody spoke to me only yesterday. And was it last week or the week before that Rabbit bumped into me and said ‘Bother!’. The Social Round. Always something going on.” A.A.Milne, Winnie-the-Pooh  

 

:-) , :-) . :-) ! 

Toodle- pip!    

    

  

Please, Mr. Postman!

Dear You, 
Actually I wanted to write a post about "comments".
Now I'm sitting here, caught in a luxurious prison - our flat - and wait for the postman. Will he ever come?
"With the post you never know", said "my" postman wistfully. Strange to hear it out of the mouth of some official - it is true that we had oh so many thefts from parcels and small packages the last years (at least three items I sent were stolen till finally, finally I followed son's advice to ALWAYS send a package (costly) insured).
Our postman is utterly reliable - he is a wonderful young Turk who really loves his job, (and even greets me from his yellow van - by name! - when he sees me in another street in Berlin). They have given him a new route now, sometimes here, sometimes there, sometimes not -  and thus made his job less secure and his smile a bit more worried. I wonder what the Post is thinking of!
Why am I waiting? New job from nine-to-five? Nay - Amzon informed me that my iRobot will arrive today - and that is heavy, I suspect, and if I am not at home and have to go to the post-office to get it, I won't have to go to the gymn today.
Yes, you read right: I ordered a robot to vacuum dear home. I am very curious if that will work (and you know my infatuation with technical gimmicks) - I see me Sitting On My Sofa, feets up, laptop on my knees - hammering a post on "comments" into the keys, while "IT" purrs and currs all around.

PS: Maybe in four hours I will change the song to: "Set Me Free" (I love the Kinks!)