My Holiday in Zoutelande in the Netherlands

I want to share a few pictures of my week in Zoutelande in the Kingdom of The Netherlands with you. Zoutelande is a small village and well-known bathing place in the Zeeland Province.  

I start with a typical Dutch landmark: the windmill. This one in Zoutelande was built in 1722. 

During our holiday the weather was so hot that we became almost ungrateful - 34°C made us less enterprising than normally. 

The North Sea was beautiful and calm, the water too, and - by its standard - "warm": 21° C. 

The Netherlands are a small, beautiful and rich country - with lots and lots of water in form of channels and Grachten. They have bridges on roads over channels that can be opened - and they do that! - and even an ambulance has to wait...

 More than the tourist-oriented Zoutelande...  

... I love the town Middleburg: 

Queen Wilhelmina (1880 - 1962) 

or the impressing technical world-wonder of the Deltawerken in the Oosterschelde, protecting Holland against the sea. The North Sea can be murderous, remember the flood catastrophe in January 1953.  (holland.com/de/tourist/reiseziele/provinzen/zeeland/deltawerke)  

I love the cozy Dutch villages, here Dreischor, a church-ring-village, first mentioned in 1206. You think you are in Rye - and Miss Mapp or Lucia might cross a threshold :-) (https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dreischor): 

So: It was a relaxing holiday.  

With nice food (here you see the oyster banks in Yseke):  

... impressing skies 

... and the unforgettable scent of Rosa Gallica and the Sea:   

My sincerest condolences to the death of Queen Elizabeth II.

Albert Einstein on World War III and IV

Albert Einstein (1879 - 1955), the great German physicist, was also a very wise man. Today I found a quote that made me shiver (rough translation by me)

"I am not sure with which weapons World War III will be fought, but World War IV will be fought with stones and sticks". 

He also said: 

"Two things are infinite (endless), the universe and human stupidity, but about the universe I am still not quite sure."

To cheer us up he said: 

"A clever person solves a problem. A sage man avoids it." 

Suitable to your convictions please hope or pray for that! 

PS: The photo I took in Zoutelande, the Netherlands 

More Structure for my Blog?

More than once I changed my blog, but I confess that after a time I returned to a mix of everything that moves me. 

Some of you blog every day - and thus write a sort of diary. 

Some of you do great research for their articles and dive in deep; others specialise on one or two topics. 

I like the form Urspo ("Spo-reflections") uses: special topics or questions on chosen days of the week - but I neither want to be a copycat of him - as our great poet Johann Wolfgang von Goethe described in Faust: 

You’ll sit forever, gluing things together,
Cooking up a stew from other’s scraps,
Blowing on a miserable fire,

Made from your heap of dying ash. 

nor do I intend to write 3 or 4 times a week. 

But maybe I can give my blog a bit more structure, for example with these headlines:  

1) What made me laugh this week (or angry - THAT one is easy, living in a foolish world - but as my dear friendandwhatsoever late Barefoot Doctor said: "What you focus on grows", thus I choose to smile). 

2) Remarkable quote(s) I found this week 

3) HomeBasics (title of my book, and here patching up useful tips for household and everyday life) 

4) Nature... and culture this week (including books I read, movies I watch, music I listen to, or exhibitions or a walk through the wood, a special flower or wild thing). 

I'll give it a try right away. Last week: 

1) What made me laugh: 

I laughed when at the return from Zoutelande in the Netherlands I got this postcard from my Berlin friend Christine: 

Rough translation -                        ALMOST  (written as if it is the name of a famous city or posh bathing resort) 

                                           I'd have experienced something!

(Hahaha - the dream of all travellers, tourists and explorers. And then you sit somewhere on your handkerchief in the sand.  :-)  

2) Remarkable quote: 

"I'm no longer an emotional homeless person" 

(Michel Friedman, publicist, in an interview of DIE ZEIT)   

3) HomeBasics 

This I can put as well into "What made me laugh": 

in Germany our government surpasses each other with ideas to save energy in autumn and winter (US of course, while THEY ride their fat official limousines). 

You might have read the "short shower advice" given by our minister of economic affairs, Robert Habeck. And now (I swear this is no joke!) you'll find articles in newspapers like: "To Wash Oneself - a Self-Experiment for One Week"(really! I do not make this or the following valuable tip up!!) that reads: "How to use a wash-cloth". 

4) Nature and culture: 

Today I turned nature: 

into culture: 

                                                    

That was very much appreciated by Son, DiL and the triplets - served with whipped cream... 

Now I need your honest Feedback, please! 

Hazy Thoughts

 

Do you know that feeling: if you haven't done something for some time, one suddenly starts to hesitate. I hesitate to paint, I hesitate to write my blog, I hesitate to follow my routines.

Coming home a week ago from a beautiful little holiday in Zoutelande (Netherlands) I have to adjust.

 I take a few steps back from my life, look hard, and see some things I will change.  

My ideas are still a bit foggy and resemble the beautiful Bavarian landscape here in the morning (the photo I took two days ago). 

But the sun will come out, contours will become clear, and ideas will pour. 

Hopefully. 

PS: I add a typical (a bit sentimental, but that IS typical German) Volkslied sung by late Rudolph Schock, which mirrors my little valley here in Bavaria: 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YAW53mcXFTY 

Holly Golightly - Breakfast at Tiffany's.

 

I was always fascinated by the name "Holly Golightly" in Breakfast at Tiffany's. 

Nowadays I try to travel that way - lightly - and what you see above is one of my two "posh" little suitcases (the other one is sensible grey-silver-black :-) 

They are of the size that is allowed as hand baggage - and as I always try to minimise weight and number of things I take with me, I can survive with one (!) of these suitcases for a week. The most difficult problem are always the shoes - of course I wear my trainers or boots on my feet, but if one has dresses to wear that will not do (young people think differently about it - and yes - I prefer to run through a city in trainers too - but then with Jeans, not a dress). 

The two suitcases (the glamorous pink one is from Heidi Klum's Next Top Model :-) ) are in hot demand by the triplets. The run with them through my flat - well, and the suitcases look a bit more -- used.--- 

But they still are in one piece - thus one will tomorrow accompany me in the train to Berlin (hopefully, as since two days I have a cold - NO covid, no fever - just a plain old cold). 

And the KaDeWe in Berlin has a Tiffany Shop. Though they do not serve breakfast there :-) 

Invitation to my blog "Britta's Happiness of the Day"

 

This time I want to invite you to my "favourite child" - my blog "Britta's Happiness of the Day", https://burstingwithhappiness.blogspot.com. 

I combine a photo that I have taken with a poem - this time it is "Queen Anne's Lace" (Daucus carota), a wildflower that always fascinates me with its little dark spot in the middle of it, accompanied by the breathtaking poem by William Carlos Williams, "Queen Anne's Lace". 

I translated it into German (sometimes I am so crazy to translate a German poem into English) - and I always write a comment - this time I indulged in plunging into the deep waters of biology, symbols and poetry. 

I am interested if you like it - and recommend to see it in the version as "flipchart" - a patchwork rug of photos (if you turn the photo, you see the poem). 

This one is for Pip

 

Dear Pip, you couldn't imagine my non-woke Angela Davies Hairdo - I still didn't find the official photo on my old drivers license - but I found this   :-)     

Long time ago - dancing and singing... 

Sleeplessness

 

Since my private Tsunami my sleep is mega-bad. I am healthy (everything was checked with stunning good results, only my melatonin level was very low, as I had suspected - now that is ok too), I eat well, move a lot, am optimistic, thankful and financially secure, have many friends and the Flying Dutchman, and call myself happy. 

So why do I sleep so very bad? I fall easily asleep (I established a routine), then I sleep till 3:30 or four o'clock a.m. (round about) - then I wake up, pulse racing, and my mind starts to rattle, about things that look like piffle in the morning. And that I know at night too - yet I can't stop.(That cock in Bavaria either, and the dear sun tries without success to peek around the very, very darkening curtains).   

No sleeping pills for me, there I am adamant. My flawed way to cope: 

I go to the kitchen (in the dark), heat a cup of milk and add some honey, (I am convinced that my blood-sugar dives when I am asleep - maybe that wakes me up? I do not have diabetes), then I walk back, lie down - and the CD-player above starts to play his role as knight in shining armour. 

I put the ear-plugs in and listen to the soothing voice of a German actress, for half an hour she is speaking a meditation, I listen, slack...and if I am lucky, often doze away. Otherwise I have done a very fine meditation - but am tired the next day. 

 

Now I test naps at midday (together with that meditation). I am still not sure if that helps.  

What do you do when you can't sleep? 

Any suggestions? 

(Our Grandmothers cross-stitched a German proverb on pillows: 

"A clean conscience / makes a fine pillow" - but THAT I have, honestly.) 

  

My Cup of Tea (Little Stories of Your Life)

 

There are two favourites - and that tells a lot about me: very often between two extremes. 

The cup which I use most often is a mug. Relaxing cream white bone china, Wedgwood. Snagged from a discontinued line in the classy porcelain shop Lindemann in Hildesheim - a shop with intimidating older salespersons, clad in black, and the shop now closed long ago. (Do you know that prices for valuable porcelain as Meissen or KPM crashed deeper than many stocks now?)

As often I didn't buy as much as I "should" have bought - I had just become a young mother, and we had bought the huge Art Deco villa, thus money was scarce and I thought well before spending it.  

I only bought four mugs and added two round teacups with saucers (one long called from this mortal life, and I don't know whether the shards brought me luck, as a German proverbs promises). Those cups are in my Berlin apartment, the four mugs are justly divided between Berlin and Bavaria. 

The mugs feel so wonderful in my hands - glossy and unexcited, and you can trust them to keep the soothingly warmth for a long time in their bone(s) china. 

The tea I mix myself - but that is a different story. 

And that of the second favourite cup too. 

 I just bought this book and might follow its interesting suggestions.                                          

Query: are you content with this font? I like it because it looks as if I have written a letter to you - but maybe it is difficult to read? 

The Joy to be a GrandMa

 

I love to be a GrandMa, a Grande-Mère. The triplets call me me "Nana", and look blankly when some of the village people speak of me as their "Oma" (and I am not amused - "Oma" makes me feel a hundred and two years old). 

I only see advantages over being a parent (though I was an utterly adoring mother of One): 

I feel that I can give unconditional love. 

(I know that this should be always and everywhere so, but I confess: not always easy for me). 

If you know the Moomin novels by Tove Jansson, (if not: hurry and buy a book - preferable "The Memoirs of Moomin Pappa" or "Tales from Moomin Valley", or "The Moomins and the Great Flood"))" - you also know the "Hemuls" - the ones that always try to better children,  doing "educational games" with them, always watching out that the small orphan moomins hold their little tails in a 90 degree angle,... Hemuls paint the rooms of their strict Bauhaus houses in a "Pisi-brown" (Moomins love little turrets and many angles and curlicues) and play in the brass orchestra. Shudder.   

I do not want to play "educational games". As a GrandMa I am allowed to be childish, giggly, forgiving and utterly adoring. And to smell good with a powdery rose perfume, wear bright colours (preferably pink) and say in the evening: "More fun tomorrow!" 

Parents, even if inside they still are a poetical freedom-loving Mumrik, have to change a bit into the despised "Parkwächter" traffic wardens - parents have the heavy "Pflicht", duty, to educate their child (in our case three at once) to become happy social beings. 

I want that too, of course - but although I obey every rule my son and DiL give, I am more lenient, and more relaxed. 

And that is such a joy! 

Strolling, walking, a walk in the park...

 

I do not know whether the German painter Carl Spitzweg (1808 - 1885 - late (German) Romantik & Biedermeier) is well-known outside Germany. 

He very often did his paintings tongue-in-cheek - though in such a gentle mocking way that nobody felt hurt. 

Above you see my photo from a newspaper, Die Welt, which offered an interesting essay on the cultural history of "The stroll". 

You might call it "walking", if you are more athletic. Or call yourself a "Flaneur", who is more elegant than an athlete. A famous example of a flaneur is the Berlin-author Franz Hessel (1880 - 1941) - a silent observer. 

In the pandemic strolling in the park or woods became a new popular sport. The remembrance of the oh-so-dull Sunday-strolls you had to do with your parents (of that I have drawings in my early diaries when I was about 12 years old) vanished in the pandemic and gave room to a sort of "Lebenslust" - joie de vivre - zest for life - though I have qualms over the term "zest" when I look at Spitzweg's painting "Sunday Stroll" - that family seems more sedate...  

Maybe they are complacent antecedents for the Western discovery of Zen and the Art of Walking? 

Yours Truly - as you know by now - enjoys her brisk morning walk up the high route - through fields and hilly landscape, which gives me time enough to reflect about "Being Seen": only when I changed my clothes to a fashionable sporting outfit, the inhabitants of the Bavarian village, where I spend great parts of my life now with the triplets, noticed and talked about (and with) me doing "Walking". 

I did it before - in Jeans and a T-shirt - but the phenomenon "Who is she?" when seen WITHOUT the triplets (a phenomenon I noticed too when I was a mother)  - or without sport-dress came into the picture again. 

I miss being a Flaneur in Berlin (nowadays the word-police "created" the "Flaneuse", which I detest) - with little excursions into cafés where you can sit and listen (same blip as with the users of cell-phones: both believe they are invisible and inaudible :-) 

Well, I'll pick a quote from that essay by Claudia Becker in DIE WELT: 

"I can only think when I walk. If I stop my thoughts do the same; my head moves in unison with my legs." Jean-Jacques Rousseau.  (my translation - and hopefully that sentence is only a half-truth) 

If in doubt: Snatch your trainers! 

We've been there, to celebrate them: The Rolling Stones in Munich!

 

It was such a great show! A travel through time - and the Flying Dutchman and I enjoyed every minute. 

First it seemed that we would not be able to go there: over Munich ramped and raged a storm rainfall. I said: "I won't go if that continues - even the Stones are not worth as much as my health." 

The organisers posted that because of the rain the entry gates would be opened an hour later. 

And suddenly the rain stopped, and the Flying Dutchman (for once much more optimistic than I) said: "Let's go - and when we are at the Olympia Stadion, we'll see if we want to go in or not." 

(= "You can't always get what you want - but if you try some time - you get what you need!")

And so we did. 

At the moment to use Underground and city railway in Munich is no joy - and that will remain so for the next five years - construction areas everywhere. 

The 9 Euro-Ticket (I will write about that mad invention in another post) didn't help: more people on trains, busses and trams than ever. (Though it has funny aspects: the woman sitting beside me in the concert told me: "We came from Hamburg to Munich for 9 Euros - today! - and tonight we'll go back at 4 o'clock." You are allowed only to use the very slow trains - so they got very much travel for their money :-) 

In the stadium: masses of people - many wearing T-shirts from older Stones-concerts, and lots of grey hair - but a third of the fans were really young (and NOT daughters or sons). 

Munich's sky, which had sulked before, suddenly sent a beatyfying smile at the Stones when they started: 

And Yours Truly sang for two hours with the wonderfully alive Stones - bliss! 

And all evening it remained dry!  

Visit in Hamburg & Berlin

Two days in Hamburg, where I visited my friend Michou and his husband - we hadn't seen each other since two years! 

I did NOT spend the nights in the famous Hotel Atlantic above (yet love my photo so much that I wanted to show it) but stayed with them in the vivid quarter St.Pauli - you may have heard from the Reeperbahn? There a normal supermarket looks like that: 

                                                                                 

You see Olivia Jones, glittering German Drag-Queen on the Kiez, making a pun. 

The weather was fine, and the inhabitants of Hamburger are very ingenious to add what might lack - one glance at the Elbphilharmonie (in the background) and you know: Hamburg doesn't lack anything. I lived there for eight years and still miss it - though it was me who decided that we go to Berlin. 

And in Berlin I stayed for a whole week - so many friends to see, so many restaurants and exhibitions and shops that I almost felt like a tourist. 

"So happy it hurts!" (Couldn't get the original Brian Adams version in the last post, thus I deleted it). 

And after seven happy days I sat at the Victoria Luise Platz two streets away from my apartment with a glass of Rosé and thought: "What a beautiful city! I am so glad to live here. "

                                                                                  

Yesterday (after an odyssey with the train) I came back to Bavaria - which is also a sunny dream at the moment: 

(When I've landed on my feet again I might write something more substantial about an exhibition or the moral of the odyssey - but at the moment I am so happy it hurts!) 

Snippet: Sketch Journal

 

NOT an example of art - but I like the text of William James (yep, interesting brother of Henry) which I found on a page from my sketch diary on 4.9.2020: 

"To get into a good mood, one has to straighten oneself blithefully, and act in a way as if the good mood is already there."  

For me it works.  

                     What do you do to lift your mood if necessary? 

(PS: Question: I wrote  "as if the good mood were almost there", but autocorrection stubbornly underlines that with red. Would my word be wrong? Should it, good mood being singular, be "was"?)