Decision FOR My Happiness

 

I had to think for a while. Or better: feel. Recover from a (mild) shock. 

Then I came to the conclusion that it would be mad to let one person not only rain on my parade, but stop me doing something I love. 

I talk of writing. 

So I'll take a deep plunge and meet (the rest of) my friends again. 

Happy to meet you! 

(The Pegasus is a photo I took from the window of the Alte Nationalgalerie Berlin; the the open-air bath is in Wantlitz, Brandenburg). 

 

"I've got it, yeah, baby, I've got it!"

 

Well, well, well... For days I was in a position that Yours Truly utterly hates: I was "Anonymous" - even on my own blog! 

"You only see those standing in the light/ Those standing in the dark you do not see"wrote our sociocritical poet Bertolt Brecht. 

Have you ever got the impression that I hate standing in the spotlight? Not me. Even while getting older I do not accept to be overlooked. NO. 

The photo above I took a few days ago - here in the early morning you sometimes see only a wall of fog, and a few tree tops. 

INVISIBLE. Bah! I even asked for help in the community, and they kindly answered - Thank you! - in English - THAT was not the problem, no - my problem was their technical jargon - and honestly: if someone does not know what they EXACTLY mean with a browser you have a problem. Which I had.(Though I know how to help myself and scrolled the Internet, which kindly did not start it's answer with "Dear Idiot"... :-) 

Of course I suspected that "cookies" had something to do with it - I avoid them as the devil avoids the the holy water as we in Germany say while you say: "to avoid something like the plague". 

Well - if you see how many users want your and my cookies... 

Long time ago Son explained: "Mama, you either pay with money or with data". 

But here I do not even have a choice. If I want to be seen. 

So: to be able to communicate with you further, also with  Rachel and others who will have very good reasons to close their blog completely against any anonymous commentator I scatter my cookies all around. 

Here, cookie monster: chick, chick, chick: munch, crumble, gobble! 

Back and almost ready for Easter

 

As you might guess: I spent one wonderful week in the Netherlands. 

Now I have a lot of work to do before I can start blogging again. 

I apologize to all of you for not being able to comment your blogs: I read them, but evidently I muddled something contra Google's wish for data - thus I am kept away from commenting. 

I'll try to fix that. 

Till then: I wish you a Happy Easter time. The little village here is already nicely adorned: 

Posture - or: How To Look Slim, Energetic, Powerful and Younger in a second

Posture.              Well, well, well...   "Stand tall!"  "Sit upright!"  mother reminded us. 

I have to confess that my posture never was Very Good - I am a tall woman, 1,78m, and though I found out that this has many advantages (I could work as a model and now silver model, was not overlooked when I entered a room - very important for a committee or as teacher) - it has also some drawbacks. 

When you are 15 years old you want to be as everybody else - so in my peer group I curved my shoulders. 

A tall girl seldom wants a lover who is shorter than her (though there are exceptions: beautiful Carla Bruni and Monsieur Sarkozy). And though I know that this is very shallow, and found out that in bed the flaw disappears, I wanted to wear kitten heels or High Heels and "look up" (silly again).    

"You" - a dressmaker said to me, " will get problems with your hip if you stand like that!" 

I looked at her and thought "Prattle on!" (I was 15) - and protruded my right hip in the typical model angle - très chic. Today I think: she had a point. No big problems with my hip, thank God, but sometimes I can feel it. 

Walking with the then tiny triplets made my not very good posture even worse. 

So now it is really, really time for action. I read some enlightening books , go to the fitness club, do exercises from Youtube - and try to recall it when I stand up from an armchair WITHOUT using my hands (at least I do not say "Phew!", as some friends of mine have started - "phew" when they sit down and "phew" when they try to get up...) 

"Keeping up appearances" - a dress looks so much nicer when you hold your head up tight (young people nowadays slouch over their cellphone - and their posture is as bad as mine...) 

Your waistline looks so much slimmer when you stand tall. 

And you look younger. Definitely. 

But it takes some effort now.  (Phew!) 

I Feel Overprotected! "Dressing Instructions" for your tights

 

We all will have read about "helicopter parents". 

A difficult balance in a world to protect your child - without making it feel helpless. (I was always a supporter of the maxim "Do not support someone by giving him everyday a fish - better give him an angling rod.") 

Nowadays they pamper us, average adults, with suffocating eagerness. Whining they see problems everywhere - today I read that PETA, animal rights activists, in earnest call for forbidding wooden animals on roundabouts - carousel animals would give children wrong impressions how to treat animals. 

Politicians "care" about what you SHOULD eat. Don't get me wrong: I think it is great to eat healthy vegetables - but you should have heard the rage of German citizenry when our Green politicians wanted to establish a "vegetable day" once a week for all of us. (Sugar or unhealthy fast food has a big lobby -  you don't hear much to protect children on that front, though timid attempts are made to implement a sugar tax - so: I am not against protecting children).

And now I found that dressing instructions for tights. 

Honestly: the triplets, now 4 and a half year old, can put on their tights without those instructions, thank you very much. 

What will they try to "teach us" next???  

Foto-Exhibition Chameleon by Abe Frajndlich in the Kunstfoyer Munich

 

This huge photo of the Rolling Stones at the launch of their album "The Bridges of Babylon" 1997, was the very first Wow!-impression when I entered the Kunstfoyer Munich.  

It was a spontaneous decision to go there by train: I needed a splash of "bit city". 

Abe Frajndlich was born in 1946 in Frankfurt/Main Germany in a camp for Displaced Persons. His parents were Jews from Poland - Holocaust-survivors, who met each other in that camp after WWII. Abe's life was full of personal tragedies: his father was murdered, and when he was 10 his mother died after an operation. As a child he moved a lot: from Frankfurt to Tel Aviv and back, followed by Paris and Brazil, and finally to the USA, New York. (All these details from SZ-journalist Christian Mayer). His Photo teacher was Minor White, and he has lots of friends among famous photographers as Irving Penn, Annie Leibovitz, and many others. 

Wonderful photos of New York, and great portraits of famous people (but of strangers  too). 

 

Guess who she is? 

You can see photos of Leonard Cohen, Miles Davis, Cindy Sherman , Charles Bukowski, Yoko Ono. And maybe you know this one of Jack Lemmon. 

"It's all about seeing 

and all the things 

that get in the way 

of that simple act (...)" 

 

Abe writes in a long sort of poem 

"Site Specific Investigations Of A Glove". 

A very interesting exhibition which you can visit till 1.April - free entrance. 

 

 

Answer to Tom Stephenson's post

 nachrichtensprecherin bricht in lachen aus 

I love this one too - Susanne Daubner normally is a pillar of correctness.   (One has to wait a little bit with this link: it is a video, not only the photo!) 

PS: At the moment I have a huge problem with Google: I cannot comment on your blogs, have to find my password for Google (oh...), so I hope I find a way... 

.

Sheep - and change

Here they are again: more than 100 sheep grazing on the huge water meadow. As every year, and not every farmer is delighted at that.  

The profession of shepherd has changed a lot. 

Once the shepherd was a gnarled loner, with a long loden coat and a big slouch hat on his head leaning at his wooden barren-hut gazing at his sheep, his sidekick, the faithful dog running around to keep the sheep together. Trust me: as a child I saw some of these duos.

When I drove my purchases home, the shepherd, quite youngish, leaned at the hood of his car and stared on his cellphone. He didn't look up. His faithful dog seemed to regret that he hadn't a cellphone either - to him the sheep were too -- sheepish -- so why should he care? 

Next morning the sheep had left (an euphemism: they bunked) - "The grass is always greener on the other side" - and show me a  weak electrified fence that can keep a stubborn sheep with an intention. 

A neighbour of mine came and tried to bring them back - another neighbour telephoned. The shepherd slept in his house in another village, and had taken his faithful dog with him. 

And we wonder why so much is heading south?  

Baa....  

Disappointed

 

A few minutes ago I read it in the news: the locomotive drivers of German's Deutsche Bahn will strike again. 

I had already booked a fine Hotel in Bremen for our class reunion on coming Friday and Saturday. 

Really: I am so disappointed! Luckily I could cancel the hotel, my three classmates who had organised dinners and events - all their troubles were for nothing - had cancelled the meeting. Coming by car is no alternative - we have black ice, and I would have to drive over 6 hours.  

If you look at the drawing underneath (I cannot turn it right) you see that Germany is stricken at the moment: the farmers protest with thousands of tractors, and the DB keeps her trains at home - only the management board got, each of them!, a bonus of 300.000 Euro (extra! each of them!)for this year of breakdowns, ill management (only ever 4 out of 10 trains are punctual - or come at all..). 

Speechless... 

Starting to Bake My Own Bread

 

Two days ago the ordered bread machine arrived. For a long time I had been undetermined whether to buy one or not.  

But I live here in so tiny a village that has no shop or bakery, and the only inn has closed. To buy bread I have to drive 3 km - that's not far, and if I want to "schlepp" a rucksack full of potatoes, milk and other goodies up the hill to "my" house - over 9% steep hill upwards - of course I could walk. The little red train stops once an hour - which means waiting in the next little town after buying, and more than 9 % uphill fitness training too. (The reason why I a bought a used car). 

But I try to reduce shopping - and the need of fresh bread sometimes was the only reason I had to go. 

Yesterday I was happy that I could bake my first bread: we were snowed under, AND Bavaria warned explicitly against leaving the house because of black ice (is that really the right word???).  

Here you see my prototype: a spelt loaf, delicious - and I wish you could smell the lovely scent in the kitchen! 

Unforgettable Snow

 

Do you remember those days around 

the turn of the year 1978/1979?

I will never forget them: A storm with wind strength 7 was coming from northeast. 

Husband and I had visited my parents in Bremen for Christmas. Then husband grew very ill with influenza, thus we wanted to go back to Mainz. 

My father, a wise man, said: "If you want to drive, drive now very quickly."  

481 km distance between Bremen and Mainz - I drove our old blue Merc, with highly-feverish husband on the backseat. 

I was very young then and had I got my driver's license in 1976 - megalomaniacal after two years I applied for a contest by Cosmopolitan: a rally through the Sahara - that was my notion of "adventurous". (How come I was not elected?)

Now fate served me the total opposite: 

all the time at that drive home a huge black bank of snowclouds breathed down our neck: the snow came nearer and nearer, and I had to drive very fast. 

We reached Mainz, exhausted but lucky - a few hours later "Land submerged!" - a blanket of snow covered huge parts of Northern Germany which was sunken under snow - and hundreds of cars were stuck in more than a meter high snow drifts. 

Christmas, Birthday, New Year - a lot of cake on my plate before 2024 started

 

                                                                                   +

                                                                                  +

                                                    All in chronological order.  

    I wish all of you a happy, peaceful 2024!

I need your help to translate a poem by Rainer Maria Rilke

 On "https://burstingwithhappiness.blogspot.com I tried to translate a  beautiful poem of Rainer Maria Rilke. I would be very glad if you send me proposals how I can improve that translation. 

I have a few doubts: is it utterly wrong to say - as Rilke did in German - "It drives the wind in winter woods/ the snowflakes.."? Of course I could have constructed a normal English sentence - but that would not have expressed the way Rilke frames it. 

So: your help will be very welcomed! 

Saving Money with the Kakebo - a Recommenation for our German Politicians

 

Dear You, 

you might have read about the huge budget crisis into which our German government now slithered when our cheeky Federal Chancellor Olaf Scholz (the one who can't remember which part he played in the Cum-Ex-Scandal) planned to put not-used Corona-crisis money - only wimpish 60 billions Euro - into other pots, e.g. climate protection measures. 

The independent Federal Constitutional Court rendered a verdict against that shenanigans, so now our politicians are looking desperately for new interesting ways to find that money. By the way: our money, paid by us, the taxpayers. (The 137.000 euros we taxpayers have to give for annual make-up and hairdresser of our Minister of Foreign Affairs, Annalena Baerbock, are only ridiculous flyspeck compared to those 60 billions euro). 

I am a modest expert in the handling of money - in my book Home Basics, 10.000 of the over 60.000 books sold were bought from a Swiss building association which gave it to every young person who opened a savings account there. They liked my chapter on money and how to use it wisely. 

Well: the Kakebo above is a housekeeping book from Japan, invented by the Avantgarde-thinker Hani Motoko in 1904. She was the first female journalist of Japan. 

The books helps you to control your money, be disciplined and evaluate your data, and the best of it: you set yourself goals, see where you spend unnecessarily money on - in short: you see very clearly the results of your actions.   

If our politicians don't have 38,7 billions for Bürgergeld they must reduce it and NOT raise it for 2024 for 12%. Bürgergeld is a good thing for people who have lost their job - but when you don't have to try to find  work to get it that might be one reason why so many migrants want to come especially to Germany - and from the Ukraine refugees in Germany only 18% are in work, while in other European countries two thirds have found a job.  

It might help if our politicians used the Kakebo. 

"Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure 19 pounds nineteen and six, result happiness. 

Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure twenty pounds nought and six, result misery." 

Mr. Micawber (Charles Dickens: Great Expectations)

The sad thing is: it is our money and thus our misery. And sorry to say: most of us don't have any "Great Expectations" at the moment. 

. . 

 

Reading for Pleasure

 Dear You, 

Do you have books you read again and again? 

I have a few - and at the moment I read this (again): 

Mavis Cheek: Mrs Fytton's Country Life   (published in 2000!)

"...this is exactly the anti-depressant you need: Prozac on the page" wrote the Daily Mail.

I think the book incredibly witty and funny (maybe only for my generation?), I still can laugh on almost every page, and agree with Mail on Sunday: "..she (Mavis Cheek) possesses the wickedly sharp eye of a born satirist." I think it is Cheek's best and funniest novel. 

And when I take it from the shelf it is always a sign for me that I want (or have to) change and to come down to earth again. 

And feel which direction I want to go. Even if the picture might look a bit foggy or blurred - there is a direction. 

For Anne

 

I needed solitude, to say good-bye to my very, very dear friend. 

She takes a huge part of our life with her. 

I thank her for all the time we spent together: from our very first day when we met as freshmen we shared our highly exciting time as students, supported us when love or life became difficult, shared in our joy that we got from our children and our careers. 

More than 55 years of shared thoughts, opinions and emotions. 

Travelling together a lot we enjoyed incredible adventures:

during our week as "Bed and Breakfast for Garden-Lovers", or another time listening to the sermon of the Bishop of St. Paul's Cathedral which he gave to us members of the E.F.Benson society, followed by a gorgeous dinner in the Guildhall (London). 

After she did her Ph.D with 67 years (!) I surprised her with a stay in the carriage house of "Downton Abbey". Another time we followed the footsteps of Lord Peter Wimsey and Inspector Morse in Oxford, another time we enjoyed the centenary of the Chelsea Flower Show, or were "Puttin' on the Ritz" - just to name a few. 

Energy, empathy, joie de vivre, and so much laughing: 

I thank you for all that, my dear friend, 

I miss you. 

Going to Vienna and Eating a Sacher-Torte (the original)

 

Mind, Dear You: I didn't write "for" eating a Sacher-Torte. 

As you might have noticed, sometimes I have to fight with English grammar and jesters as "for / of / and with" - but I hope that you didn't believe for a second that Yours Truly goes to Vienna with the single intent to eat an original Sacher-Torte - that would be "too much" of snobbishness. 

For a while I thought about publishing that photo at all - I sit so crumpled that I can hear my late blue-blooded grandmother hiss: "Posture, girl, posture!" (She was oh so right). My red-blooded granny (note the difference in loving feelings) only would say: "Enjoy!" 

Which I did. 

And next time I'll write about the intellectual pleasures of Vienna. (After having polished off the whipped cream...) 

  

Edvard Munch. Magic of the North (Zauber des Nordens) in the Berlinische Galerie.

 

Dear You, 

I promised to tell you about the Berlin exhibition Edvard Munch. And though I will travel to Wien on Tuesday, I sit here in the early morning in Bavaria, singing a duet with "The Frog King":"What you promised you have to deliver". 

The Berlinische Galerie writes: 

Edvard Munch (1863–1944) challenged his contemporaries with the radical modernity of his paintings, especially in Berlin, where the Norwegian Symbolist exerted a big influence around the turn of the century. The exhibition “Magic of the North” is a partnership with the MUNCH in Oslo. It tells the story of Edvard Munch and Berlin, illustrated by paintings, prints and photographs.

Among the 80 exhibits you will not find "The Scream" (sounds like cultural names-dropping when I mention that I saw it a few weeks ago in "Secessionen.Klimt, Stuck, Liebermann" at the Alte National Galerie in Berlin.   :-). 

I'll just give you a few headers of the exhibition: 

"Scandal. Berlin. City of Art. Exhilaration. Scream. Collapse. Psyche. The North. Life and Loves. Digs and Homes." 

And photos of a few paintings: 

 

(This one evokes some drawings of my beloved Tove Jansson)

So: if you are in Berlin - and promise (!) to be not too impatient 

I recommend to visit the exhibition - 

you have time till 22. January 2024 -

Berlin then will do anything to shovel a footpath free of snow  for you: 

PS: I add a few words of Florian Illies' review in DIE ZEIT: 

"painting of negative resonances, of intrusive force fields which can make people lapse into silence through loneliness,  fear and jealousy - or scream."   

Britta's Thrill of Speed

Dear You, 

On Saturday I "hopped" to Berlin by train. 

Because I can. 😄 

I am now owner of a BahnCard 100 - which I think is incredibly expensive, but that depends on how often you use it. 

For one year from now on I can take every train in Germany - ICE, IC, Regio - and every public transport - bus, tram, underground, ferry etc I want without - and as often as I want to (haha: I might even consider living in a train!)- from now on, after bleeding a very big sum (in my eyes) - "without paying" anything. 

Son convinced me: such a card gives me spontaneity and freedom.(Hopefully no nervous breakdown - no: I see it as a chance to travel before I am no longer able to). 

I used it first to visit the Oktoberfest in München: my train was too late when it arrived in Nuremberg - but "One man's meat is another man's poison" - this time I got the meat: an ICE train coming from Hamburg arrived 47 minutes too late - and I could just hop in and arrived in Munich at exactly the planned time. 

(Our once oh so proud icon of punctuality has become a ruined business - so very often late, so often chaotic - since it got admission to the stock exchange). 

Thus I now could go to Berlin - and stayed in my huge flat for only 3 days (hahaha: part of that Me-time is cleaning...) - well: arrival day = half a day, leaving day: half a day... 

Why not longer? 

Well, Son had on the Tag der Deutschen Einheit (Day of German Unity) a decadal birthday, and being invited of course I wanted to join. So I returned - and enjoyed a beautiful Birthday Party. (Brain still works: I recognised a man who asked: "Do you know who I am?" "Of course", I said, "you are Niklas." I have a very good memory for faces - last time I had met him was the day they got their A levels of their grammar school... "Well, I doubted because I have less hair these days" he muttered - yes, yes, maybe - but I don't suffer from less imagination :-) 

I am highly interested if I will use my card the way I want to. In Berlin I was very happy: I could visit the exhibition on Edvard Munch - and will tell you in the next post. 

Yours Truly

Britta

The Oktoberfest - die Wies'n - in Munich 2023

 

Dear You,  

can you imagine that Yours Truly was for the first time in her life (and she is no greenhorn anymore :-) on the Oktoberfest in Munich? 

I went in the early afternoon - many people already there, but not so many drunks. 

Beautiful traditional costumes - Dirndl for the women, Lederhosen for the men (and Wow, they show off) - and of course floods of beer. 

The sun shone on a bright Bavarian blue sky - and for a moment I hesitated if I should repeat one of the joys of my childhood and youth: going around in a carrousel. The are even bigger than in the olden days - and signs generously offered "Half the price for people over 60!" What a chance! 

                                               

Fasten your seatbelt - you'll need it! 

And up you go - you'll have a beautiful view over Munich! 

Up, up !!! 

Even that might be enjoyable - what kept me back was that they fall with enormous speed back to the ground (you have to trust the labourers who build up the plant). 

And you have to trust your heart...

Well, after some consideration I preferred these hearts: 

Though there were many exciting alternatives: 

"O'zapft is!"  - that is the traditional shout for the Oktoberfest (= die Wies'n) and means: "The beer cask is tapped!" 

PS: And after two "Maß" = 2 Liter beer (and I only have to smell at the crown cap to become VERY bold) - I might change my mind and go up ... 2024 maybe... if Tom or Tasker join in, that is... 

Living Like Miss Read

 

  

  Dear You, 

imagine that you possess a crystal ball, put a record on your antique record player, hum along with the Rolling Stones "I went to see a gipsy, to have my fortune read" - and then tell me that I eventually would be part of Bavarian village life - AND enjoy it.

 

If ever there was a City plant it would be me.

 

And now I watch for the second time in my life how two with colourful ribbons decorated trees - felled the day before - are heaved up against the very blue Bavarian sky. The sun smiles benevolent, the fire brigade plays a brass song, the village people cheer - and then the  "Kär'wa" starts. 

It is a parish fair - and in such a small village as this - yes, Tom: no shop, no café, that's why Yours Truly had to buy a car, 511 inhabitants - you soon know almost everyone, and that is nice. 

Two days from afternoon till midnight you can sit on wooden benches and talk, eat cakes or Bratwurst, drink coffee or beer and feel good. The children enjoy it immensely - they sing ("I am a village child and proud of it") and rehearsed a dance, (and no: the two blonds in the photo above are not part of the triplets) and afterwards they run around while their parents are deeply engaged discussing the state of the world and drinking beer - and last year at night young men from another village came and nobbed the Kär'wa tree - revenge for the same crime the young men of this village committed the year before.  :-) 

All those joys I didn't know in a huge city. (And I very seldom drink beer). 

Yours Truly,     Britta  

                                                

If you wondered about the title:      

 

 

Royal Cauldon "Victoria", England. Est.1774

 

Dear You, 

yesterday I went to the "Graffelmarkt" in Fürth - a flea market which takes place twice a year. "Graffel" is dialect and means: "stuff" - well, actually I try to down-size my "stuff", hahaha... 

But the weather was fine, the little red train is on the rail again (after a month off absence - they try to repair the rail network of the Deutsche Bahn). 

In Fürth, hundreds of roaring football fans clogged the way out of the station - "singing" and spurred by beer, beer, beer. I thanked God that I am tall and not shy, thus I managed to part the beer stinking crowd. 

The photo below gives a wrong impression, many visitors came to the market. 

I enjoyed to visit normally private little yards behind the houses. 

When I was tired, I followed intuition, a staircase up to a little place. And there I found something! Not valuable, but soothing the heart :-) 

In Berlin I have - beside my Spode - an (incomplete) vintage coffee service by Royal Cauldon, Victoria - I found it about 20 years ago when I still lived in Hamburg. In Fürth stood a few remains, e.g. a funny butter dish, but in my long life I learned to "think before you buy" (at least most times) and so I "only" bought three egg cups and two porridge bowls. 

They will join their "family" in Berlin soon!