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!)

Down These Mean Streets A Man Must Go...

Dear You, 
I don't know what I expected when the day after the English Christmas Fair I was on my way to the "Japanese Christmas Fair". Maybe little Geishas folding complicated Origamis? I should have used my brain - I mean: Japan and Chrstmas?? and: oh, Revaler Straße in Friedrichshain - even better known to the police than rough Alexanderplatz...
Fights, stabbing, drugs - "down these mean streets a man must go", to quote Raymond Chandler - well, and in these days: a woman too - IF she wants to find that Fair.

From the underground station Warschauer Straße I Took a walk on the wild side - the promised number 99 wasn't to be found, and as I walked on, the area became more and more dreary and sinister,

And the Africans, very well fed and very secretive, started to offer me "Tea, coffee or me?"
I wisely refrained from witty answers or taking a few cute snapshots of them, and after more than one kilometer walk along a single (!) wall - beautifully sprayed with graffiti - I muttered unladylike under my breath "Damn, damn, damn - I'll go back."
As the wise Taoists say: the moment I "was letting go", all things fell into place - and I between picturesque ruins and beside a beautiful swimming bath "Der Haubentaucher" (great crested grebe):

and a flea-market:

Vainly I asked a girl wearing not much more than a Purple Haze if she knew where ??? - but all she could do was to offer me her joint. Felt like the middle-aged woman in "The Knack", when Rita Tushingham rings at a door and cries: "Rape! Rape!" and the lady says kindly: "Thank you, love - not today."
Then, at the very beginning of the Revaler Straße, at my starting point - yes, Buddhism is right: life is a circle, not a line - was the Urban Spree, where the Japanese Christmas Fair was taking place.

Mangas, mangas, mangas - nothing else - and they didn't seem especially convincing to me, but then: I am no expert. But nothing "hummed" at me.
So I did that myself, melodiously humming: "These boots are made for walking!" 
And that's just what they did...

In my sturdy Timberlands and without getas I was leaving a very lively and interesting part of Berlin.

Some surprises in Berlin

Dear You, 
yes, I was surprised to see this flag in a vicarage garden in - Berlin!
In St. George's Church in Berlin's West-End they held for one day a "Charles Dicken's Christmas Fair". And of course Yours Truly took instantly the underground - in which a lot of men wore white-blue scarfs, fans of Hertha BSC, who yesterday played against Bayer 04 Leverkusen (and won 2 - 1: I heard their singings from the nearby Olympia stadion).
But the little band of the second photo drowned everything. And, as Dame Edna would put it: "I mean that in the nicest possible way."    
Anglican Services in Berlin already existed from the 1830s, but the first St. George's Anglican Church in Berlin was built 1884 by Julius Carl Raschdorff, who went to England to study Anglican churches. It was built on the grounds of Schloss Monbijou,
1888 Queen Victoria and 1913 King George came to visit - and that church was the only Anglican church that stayed open during World War I, because Kaiser Wilhelm II. was its Patron.
In 1944 and 1945 it was bombed by the Allies, and 1945, after the German partitition, the GDR finished it off while clearing away the ruins of Schloss Monbijou.
The little church of today was rebuilt in the British sector of West Berlin and was a garrison church. On the pews you find military emblems of British regiments:

1987 they found the silverware that Queen Victoria had endowed - in a cellar in Berlin! Today it is in use again - as the church is, for civilians (and for TV the sermons "Hope for Tomorrow")
                                                I had a lot of fun - the tearoom was overflowing with people, but I found a seat. The Indian lady who sold the wonderful cakes cast one look at my slim figure and decided: "These slices of chocolate cake with cherries are to small for you: I give you two!"
I talked a lot with three "expats" - the 'man from the North' wondered why I visited Newcastle, and the jolly lady laughed "Soon my German will be better than my Englsh" (she was searching for the word "flag").
On the fair I bought German honey - after short consideration I took the one from Brandenburg, not that from the Preußenallee (the street where you'll find the church): Berlin's air is heavily polluted - so I was cautious...
Yes: I'll come back to that church - I want to hear an English Sunday Service, and hope for Choral Evensong.
Promised: I will not only come when my three raffle tickets prove to be winners! (They took our telephone numbers).

PS: A lot of information I got on site - parts I found in all-knowing Wikipedia.

First Sunday in Advent

Dear You, 
Yesterday I succumbed at the last minute - I bought an Adventskranz. 
It was rainy and dark, and actually I wanted to buy a pot of Helleborus niger, Christmas roses, though against my better judgement: they grew formidable in my garden-flowerbeds, but on the balcony they always were a disappointment, ever.
But then the price was very high and the quality low, so I abstained and, maybe as a "displacement activity" (as birds do when they don't get what they want - then they do "Now for Something Completely Different"), I bought the Advent wreath.
In former times - when we still lived in Hildesheim and our son was a schoolboy - I often wreathed myself - I loved the smell, hated the sticky resin and pricked fingers, and believed that it was fresher than the bought ones. (Though that was easy - bought ones shed their needles when you look at them. I think that nimble Chinese hands wreathe them in mid-July).
Last year I had bought a brass candlestand with four tealight holders and a smart little modern brass Christmas tree in the middle. That should be enough, I thought. For the heart (= Kitsch) my Christmas cup and a little musical clock should do.
I thought.
Long ago I had decided against a fake wreath - though, for the first time in my life this year I saw some utterly convincing ones. If I want a wreath - and not for religious but only decorative reasons - I want the full monty, meaning: especially the smell.
On the balcony, a long fake fir garland beautifies the balcony trellis - together with little lights - and even I, being VERY scrupulous about form and colour, cannot tell the difference till I touch it.  
                  The "real" Advent wreath shed spitefully a few needles onto our doormat when I brought it in. And as soon as the mist of the rainy dark night had evaporated from its needles, it looked instantly like all the other disappointments of the years before.
I thought about principles.
Will I "preserve" them? As 'preserve' in marmelade?
Or will I shed them on the floor, like needles, next year?
Ad-vent of total liberation?

Now light your first candle, become tranquil, nibble a few almonds and inhale the nice smell of fir needles.
I wish all of you a festive and contemplative season! Britta  XXX