Merry Christmas!

I WISH YOU ALL A MERRY CHRISTMAS, 

DEAR BLOGGER-FRIENDS!  

(Soon I will write more...) 

BRITTA 

Terror at our Doorstep

You will have heard the news.
Terror, horror, complete bewilderment, compassion, grief.
The city is very silent this early morning.
I live seven minutes away from the Berliner Gedächtniskirche and the Breitscheidplatz, where the attack happened. Yesterday evening walking the nearby Fasanenstraße, I wondered why so much police was around.
I woke up at night - still not knowing what had happened - when the SMS and WhatsApp and Email questions started to drop in, asking if I was safe.

I am - but I am deeply, deeply grieving for all those who have lost their life or their health, and those who have lost their loved ones.

Thank you, Geo. and Tom!

All of a sudden my blogs are there again - I don't know what happened - those quaint signs from Google were not helpful at all - and to think of the time and energy we put into it... good grief...
"With a little help from my friends" - "We can work it out!"
Thank you so much!
(And my old translation was better than the one I started desperately this morning - that will teach me to make copies...)

HELP - My Poem-Blog Vanished!

I'm a bit in a state (to be honest: I'm a nervous wreck -- I have made no copies...): I cannot open my blog "Happiness of the Day" - and I need to!
I remember that other bloggers (Tom, Geo.) had that problem too, and it was only temporary - what did you do to get your other blogs back??
I really, really hope you can give me a clue!
Thanks,
Britta

A Stitch in Time...

At the moment I (re)read a book on the Swedish artist Carl Larsson, who lived with his wife Karin and their six children in Sundborn. The title of the book by Lena Rydin is difficult to translate -  "The Lust for Everyday Life" might do.
The couple created their home, garden, clothes - everything - in a very harmonius, simple yet elaborate way.  It makes you dream:

Well, and as often when I read something about interior design, I start changing my surroundings. Looked into a cupboard and took out an old tablecloth from my grandmother Elise von Kroge - hand-decorated by her in cross-stitch.
"Well - what a huge effort for decoration", I thought. "They must have had a lot of time on their hands."
And then, while rummaging with those patronising thoughts through that armoir, I found an Advent calendar - cross-stitched by ---  me!

I did it when our son was about one year old - I had to count every stitch, because it was empty embroidery canvas without any print! Embroidering was something that allowed me to talk to him while doing something else - I can reassure you that after an embroidery period of half a year I never touched that stuff again (though I was very, very productive in that short time).
Then I looked at the table, decorated with that table cloth, and at my calendar, and I thought:
"Well, I'm not living in Sweden, and my name is not Larsson!"

And put both back into the cupboard.

Beautiful AND Useful

I thought about Cro's post 'using the valuable antique breadknife". I use a few things which haughtily believe that they should be standing cherished in a vitrine :-)
Here is my lovely Sheffield Grapefruit-cutter-set:

The case is made of brown reptile-skin (maybe not allowed to be sold today) - inside beautiful off-white silk and a funny little device in dark-blue velvet to keep the knife in place. The knife has a Faux Bone handle, the slim spoons are Silver Sheffield and of excellent use even if you don't cut the grapefruit before, because they have little 'teeth' on one side.
But I do cut the fruit - always.
I, then being very young, was so impressed when at breakfast they served us the cut grapefruit in Gosford Hall Inn - a beautiful listed hotel in Cumbria (now 350 years old), - we were there in 1976 - coming back from Scotland in our old blue Merc (1969 with tail fin). Coming home (to Mainz then), I cut a grapefruit every day myself.
I don't know when the grapefruit-cutter was made - maybe around 1940 or the beginning fifties?
Anyway: they are beautiful AND useful - thus I use them.
Every morning.

In Olden Times, When Wishing Still Helped...

This morning I woke up (early as usual) and thought about fairy tales.

- Those I liked - the funny ones as "The Town Musicians of Bremen" (and that not only because I come from Bremen - no, even as I child I thought that their motto "You can always find something better than death!" might come useful some day :-)
- Those I disliked - the sad ones as "Little Brother and Little Sister" (even the beginning is heartbreaking!)
- those I had mixed feelings about - as "The Frog King, or Iron Heinrich" - I remember that I utterly detested that blackmailing frog ("..but if you will love me and accept me as a companion and playmate, and let me ... sleep in your bed" - hahaha), but was very much impressed by the fidelity of the Iron Heinrich ("Heinerich, the carriage is breaking apart!" "No, my Lord, the carriage it's not/ But one of the bands surrounding my heart...") and that I thought it just, but very strict of the King to say "What you have promised, you must keep".
I internalised that, (if necessary I forgo of my golden ball, if the price is a disgusting frog in my bed - till today I am unwilling to listen to their croaking that they are beautiful Princes under a spell) - and do only promise what I can keep.
And expect others to do the same.
Which shows that I am still very naively believing in fairy-tales :-) - but, on the other hand, have a streak of pragmatic realism too.

What really interests me: which were your favourite (or disliked) fairy tales? 


If you want to read them again:
- "The Town Musicians of Bremen" http://www.pitt.edu/~dash/grimm027.html (great for old age optimism - after a little shock in the beginning)
- "Little Brother and Little Sister" http://www.pitt.edu/~dash/grimm011.html
- The Frog King, or the Iron Heinrich" http://www.pitt.edu/~dash/grimm001.html