Elderberry (sambucus) for a trial

This is my first try with the new blogger version. 

You see one of the sweet smelling elderberry flowers I photographed in the Netherlands. 

I love elderberry - 

in Germany it was a sacred house-tree. We call it "Holunder" which refers to "Frau Holle" - a figure in Grimm's fairy tales who shakes up the eiderdowns (then it snows on earth), but cares about other housework too. And can become very angry if you don't do it well: look at the fairytale "Frau Holle". 

I remember the scent from my earliest days: my grandmother (the red-blooded one) had a pergola with climbing roses, and behind it stood an elderberry tree. 

I love elderberry cordial, become sick when I eat blue elderberry soup (part of the little stems are poisonous) and haven't tried "Holunder Küchle" yet, where one big flower is covered with pancake batter (hopefully without those myriads of black lice elderberry is prone too!) and then deep-fried. 

So: still something to discover. 

As there will be on the new blogger version, I think. 😀

 

(After) Life on my Balcony

all photos by Britta 

When I came back from the Netherlands, I was in for a tiny shock. Normally the little sons of my neighbours earn a bit of money on their first job ever by deluging my plants. This time their mother had told me that they had to go away for a week,  because her father was sick - but I would stay longer away, so that was ok.

When I came back the air in the big apartment smelled stale. And the sight of the flowers an the balcony: shock!
(Being a people-pleaser, as Tom reproached me recently, I cannot change instantly - Query: do I want to change and become a grumpy old woman instead?  : here on the photos I show you the result of my hard labour AFTER the little turmoil).

"I think maybe the neighbours had to stay for longer - the situation with the father might have turned worse", said the Flying Dutchman (right he was), but I heard it only from far away, already running with my green watering can to and fro from balcony to bathroom, from bathroom to balcony (which is a big one).

The lucky thing was that I had bought some white "pots" from Lechuza which promise to water your flowers for two weeks in your absence. They kept their promise.

The roses in the big pots - no photo here - sulked a bit, but I could coax them back to life (they are not spoilt on a balcony).

The oleander thought deliriously that he was back in Italy - hot air, no water.

Yet many plants in little pots had wilted and died - especially the herbs. I tried to copy the cool Moomin-Mother philosophy: "There had been WAY TOO MANY - anyway."

And enjoyed buying and planting new ones.

So, now I am able to invite you again - come in, please: there are more fine nooks and crannies on my balcony you haven't seen yet - please take a seat, and do you want a glass of wine, or some juice?

Let's enjoy the beautiful view of the evening sky!  Bliss!

Just to show you...that Noordwijk had some stormy clouds too :-)

photo Britta

photo Britta

photo Britta

photo Britta 

PS: I wonder - I have difficulties with loading up photos from my smartphone... did I miss the "new blogger thing"? 

I'm so tired...I haven't slept a wink...

photo Britta

In my head drones the Beatle's song "I'm so tired".

Tired of all those horrible news, tired of feeling like the personification of Anais Nin's title "Under a Glass Bell" because of Covid-19, really, really tired.

I went to bed early - result: I woke up at two o'clock in the morning. Hoping to sleep again - 45 minutes later gave up that hope, tiptoed to the kitchen and sipped a glass of hot milk with honey.

Which makes me think of novels by Barbara Pym where the sleepless spinsters are always drinking Horlicks and hot cocoa.

No sleeping pill has ever passed my lips - and I'd never had one in my house.

I look at the beautiful photograph of papaver somniferum - which I took it in Noordwijk. I know an even paler lilac coloured version of this plant with silvery leaves - and instantly feel sleepier, as "somniferum" means "bringing sleep" - (yes, not everything "natural" is harmless :-)

Did you know that in German prisons it is forbidden to eat poppy-seed cake?
Because it is not possible to distinguish between the results of drug-abuse and the remains in your blood after a big yummy piece of cake.

I remember that as children we were always warned not to eat too much of this cake - and that is not an old-wife's tale: poppy-seed cake contains Thebain, which you earn by using the milk of unripe papaver somniferum poppy-seed capsules. In cake you'll normally find very low amounts, but new ways of earning and processing the seeds can let it soar.

Well -- I'll give Morpheus a second chance. Nighty night everyone! 

Dutch Seaside

photo Britta

This is a picture I took in Noordwijk (as Guusje in the recent post so quickly discovered).

Beautiful weather (changing now):

photo Britta

sea and dunes - 

 photo Britta

... and not too many people on the beach - (the cruisers you see at the horizon have to rest).

 One can dream a bit and look into an almost aircraft-free sky.

 photo Britta

photo Britta 

Sports-minded (sort of...)

A bicycle helmet is seldom looking "smart casual" - and being vain the only way to console myself is: A head bandage doesn't look neither very elegant  :-)

Once upon a time, I was biking Then, a long time ago, I stopped. (The reasons are too complicated to explain here).

But you might know the old saying:

                                                When in Rome, do as the Romans do! 

So, when you are visiting the Netherlands, you might be well advised to cycle too - they do it from the day they can stand on their own two feet. They call it "fietsen", and they look adorable doing it - often you see two or three meisjes (their girls) in a group, chatting cheerfully while biking, but also quite old people peddle determinedly against the strong wind.

They have enviable bikeways (not as in Berlin, where we had this year alone - from January 2020 to end of May - 7 dead bikers - which is "better" than in 2000, where there were 89! - but then: in the Corona-month there weren't many cars driving, streets empty - and we haven't even spent half of the year). I might sound a bit gloomy, but I thought of them when I started biking again, the day before yesterday.

But: I am courageous. I rented a bike - and bought a helmet. The bike-brand is called "Gazelle" -

though neither the bike nor I on it looked gazelle-like (me running: yes. Me on a bike yesterday: definitely not. When my late father thought that someone did something ungraceful, he murmured: "Like an ape on a grindstone").

I have to admit: I was afraid! For me the big black, heavy bicycle was not easy to ride or direct. To get up: Phew! To go on: Whew! 
But I didn't give up - I practised (4th gear on a long even road :-)

And: Skill comes with practise. 
 
                                                       I hope it will...

PS: Have you tried to enliven an old skill lately? Tell me, please, to cheer me up.

An English Rose

photo Britta

My beautiful lovely scented rose, "Gertrude Jekyll" is blooming on my balcony - I am so happy! 

My young student friend Gvantsa said dreamily: "That way our roses in Georgia (Europe) smell."

This rose needs no explanation. For her it is true what Getrude Stein wrote. 

                                         "Rose is a rose is a rose is a rose." 

photo Britta 

PS:
Did you know that in the genome of a rose exists a gen that decides how many petals the bloom will have?
It is called LG3. If you deactivate this gen the bloom becomes as thick as the bloom of a peony - the absolute record in rose-petals, I read in the German newspaper WamS, reached a rose with deactivated LG3 with 517 petals!
In the EU it is forbidden to use GM technology - even in ornamental-plant-selective breeding.

Good so - Gertrude Jekyll, the stern Victorian gardener, might have said.