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.