Nobody was hurt

"Yes - go and make a plan, 
be a bright chap, 
and then make yet another plan, 
both won't work."

said Bertolt Brecht in the Threepenny Opera.
My plan was taking a little stroll to the Charlottenburger Schloss - our Ascension Day was windy, but mostly sunny. And then I saw it: ten minutes ago that tree had crashed down - wrecking two parked cars, but hurting nobody.
So easily plans can be changed. (Note to self: Always leave the house ten minutes later).
I never forget how silly I thought a woman in a TV-show in Baden-Württemberg, who proudly showed her flat to the reporters: "Look here - I thought of everything. The whole flat is disabled-adapted - for the days when I am old." That woman was not a day older than 29 - (it is a long while ago that I saw it - so I could not anticipate the hilarious scene in "The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel", where a couple in England visits such a flat for old people, and the manager proudly shows the emergency button and a handrail on one wall to get there - "Why not put it diagonally through the whole room, if I fall down on the other side?" asks sarcastically the unnerved and still healthy potential buyer.)
No, really: the over-cautiousness is shere fright, the attempt to control everything, so that life might go on forever. But Life is a gloriuos mess. Planning is good - but as Tove Jansson's Snufkin says so wonderful:
"Nothing is stable and sure, nothing is ever really finished or say irrevocable. That is reassuring, isn't it?"

The (Prussian?) gardeners who planted the borders in front of the Schloss might have been afraid (or compulsively orderly) too: 

Scene of the Crime

Thank you for all those interesting tips you gave me on my last post! They will be the "free skating" in London, being in the same category as the special highlight, the Chelsea Flower Show with my German friend Anne, and maybe dropping in at the AGM of the E.F.Benson-Society in Grosvenor Chapel. 

And then there is work to do - as you might guess from the picture above. 

To find my way I pinned down how I will get to Canary Wharf, or Old Bailey (though I have been there before), to Charterhouse Square, and.. and.. and... 

If I get lost sometimes I will ask him: 

PS: If anybody is interested why I included a cookbook (use the magnifying-glass!) - it is written by George Baker - whom you might know as "Inspector Wexford". All the other beautiful regions of England and Scotland (I've already met Ian Rankin) and Wales, Yorkshire, Northumberland etc are still waiting for research. 

As the Hemuls in Tove Janson's Moomin Books remark so wisely: 

"But you can have no more fun as you create on your own." 

I'm sure I will. 

Travel nerves

Husband has developed an early warning system concerning my rising nervousness before travels.
I can hide it, but I cannot erase it. It is in my genes.
Which is especially funny as my late father, whom I miss so much, has not only seen most parts of the world, but also took us as children to many countries in Europe (with a VW and a tent, and the car packed as only a man from the marine can pack - my sister and I sat on the back seat on four sleeping bags, and when we finally reached our destination, in the early years my father built (!) a bench from wood for us to sit on - bringing with us the round camping table he had fitted exactly over the spare wheel of the VW (in front).

As I was the eldest and there were no sons, I was trained to take it all without batting my long eyelashes - so nobody who will err with me through the woods (in summer) will die of famine.
My father's family, the practical ones with the joie de vivre: restless. The names of my mother's family I can effortless trace back to the 16th century - they had always stayed in the 'Altes Land' near Hamburg - which tells everything.
Do not misunderstand me: I love to be in foreign countries - and, as I told you, I try every year a form of 'survival training' that makes some of my women friends shudder, (though my male friends get that cryptical glint in their eyes). For a whole month I stay on my own in an English or Scottish town or city where I know nobody - and till now I always managed very well.
I like to be in new surroundings - but I hate travelling. No, that's not right. I even like travelling: I hate catching the train. Flying is another cup of tea: I utterly LOVE to start and land - and as I go now by air I can be quite serene.  IF there weren't the question of clothes.
Husband smiles when he sees me puzzling over 'the perfect wardrobe', studying the blog 'The Vivienne Files' and drawing combinations of trousers, skirts and shoes (you always need at least 3 pairs - ballerinas, kitten heels (nowadays - a curtsy to age)  and loafers for trousers) I don't want to take too much luggage (though I always do - but I get better every time), I downsize, but then in June in England it can be cold (in Edinburgh two years ago people were wearing their winter coats, no joke), or rainy, or - as I experienced it as a student: there comes a heat wave. I like to be prepared! (Though nowadays there is always the possibility to buy something one has forgotten at Zara or H&M).
As you cannot help me with the weather forecast you can do me another favour, please: if you have special tips what I MUST see/eat/test in London, please tell me! Thank you!

Coffee & Culture

When you are walking through the oldest part of Berlin, Friedrichswerder, which was built at the end of the 17th century, you might need a rest from looking at the (still to be rebuilt) Stadtschloss, the Berlin Mint or the Bauakademie.
Can you imagine that - when you only want a cup of coffee - you have to pass a security control first? 'Put your jacket and the handbag into the basin, please', says the friendly security guard of the Federal Foreign Office in Berlin, then you walk through the scanner.
Yes - EVERYBODY has entry to the Atrium of the former Reichsbank. A fine Light Court with a historical panorama view through 30 x 20 metres glass wall - kept by a wire rope anchorage construction. Beautiful: the glass ribbons of the American artist James Carpenter, which change colour by light. The Old (1934) and the New Building (1999) of the Federal Foreign Office are impressing (you can see it as a whole only on a special visitor's day). The Old Building served as the Reichsbank from 1934 to 1938. In 1959 the Socialist Unity Party of the GDR chose it at their headquarters. The New Building was designed by the architects Thomas Müller and Ivan Reimann - with a stunning transparent facade of glass and travertine stone, three inner courts (sorry, you can only visit the first - and its 'garden' with citrus trees, mimosa and jasmine is very easy to take in).
Inside the Atrium at the left you find the Coffee Shop. While you drink your coffee you can look at the Friedrichwerder Church (built 1824 - 1830 under Karl Friedrich Schinkel) or the Bauakademie (from 1905 - they are restaurating it - you see only a Potemkin facade):

Even if you are not that interested in the building: the coffee is worth it!
("We use real milk with 3,5 % fat for the foam, not that thin UHT milk", the barista proudly tells me).  You can try this at home.




 

"Blackbird singing in the dead of night"

Looking a bit tired at the moment? 
Some of the culprits for what is commonly called 'springtime lethargy' might be our feathered friends: at 4:18 dear robin starts its song, followed at 4:28 by the blackbird, at 4:33 the wren adds its lovely tunes, 4:38 the great tit joins in, then at 4:58 the chiffchaff, and 5:04 the trillions of sparrows we have in Berlin, (and what they chirp I don't call song). 
Our sociocritical poet Bertolt Brecht, "poor B.B.", expressed it in his inimitable unfriendly way: 
"By morning in the grey dawn the firs piss, and their vermins, the birds, start to scream..."  
Old sourpuss - I prefer those noisy concerts to Rachel Carson's Silent Spring!  
Talking of birds: yesterday a biologist might have described the look that husband and I exchanged in the underground with the reaction of male sparrows when they have to listen to the songs of their competitors:  tartish. Our amygdala was tortured by two women (each with a child) who discussed the interesting details of a friend - "and then he said..." "and I said: What???" 
They sat far apart, so they had to shout very loudly - which didn't disturb them a jota, but the rest of the compartment looked pained (except those lucky ones with headphones on).  
Did you know that sparrows or blackbirds that live in cities trill their songs much louder than their country relatives? Most people think that they thus try to outdo the noise of cities - but Danish biologists found out that city architecture matters too: high houses reflect sounds in a different way, so they calculate the echo of buildings. And weather is important: the more it changes between damp and dry the more complex the sound sequence. They say. In Maryland researchers listened over thirty years to the songs of sparrows (oh my God - what a (wild)life!) and found out that only the melody in the beginning of their songs remained the same over time - the middle part changed drastically, the trill at the end became shorter and shorter by time.  
The sparrow-girls throw their little hearts to the boys with the most variations - 
"O fortune, fortune! all men call thee fickle" (Juliet in Capulet's orchard). 

"Spring lets 'his' blue ribbon..."

I can't believe it - this photo was taken by a friend of mine in the Botanical Garden in Berlin - exactly two weeks ago!! 
You see: there I am still wearing a thick coat (Alpaka - for those who might be on the way to catch their spray cans to protest against fur!) - and the huge model of a magnolia is artistically made from paper. 

Now another artist - Spring himself -  is at work. It's Real Life now, flowery scents lure and awake the senses, cool silken petals from blossoms touch gently the skin, sunbeams tease, off with that coat, no need to hold back - no glass pane between me and Life - 
you're welcome.  

Here my rough translation of Eduard Mörike's famous spring poem, written in 1892 (in German, "spring" is male)  

It Is Spring 
                                                                  
Spring lets his blue ribbon 
Flutter through the air again, 
Sweet, well-remembered scents 
Touch light and hazily the ground. 
Already sweet violets are dreaming, 
Soon they will come.  
Listen - from far away the faint sound of a harp! 
Spring - yes, it is you! 
I hear you coming. 

The Weeding Cultivator - Quote from E.F.Benson's "Queen Lucia"

"A yew hedge, bought entire from a neighboring farm, and transplanted with solid lumps of earth and indignant snails around its roots, separated the small oblong of garden from the road, and cast monstrous shadows of the shapes into which it was cut, across the little lawn inside. Here, as was only right and proper, there was not a flower to be found save such as were mentioned in the plays of Shakespeare; indeed it was called Shakespeare's garden, and the bed that ran below the windows of the dining room was Ophelia's border, for it consisted solely of those flowers which that distraught maiden distributed to her friends when she should have been in a lunatic asylum. Mrs. Lucas often reflected how lucky it was that such institutions were unknown in Elizabeth's day, or that if known, Shakespeare artistically ignored their existence. Pansies, naturally, formed the chief decoration - though there were some very flourishing plants of rue. Mrs Lucas always wore a little bunch of them when in flower, to inspire her thoughts, and found them wonderfully efficacious. Round the sundial, which was set in the middle of one of the squares of grass between which a path of broken paving stone led to the front door, was a circular border, now, in July, sadly vacant, for it harbored only the spring flowers enumerated by Perdita. But the first day every year when Perdita's border put forth its earliest blossom was a delicious anniversary, and the news of it spread like wildfire through Mrs. Lucas' kingdom, and her subjects were very joyful, and came to salute the violet or daffodil, or whatever it was."