Excuse me, Mr. Wordsworth - today it's Albert Bridge.

I do love bridges oh so much - and when I am in London I have the chance to really indulge myself. And always - always! - I walk over this bridge. Of course that means a lot of walking - but who will complain on a day like this?

Will you join me? You are welcome! And don't be a coward when you see this sign: all that walking has kept us fit and slim.

And the beautiful painted bridge pillars look quite solid to me.

But of course I must ask you to put your sneakers on, as so many of you want to march across my absolute favourite bridge. Ah, and please remember: break step!

 Glorius sight!

 I LOVE when engineers start to become poetic! (I once even loved... - but that's another history).

 So this is Albert Bridge. (A German friend of mine thought it necessary to correct my pronunciation of "Albert" - there are two versions, I know - but as my dear late father's name was Albert, too, I pronounce him with the German accent, and 'Albert Bridge' stubbornly with an English accent - correct or not. ..)

You feel a bit tired? Oh no - just think of what I plan to do with you in my next post - we'll walk through Battersea Park, Oh yes, we'll do... 

What does a blogger think about?

Dear You, 

I was so glad that the little exhibition about my very beloved illustrator, Quentin Blake, was still there when I arrived in London. (If you never have: please read "The Hermit and the Bear" by John Yeoman, illustrated by Quentin Blake; hilarious and wise - only second-hand available).  

You see one of his other drawings above: "What does an Illustrator think about?" 

Good question. Leading me to another one: 

What does a blogger think about? 

At the moment I am thinking hard. 

See: I was only 12 days in England - but took 1292 photos. For me: interesting. For you: maybe not. So I have to choose wisely if I do not want to lose you. Or hear deafeningly snoring. Skip our trip to Newbury and Hungerford. 

Skip photos of my solo travel to London: for example the beautiful huge soap bubbles over the Thames. Glorious architecture. Interesting people I met. And will give you only a few photos and short texts in small doses (reaching the Zen-cherished 'present moment' assumingly in 2017, hahaha). Will skip interesting exhibitions I visited ("Virginia Woolf: Art, Life and Vision", "Horst: Photographer of Style", "Bond in Motion" --ah, those beautiful cars!! -  only to name a few). I even stop now reciting the many, many events I've seen (whizzing through London like a bee) - though in my next blog I will show a few.

See: as a blogger I think that it is very difficult to keep the golden mean. 

(I have a learned Facebook friend who complained bitterly that not everybody was constantly 'liking' his texts - completely forgetting that HE never ever likes texts of other people (or were it just mine?) - however, as I quoted to husband LK 6:41; NIV (you know: about the speck of sawdust and the plank in one's own eye) it gave husband the chance to pour some Latin over me in form of "Do ut des". Think I digress? Oh no: if I don't comment your blogs, sweetie, you will - after a short while, I don't have illusions about human nature - rightly stop to comment mine - which heaven forbid, I would miss you! So I read a lot of very interesting posts. Do it with pleasure. But - as I said somewhat complaingly to my new fitness trainer, who named many wonderful exercises I could add to my extensive routine: "Sir, I have a life beside the fitness room!" (He looked interested...)

Will say: 

- a blog mustn't be too long - you, my dear followers also have a vivid life of your own, and work hard, panting to comment on oh so many interesting blogs 

- of course I could write every day - but ... see above... 

So I will not slay you with texts and photos. 

Maybe we both will feel like that, then (Quentin again): 

"Why You Need to Brag More...",

...and 3 Ways to Do It" is the title of a recent article by Peggy Drexler, Ph.D.

I know more than three ways, and entirely without the help of a Ph.D. -
After reading year after year the hymn of praise on my modesty in my school reports (believe it or not!) at the working place I woke up, decided not to be overlooked anymore and trained myself hard to change - with success.
(Nowadays I am trying to become mellow and modest again).
Will you think it is bragging when I show you of a link at The Londonist:

http://londonist.com/2014/09/surprising-photos-of-st-pauls-revealed.php

and then murmur under my breath: "I love the two photos I shot from St. Paul's this year, - may I add them?"

PS: The title of Drexler's article reminds me of the (still) hilarious first film I ever (!) saw in a cinema: "The Knack... And how to Get It" by Richard Lester, with Rita Tushingham. (I was a tall girl and thus could add a few years to my tender age - now I do the opposite :-)  

Downton Abbey or Highclere Castle: the Seeming and the Real

"As Hamish talked, it all seemed very far away - the image of the castle (...) like something remembered from a film at the cinema."
"Death of a Gentle Lady"  M.C.Beaton

Dear You, 
maybe you know the book "Frederick" by Leo Lionni (published in 1967, which I discovered only in 1986 when I read it to our son). It is for very young children and tells the story of some field mice, who work hard to collect hoards for winter, and the mouse Frederick, who doesn't - he collects sun rays, colours and words - "because winter is grey", and he uses them, when the provisions are eaten up, and the mice become discouraged, to give them hope.
It is a wonderful parabel about the insight that not only practicality is useful.

So: Anne and I collected sun rays (and were lucky to find so many) and colours and words.
I will show you a few photos, speaking for themselves:

Three nights at Marco Pierre White's The Carnavon Arms (grade II listed), the former coach house to Highclere Castle:

Beautiful landscape: 

The vast gardens of Highclere (The Secret Garden, The Walled Garden, The White Garden etc):

Long, long walks (we were the only ones who walked - everybody else came by car or by bus). Surprises: three times - at different occasions - English women talked to us in German! (Always excited about lovely Munich). We were not allowed to take photos of the rooms in Highclere Castle - but those interested will have seen them in full splendour in 'Downton Abbey'. 

Here you see Anne, who is a teacher at a grammar school (English and French): she has four lovely daughters, renovated a huge mill, where she lives with her husband, created a beautiful garden, has now written her thesis on a German poet, owns a marmelade cat - and: 4 sheep! (That was my first idea, as 'Highclere' also found on Rosemary's blog  http://wherefivevalleysmeet.blogspot.de/: I really tried to buy a special English sheep for her - but that was too difficult). Anne and I are often taken as sisters - here she is looking at a piece of art, the sculpture of a sheep's head (one item in The Carnavon Arms). 

We saw Newbury and Hungerford (I spare you lots of photos from there) - then back to London, where Anne left for Germany - and I stayed another 9 days. 

The Surprise is: Downton Abbey!

Dear You, 
friendship is about trust. And Anne trusted me blindly when she came from Darmstadt to London, waiting for me at the feet of St. Paul's, not knowing what would happen, or which destination was waiting for us. 
I arrived in time - though in Berlin it seemed that circumstances had plotted against me: 
first the alarm-clock of my cellphone didn't work (and husband lectured in Hildesheim). Luckily I had packed everything the evening before, and as I am an early riser, I got wary in the early morning and looked at the clock in the kitchen. Crumbs! Crumbs of time left, to be precise - only half an hour instead of a leisurely one... 
So my eyeliner wasn't quite as perfect as usually, but RyanAir was gracious (yes - it can be!)  and took me nevertheless - when I finally arrived. Which was at the last moment: having fetched the right underground and changed into the right overground (which needs about fifty minutes to go to the airport) - I relaxed. Looked dreamily out of the window. Suddenly I  wondered: 'Hermannstraße' was announced. 'Hermannstraße???' I hurried out of the overground - got a train back: I had forgotten to change at Südstern!  
There the next train to the airport was announced (and innerly I apologised to husband, who had advised me to arrive 90 minutes before the flight-departure at the airport - I had laughed a bit condescendingly at this proposal - but followed, and boy: was I happy that for once I had listened to the voice of reason!)
Imagine my horror when suddenly the plate announced: "The next overground to the Airport is cancelled". 
WHAT? WHAT? 
I hurried to the information desk. Yes, there was an alternative: a real train, coming in ten minutes. 
Well: "All's well that ends well" as your dear William S. remarked so wisely. 
From the moment I sat in the airplane (10 Euro more to be RyanAir's special guest - hahaha - meaning: you get in first, and have a seat with a little more room for long legs) everything was OK. 

And there she was, in London: my friend Anne. My friend since the time we studied together in Mainz. Who had now written her thesis on a German poet and had earned a doctor's degree. 
Such a joy! 
I wanted to give her something special for that. 
Only when we sat in a restaurant and I gave Anne a pair of long golden earrings with a (fake) emerald, she guessed our destination: 

Highclere Castle, belonging to the Earl and Countess of Carnarvon - to most of us better known as "Downton Abbey". 

Enough for today (Now I will dip into your blogs, so I will write the sequel later).  
  

Will we bloggers meet in London - spontaneously?

Dear You, 
Double surprise:
- one for my friend Anne, whom I will soon meet in London - she comes from Darmstadt, I from Berlin. Difference: I know where we will go then - she doesn't. (She finished her dissertation this year, and as a present I booked the ???.in ???? for 3 nights. Ha: I will not tell you now, because she or her husband, who will stay at home, might read this blog).
- second: surprise for me, because after that I will stay in London for more than a week. Surprise - because I had already booked the return flight... Now I have a second return ticket with a more generous airline than Ryanair. The first flight is my problem: I am stubborn and will - for the first time in my life - use only one boardcase and a handbag. Ryanair allows only a boardcase with 10 kilogramm, so I went and found a light boardcase from Bric, (only 1,92 kg - my other - loved one - has over 3kg) and a handbag from the same inventive Italian manufactorers which has exactly the allowed measurements. Now I weigh my clothes, I weigh my cosmetics (oh my, oh my - that's the tough part).
I feel as if I am a 7 year old child again: then I drew lots and lots of caves which I decorated in the most fashionable way with sophisticated - cardboxes. Why? I don't know - I was on the Minimalist's trip very early (in theory). I'll have to be a minimalist with my clothes now - in practice.
Though maybe Ryanair will think I am the Marshmallow Man -once in London I will become instantly slim again. .

Now two questions: 

- Any suggestions what I can/must/should see in London in the next weeks? IThank you!

- Is anybody interested to come to a spontaneous blogger-meeting in London? We can meet in a café. If you are interested - best days for me: Saturday 6th September or Sunday 7th September - then please write it quickly into your comment - and I will see it till Monday, after that I'm off.

PS: Burglars: No chance: Husband and a bunch of well-trained visitors stay at home :-) 

Botanists, Gardeners - I need your help!

Dear You, 
this might better belong into my blog http://gardeninginhighheels.blogspot.de/, but here I might reach more people.
In August on our stay on the German Northsea island Sylt I found a little flower that I have never seen before.
It is tiny - the blossom is about 2,5cm in diameter, hight of the whole plant about 5 - 6 cm, and on the second picture you can see its dentated leaves. It is strongly blue (almost like the colour of gentian - which it definitely is not). Striking white round stamen.
It was very stormy, so the photos with my macro are not as sharp as I wanted them to be.
I found the flower in the village Keitum - the tideland side of Sylt. Only one single plant, near a pathway. Might have escaped from a garden (in the 19th century there was a captain in Keitum who was famous for collecting exotic flowers).
The next day I first thought that some nitwit had nicked it - but it was still there, torn by the storm that had raged in the night.

Now: I know quite many wild and garden flowers - but I am baffled here. Can you please help me?

Blush... it's so becoming...

Dear You, 
Not so easy to blush nowadays, at least I don't.
But you could see deep crimson creep about my face in the underground, when my cellphone started to ring. More precise: it started to moan. To be even more exact: it used Irene Adler's 'Sexy Moan' from the wonderful 'Sherlock' episode "A Scandal In Belgravia'. (Have to see crime TV for professional reasons - but 'Sherlock' is a treat).
How come?
Well - sheer stubbornness on my side. For a long time, I had Sherlock's Intro as a ringtone:

Then I asked son please to instal Irene's Moan for an incoming SMS. He loaded it down on my cellphone - but it didn't work. Suspecting that he didn't really try (for what reason ever :), I went to the O2-Shop. The young man was very eager  attentive, but he could not help me either. 

So I forgot about it. 

Three days ago I scrolled through my cellphone - to become more able in the use of technology - 'I will conquer it', I thought. Well, I did - in a way. Set Irene's moan as ringtone.  

The thing is: of course I wanted to change back. Pressed the right button, pressed OK. 

Irene moans on. And on... 

I blush. 

Advice: If a woman of a certain age complains that she gets invisible, she should load down Irene as a ringtone. In any old crowded underground she will stand in the spotlight. Instantly.   

PS: the photo above I took in Potsdam's Park Sanssouci. 

Missing... Sylt?

Dear You, 
sometimes you miss something without knowing what it is. You have a nagging feeling. You look. Think. You wonder. 
"I think they are gone!" I said to husband. 
"Who?" he asked. 
"The swallows!" 
"Oh, no!" 
Well, swallows are the very epitome of summer. In England and Germany we have the same saying: "One swallow does not make a summer / Eine Schwalbe macht noch keinen Sommer." 
I had seen hordes of them three weeks before - assembling. Practising. Didn't like that. And was accused to resemble poor Cassandra, not my normal self. I soon kept my observations to myself. Talked about sunshine and heat. Peeked only from the corner of my eye. Saw what I saw. Kept my mouth shut. (Pressed it firmly - but only for a while: that encourages wrinkles, so I lifted the corners of my mouth again - pure self-protection). 
And there was something missing on Sylt, too. 
("Finally", you sigh. "Now you start telling me of your holiday.") 
Yes. 
We left the island one day earlier than planned (and paid for). 
I have been to Sylt quite often. Met my first real great love there (he was training as combat medic in the Bundeswehr - at that time every young man had to do his military service). My mother and an aunt and my sister spent their hols with me on the campsite (my father had to work). On one photo you see me smoking triumphantly a Reval cigarette - that smell would be the base note of my perfume creation "Sylt". (I don't miss cigarettes anymore - but if someone goes in front of me, smoking Reval or Gauloises or another strong tobacco, my eyes start to get a bit dreamy). 
Then I would add the incomparable scent of the rugosa rose. Living happily in a mismatched colour outfit: shocking pink blossoms, fat bright orange rose hips, dark green healthy leaves that smell - like the sweet briars - too. That would be the heart note. 
And the salty smell of the North Sea water as top note. 
(Of course I would add a few ingredients of passion that no perfumier worth his salt would ever betray...) 
And that was what I absolutely missed this time, being there, on the very spot: the smell of Sylt. It wasn't there. 
Mind: the rugosa roses bloomed in abundance - and yes, when you bent your knees - and I did -  you could sniff a weak whiff. The heather painted the sand dunes of List in sombre violet hues - and yes, I went down on my knees to get a whiff of the dark honey-golden wooden note (I would add that to my perfume!). 

But bended knees aside - and I was not on a pilgrimage on "Search of Lost Time" or on the look-out for "Remembrance of Things Past", honestly, I wasn't: 
it was almost impossible to smell Sylt. (And I still own a very highly developed sense of smell). 
Must be because of the storm (most of the time, throwing teasingly loads of sand into your face). Even husband did only manage to take a swim in the very rough sea once - once in five days... 

And because of the location of our rented flat. (I have been many times on Sylt - and it must have had a reason why I never ever had been in Tinnum. (I'd never even heard of it!) I had been in Rantum, Hörnum, Westerland etc - all those villages draped along the shore - meaning sea foam, waves around your feet, salt on your lips, sand between your toes. I even would have accepted mud between my toes - on the mudflat-side of Keitum. But Tinnum lies in the very middle of the island Sylt. See: I love long walks on the beach - it might even storm and rain - but here our fat BMW had to drive us, munching over 300km only on this island in five days.  You can imagine that this woman, proud owner of a Nike+FuelBand, was not utterly happy about that? The airport was very near - all things I could have known in advance - had I been as smart as Son, who confessed on the telephone: "I googled it on Google Earth, Mama - but than I didn't say anything because you had already booked." (I think that is mindful of him). So we had the advantage of a Lidl, an Aldi, a Netto very near - and if you walked over the tracks of the railway you were among harvested cornfields. And wet meadows. 

Picturesque in its way, too - but to be true: not my expectation when I think of Sylt. Or any other island. 
Of course we went by car to the cliffs and sand beaches (how, otherwise, would we have 'earned' 300km?)

But the freedom to move on my own, that I have missed. 
And the scent. 
  

'Where Angels Fear To Tread` or: Berlin's Building Sites - Uhrgh!

Dear You, 
actually I wanted to write a post about a wonderful discovery I made on Monday - I give you a hint: Italy here, around the corner - but I can't do that now: it is too loud. 
Almost everybody - at least in Germany - knows that Berlin is a permanent building site. They dig up the roads and tunnels, they build new houses, renovate the old ones - and the symbol for all this might be the Airport Schönefeld - a billion-dollar grave, that will not come to an end, and those that are responsible get even more money instead of social condemnation or prison - and the news even reached other countries and they have a good laugh about this play from the madhouse. 
But I can live with that. 
More disturbing - because they are very, very near - is the renovation of a house at the end of our street - can you imagine that they stick on to the facade all the stucco ornaments that a mad city council paid to be destructed in the early decades of the 20th century - to make the buildings more "modern" and easier to paint (I believed that the masses and masses of these 'modern' houses were the sad relicts from World War II, but no: these houses had survived the bombs, and then the city paid (!) for 'modernisation'.  
An example: both houses are built in the same year. 

But more awful (for us) is the drainage that 2 (!) building labourers are giving to our neighbour's house (all the houses in the street, though very posh, are joint by a wall). 
The 2 (!) building labours (though I hesitate to use the word "labour") are the typical and perfect impersonators of building labourers. 
They arrive between 6:30 a.m. and 6:45 a.m. 
They turn on their radio. Having often worked with a pneumatic hammer, they are deaf as - a nut. So they need LOUD music - and they SHOUT. Why should other people sleep when they have to work? They discuss this important question before they start to - "work". And because Law allows to start this "work" not before 7 a.m., they use the time before to playfully test their jackhammers - at the wall between the two houses. When the baby of the neighbours starts to cry, they stop and bang on their big big basins - to clean them a bit - better to be done in the morning... more attention... 
But the worst thing are their cellphones. I put "Work" into quotation marks to hint at a certain mistrust on my side: half of the time (at least!) they do not work - after the big overture in the morning they rest for an hour, smoke and shout into their cell phones - (nobody told them that a cellphone is a sort of telephone that enables you to talk with a person at normal pitch - but no, not them -- Shout, Shout, Shout! You might hear them easily at the Alexander Platz). 
By working very slowly they manage to prolong their "work" till doomsday - this wonderful hot summer is definitely spoilt for those who intended to enjoy their balcony (I flee to other beautiful parts of the city, but the old people can't). 
To make it even worse: in our house the landlady has engaged craftsmen to renovate the flat on the groundfloor: wall breakthroughs (we are in Berlin :), floorboard abrasion and varnishing (smell!) and polishing and, and, and - the full monty. 
And when I looked out into the Hinterhof (backyard) I saw another couple of workmen (though they finished after three days). 

The rents in Berlin soar, because Arabs and Russians and Italians etc buy houses or flats like mad. Sometimes it is merciful that they see only the "new" flats they buy. Since last year a clever salesman let this house beside the KaDeWe be renovated (I only heard Polish sounds at the building site - I think they are good workers, but often are treated and paid not much better than modern slaves). These flats (of about 110 square meters) cost over 1 million Euros each - but with that goes the privilege to look at really sordid houses on the other side of the street, hear the suppliers for the KaDeWe in the very early morning bring tons of flour or lobsters etc - and look into the "patio" which leads to the car park of the KaDeWe. 
Sometimes it is very good to have not seen your "bargain" before in its original state... 
I'll show you the photos of "before" and "after" in another post. 
Till then we'll book a holiday on an island... I think we'll give up... 

Too good to be true?

Dear You,
in the comments on my last post "The Marvelous Toy - my Nike+ FuelBand" I said that I would to discuss Susan Scheid's comment - she writes http://prufrocksdilemma.wordpress.com/:

Now this is definitely a life lesson for all of us: "Now I lowered the goal for a third, reach it every time, am happy - and march on, thus reaching the former high goal of the past almost every time - but with the smug self-satisfaction of thinking: I hadn't to do this."

 and Suze's, who writes  http://subliminalcoffee.blogspot.de/
:
After reading Susan's comment, I would like to add that a goal which does not evolve is a static thing which loses all relevance. We must reach for goals appropriate to the moment--dynamic, meaning-intense, real.

Ha - I was so proud to have found out my new life insight about happiness through knowing where to stop... and I still think it valid - in the context I put it.
See, Suze: I wrote that I outperform the absolute intersection of all Nike+ FuelBand users - all of them, being young or old, being amateurs or pros, international - by far. Why shall I highten my goal even more? As I wrote: when I reach my lower goal points, I am happy, not stressed - and march on, voluntarily. (Most of the time).
The same in weight training: I can push quite a lot of iron at the rowing machine - and many a man at the other machine besides me get a bit pale after a look at mine, because he draws less. Should I evolve that goal even more? Is my name Tamara Press (or, for the younger ones among you: Swetlana Podobedowa)?
No - I think: goals are good, goals are helpful - but they must not be infinite - because that would discourage me.
If a goal is too high, it will make me dispirited: if I compare myself to our great poet Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, I would not even losen the cap of my fountain pen to write a book. Of course I understand what you mean, Suze: one should not rest on one's laurels - right - but I think the way to hell is plastered with perfectionism. I know that you - of all people - didn't mean "more, more, more" - but in this direction lies the danger. When is good good enough? 
As I wrote: I thrive on praise. Maybe that's a fault - but one I learned to live with and do not even try to change - and I hope I can - as children, who have a very fine ear for it - distinguish between real praise and flattery.
And insight no. 2: it is worthwhile to praise yourself (you can do it silently): "That's good! Wow!"
I makes you glow! From the inside! 

The Marvelous Toy - my Nike+ FuelBand

Dear You, 
we are still melting away in Berlin - on our balcony we had 38°C yesterday, and in the evening we are all happy to manage just to reach the Viktoria-Luise-Platz (two streets further) if necessary on all fours and order a cool Weißbier and look at the beautiful fountain of this "Adornment Place", as the creator of the Bavarian Quarter called the many little places with fountains, greens and benches created at 1900 for the benefit of the brave bourjeois.
But lifting the tall beer-glass is not enough to stay fit!
Yours Truly - always easily in love with a new technical gimmick - possesses the Nike + Fuel band for about 5 months now. Enough time to find out that it is
- inaccurate (when I wear a tote bag in my right hand and wear the Fuel band on my right wrist - it doesn't count my steps correctly, it counts less)
- more than inaccurate - downright lying! and frivolous superficial: when I am pushing heavy weights at the fitness studio, I get less points than I get for preparing breakfast
- competitive (well, that I might be too) - it tells you in the evening, when you connect it with your computer how well you managed in relation to your age-group (I am much better!) and in relation to all Nike + Fuel Band users (among them the 17 year old sport addicts - guess: I am much better!). These points are absolute numbers, not influenced by your age.
- In my defence I can offer: except this one time I don't boast about it. Really - I don't. Neither do I post my sensational points on Facebook (and bore you stiff) nor on Google + (and bore you stiff). Yes, one can do that, but I don't.
If this little gadget has so many faults - and a pedometer would do the trick as well - why do I love it?
Well - in the beginning husband was very surprised to hear me chirp: "No, you don't have to go to the grocer's - I'll do it!" and woosh I was away - I still needed 176 points to reach my "GOAL! GOAL! GOAL!" Very untypical for me, I even offered to bring down the garbage! (He got a bit anxious then).
   The garbage is his task again... BUT: my psyche is constructed in such a simple way that it helps to look at my fuel band to make me walk and move more. And that is a good thing, simple or not. This Lady thrives on praise - and that it gives frequently. Sometimes a bit - hilariously: I'll never forget when my orthopaedist told me I should rest my knee (later my ankle - both well again, thank you) - and just at this moment the Fuel band blinked in big letters: "GO, BRITTA, GO!" (It won).
Ah - and I even learned something for 'Life as Such':
when I first put my GOAL! GOAL! GOAL!!! very high, I reached it every time, but with gritted teeth. Now I lowered the goal for a third, reach it every time, am happy - and march on, thus reaching the former high goal of the past almost every time - but with the smug self-satisfaction of thinking: I hadn't to do this.
And that's a good thing to learn for other aims in my life too.  

"Cocoon above! Cocoon below!"

Dear You, 
I am a bit suspicious by now. Don't trust myself. Or know myself all too well... which might be the same thing, in the end. 
Meaning: Look at those few posts in the July, (few?!? - I'm fooling myself: only one!), dribbling like tired water from an old hose. I know: we have July - it is hot - very hot in Berlin at the moment, they foretold us 36°C... I love it, but it doesn't turn me into a Mexican jumping-bean... 
A lot of other bloggers seem to be a bit under the weather too. To check myself out I looked at my old blog, "You are witty and pretty". A lot of the dear followers there - of course all bloggers too - have thrown in the towel. Some changed their blog-address. And I want to find out when I gave up my blog - aha: December 2012, BUT - it started much earlier, the retreat - about August, I would say. (Why does Edna O'Brians title "August is a Wicked Month" springs into my mind?). 
I changed my blog after two years - regretted it, because I had more followers then - and hope I have learned from history (hahaha, every historian gives a hearty laugh). Change isn't the answer (that will always happen without my doing). Concentration might be. 
(In this heat? You bet...) 
What do I want to tell you? I am utterly clear in my German blog about cafés and culture in Berlin; quite clear in my blog "Britta's Happiness of the Day" (www.burstingwithhappiness.blogspot.com); also clear but - reduced to a balcony instead of a garden - a bit restrained on "Gardening in High Heels"(www.gardeninginhighheels.blogspot.com) - but here? 
A little dab of culture, a little dot of everyday life, a whiff of this, a tattle of that. 
But still I think I won't do what I did yesterday (at last!): I planted a new rose on my balcony, "Augusta Luise", beautifully scented, adorable apricot, wonderful form. I brought her "successor till yesterday, Augusta Luise I." from my garden in Hamburg to the balcony in Berlin; she flowered in the first year, mumbled in the second - then was cautioned by me in the third and fourth year (when she didn't produce one single blossom) - and then I cut a long story short, or, as we say in Germany: "He that will not hear must feel" (come to think of it: that saying dates me - nobody seems to even understand the meaning of it anymore today - but that might be a good thing, too). But poor Augusta Luise I. was banned into the Hinterhof - and I bought a successor, "Augusta Luise II.". (And I do hope that "Getrude Jekyll", "New Dawn", "Iceberg", "Hans Gönnewein" and the other two are willing to draw their lessons from that!)  
And decide languidly: I will stay with this blog. It is much too hot to change it now. 

Britta  
(fickle and a bit vague as the photo above). 

PS: Just to give you at least something of substance: 

Cocoon above! Cocoon below!
Stealthy Cocoon, why hide you so
What all the world suspect?

An hour, and gay on every tree
Your secret, perched in ecstasy
Defies imprisonment!

An hour in Chrysalis to pass,
Then gay above receding grass
A Butterfly to go!
A moment to interrogate,
Then wiser than a "Surrogate,"
The Universe to know! 

Emily Dickinson 

WOW! I'm a MOTHETTE!

Dear You, 
I feel a bit like the White Rabbit in Alice in Wonderland, muttering "Oh dear! Oh dear! I shall be too late!" - being head over heels in work, being rude in not commenting on your blogs (though I read them!) - but having time to apply for Sir Paul's Band "The Hawkmoths" (I confess: the photograph of me above that I sent him is not utterly new) - look at http://magicalchristmaswreaths.blogspot.de/2014/07/hawkmoth.html - 
and I was chosen! My heart races - and I am so glad that Rosemary from http://wherefivevalleysmeet.blogspot.de/ is there too!! 
We play in the West End in London - virtual of course, the Mothettes fluttering around the Hawkmoth Sir Paul - the contrast of our leather outfits (yes - think: Suzie Quatro, Gianna Nannini or Tina Turner) to his tophat and white silk scarf will be ravishing. 
Makes me think back of my real tour through Germany - long time ago, where we were modeling and danced for a big fashion company through Germany's big cities. Yes - Yours Truly danced here in the Kongreßhalle in Berlin (now it is called: "House of the Cultures): 

and in Hamburg, and Frankfurt, and Hannover, and Munich, and, and... 
It was such a fun! (for us - we were students and could go back to our studies - the real models and dressmen and dancers faced a harder life). I could tell you 1001 stories from that tour - but: "Oh dear! Oh dear! I shall be too late!" 

PS: One thing I have to work out in my soul: 
I always held it with Marlene Dietrich's song - you might know it: "I am from head to toe centered on love" 

where she sings: 
                            "Men flutter around me 
                              like moths around the (candle)light, 
                              and if they are consumed by fire - 
                              well, that's not my fault!" 

BUT now - as a MOTHETTE - which fate is awaiting me??? 

World Cup Fever

• "Deutschland bebt - und das völlig zu Recht!" / Germany is writhing, and utterly rightly so." Thomas Müller

I have to confess that I am not that into football (soccer). Which is an understatement. 

Husband, and son and daughter-in-love are football-fans. 
(Thus they are astonished that I knew a prominent player of Werder Bremen - the Hansestadt Bremen is my hometown - when I was young. He could not light my fire for football.) 
Non-football-lovers often do not know how great are the sacrifices fans make for them.  
There is that old chestnut of a - sad to admit: true - story which is often retold to show the amount of love my husband (though at that time he wasn't) has for me. He had bought tickets for an important Football Cup Match in Frankfurt. 
When we arrived at the Frankfurter Waldstadion, this woman started to moan: "Look at all those people in front of us on the sand path - they all carry buckets with beer - I don't like being in such a mass of drunken people - oh, and now we stand here on top place of the stadion and I see nothing, only the backs of them - I can't see anything!" ending with: "I would prefer a stroll in the woods." 
Which we did, unbelievable as it sounds nowadays. 
Getting older I learned to behave better - isn't that encouraging?: when husband in Berlin invited me to the quarter final of the German Open of Snooker to the Tempodrom, I looked down from our seats high above, saw someone who was called Ronny O'Sullivan, saw three green tables and beautiful coloured lacquered balls - but not knowing the rules it was soon a bit - boring. BUT age has softened me (haha) - why spoil another person's joy? In the break I said to husband: "I'll drive home with the underground, you stay here and look and enjoy." That was a good solution - even better is the one now: husband goes with Matti, a friend who can value the game.  
So: I don't look football on TV or otherwise. 
But noone can overlook the very funny strange effects that World Cup-fandom produces here in Germany. 
At the KaDeWe a salesgirl keyed in the prices into the till - with nails painted in Black-Red-Gold. At that temple of elegance and luxury! 
Downstairs someone pushed in a pram - and the baby inside - I couldn't believe - sucked at a baby's dummy, which was in the colours of Black-Red-Gold. Then I saw a dog - wearing a T-shirt - guess the colours?? 
And later a man, fortyish, on a bike, who had a shaved head, sporting just a flat Mohican haircut on top, dyed in??? Yes, of course: Black-Red-Gold. 
And I had no camera with me! 
In the quarter with the many Christmas decorations they spill our flag everywhere - a little bar outside: has black seats, red blankets, and golden cushions. 
But the picture above of a very kitschig frontgarden topped it all! .  

Wolf Whistles

Dear You,
how do you feel about wolf whistles?
I ask  because I found this funny passage in the hilarious book of India Knight, 'Mutton. Age before Beauty. Maybe.' The book's heroine, aged 46, walks by a scaffolding with builders - and nothing happens. Not one odd catcall comes. She muses:

"Oh, I know. I spent many decades of my life objecting vigorously to objectification. I could bore for England about the theory. Ew, everyday sexism: the horror. Obviously men shouldn't shout things out at women in the street. It's not nice. But I'll tell you what else I don't find nice either, to be absolutely honest with you: this weird silence. What is wrong with these freaks?" 

I have nothing against wolf whistles. Never had. Take them as a compliment. When I walk past a building site, and they whistle, the pack sits in a pit, or on a high scaffolding. To me it is only a rough way of flirting.
I once told you: I am a flirt and will stay so till I'm a hundred (or more?). I flirt with men, children, cats and even flowers (yes, you can - try it!) It is a very pleasant game, for both sides.
But some women find it upsetting.
For men these times are difficult. In the last decades they get what psychology calls "double-bind messages". Or, reversing my beloved quote from Shirley Conran - "A mother's place is in the wrong" - to "A man's place is in the wrong." Don't misunderstand me, please: I'm speaking of wolf whistles. Bravado. Flirts. Not pawing or violence.
I enjoy it when a man holds a door open for me - I do not cry angrily 'I can do that on my own!' (as I have often seen). I like knights in shining armour. Politeness. (In other parts of life too). Though one can go too far: Today I read that the BBC makes Britain discuss whether one should ask a woman before kissing her. Uh, what??? I think that goes without saying - let alone asking. You feel it. (I hope). What said my driving instructor about entering a dubious turn in the road in high speed? "When in doubt - don't." 
In the blog world there are wolf whistles too. Don't think I put comment moderation up against those. 

No - I have a very persistent "Anonymous", who always sends advertising comments disguised as comments on the post "Arsène Lupin, Raffles and..." 

Now I ask you: Who in his right mind can believe that this will lure me on his website? Anonymous might also easily believe that Little Girls, wearing a Red Riding Hood, will take a woolf for a grandma. (Tom, here might be the appropriate place for a Grandma-axe-pun). 

No, I keep it with James Thurber, who recast the story, ending: 

When the little girl opened the door of her grandmother's house she saw that there was somebody in bed with a nightcap and nightgown on. She had approached no nearer than twenty-five feet from the bed when she saw that it was not her grandmother but the wolf, for even in a nightcap a wolf does not look any more like your grandmother than the Metro-Goldwyn lion looks like Calvin Coolidge. So the little girl took an automatic out of her basket and shot the wolf dead.

Moral: It is not so easy to fool little girls nowadays as it used to be. 

A German Hausfrau Unter den Linden

Dear You,
these days, when I leave our house I'm instantly wrapped in the sweetest honey-est scent of flowering limetrees. Berlin has thousands upon thousands of them, it is the greenest city of Germany. So the air is filled with a very special and seductive delectation.
You  -  just - melt - away. Dizzy. Almost drunk. 
(Some poor bumblebees even die - they lie on the pavement, having looked too deep into the Mass full of nectar - plastered first, then on the Stairway to Heaven. Too late to become a teetotaller!)
Two years ago I published a poem on my blog "Britta's Happiness of the Day", written by Walther von der Vogelweide, our poet from the High Middle Ages (that most Germans would not understand anymore). "Under der linden" is so beautiful, and maybe I will do a translation of my own in the next days, because I am not utterly happy with the one I quote there.
You might know Berlin's famous boulevard "Unter den Linden" - though at the moment you would see more construction areas than limes (they build the new underground 55 - a silly project, only 1,8km long. I don't believe that chancellor Merkel or any MP will use that underground from Hauptbahnhof to the Brandenburger Tor -- and no back-bencher will do that either: they all are chauffeured around in their huge limousines while preaching ecology of environment to us, their beloved voters. It is not social envy that makes me angry - as you all know I love beautiful and racy cars - it is the hypocrisy to speak of ecology and then sit in an official car as that of our mayor's, a 435 PS strong gasoline-engined car, which needs 9,2 liter on 100 kilometers on average - with 216 gram Co2-emission per kilometer.
For the U55 they chopped a lot of old limetrees, which will be replaced in time. They promised. So we can feel reassured.
Yesterday I had to do a lot of car-cleaning: Knut, my little red Fiat 500, had been parked for 2 weeks under a lime tree - first the weather was too hot to use a car, then I was in Munich. And now: horror!
You see: the leaves of the limetrees look like being lacquered, and when you walk under them, you think: What? Is it raining in a fine spray?
It isn't. There are zillions of aphids... sprinkling everything underneath with a sugary sticky film - I couldn't look Knut into his eyes! So I put on my Marigolds and took a bottle of Windolene and freed the sight, his and mine.
I have a dashy photo where I stand on a high ladder - in Marigolds, with an apron and a feather duster (oh, I almost forgot the little black dress, smiley, smiley!) - the incarnation of what men think a Hausfrau should look like. It was actually made for (the German issue of) Men's Health, for which I sometimes answer household questions.
Thought I show you the beautiful limetree photo instead.

Beauty in the Air: the Balcony

Dear You, 
Our balcony is very beautiful at the moment. The roses are in full bloom, pansies are still fine, and one can even find a few clematis blossoms (I wasn't as lucky as last year, when I had over 20 flowers on one of the two clematis). The wine makes me a bit anxious - fewer leaves than usual, and no flowering for grapes to see. Husband is anxious too: he almost can't find a place for his cup of coffee.

The voice of an acquaitance became agitated, when she told me about a friend of her: "Can you imagine? She has 40 pots on her balcony - forty!" . 
I went home and counted mine: 60. Oh. Yet the best is still to come: the buds of the lilies are almost bursting. (The first photo is the only one from last year's balcony - the New Dawn rose now creeps over the railing of the balcony and looks down on the street - a helicopter plant). ).

I'm especially proud of this pelargonium - I got it from the Royal Court gardener of Schloss Charlottenburg. (Of course that's not his title - but the Schloss is still a castle).

I love to potter and putter around. First thing in the morning is a step on my balcony:

Good Morning, Berlin!