The Donatello Exposition in Berlin

Yesterday I had my first "real" day in Berlin to enjoy culture. 

The days before I had speeded through the city, met a lot of friends, bought some clothes - and though I am used to running around and wore good padded trainers, my back hurt in the evening and I was very tired. 

I had come to Berlin for a week, then got a call from the electric company that they wanted to install a new meter the week after - thus I had to come back three days after returning to Bavaria... 

(I could have stayed in Berlin for the whole time, but in Bavaria I had the chance to meet my friend Anne, who became so ill. One of her daughters had invited me to her birthday, the daughter lives only 50km from my Bavarian second home address, and thus I could come by car, meet my friend - and travel back the next day to Berlin). 

On that day "I paid myself first" - meaning: 

- I went to my hairdresser (who became a friend over the time) 

- and visited the Donatello-exposition: Donatello. Inventor of the Renaissance 

- rewarded myself with a one-year abonnement for Berlin's museums next year 

The Donatello sculptures and paintings were presented in the "Gemäldegalerie" on the Kulturforum, where they're building a connecting plaza.   

The exposition was fine - though it didn't touch my heart very much. 

I loved "Virgin and Child" (ca 1422), which "is one of the very first examples of linear perspective, not only in Donatello's work but in all Western art. The figures emerging from the marble niche seem truly three-dimensional." (text of the museum) 

or this "Virgin and Child" ca 1422 

or this "Virgin and Child" ca 1420 - 23)

Outside I did a few steps and took some photos of the newly renovated Neue Nationalgalerie (building by Mies van der Rohe) , here a dramatic photo in black&white: 

- had a very nice meal at an Indian restaurant near my home 

- bought wristlets (haha, they still exist - these are my first try - winter may become very cold! - and they are so very stylish, artfully created by two sorts of mink - wait, I'll show you a photo: 

- and, after a short (but very necessary rest) I hastened to the Cinema Paris to see a new German movie, "Mittagsruhe" 

Then I bought some groceries and went to bed quite early. 

I Added a New Blog

 

Dear friends, 

thinking about my life and my interests, I decided to add a blog about plants: plants in real life, in literature and on paintings, in science and whatsoever.  

Because I want to sell my manuscript written about my own garden, I decided to write this Blog in German. But I want that you also can have a look at it (and maybe even become a follower - highly important for selling a manuscript :-) , and thus I added, with hesitations, the gadget "translator". 

And was stunned! 

It is really good - it presents the text almost as I have written, and thus I am very interested how you like it. (I still have to find out, if I can change parts of the translation). 

The blog you find under: https://blumenundgarten.blogspot.com/html  

Of course I will continue "You are witty and pretty!" - but will be enchanted if you follow me on my garden-blog. 

My Holiday in Zoutelande in the Netherlands

I want to share a few pictures of my week in Zoutelande in the Kingdom of The Netherlands with you. Zoutelande is a small village and well-known bathing place in the Zeeland Province.  

I start with a typical Dutch landmark: the windmill. This one in Zoutelande was built in 1722. 

During our holiday the weather was so hot that we became almost ungrateful - 34°C made us less enterprising than normally. 

The North Sea was beautiful and calm, the water too, and - by its standard - "warm": 21° C. 

The Netherlands are a small, beautiful and rich country - with lots and lots of water in form of channels and Grachten. They have bridges on roads over channels that can be opened - and they do that! - and even an ambulance has to wait...

 More than the tourist-oriented Zoutelande...  

... I love the town Middleburg: 

Queen Wilhelmina (1880 - 1962) 

or the impressing technical world-wonder of the Deltawerken in the Oosterschelde, protecting Holland against the sea. The North Sea can be murderous, remember the flood catastrophe in January 1953.  (holland.com/de/tourist/reiseziele/provinzen/zeeland/deltawerke)  

I love the cozy Dutch villages, here Dreischor, a church-ring-village, first mentioned in 1206. You think you are in Rye - and Miss Mapp or Lucia might cross a threshold :-) (https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dreischor): 

So: It was a relaxing holiday.  

With nice food (here you see the oyster banks in Yseke):  

... impressing skies 

... and the unforgettable scent of Rosa Gallica and the Sea:   

My sincerest condolences to the death of Queen Elizabeth II.

Albert Einstein on World War III and IV

Albert Einstein (1879 - 1955), the great German physicist, was also a very wise man. Today I found a quote that made me shiver (rough translation by me)

"I am not sure with which weapons World War III will be fought, but World War IV will be fought with stones and sticks". 

He also said: 

"Two things are infinite (endless), the universe and human stupidity, but about the universe I am still not quite sure."

To cheer us up he said: 

"A clever person solves a problem. A sage man avoids it." 

Suitable to your convictions please hope or pray for that! 

PS: The photo I took in Zoutelande, the Netherlands 

More Structure for my Blog?

More than once I changed my blog, but I confess that after a time I returned to a mix of everything that moves me. 

Some of you blog every day - and thus write a sort of diary. 

Some of you do great research for their articles and dive in deep; others specialise on one or two topics. 

I like the form Urspo ("Spo-reflections") uses: special topics or questions on chosen days of the week - but I neither want to be a copycat of him - as our great poet Johann Wolfgang von Goethe described in Faust: 

You’ll sit forever, gluing things together,
Cooking up a stew from other’s scraps,
Blowing on a miserable fire,

Made from your heap of dying ash. 

nor do I intend to write 3 or 4 times a week. 

But maybe I can give my blog a bit more structure, for example with these headlines:  

1) What made me laugh this week (or angry - THAT one is easy, living in a foolish world - but as my dear friendandwhatsoever late Barefoot Doctor said: "What you focus on grows", thus I choose to smile). 

2) Remarkable quote(s) I found this week 

3) HomeBasics (title of my book, and here patching up useful tips for household and everyday life) 

4) Nature... and culture this week (including books I read, movies I watch, music I listen to, or exhibitions or a walk through the wood, a special flower or wild thing). 

I'll give it a try right away. Last week: 

1) What made me laugh: 

I laughed when at the return from Zoutelande in the Netherlands I got this postcard from my Berlin friend Christine: 

Rough translation -                        ALMOST  (written as if it is the name of a famous city or posh bathing resort) 

                                           I'd have experienced something!

(Hahaha - the dream of all travellers, tourists and explorers. And then you sit somewhere on your handkerchief in the sand.  :-)  

2) Remarkable quote: 

"I'm no longer an emotional homeless person" 

(Michel Friedman, publicist, in an interview of DIE ZEIT)   

3) HomeBasics 

This I can put as well into "What made me laugh": 

in Germany our government surpasses each other with ideas to save energy in autumn and winter (US of course, while THEY ride their fat official limousines). 

You might have read the "short shower advice" given by our minister of economic affairs, Robert Habeck. And now (I swear this is no joke!) you'll find articles in newspapers like: "To Wash Oneself - a Self-Experiment for One Week"(really! I do not make this or the following valuable tip up!!) that reads: "How to use a wash-cloth". 

4) Nature and culture: 

Today I turned nature: 

into culture: 

                                                    

That was very much appreciated by Son, DiL and the triplets - served with whipped cream... 

Now I need your honest Feedback, please! 

Hazy Thoughts

 

Do you know that feeling: if you haven't done something for some time, one suddenly starts to hesitate. I hesitate to paint, I hesitate to write my blog, I hesitate to follow my routines.

Coming home a week ago from a beautiful little holiday in Zoutelande (Netherlands) I have to adjust.

 I take a few steps back from my life, look hard, and see some things I will change.  

My ideas are still a bit foggy and resemble the beautiful Bavarian landscape here in the morning (the photo I took two days ago). 

But the sun will come out, contours will become clear, and ideas will pour. 

Hopefully. 

PS: I add a typical (a bit sentimental, but that IS typical German) Volkslied sung by late Rudolph Schock, which mirrors my little valley here in Bavaria: 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YAW53mcXFTY