Ahhh drinking sweet sweet homemade wine, a quote comes to mind; 'Sometimes i just like to sit and think ...and sometimes I just like to sit''. The world is such a mess right now, I dont know where to start, so I'm not going to ...but I might just insert a Blackadder quote to revive those happy thoughts: (yes its all about the quotes today..)
''This is a crisis. A large crisis. In fact, if you've got a moment, it's a twelve-story crisis with a magnificent entrance hall, carpeting throughout, 24-hour portage, and an enormous sign on the roof, saying 'This Is a Large Crisis'. A large crisis requires a large plan. Get me two pencils and a pair of underpants.”
Anyhow today was another fine day of gentle work, after breakfast, which is always at 8am featuring a table bedecked with 12 kinds of Jam ...we made 6 loaves of bread, shesh I am going to have plenty of receipes to write down before i leave. I cant wait to try baking my own bread, hmm all of a sudden a memory springs to mind when i attempted Finnish Pulla...my housemates called it THE MONSTER IN THE OVEN!
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Ok so back again this time with the non-alcoholic Becks (different day by the way haha). Gah alkohol frei, slightly redeemed with Rum infused chocolate!
Now where was I? Ahh yess contemplating how each day is like a gentle bubbling brook compared to the Rapids ..aye with capitals.. of Gs farm. Simply put - tidying the garden and fruit plots from winter's breath, playing with the cats, baking and brewing....essence of 'The Good Life'; all useful ken for later, plus I'm becoming more involved in politcal BIO motivations ..nah im not a rioting activist :p .. but i have beento a couple of gatherings of ''Atomkraft? Nein Danke!'' Pretty well backed up since the colossal destruction in Japan. Yet the German government still refuse to believe such events could happen with their Nuclear power stations, and they reckon if a terroist attack threatens then creating fog willsave the day ..all this reliance on technology what has happened to common sense ..........and
another thing youdathink they'dve seen Jurassic Park !! The world is going to pot, and if
we're not careful human beings will go the way of the dinosaurs, nature doesnt need us, we
need Her!
Bah okay rant over...well not quite.
The atomic cheery on the gateau of disaster was to find out that my best friend back home has breast cancer. Shit. I received an email earlier in the week but it hadnt really sunk in until a few days ago. My first response had been to barrage her with optimism (by proxy me also), the tone of her message was nonplussed so thats the line I followed. In the past 'being gushy' about matters together wasnt an option, I mostly got pushed away, ergo I say 'Heck, you'll be fine', because i couldn't handle thinking otherwise.
This is a particular vice of mine, it can make my reactions to important things appear cold, as if
I brush off the situation. Such an example would be when my Ma had an operation and then my uncle died, I held allmy emotions at bay until one day i burst into a torrent of tears during a driving lesson. Super.
A song from Shinedown hits the nail on the head:
The more the light shines through me
I pretend to close my eyes,
And the more the dark consumes me
I pretend that im burning bright...
Thats the ticket lou, when the going gets tough, I bugger off..........ocassionally to the pub.
A few days ago, she (j) started up a blog..which was good since then I'm almost with her virtually..and I believe writing is a great relief for the soul. Some comments popped up which i recognised, 'you'll be fine, i know people who have gone through it' .. which naturally infruiated her. I wrote J asap because, (although i gathered i wasnt the only one) i didnt want her to feel like i didnt care or understand how she must be feeling. Thats when reality completly sunk in to my heart, I was morose and sombre until i heard back next day, whence she told me i was being 'Gay' and not to be 'such a gushy old bean'
which made me smile. Like this XD
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Hmm practically halfway through March, normally i would be flusterd, but the rags of time hath no meaning here, only hopeful sounds and sights of honey bees and snowdrops, even despite the grey breaking dawns of late. I had been planning for bike rides every morning, but when theres no sun... equals no motivation to make the bloody sacrifice, haha ..so i continue to snooze in the loft. My Grey Haven ..
Bear with me whilst i work backwards.
Mittwoch 16th
I've aced this twig routine now, I know it sounds silly, but honestly any task done well, however
small can be very gratifying, especially as you string up bundles and turn to discover a field
of progress. Although i have spotted a few piles i missed which i shall descend upon tomorrow
with a fully charged ipod, without which i would be clawing the walls, or terrifying the deer
with my singing !
Its quite funny working with Axel, he has a great sense of humour, as we toiled away at either
end of the pasture we looked up every now and then, making a show of checking watches and patting
stomaches...mmm Ich habe hunger! Following the aroma of lunch, Axel mentioned getting ready to
go off to the city soon, so I asked if i should get changed before or after essen. Well, he repiled
its 10 mins until das essen ist fertig..pause...you'll probably want an hour...for putting on makeup!
cheeky bugger!
Its his birthday on the 22nd! Angelika told me, he kept quiet about this and whodathunk hes going to be 72. Certainly doesnt look it, Axel was joking earlier about how he has a gift for chopping wood.
Bremen! Ah one of the best German cities i have visited, even though it was an overcast and bitter afternoon it didnt dampened the resplendence of the renaissance buildings in the heart of this hanseatic city. Angelika took me on a breif tour before her music meeting so i could familarise myself with the streets ..err^r knochenhauerstrasse...bone cracker street, did witches live here? . .
I began with the Schnoor Quarter - Bremem's oldest district, a maze of 15th/16th century tall creamy coloured houses lining crooked alleys, another trip back in time - and no blue box haha! Its home now to a bounty of quaint curiosity shops; homemade crafts, goldsmiths, and touristic gifts. I was a very good girl, spending just over a euro.
Next stop was Bottcherstrasse, an arcade mostly built with old bricks which makes it beautifully inkeeping, the 'secret hight street' is the local name. Above the museum was a glockenspiel triangle ....
Last but not least I paid a vist to the Hachez Chocolate shop, oooh the aroma was divine! Not only schokolade but tea and coffee too! This is where my purse suddenly became a lot lighter!
The Marktplatz is a large square dominated by fabulously opulent buildings with a dark golden mixture of gothic and renaissance facades. St Petri Dom is also an impressively gothic Cathedral ..although such beautiful hetitage was somewhat marred by the ugly modern Burgerschaft (state parliament) ..Boom, glass and grey brick smack in between 13th-17th century architecture .
Bremen also has famous Roland statue - he stands at 5,55m tall ..a curly haired knight with a faint smile..the city's protector and a symbol of trading rights and freedom.
I then happened across the Bremen Towm Muscians, towered in the shadow right on the western corner of the town hall. Yes your eyes doth not decive ye, a roster on a cat, on a dog, on a donkey...the story is quirky one from the Grimm Brothers.
Probably gone 7pm by the time we got back home...I wrote up a few lines of my German diary which i shall post ad hoc.
Donnerstag.
The cats left a suprise for us in the hallway, I happened to be on my way out to the washing when i noticed them playing with something, musing and shoving clothes in the drum I realised it must have been a dead animal! But it was gone when i returned! ARG then i found Benny in the living room batting it about.. IT.. on closer inspection turned out to be the back half of a baby rabbit. I had to scoop in up on a plate as Dusty lunged in for a mauling. This poor dead half, little hind legs and tail seemed ironic on a saucer. Angelika put it down with their food, saying 'might as well let them finish it' ...next morning the whole thing had disappeared. We're hoping its not been hidden in the house.
Another cloudy day, Im starting to feel the sun withdrawal symptoms. Its strange how last month I always found energy to get up and go all the time, but now laziness has crept back ..im getting soft with such luxury lie ins until 7am !
Although on the up side, haha see what i did there..ahem my wrists arent swollen, now i can actually get my thumb and fore finger around them again. Twig tribulations for the morn and bundle duty ..i got a little aggrivated having a scuffle with the branches ..prickly sods! In the end I ran of to help A in the garden, raking leaves has never been soo much fun! Later we both went via bike to their blueberry patch to do some pruning. There was a small shed of hay on this pasture too, A pointed out that an owl had been using it, she picked up the remains of its meal, when they spit up all the fur and bones, tearing this sausage sized clod open to show me half a mouse skull. Fairly interesting, but No im okay i'd rather not pick that all apart to know what it had for dinner! ...I'm obviously not a fully fledged country bumpkin yet...
The bike was much more intriguing, a green old british bike, which is collapsable and had been used during WW2 by soldier parachutists. Axel has a few stories from that era, though the first one I blundered on was his father being shot by the Nazis when he was a baby.
I unearthed that one asking about the family tobbocanist tradition, which Angelika likes to put as ..Axels first job, a drug dealer...haha, we saw the place where he took his exam in Bremen for this but he couldnt stand beign stuck inside all day and left the family buisness. Another story cropped up at supper, when he and his family evacuated to the south of Germany..just before a french occupation, the Dairy factory gave out all the Swiss wagon wheel cheese, i guess so the French wouldnt get all the good victuals ... which must have been a godsend since they had only apples for nourishment.
Dienstag...
I seemed to have flipped around he days somehow..
A day of baking bread and more twigs under the heavens stuffed with cotton wool! Sometimes i imagine those scenes from Larkrise to Candleford, when the men are in the fields with their scythes, singing and hacking in rythym, the sun blazing like the golden cornfields they reap.
I seemed to have flipped around he days somehow..
A day of baking bread and more twigs under the heavens stuffed with cotton wool! Sometimes i imagine those scenes from Larkrise to Candleford, when the men are in the fields with their scythes, singing and hacking in rythym, the sun blazing like the golden cornfields they reap.
Montag ...
Day trip to Bremerhaven ..rather drizzly, or 'A grand soft day' in Ireland. ...And randomly is twinned with Grimsby in UK and Pori in Finland...
Posted off a box of clothes i decided i could do without to England, lets hope i have a happy face when it comes to repacking again.
A and I strolled along the harbour..I love tall ships, actual sailing ships and not a hunk of steel and propellers. Its another golden past, probably belonging to a chivalric world - mighty ships and seafaring dreams on unending waves ..vintage ensemble along the port, first docked was a replica of a very old viking merchant ship which they had brought up from the bottom of the river bed, then a much smaller more modern sailing boat with green sails that had been to the Arctic on research expeditions...turn around and next to the Uboat is a huge merchant vessel the Seute Deern (Sweet Girl) although the inside has been part converted into a cafe, oh well.
I was treated to lunch at the chippy. Yum. The German chippy, with the best fresh battered pollack i have ever tasted, mit sweet potatoes of course :)
A and I strolled along the harbour..I love tall ships, actual sailing ships and not a hunk of steel and propellers. Its another golden past, probably belonging to a chivalric world - mighty ships and seafaring dreams on unending waves ..vintage ensemble along the port, first docked was a replica of a very old viking merchant ship which they had brought up from the bottom of the river bed, then a much smaller more modern sailing boat with green sails that had been to the Arctic on research expeditions...turn around and next to the Uboat is a huge merchant vessel the Seute Deern (Sweet Girl) although the inside has been part converted into a cafe, oh well.
I was treated to lunch at the chippy. Yum. The German chippy, with the best fresh battered pollack i have ever tasted, mit sweet potatoes of course :)
Skip forwards to Freitag!
I managed to make it down the ladder before 7 this morning..well i had to since fruckstucken was 730.
Mind you that ever-hungry sheep, Old Gal Munchie, was BAAAA - ING at the gates like a third alarm clock....whilst the Rooster was snoozing! ..
I've started to name the animals..there's a thin white sheep called Wooly, yesterday i named her sister, a big fat white fleecy gal whos the least afraid of the flock to come and say Hi, #Milka' .. also when we let the Chickens into their run, there is always one hen who manages to escape, aptly named Ginger! Ha ha..
We all drove to Bremervorde straight after breaking fast for the local farmers market..I could have been right back in Chichester on friday, eyeing up the Belgian buns 'as big as your face' ! A number of the stallholders asked where i was from...core these towns are vicar of Dibley size where everybody knows everyone. A bought cheese, olives and 30 pots of pansies..all organic trademark.
Clouds, goddamned CLOUDS! Give me rain or wind, at least there is some interaction with the elements, instead that neutral monotone off-white dome above my head!
A second helper will be arriving on sunday, so i ought to tidy up a little..i dont have much but its still easy to spread about the place huh! Actually i think she is a gf to one of the guys in Angelikas band,, I'll find out soon enough!
Saturday....SUNSHINE AND BLUE SKY
Mind you that ever-hungry sheep, Old Gal Munchie, was BAAAA - ING at the gates like a third alarm clock....whilst the Rooster was snoozing! ..
I've started to name the animals..there's a thin white sheep called Wooly, yesterday i named her sister, a big fat white fleecy gal whos the least afraid of the flock to come and say Hi, #Milka' .. also when we let the Chickens into their run, there is always one hen who manages to escape, aptly named Ginger! Ha ha..
We all drove to Bremervorde straight after breaking fast for the local farmers market..I could have been right back in Chichester on friday, eyeing up the Belgian buns 'as big as your face' ! A number of the stallholders asked where i was from...core these towns are vicar of Dibley size where everybody knows everyone. A bought cheese, olives and 30 pots of pansies..all organic trademark.
Clouds, goddamned CLOUDS! Give me rain or wind, at least there is some interaction with the elements, instead that neutral monotone off-white dome above my head!
A second helper will be arriving on sunday, so i ought to tidy up a little..i dont have much but its still easy to spread about the place huh! Actually i think she is a gf to one of the guys in Angelikas band,, I'll find out soon enough!
Saturday....SUNSHINE AND BLUE SKY
Perfect time for an afternoon ride with the Vet. Nice neighbours to let me join them for a hack in the woods without even having to muck out the stables in exchange. They saddled me up with an old Tinker horse called Joe, who was supposedly pretty slow, but i guess the spring air was invigorating since he was always chomping at the bit to go faster. Fine by me..yeeha!
Earlier Axel and I had been teasing Angelika that we were going to have a party whilst she was away for the weekend with her mother, tehehe! It kinda came true. well tea party as Axels daughter turned up unexpectedy, which was a lovely suprise for Axel. I left them chatting away to race of and take pictures of the sunset...must have got THAT from being in Finland towards winter, capturing sunshine moments because you never know how long it will be before you see it again!
----------- Photos, COMING SOON!
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