Springtime

Spring's here. 

The lilacs were a bit early, but quite impressive.

And the poppies I rescued last year are blooming like crazy.

 We have the most wonderful Rhododendron Park in Bremen and since it was a wonderfully warm day last Friday and not too windy, we decided to see how the blossoms there were doing. By bike. Of course.

Along the way we passed the local yacht harbor where they're just now getting the floating docks set up and the boats back in the water.  The virus had delayed all that work though I expect by next week the place will be full again.

And by the Grampker See where folks are usually gathered to swim.  So far, none of the pools or public beaches have opened. Besides, it's still way too cool!

 There's  a nice greenway that runs between apartment buildings and over the years lots of sculptures have been installed.  This one, near a street crossing, caught Werner's eye for the first time, it seems, though it's been there for y e a r s.  But clever - a little van laden with all a family's goods for a move.  

Finally, the park! And it was a good thing because it was past my lunchtime and I tend to get grumpy when I'm hungry - just ask Werner.  We sat on a bench in the sun and had chicken salad and tomatoes and tea and enjoyed the view.

There are so many gorgeous rhododendron.

This was a nice view - the tree tops looking up from our little napping place.  Three's plenty of room to spread out.

The odometer was at 32K and my knee was talking to me.  After last week's ride, I felt sure I couldn't make another 25K home, so we took out our masks and headed for the train, with not a little trepidation -- we haven't been on public transportation since the shutdown.

But it was practically empty - 5 PM on a Friday and only two others were in the same car with us, all with masks.  

Home again, straight to the sink and a good wash up.  And maybe just another short little rest...

Homebound 1.5

This will likely be the last of the "Homebound" series.  Germany is opening up - most shops can be open, some factories have returned to limited production, rules are in place for masks and continued social distancing, but the hubby and I will still follow the "hunker down" rules for a few more weeks, just to be on the safe side.  

But we've never been really homebound - we could always get out to purchase food and exercise; fresh air is a balm.  Often, our walks start in the cemetery that's just behind our little house.

You've seen posts about cemeteries and gravestones if you've been reading this blog.  They're quite different here compared to most in the US - they're more like the old-fashioned church cemeteries with headstones and  little plots and they are usually carefully tended and decorated with shrubs and flowers, sometimes with mementoes. It's a peaceful, interesting place to wander.

More folks these days are opting for either anonymous burials, where the urn is placed in the ground but there's no marker for the individuals, or a "group" plot where you get a marker. Those smaller marble posts each have several names on them.

But what's REALLY different here is, in almost all cemeteries, families rent the site.  The rental period lasts 15 to 30 years and if you don't renew the lease, the headstone is discarded, the grave cleaned up and made available to the next soul.  Of course, the practice started because Europe is a small place and they were running out of space, but it is also expensive for families, or in other cases, there's no remaining family to pay the lease.  These days, too, fewer people belong to the church, more people decide to be cremated, and there are other options than the standard burial plot.  We've bought a place in a forest, for example.

So, when the lease is up they clean out and clean off the plot. (They figure the corpse has been naturally recycled by that time....)

Often, there are shrubs - boxwoods, evergreens, smaller plants. We've rescued more than a few and decorated our yard as well as some others with boxwoods, rhododendrons, poppies, decorative grasses, heather, but if we don't grab it and save it, it all gets thrown into the big container that gets hauled away when it's full.

Yesterday, getting ready to walk, I took a peek at the container where I find these occasional treasures, and something bright red caught my eye - an azalea!  Wow - it had just been dug up and was big and heavy but on the wrong side of the container. The nice gardener helped me fish it out.  

And here it is, in an amazing clash of colors with the blooming lilacs. Later, the spiderwort in the front of the pot will add another purple. I hope that with lots of water and nice soothing words it will survive the transition from Friedhof to Topf (from the cemetery to a pot) and enjoy its new lease on life.   

Homebound 1.4

Not sure exactly why I'm numbering the blogs this way, and I'm not sure when 2.0 should appear.  After four weeks?  The next month?  Is there a rule about numbering?  I think I'll go with four-week intervals.  

We're talking chocolate now.  Werner told me he read that the consumption of chocolate has gone up noticeably these last few weeks of the quarantine.  Guilty of contributing to that!

A couple of weeks ago I made brownies.  I swear, they were magic and disappeared. Fast. It was a miracle they lasted as long as they did. 

Then the folks who make Ritter Sport conspired with the Coronavirus, reduced their prices to 75 eurocents a bar.  We stocked up. (Confession: a few are missing in this picture.)

Easter!  Chocolate bunnies!  We never got out the decorated eggs this year, so I instructed Werner to buy a couple of Lindt bunnies (dark) just to decorate. He came back with mommy, daddy and five little ones. We're down to mommy and daddy and they don't have long. Please ignore the white pupils of the bunny eyes.  Werner thought the solid brown eyes were empty looking. Now they look a bit crazed to me, but what do I know. (And there's Werner, ghosting in the mirror.  How weird.)

And now it's after Easter, and the stuff that didn't sell is 50% off - so gotta snatch up those marzipan eggs. 

Pluses:  Chocolate is good for you.  Minuses:  None.  

Home Bound 1.3

It's Good Friday.  All the shops are closed, not just the ones that are non-essential, since today is a federal holiday.  I'll skip the oft-mentioned confluence of church and state here and just say, you don't do  w o r k  today.  No washing, no gardening, no thing that makes noise or could disturb your neighbor, literally or figuratively.  

So, a good day for another long walk, and especially so since it's sunny.  But we have to dress warmly, since it's not warmly today.

We had  a lot of back and forth between us about WHERE before we ever got out of the house, but we finally decided on going to the Teufelsmoor (the Devil's Moor), not too far away, but far enough away that we think we won't run into lots of folks. Social Distancing is required here.

Since we'd scarfed down the brownies I'd baked just the other day, I made another apple cake to get us through. We made a little sandwich, sliced some tomatoes, put some cake in a container, made some tea. WE ARE PREPARED.

HAHAHAHAHAHA.

Getting to the starting point is no prob and we disembark the car and start and Werner says: Have you got the tea?  Yes.  Have you got the food?  WHAT?  S***.  Didn't you?  No.  Didn't you? No.....

We laugh - or to tell the truth, Werner laughs - and we go on.  Because there is no going back.

It's only an hour-plus walk, starting on nice brickways.  First, herringbone,

then straight works,

later just dirt. It's quite amazing that so many bricks were made and laid for roads so seldom used.  Hundreds of thousands of bricks, placed by hand, for a few farmers.  AND maintained.  These roads have been here for decades...

Walking is easy because it's the moor, so it's very flat.  Earlier, these fields were used to harvest peat.  Not much grows here and folks had a hard, hard time making a living cutting the peat that went to the city to be burned to heat their homes. These days, the fields are often used to grow hay for the cows.

Birch trees love this loamy soil and they make lovely views.

Along the way there was a house that was fairy-like.  Or maybe Hobbit-like. Isn't that gate just perfect?

We got about 2/3 through our planned walk and hit a virtual wall. The book said Go Right and the sign said Private-No Entrance.  In front, barbed wire. Well, our little guide book is from 1998.  Maybe things are different these days.

Since we didn't have food, we took a sip of our tea and took the same way back, with a slight detour along another peat way.

We could glimpse into the former fields where the peat was harvested, but it's now overrun with young birch and wild blueberry bushes.

 It's a wild place, and Werner seems to remember a poem for all sorts of situations.

 Really - he quotes poems.  This one is 

The Boy on the Moor

How dreadful it is to go over the moor
When it is teeming with will o' the wisps
And mists are whirling like phantoms
As brambles are hooking on bushes.
A pool springs up below each of his steps
When from the cleft it hisses and sings
How dreadful it is to go over the moor
When the reed beds are rustling in wind!

I am not kidding, he recited the main part of it.  On the moor.  To me. Of course, he did it in German, but really, I am impressed and moved.

And we have a souvenir. A birch bark. It will find a place on our deck.Probably as a cover for a  pot.

Back to the car and back home.  The sun was still out, so we sat on our deck and ate our picnic!!!  It was still tasty.

What a day.  

Home Bound 1.2

This came the other day with the newspaper:  We're staying at home it says. We can't do a lot - basically go shopping for food, take walks or bike - so we do spend most of our time at home.

But we are busy.  Spring cleaning continues unabated!  LR done.  Kitchen done, DR done.  Study done,  Bath done.

The kitchen?  Now it sparkles.

Bath?  Yes, that too.  Of course it gets cleaned regularly, but when did you last go through all the drawers and such?  The make up stuff and the out-dated creams of this and that?

Werner's been working on a clock or two.

And I have been sewing masks for friends and for ourselves. Next week, it will be for the local nursing home.

But today, we took a break and took a long walk while keeping our distance, of course.  First, we took the car for a "walk" since it's been used so seldom the last four weeks! We took it to Ritterhude, a small town nearby, to walk near the Hamme River.

 We parked at the train station and walked a bit through neighborhoods before we got to the countryside.  I liked this sign on a house we passed. Wonder if it works.

It was mild today -  about 60° - and bright sunny as you can see from our shadows.

We walked past newly turned fields, an old water mill, and the Hamme River, where we paused for banana bread and tea.

The bridge over the river is narrow, just one car (or tractor) wide, though I'm not sure we saw any cars today - just walkers and bikers.

People lose things along the way.  We've seen gloves left on benches, hats left on posts, scarves on the path.  This was a first, though. Yes, it's a bra.

And finally, we were back in town, coming in right at the old Manor House.  It's not as old as some but it has a moat. 

So, 7+ kilometers later, we're back at the car and drive back home, well aired, refreshed but tired.  Back to the sewing machine now.

Home Bound

How quickly things change.  We retired folks aren't busy all the time, but a good bit what with teaching classes and taking classes, doing work outs and the marketing and the biking and the visiting.

Cross most of that from the list.  We still have to go to the market of course.  Gotta eat.  And we'll bike to get there.  All the rest you can forget. No one knows how long the Corona virus will keep us home-bound, but certainly for the immediate future.

What to do, what to do!?  There's always a list and high up on that list was finishing the re-upholstery of  Werner's grandfather's chair.  I don't seem to have a pic of it all by itself (why would I?) but this gives you an idea - sorta yellow, not very interesting cover.  It was sturdy though; we did this cover in 1994.

We bought the new fabric for the chair and other fabric for the side chairs a good three years ago, but somehow, time got away from us.  Then it caught us.

Off with the old.

The old brown stuff on the wings is from before the yellow stuff.  I have no idea when that was done.

After taking off the old upholstery, I used those pieces for the pattern.

Before recovering, we had to re-tie the springs. NOT A FUN TASK. Scraped hands and frustration but a much better seat.

Some parts are easier than others.  The seat and back are not bad.  Fitting the fabric onto the curved wings is a challenge, so that took a week or more, letting it sit while I thought and tinkered.

The side arms turned out to be a bit of a bear, too, but that was finally conquered.

And now it's done (except for attaching the trim).  I splurged and bought a William Morris needlepoint kit I've had my eye on for a while, and it will be a lovely accent when it's done.

How great a job did we do?  Not a 10 but a good solid 8.5.

Rainy Day Outing

It seems there have been lots and lots of rainy days, and there have been! In February we had three times the usual amount of rain, and March seems to be heading in the same direction. 

So, after breakfast (a very late one...) we headed to town to check the exhibit at the Weserburg, the contemporary art museum here in Bremen.   

They were taking a look back at some 25 years of works that have been shown at the museum. I have mixed reactions to these very contemporary pieces - some are interesting, some are IMHO just a useless use of space.There was some of both here.

"Totems", the title of this work.  From a distance I thought it was blocks of wood.  No, charred books. For those of us who have a hard time recycling books, even those of little value, this was disturbing.

The spaces are interesting - rooms of different sizes, some quite small, others imposing.

This piece, a limp pickle-looking sculpture, suggested several interpretations according to the note on the wall.  Use your imagination.

Part of the impetus for the visit - besides the weather - was a permanent collection of a local artist.  We've seen his work in other places and like it. This one is whimsical for him, but very appealing to me, as you can imagine.

100 Pepsi cans, an homage to the artist's mother who was a naturalized American citizen and celebrated her new country every day by drinking a can of Pepsi.  Go figure.

Sometimes, a piece can make me laugh out loud.  Note the shoe toes under the curtain.  Kinda creepy, too.

What can you say about two Playmate coolers at either end of a white arc?  I only know they were imported, because I have never seen them for sale here in Germany.  Send any thoughts you may have.

One of the last pieces we looked at was one of the most interesting.  A Cabinet of Written Pictures.  Read the words and let the picture form in your mind.   A life remembered as if lit by the moon.  A day travelling at 59 seconds per minute.  A mirror that lost the confidence to stare back.

Thoughts for a rainy day.

I confess I miss the meaning or intention of many of these works, but certainly the artists have poured heart and soul into them.  I should have asked the woman in the iridescent layered tulle skirt to explain them to me....