Snow Schmow

http://fr.wikipedia.org

So there we were: Walking to work.  

AGA suggested taking a camera with us because it was snowing and we could get some photographs for my blog:

The large flakes of snow, falling gently to earth, lent a magical air to the proceedings, despite the fact that it was freezing.   I was even feeling good enough to allow AGA to take my photo:

As we got nearer to our place of work I put the camera away and we chatted about the day and how pleased we were that the following week was half term holiday. . .

Then I stepped on a large piece of plastic hidden by the newly fallen snow.  

The next thing I knew I was laying flat on my back involuntarily making a snow angel!

I was so lucky that AGA was with me as I don't think that I could have got up by myself at that moment, having hit my head on the pavement in the process of falling.

Without going into all the details, I hurt my hip and suffered mild concussion.  I didn't have to stay in the hospital (although I was obliged to go there for a check) but I did have to stay home for the rest of the day and the next, however there was to be no computer, no TV and no watching DVDs.

I didn't mind so much as I was allowed to read and loving reading as I do, it was like experiencing guilt free laziness: reclining on the sofa, drinking tea and reading (or sleeping) all day long - and all on doctor's orders!

And it extended into the next day too, with my employers telling me to stay home and rest.

So I did.

* * * *

Lots of thoughts milled around my head - some of it revolving around the fact that I have always disliked the snow...

I'm not sure whether I have told you before but the place where we live is called Kaiserswerth.  It is an ancient settlement dating back to at least the 7th Century, when the English missionary Swidbert (known in German as Suitbertus) was given Kaiserswerth and asked to set up a small monastery there.

All sorts of things have happened since that time: Friedrich Barbarossa built a huge fortress here, the town was invaded at various times by the Spanish, the Hessians, the Brandenburgers, the Dutch and the French.  Napoleon was here.  So was Florence Nightingale.  American soldiers were here too, towards the end of WWII.  King Heinrich IV was kidnapped from Kaiserswerth by the archbishop of Koeln during a palace power struggle in the Middle Ages; and the town was given control of the lucrative collection of tolls on the Rhein.

And during all that time Kaiserswerth was an island.  At its peak it looked liked this:

(This photograph comes from the Kaiserswerther Brudershaft (www.kaiserswerther-bruderschaft.de). and I have seen the original painting displayed within the shoeshop in the High Street.)

Nowadays, Kaiserswerth looks like this.  You can see the now-ruined Barbarossa's fortress in the foreground on the river bank (It was blown up by the Spanish in 1702, or thereabouts): 

Both of these photographs comes from this website: http://www.bilderbuch-duesseldorf.de/Fotos/kaiserswerth

Kaiserwerth is no longer an island because (I am told) the Rhein silted up.  I don't know when this happened but in this photograph, the green belt that surrounds the town is the old river bed.  It goes all the way around and to enter Kaiserswerth, you cross a bridge that is near to the tall building on the right of the photo although now all that is below it is the town ditch which has been made into a park. 

Kaiserswerth is only about 28m above sea level.  The land is very flat which is ideal for bike riding.  

It is also ideal for flooding.

The water table is close to the surface and it doesn't taken much for it to cause problems.  Then we get this:

(http://kaiserswerth-aktuell.de/2011/01/rhein-hochwasser-duesseldorf)

The Rhein is on the left of the fencing.  The path along the town walls is (submerged) to the right.

And so all this snow falling, then melting and then being followed by more snow, is not helping matters.  On Saturday I went down to the Rhein to take a look:

It is getting higher - and faster too.  Those branches are the tops of the trees that border the small stony beaches that are visible in summer.  The pole in the top right photograph indicates where cars usually drive to board the ferry to the other side of the river...

The fields were the farmer keeps his horses in the summer, and where a few weeks earlier the children were whizzing about on their sleds, is now a large lake:

Our apartment building is at the back of old Kaiserswerth, where the town walls used to be.  It overlooks the old river bed.  Interestingly, water is appearing there too as the ground water rises from beneath the surface:

And directly opposite us, albeit 'down in the ditch' the water has suddenly appeared so that over the space of the week it has changed from a snowy place to walk the dog, to a series of serpentine ponds:

As long as it remains like this and doesn't get much higher and cause the town flood barriers to be set up, we will continue to find it all rather exciting. . .

And so, as the water rises, we seek comfort in simple things:

 Flowers: harbingers of Spring and the return of the sun.

And of course cups of tea . . . and home-made Eccles cakes (you just can't have enough of them at this time of year).

And cherry tart: 

(made by me!)

An old fashioned weekend

We have had an old fashioned weekend - old fashioned in the sense that we have no internet access...

It looks like we are going to have an 'old fashioned' week too - until we get the problem sorted out.

This has severely curtailed my ability to 'blog' and so, in the interim, we will have a series of wintery scenes for your amusement:

My walk home on Friday:



The view from our front door:

Our balcony:

What I needed after a sub-zero degrees visit to the shop just around the corner:

After a day of 'snow chaos' the clouds blew away:

The sun came out and the sky turned a brilliant blue:

 White bread - Yorkshire style.  I make two loaves every weekend:

It is 'a la Yorkshire' because it is made with milk.  Probably there are other names but having a largish Yorkshire component in my family I rather like that name. I made a lot of mince meat this weekend too and finished the Christmas Cake so all is sorted, or as they say in Germany: 'in ordnung'.

And finally this photo, taken from the sitting room window on Sunday morning:

I can still occasionally get online to view other people's blogs during my breaks at work.  Hopefully I will be back online very soon!

Child . . . Child . . .

Today I was feeling somewhat flat and listless.  At work I wore the mask, but underneath I felt out of sorts.  This wasn't made any better by an after work meeting.
When I finally arrived home I decided that while I waited for AGA to arrive, I would make a nice cup of tea, sit out on the balcony, and read my book.

This photograph was taken this afternoon by Kirk Dale

Cold Comfort Farm.

Have you read it?

I first read it in the 1990s and fell in love it.

It is an extremely amusing book.

I like it a lot.

The book was written by Stella Gibbons (1901-1989) and published in 1932.  In the following year it won the Prix Etranger for the Femina Vie Heureuse Prize which caused Virginia Woolf to utter some extremely waspish comments.
Seeing Virginia Woolf's feather's ruffled makes me happy too!

Cold Comfort Farm is a parody, a comedy laughing gentle at the writings of Thomas Hardy, D. H. Lawrence, and the rural dramas of the day - so full of angst and overwrought description, tedious in their long-windedness.

Here is the review printed at the back of my 2009, Penguin Books edition:

"When sensible, sophisticated Flora Poste is orphaned at nineteen, she decides her only choice is to descend upon relatives in deepest Sussex.  At the aptly named Cold Comfort Farm, she meets he doomed Starkadders, an eccentric group of relatives suffering from a wide variety of ailments.  But Flora loves nothing better than to organise other people.  Armed with common sense and a strong will, she resolves to take each of the family in hand.  A hilarious and merciless parody of rural melodramas, Cold Comfort Farm is one of the best-loved comic novels of all time."

Here is one quote for you:

(The scene is between Seth and his mother, Judith)

Judith's breath came in long shudders.  She thrust her arms deeper into her shawl.  The porridge gave an ominous leering heave; it might almost have been endowed with life, so uncannily did its movements keep pace with the human passions that throbbed above it.

'Cur', said Judith, levelly, at last, 'Coward! Liar! Libertine!  Who were you with last night?  Moll at the mill or Violet at the vicarage?  Or Ivy, perhaps, at the ironmongery?  Seth - my son . . . Her deep, dry voice quivered, but she whipped it back, and her next words flew at him like a lash.

'Do you want to break my heart?'

'Yes,' said Seth, with an elemental simplicity.

The porridge boiled over.

The book was made into a movie in 1995 which I have on DVD but while it is itself rather amusing; it lacks the wit, the comic description, and the word play that I love in the book.

Funny and witty, it is never cruel, and the ending is a happy one for everyone involved.

I recommend you to this book -

- and I recommend Stella Gibbons!

This photograph comes from the Australian Broadcasting Commission (ABC) Website