Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas to everybody and especially the left-behinds in Germany in cold rain, grey skies and no snow.
Sunshine, 30 degrees Celsius and time for flipflops and bare toes here!
Santa was very good to me and brought the D810. Not that I need it... very happy nevertheless. And no one can be blamed for bad pictures now - except me!

..although unfortunately, at the moment it looks like no pictures here at all :(:(.  wifi is so slow, that I have so far been unsuccessful to upload any picture. The planned Burma travelogue will have to wait...

Weihnachtsgänse

This year one of these geese won't be eaten! The kitchen will stay cold and we will be travelling to the "travel destination of the year": Myanmar. I hope to come back with lots of great pictures!

Shopping shopping ..shopping ....shop..pp..in..ggg.. ggrrrrrr....

Please excuse if I am a bit diverted at the moment, I have some serious shopping to do ...
                                                             

                                                                           Christmas shopping

So if you end up like this:

Go home, have a rest:                                                                                                                  and a tea!

Foods' Games

"Don't play around with food, think of the poor children in India, who would love to have your food", my mother used to say. That must have been in the 1960s and 70s, and still there are too many hungry or malnourished children on this earth. Rest assured, all the food stuffs in these pictures were eaten - except the thing in the wine glass. It is a visualization of a memorable wine tasting  we had a long time ago with a very expensive Chateauneuf-du-Pape. As a horse woman I found that scent very familiar if slightly out of place.

                                                                            Foods' Games

Some of the pictures were shown in an exhibition "Aus Küche und Keller" in 2013 in Bad Homburg's Volkshochschule.

Dance!

I love dancing. I learned classical ballroom dances, performed country dances on Ceilidhs and in British country house fairs in costumes during my time as a student in East Anglia, and had great fun doing some artistic gymnastic Rock and Roll.

Unfortunately, married women are not supposed to dance with anyone else who is any good at it - unless they don't mind ugly scenes and marriage counselling. Luckily, my oldest son is a good dancer. And we can take pictures of dancers and dream up as many imaginary dances as we want. Enjoy!

Dance!

Paul Gerhardt

As I grew up as a reverend's daughter I had to visit church on Sundays regularly during childhood. Although I liked my father's sermons, I went for the music. My favourite composer of church music is Paul Gerhardt (1607-1676), who has written many Lieder of the Evangelische Gesangbuch, our main book of church music. "Geh aus mein Herz und suche Freud"  is my favourite.
(Go forth, my heart, and seek delight.. a full free rough translation can be found here: http://www.ccel.org/ccel/kelly/gerhardtsong.h62.html)

                                                                                   My Favourite ...

It has many stanzas but the one for gardeners is especially uplifting:


Die Bäume stehen voller Laub,
das Erdreich decket seinen Staub
mit einem grünen Kleide.
Narzissus und die Tulipan,
die ziehen sich viel schöner an
als Salomonis Seide.



(... this reminds me, that I should produce a "tree"-Series ... working on it)




And for musicians the following stanza applies:

Ich selber kann und mag nicht ruhn,
des großen Gottes großes Tun
erweckt mir alle Sinnen;
ich singe mit, wenn alles singt,
und lasse, was dem Höchsten klingt,
aus meinem Herzen rinnen.







But what on earth could he have meant with this? The "Lustgeschrei" must have meant something different in the 17th century...

Die Bächlein rauschen in dem Sand
und malen sich an ihrem Rand
mit schattenreichen Myrten;
die Wiesen liegen hart dabei
und klingen ganz vom Lustgeschrei
der Schaf und ihrer Hirten.





By the way: Paul Gerhardt worked as deacon in the Nikolaikirche, Berlin  for a while, now a museum.

Nikolaikirche

Berlin ist immer eine Reise wert ...

Berlin - the most interesting youthful cosmopolitan rapidly changing and most unsnobbish metropolis. There is no need to write anything about its history, no kings or queens left and still quite socialist but very liveable.  "Poor but sexy" used to be the city's slogan, which is not true any more - still sexy but not poor. A photographer's paradise, old and new architecture, forgotten buildings, graffiti everywhere, a thriving young international artists' and start-up scene.
Berlin

Lighthouses

Ever since I saw the first Edward Hopper painting some 35 years ago and bought a print of  "Lighthouse at two lights" I have been collecting lighthouses in my photographs. Whatever the deeper meaning, having a lighthouse braving every storm and shining a light from the distance is always helpful on your way.  Lighthouses

Upstairs Downstairs

Staircases are interesting photographic sujets. They lend a natural depth and repetitive visual motif. Depending on how you feel, you can climb up onto the roof and search for or become an angel or walk down to the basement and meet the devil. And on your way -  or to help you make the decision - you can make detours and visit all the other imagined rooms with picture galleries.

Upstairs Downstairs

Cupid & Psyche

I have a faible for Antonio Canova, the Venetian sculptor (1757-1822) and his neoclassical marble works. My love affair started with a sculpture of a perfect couple (Cupid and Psyche) that I found in the Eremitage in St Petersburg, where she gives him her heart, puts her heart in his hands - or so I thought. When I met them again in Frankfurt's Staedel, where the miraculous Max Hollein had arranged a loan, I saw that she is actually giving him a butterfly, but never mind. Maybe she is of a flighty disposition.

From there I have searched for more Canovas and especially Cupid and Psyches and found them everywhere, in all centuries from 400 BC to now, in sculpture, paintings, household items, in London, Edinburgh, New York, Frankfurt, Paris ... . My favourite sculpture is the one in the Louvre. I am not alone in this - this beautiful piece of art is always surrounded by hordes of tourists so I was glad I could take this picture.   Cupid & Psyche

My favourite .... Ohrwürmer

These images are creations around music, classical pieces and songs of past and present which evoke vivid fond memories for me. These pictures are made to keep those pleasant memories alive. So, get yourself a Christmas present and listen to Chopin's Piano Concertos - best seems to be the recording of Deutsche Grammophon with Krystian Zimerman and the Polish Festival Orchestra from 1999.

My Favourites ...

Some of these pictures have been used commercially. "For your eyes only" was on the front page of a music festival programme in Northern Germany.

"Riding Couple"

My favourite painting is Wassiliy Kandinsky's "Riding Couple". I saw it first in 1985 in Norwich, where I spent a year as an exchange student. The original is in the Museum Lenbachhaus in München and I have visited it lots of times. Looking at it, I thought what a enviable close relationship those two riders must have, they look to each other and seem lost to the world riding through a birch grove on a Russian river bank with the city in the back. Eloping?  - and the next moment my sensible me tells me that those two riders will probably be thrown off at the next tree or down into the Moskwa or at least get bruised by brushing trees because none of them is looking ahead. Horses are able to find their own way - and this horse seems to walk in perfect pose - but hardly ever do they take heed of the rider's width and height on a narrow path and knees and more will be bruised. I speak from experience; I have been through lots of dense forest on the back of my horses in Germany. And I would not want the riders to suffer Absalom's fate ...
Still - it is my favourite picture and I imagine a perfect world, where all the white birches wave their lofty branches and yellow leaves and make way to let the couple pass unharmed.

Kandinsky : Reitendes Paar
                                                                                     

Franzi (Photo essay)

It is always amazing to watch the veterinarian enter the liquid from a test tube into the back of a mare, wait for eleven months and be presented with a wonderful lively complete and friendly filly. This is the story of Franzi's coming into existence until her first birthday in May 2014.

Kilara - my mare (father: Kolibri, show jumper) - and Chic - my dressage horse, a gelding. Both have been very close friends for a long time.

For Edition, the stallion chosen as father for Kilara's foal.

Chic and Kilara: even with a gelding one can have some fun

 Kilara at ten and a half months, nine days before delivery.

 Franzi is just born! The embryonic membrane is still on her face, over her ears and eyes. The nose is free.

The Scene: We had built a provisional extra large foaling box because this was the first foal to be born in our stable. Chic was "next door" to give support; I slept in the stable for three nights, so that I could call the doctor in case of an emergency. Everything went perfectly fine and according to book. Here Kilara gets up after the birth and Franzi makes first efforts.

Kilara licks her daughter dry and eats the embryonic membrane - the only "meat" the vegetarian horses naturally eat. Chic's behaviour was amazing and exemplary. He was quiet and watchful throughout the birth but gave dark low supportive whinnies when Kilara nudged her daughter to get up and tried to direct her to find the udder.

After a few efforts and crashes Franzi is up!

First day in safe surroundings in the riding hall. Franzi is training her legs, Kilara is busy following her and watching over her as any new mother would. You see her front legs here a bit X-shaped. Franzi was born 10 days early, her ligaments and joints were a bit too weak, so she had to rest a lot and was not allowed out of the box for more than a couple of hours per day as not to overexert her legs and to allow them to grow firm and straight.
We observed some amazing behaviour in educating her daughter: the first days she had been running after her filly who explored her surroundings without restraint. On the fourth day Kilara took her daughter around the riding hall on the hoofbeat seemingly remembering her own schooling. She went around and around in walk, trot and canter, changing speed occasionally and took care that Franzi followed her on the spot.

After four days indoors her first day out on the paddock - legs too long to graze!

Kilara continued to be an attentive mother on the paddock with other horses. One day she did not allow her daughter to play with her friend but was biting her away. We were concerned and did not understand this behaviour, until we saw that the other foal had a festering eye infection and a runny nose. Maybe she wanted to avoid contagion?

She is always spirited and energetic trying to entice her companions to play.
 Healthy young lady with completely fine and straight legs!