England and Scotland enjoyed - every minute

Second day of Whitsuntide - and meagre 6°Celsius!
Son and Daughter-in-Love are back from a trip through England and Scotland (where a friend married a Scotsman).
They know how to travel: with their beautiful Corvette from visiting Verdun via Calais to Dover, followed by a few days in London, then Oxford, Liverpool, Nottingham (the only day with rain, but nevertheless beautiful); then Glasgow, where the marriage took place in the Botanical Garden, though bride and bridegroom live in Edinburgh, which was the last stop on this travel.
(I become homesick when I listen to their tales!)

Power-spring

Just went to the gym this morning - outside it was rainy, cold and I almost regretted that my downy feather coat is at the dry cleaner's. (Well - not really - I was completely surprised, as every year, when I stemmed down the boxes with summer clothes from the high wardrobes: enough to protect me).
This at least I have learned in the last years: before running into a shop to buy a new white jackett, I have to LOOK into those boxes --- often there slumber already two or three jacketts and look as fresh as Sleeping Beauty when I kiss them back to life :-)
Our streets became green jungles over night - still - and here I use a word I learned from Rosemary - cladded in "chartreuse" - but quickly changing into routine-green.
And the beautiful chestnuts - so much a symbol of time for me - for time hurrying by (yes, yes, turn around and there lie brown gleaming chestnurs on the pavement!) - and yet also a symbol for life being a circle, coming up reliably with beauty in all four seasons.

St. Mamerus, St. Pancras and St. Servatius

You might have guessed: they are the "ice saints", usually between May 11 to May 13, but you can add "the cold Sophie" on May 15.
In Berlin the temperature accordingly changed from 27°C to 17 or even 14°C  - my flowers on the balcony defiantly curl their lips (at least the Lamiaceae or Labiatae, haha) and try to look unimpressed.
Me too.
Though writing "cold Sophie" triggered a memory from decades ago: as a faithful wife I always followed husband to the different cities where he worked at the university (and that was not the best for my career) - but once I stubbornly refused to. In Trier - that was well-known throughout Germany - in my governing authority reigned a woman (whom I knew personally) called "Cold Sophie" - so with a stiff upperlip I stayed in Mainz (for a while, till we went to another city).

A New Law

They are planning a new law here - and right they are:
They want to be able to punish people who take out their cellphone and take pictures of accidents - awful gazers, people evidently not being able to distinct between reality and TV.
Fire fighters and police complain about that for a long time - often they are hindered to reach a victim!
I avoid watching the news in TV (I read them in a newspaper), because I am repelled by those horrid pictures of poor people in pain - I feel helpless because I cannot help, but only stare, and the man with the camera doesn't help either. Of course it is one function of TV to raise attention to inhumanity and suppression - but I am speaking of week-end crashes (remember Jean-Luc Godard's film "Weekend" from 1969? I was so very young and shocked that I left the cinema in that middle of the "Black Comedy")  
In case of an accident I would want to keep my dignity (as far as possible) - and not appear on Youtube!  

Secret Floors

Yes - you can trust your eyes: it's me again. I revive this blog (just for the small notes, without having to look for a matching photograph...)

So: next time I am in London, I will look at a skyscraper with the knowledge, that One Canada Square officially has no Floor 13. (Read it in the Londonist).
And that reminds me that I will read Per Wahlöö again - "Murder on the 31. floor".
(Also a floor that did not exist).

PS: And after that I may plunge into the highest swimming pool in Western Europe... Guess? You find it on the Shard.

“With mirth and laughter let old wrinkles come.” Shakespeare

When I read Tom Stephenson's last post discussing i.a. approval, I thought: "Oh no - that's what I wanted to write about today!":
"I think that I don't do enough of this - it is far easier to say what you don't like than what you do. It is a myth that it takes more muscles to frown than it does to smile." 
That was exactly what I was thinking about my new blog. I noticed, looking at my three drafts - done in advance for "a rainy day"- that all three themes were - resentful, though always with a dollop of irony.
Is the short form tempting, or is it seeking approval by my followers, or is it simply easier to moan or grouse about something? The manners, the money, the state of affairs... 
I enjoy that in other posts, but this isn't me! Of course I see a lot that doesn't please me, I do not live in a bubble and my name is not Pollyanna, but I try hard to see what is good in our life.
Gladly I was born at a time when there was no abundance - I say gladly, because it was so much easier to be thankful for something you got after waiting for a long time (or you produced it yourself -  I like to work with my hands too), and to cherish it thus more and longer.
As in every blogger's life there is sun and rain in mine too - but I choose what I talk about.
And - as every woman knows: "The quickest facelift is a smile" :-)

Cabbage or Rose?

On Rachel's blog I read about Christmas in her childhood.
The moment she mentioned it, the strange sweet-cold smell of sugar beets that fell down from a lorry and burst into pieces filled my nose. I hadn't thought of it for ages.
Contrary to scientists I believe that one can remember smells - the dark-alluring smell of box in the sun, the mellow smell of warm mashed potatoes with milk and bran to feed sows, or foul water in rain barrels that weren't used permanently - but it is very difficult to describe them  (Well, Patrick Süßkind must have succeeded in "Perfume" - but that I never read).
"An idealist is one who, on noticing that roses smell better than a cabbage, concludes that it will also make better soup." wrote H.L.Mencken

PS: Strange: the date announcing my post is wrong (it is Sunday) - but then: Time... does it matter? Dissolves like smells...