Extended Christmas

As our children had both spent much time abroad in 2015 and we also had our holiday in Ireland - I invited our whole family for Boxing Day, so we could show photos and tell about our adventures. As we had just an extended breakfast, there wasn't too much work and it was a wonderful relaxed day! Mind you - all food except honey and milk was vegan!!

Because of this unusual Boxing day we had our anual Christmas Dinner on the 27th of December - it still felt like Christmas. Afterwards my family had to accompany me on a 3 hour drive through wonderful country side to Peine where the Christmas market was still open - and John Kelly and his wife Maite Itoiz were giving a very special concert of Old Music, just the 2 of them. Some people had expected John's sister Maite Kelly who often is on TV and were disappointed. But the fans of John and Elfenthal enjoyed a very special evening.

The concert was interrupted when some chimes at the town hall played Christmas songs. Maite & John invited the audience to sing along and joined in themselves - although Maite doesn't really know the lyrics of German songs as she grew up in Spain. Still it was fun - have a look here.

This is one of their more famous songs, click here.

After the concert most of the audience stayed for autographs and photos together with Maite and John. I already have my pics with them, but had brought some home made cookies for Maite. She was delighted! 

Leaving Peine we made a little detour as we had our daughter's bulky Xmas presents in the car and took the stuff to her besitter in Hannover. So it was a very full day with plenty of lovely memories.

A very special Christmas Market

 Plenty of space in front of the stage.

Dortmund in Germany has a very special Christmas market. As part of the Fredenbaumpark with a lake and wonderful old trees it looks like a place from fairy tales, where Haensel and Gretel might get lost. 

Beside plenty of food and drink stalls with an unbelieving number of hot drinks, many craft people are selling their exceptional creations. Like hand painted leather goodies or decorations or hand made jewelry. 4 years ago I bought a wonderful wooden coat at this event, that still pulls all the looks of other visitors on my back. As such crafts are often unique, most owners don't like cameras capturing their ideas - so you have to go to Dortmund yourself to find out!

As I was working there in my own little tent selling CDs, Shirts and Elventears for Dunkelschoen, I had little time to take in everything. But I did take a few pictures.

If you like to travel or live near Dortmund you really should visit this Phantasy Lights Christmas Market. It's open from Thursday till Sunday for the next 3 weekends, on 26th and 27th of December and for New Year's Eve until 3rd of January. Of course there are always live bands playing. Find out more here.

 Pottery and much more for sale.

 Plenty of fires to feel warm and comfortable

 ....or rest in one of the huge tents.

 If there are no Xmas trees left, this sheep ate them all

 Santa was there already.

 My working place.

Dunkelschoen on stage.

You find more photos here

Or watch this Video
  

Incredible madness - for the fun of others

When have you been to a live concert? Local band or big stars? Whatever you paid - it wasn't just for the musicians! The big stars have plenty of staff and can concentrate on their performance, but if only the stars would be on stage, there would be few concerts....

The band of my heart will be at a huge festival for Halloween. I don't want to know what it takes to organise a festival with 40 bands! But I can tell you what it takes for one of the bands to play twice for 75 minutes together.

The workload of the band starts the evening before, when the rented transporter has to be collected and packed with hundreds of important small and big things: not just instruments, but technical equipment, plugs, decoration, costumes......it takes about an hour to pack.

The next morning the musicians meet, some coming several hundred km/miles. Together they set off with the transporter and one other car, at least. The technican usually takes the train - so do I, except next time when I could walk if it wasn't for all the stuff I'm taking along. 

After 300 km more they hopefully arrive after 3 hours or more on the motor way. Again it takes an hour to unpack and prepare the instruments, so it won't take more than an hour to get everything on stage and working.

I'm spending this time preparing the merchandise for sale. Unpacking takes under an hour - when tables and electricity are waiting for me. Often I have to look for the people in charge to find tables and cables first.

After these 5 - 7 hours the band finally will be on stage - for 30 minutes! Then they have to hurry to get everything down again as the next band is waiting to get onto stage. Everything back into the van, three hours of waiting and the whole equipment onto a boat!

There won't be any space for merchandise on the ship, so I'll get a stall in a tent on shore. This time the band will play 45 minutes. And pack again. 

Hopefully there'll be some energy left for a little party at the hotel. Next morning the musicians have to travel home again, 3 - 4 hours and some more to their homes. The transporter has to be unpacked and returned. By the time everything and everyone is where it belongs, it'll be Saturday evening. 

This is the story of just one band - not counting all the hands, staff, catering etc. 

Do you think, it's worth to pay 65 € for enjoying 40 bands on two days? How much should the musicians get?

A Medieval weekend with my Harp

During the past months I've been to many medieval festivals and there are still loads of photos waiting to get sorted. The chances that someone is interested to see my memories are small, so I decided to tell you just about a special place.

This tiny town (not village!) used to be a border town in northern Bavaria when Germany was divided by a border. On top of a hill are the ruins of an medieval castle and under the ground are still old mines. 15 years ago some inhabitants decided to have a medieval festival at the place of the castle and it grew larger over the years. 

I've been to the town several times for concerts of Dunkelschoen and Elfenthal and made friends there. Those friends had asked me every year to come for their medieval highlight of the year. This year I had no other engagement on this date and decided to go just for the fun of being with friends. Then I had the idea, to take my harp along - just for giving the visitors another medieval instrument to admire - and to practise with distractions around me.

One of my friends collected my harp and me from the nearest train station across the border and also had a guest room to stay.  Early on Saturday morning we walked to the market where the festival began. After I had tuned my harp, I took my camera for a stroll first. There were plenty of stalls and camps with knights of different areas everywhere. 

5 bands were playing on two stages and in the street - many more than I had expected, so I found it rather difficult to find a quiet corner with a seat to play my harp. The other musicians were delighted to see my instrument and some tried to play along with me. (I better learn to play more medieval songs for next time.)

At noon there was a parade of all participants: musicians, knights, monks and other medieval dressed people.

After carrying my harp all over the place I found a quiet corner behind the tower in the camp of some knights. They even asked me to play up there! It turned out as a perfect place, as the visitors enjoyed the view up there and took time to listen. 

Obviously I was also a favorite motive for cameras! 

In the afternoon the place was packed with people and stayed that way until the night. I took the chance to visit the historic basements and watched the fire show. Some people celebrated until the early hours of the morning, but carrying the harp up and down the hills left me exhausted and I went "home" at 11 pm.

Sunday started with a mass in the castle shed with a rather young but clever pastor - he held his sermon with rhymes! For lunch we had a traditional food of this event: potato ball in a sauce of sour mushrooms - delicious!

After another parade I watched a medieval punishment - a butcher, who had put too much water into his sausages was put into a cage and dipped into the fountain.

As I was one of the musicians, I was invited to free food and drinks into the staff basement under the castle shed. It felt like real medieval times down there! Since the servants who provided the food and did the dishes there missed all the fun outside, I took my harp into the basement when the festival had ended to say thank you. 

Then it was time to put the harp back into her case and carry it to my friend's home for the last night of my short holiday. 

Have a look at the parade!

You want to see more pictures - click here 

 

7 months in the blink of an eye

In January we sent our youngest daughter away to Ireland where she looked after 3 adorable kids, made international friends and travelled a lot all over the country as an aupair.

Since then life has been busy - and now she already is back after 7 months of Irish adventures. She flew back to Germany on Sunday but stayed with friends for the night on her way home. On Monday I was waiting for her at the station. Usually we stay in the car when we collect someone at the station, but knowing that our daughter had far too much luggage on her shoulders, I went up to the platform.

Arriving home, there was a very special welcome from our 4 pawed neighbour:

While I had little laundry during the past months, this is changing now again:

And after living of Guinness on the green isle, our youngest was thirsty for a Bavarian beer - without alcohol at noon.

Later on she enjoyed my home made chocolate cake

As I remember well my homesickness for Ireland after returning to Germany when I was our daughter's age, I bought some essential food:

Today we had real Irish food for dinner: real Irish potatoes with ham and cabbage.

Now we get all the information about the every day life and adventures bit by bit - and I forget all my house work.

Unpredictable summer

In our part of Germany the weather is throwing real tantrums this summer. There are occasional summer days with bright sunshine, blue sky and some heat. But the next day you might need socks and a hoody again. Or the sky is dark grey and the air is sticky. All this can also happen within one day.

Luckily the days I'm travelling and enjoying outdoor festivals have been fine so far. Last Saturday I had planned to go to a medieval festival around some castle ruins where I haven't been before. But then I had to work all day. (Another story) This was quite lucky as the festival had to be cancelled for that day due to the storm Zeljko blowing over northern Germany.

Many other events were cancelled like open air cinema at the park in town and camping grounds were cleared. Cycling home after work was difficult and slow - still I arrived before the storm hit our village - just in time. We had visitors and instead of having a cosy evening in the garden, we had comfortable hours sitting in our kitchen, eating, drinking and talking. 

On Sunday I showed our visitors my favorite park - and there we saw the wounds the storm has left behind:

Autumn storms are the rule - but then the trees don't have strong leaves to get ripped of. At least the dwarfs had lived through the storm or were already rescued by the time we passed by.

Right now the sky is blue and the sun is out, but still it looks like wearing warm jumpers outside.....