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.....

Welcome Summer Cycle Trip

When I woke up on Sunday morning, the sky was blue, the sun was shinning and it was warm enough to wear shorts, a top and no socks! For this summer feeling I've been waiting for weeks! We decided to take some food for a picknick and cycle along the river. 

The sky was dotted by tiny clouds and there were more boats on the river than cyclists on the path. Some grain fields already looked as golden as in high summer. 

In Bodenwerder we had a longer break for our picknick and then went to a beer garden for drinks as we had used up most of our water and still had to cycle back.

Harbour Festival

On Saturday the harbour club had it's annual summer festival with several bands on a swimming stage. As we had been busy at home, we missed the first bands, but enjoyed "7bucks a week" and  "Drunk Monkeys on Crack", sitting at the bank of the harbour and also watching the play of clouds.

Home of the harbour club is a house boat "The task". There are often jam sessions, but so far we haven't managed to go to any of the events on the boat. One day we will.....

The Task:

7 bucks a week

Visitors on another boat house

Drunk Monkeys on Crack

Degustation Festival

Many of my readers know, that I work in a wine shop. There I often have to try small quantities of wine to get to know it. Sometimes I get some to take home to taste it with different foods. It's very exciting. Learning the customers tasts and selling them the perfect wine ist a real skill. 

My husband prefers beer - but learned to enjoy some good wine as well. For many years he has brought selections of different beers as single bottles home and he collects the tops.

This past weekend we had the first beer festival in town. There were more than 200 different beers waiting to get tasted! Well, our tongue can't remember too many different explosions, so I planned 5 different beers a day at the festival and one or two to take home. Actually we managed 18 beers in 3 days. 

Most breweries only had large glasses, so I brought my own small one and always got a sip from my husband. This way we both stayed almost sober and still could cycle home.

On top of all this exciting tasting my boss had asked me to assist him at a wine tasting at work on Saturday night. That day I was extremely careful at the beer festival, had some food at home and cycled to work at 6 pm. This tasting was a birthday party and the guests tasted 7 different wines. As I had to talk about some of the wines I had some sips as well. Luckily my boss and I were invited to the buffett the party had brought along and I felt fine. Not just that evening, but also on Sunday. It was a real adventure for my tongue - and liver, I suppose - but drinking sensibly I never felt drunk.

Mind you - I don't need any alcohol for some time now!