3 beers ビール3本 ?

14th March 2025 年3月14日

You know the way crispbread often has a smooth side and a side full of holes - all bumpy- like?

When I was a little boy we lived down the end of a very bumpy unmade road. It was actually the access road for a water mill, which was was still in use at the time. At some point my mother suddenly discovered Ryvita. This was a crispbread made from rye and meant to be healthy. But to us youngsters it was without doubt the most boring and horrible invention possible. However my mother would ask "which side do you want your butter on? Ruckford Mill or Malthouse Lane?..." I would ask for Ruckford Mill, because that was the side alluding to the bumpy, potholed road - the side you would get more butter and jam on, if you see what I mean. Malthouse Lane was simply the normal adjoining road.

Nothing much has changed today....

As a violin maker I take tools from many other crafts. The little mirror from the dentist, the caliper from the metal worker; the tuning fork from the musician...the list is endless. However today was a new one : a brush from a nail design studio. We have to very selective. Synthetic brushes are useless. We have to have natural hair from the Pine Martin. Don't scream - I know it sounds odd. But how else can we restore the varnish on a 200 yr-old violin?

Pompous buildings I have seen this week:

Bad Homburg: I was walking to a Japanese (it turned out to be Korean) sushi restaurant to meet some friends when I passed this....A Russian Orthodox chapel

Frankfurt: I was walking to choir practice the other day and I passed this: The Alte Oper. Note the poor guy on his bike delivering food to some lazy customers.....

Göttingen: No, I wasn't actually here, and the building can hardly be called pompous. But it's a good shot, taken by a mischievous musician who shall remain anonymous. He was asking me about the black double bass in the picture. But what I saw was a drinks cabinet disguised as a bass. The owner is obviously checking the order with his colleagues - "that's 3 beers then?"

Strikes. The only reason I was walking past the Alte Oper was because the U-Bahn and buses were on strike. How tedious. And a meal rendevous with friends has had to be postponed for the same reason. No ordinary meal. A Nepalese meal in fact. But Tomoko-san has one up on us. She is actually in Nepal. Following a trail through the mountains at 3.500 metres.....! Looks challenging......

Near Sama village, on the Manaslu Trail, Nepal. ネパール、マナスルトレイルのサマ村付近

Now who would want to get up at 8 'o clock on a Sunday morning, pack some sandwiches and a thermos flask into a rucksack, put on walking shoes and head for the railway station? A surprising number of people in my life it seems. And for most of the time they leave their phones in their rucksacks (apart from the odd check on the route, or maybe the time of the return train) Result? People talk to each other 🗣️.

One of the saddest sights for me these days is when you walk down a train carriage looking for a seat.

Me: "Excuse me....do you think you could move your leg over so that I can sit down here?....."

Youth sprawled over a seat :"....er....um.....(removing headphones)....oh, yeah......(puts headphones back on)...."

Zombies, nearly all of them.

However: I can't help but notice a backlash happening. Especially amongst the Gen. Z.

Real books have appeared, and it is still ok to just look out of the window.

End of rant.

Time for a photo of an eye-catching market place in a town called Gross Umstadt (is it pompous?)

As you can guess, It was a hike that brought me here. But what an unusual town. It's south east of Darmstadt on the edge of the Odenwald. It obviously has a prosperous past (that's quite a town hall!),