2024年6月23日
Hey, just a minute............. I thought I ordered sandpaper........not sand.....😮
ちょっと待って、サンドペーパーを注文したと思ったんだけど…砂じゃなかった
But this is only a premonition of things to come. I am woken up at the next morning at 6.30 am by the thunder of diesel engines and an ominous crunching noise..........oh, it's the men in their yellow machines again.....but they are very precise and work quickly, so the work should be finished soon. It's a new water pipe.....
新しい水道管だと思う...
.........at least it was only a lorry. I didn't get a trainload......like this one you may witness on a cycle north of Langen.....
ランゲン周辺を自転車で走ると危険があります...
However, level crossings are only one of the many hazards for cyclists here. I recently got drenched cycling past a potato field in Egelsbach.......
私は濡れました ....
But there is much to admire at the edge of the fields.......cornflowers....
和名：ヤグルマギク（矢車菊）
or vetch.......
I have little time for recipes when I am hungry. I head for the fridge and have a poke around to see what is available. This evening I started with the idea of a hotpot - chucking in potatoes, onions, garlic, beans and carrots. Looks boring doesn't it?
お腹が空いたとき...
Aha, but you haven't seen my two secret weapons........ cooking Sake and miso paste.
I remember vaguely using these in a Ramen recipe, but now it was - hey! just splash some sake over some miso paste and heat it up.........wow, that really gave the dish an almighty kick.....mmmmmmmmmソースに何を使ったか見てください.....mmmmmmmmm😘
I needed something to eat after having spent a day in the hills.......near Otzberg in Odenwald to be precise....A feast of foxgloves again, this time with a white variant.......
ジギタリス
.......and swathes of poppies.......
ハイキング中に見たポピー畑
The hike was actually 30km......some made it to Erbach in Odenwald, and ate an ice cream there...........some of us (including yours truly)......hopped on the train back home half way......
Everyone knows Claude Monet's Poppyfield near Argenteuil, painted in 1873. I even remember it on the wall at school when I was 13 or so. Back then I thought : "what's that fusty old painting doing here?" For our education in things noble, I suppose....little did I know that I would taking photos in a poppy field in Germany some 50 years later....!
素敵な写真を撮ろうと努力しています
Photo: Julia
Meanwhile life goes on in Langen. All roads lead to..........
すべての道は..............
.....................Rome? ....ローマに通ず?........No way!........Fuji-san of course 😂 .....富士山.....in Langen!......🗻......(Mt. Fuji, home of the gods)
Here is the real thing........seen from my hotel window in April 2019. I shall never forget it. Mount Fuji. It is so BIG!
富士山......ほんとうに !
If you are crossing the Eisener Steg (the iron footbridge) in the middle of Frankfurt you would have to wear a broad-brimmed hat or a paper bag over your head if you didn't want to appear on someone's social media account. But I had no option last week. I wanted to get to the Historisches Museum, and the only convenient way of crossing the river is to use the Eisener Steg. I couldn't find my pictures of the bridge, so I opted for this postcard c. 1900.....not an iphone in sight.....
1900年のフランクフルト。ここでは誰も自撮りをしていません...
Today a selfie is being taken every four metres, and you have to watch your step or else you will walk into somebody's portrait.....
Anyway. I arrived at the museum at 10am and it was shut. Damn. Not open until 11am. Ok, so then then let's take a look at St. Leonard's church, where our choir once sang under the baton of Simon Harden. Time flies.... The church still surrounded by building site fences after five years and not open until.....15.00! Well, let's take a photo anyway.....
セント・レナード教会。かつて私たちの聖歌隊がサイモン・ハーデンの指揮の下で歌っていた場所です。🎶.....
The Historisches Museum. Why would I go there? A fusty, dusty old place full of Frankfurt relics........No! No! you've got it all wrong. It was like that, yes, about 8 years ago. But it has undergone a radical transformation in tandem with the rebuilding of the Altstadt.
I could have spent the whole day there. You wander through this old part - the "Staufer" palace (the Staufers were an old noble family). Each floor has a weird collection from some Frankfurt family, (for example....instruments to build a castle with....).....
フランクフルト歴史博物館
and you reach each floor by means of this old spiral staircase, which smells very 19thc. (you can take a modern lift of course).......
an old doorway leads to a painting collection.....this all in the middle of Frankfurt remember.....
........and then, emerging from the gloom you encounter this crown, orb and sceptre from the Holy Roman Empire.....I mean, come on, this Holy Roman Empire was the follow-up to the real Roman Empire........we are talking about the 12thc. here.....and kings were crowned in Frankfurt. OK...the originals are in Vienna (these are replicas)....but even so.......
神聖ローマ帝国の王冠
Pretty gaudy stuff eh? The orb and sceptre actually reminds me of the House of Commons in London. I don't know what they said when some country left the Holy Roman Empire....Rexit perhaps?....
Anyway.....that's just a fraction from a very good museum. And it's got this funny little café tucked away downstairs.........
素敵な小さなカフェがあります
Before we leave this weeks' post let me share with you this bizarre photo. Japanese culture pops up in the most unikely corners of the earth. Here, on the beach at Aldeburgh in Suffolk (UK). A Noh play with a river theme is being performed as part of the Aldeburgh Festival. Sumidagawa. (this is the river that runs down the East of Tokyo today). How did they do it? Well, a certain Xanthe Gresham Knight apparently gave an English rendering of the plot, and then Japanese artists took over.......
英国オールドバラフェスティバルの能楽堂
Photo: Rachel Darnley-Smith
Noh theatre is difficult to understand at the best of times. The best I have done is the simpler Kabuki Theatre. But even then the Edo-era Japanese was incomprehensible... But Rachel, who sent me the photo said "....It was an astonishing experience of singing and stillness : the very minimal of music and an experience of having to slow right down and completely adjust my ears and try to tune in…"
A good case for "Ichi-go iche-e" 一期一会, an idiom that describes a cultural concept of treasuring the unrepeatable nature of a moment. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ichi-go_ichi-e
So, now we are at the end of this weeks' post, so it's time to fill in the hole......これで投稿は終了です。穴を埋める必要があります。
🏗️ Thank you for reading "..Sand.."
"...砂..... " を読んでくれてありがとう
Feel free to share the blog with friends.
🏗️ よろしければ、リンクを友達と共有してください
🏗️ And and I enjoy hearing from you...!
コメントすると楽しいです!
THE END
🚣♂️
終わり
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