It's not a butterfly, it's a schmetterling!

So I am supposed to be taking a writing break in August and just posting photos, but what can I say....the words just flow out and there's no stopping the Thames as it rolls out to the sea - and so it is that way with me and the written word. So....here it goes...

I love Germans. Let me state that right now. Despite the fact that both the nations I have citizenship of (Britian and American) fought in two world wars against Germany and that the legacy of the First World War is such a part of the English collective consciousness and culture that one military anniversary or other is rolled out several times a year, I personally love the German nation and people. I love the country, I love the landscape, I love German cities, I love their literature and cinema and I adore their food. The only thing I am not massively fond of is German music. Apart from the anti-nuclear protest song 99 Luftballons by German band Nena, I can't say I really enjoy any German music. Maybe The Magic Flute opera by Mozart, although I would consider that Austrian rather German.

Anyway, I digress. The point is that through several trips to Germany and the experience of having a close German friend and flatmate (Dora, who has more recently made Mexico her home and is herself educating me on Mexican poetry), I have learned to absorb all the wonderful things that make Germany the successful European country it is today. Of course, this does not mean anything profound really since I actually like all the countries I have been to. I enjoyed Japan and the complicated and the often bewildering customs of the Japanese people, I loved Sweden and the polite hospitality of the Swedish and I even love America, land of my parents' birth, despite the critical eye I sometimes cast over the consumerist values of the USA. I guess I find it hard to dislike any nation or culture because I basically believe their is some merit in all people and the differences between countries makes life exciting and interesting.

The closest I have ever come to shying away from a particular culture (as in not choosing it as a holiday destination or perhaps respecting it as I should) is France and to a certain respect Saudi Arabia. I don't like the way women are treated culturally in Saudi Arabia and when it comes to France, well I'm British. Most British people have a strained relationship with the French. We are neighbors and there is a friendly annoyance that goes along with the close proximity. My French colleague at work has lived in London for years and even she has adopted the British cultural habit of criticising her own country. One colleague (a Swedish woman who has lived in England for 11 years) said to me the other day 'I know I shouldn't say it, but the French can be really arrogant.' And she is right. They can be. But they can also be very brave and very moral. They stand up for their rights. They don't get embarrassed as easily as the English. Their language sounds very sexy and they can often bluntly tell the truth when the English just stutter around it. And then, let's not forget the food. Oh! The Food. The beauty of French food. I could eat French onion soup for the rest of my life gladly. There is a very popular French restaurant in Balham and the locals flock to it. In fact my friend Natalie has gone there so often with her boyfriend that the staff know them by sight and name and can probably tell them what they are going to order based on the of their history of meal choices.
And if I am to be honest, I don't actually know much about Saudi Arabia - perhaps there are wonderful things about the culture that I have not experienced.

So in my appreciation of Germany and the Germans, I of course, ended up picking up and buying Keeping up with The Germans by Philip Oltermann, which is both a personal and public account of the history of Anglo-German encounters.

It is a fascinating book that shows how different the Germans and the British are from each other and yet how similar we are too. It is also wickedly funny, as the author recounts stories of how he tried to fit in to English society when he moved to London from Hamburg when he was 17. One of my favourite chapters is on the differences between the English language and the German language. The author describes how his English school mates find German harsh and the words sound ugly and long. The author on the other hand finds German a logical language that makes sense and is easy to understand the meaning of. When he newly emigrated to the UK he was stumped by the worldplay of the British press, the double meanings of casual conversation and the daily shortening of words (such as 'sandwiches' to 'sarnies'). German may have longer words, but one long word will describe 1 thing, in English, Philip Oltermann complains, you need several words to describe 1 thing.

I am not a linguist, but I do agree with Mr Oltermann on one thing. The German language does sound harsh. Yet again, I must confess I love the language as well as the food and the people etc. But it does sound aggressive. Just think of the word: butterfly for example. Butterfly is a beautiful word. In French it is papillon, which also conveys a sense of grace. In Spanish it is mariposa, which sounds sunny and happy and in Italian it is farfalla - a flamboyant and flighty sounding word. In German it is schmetterling. Which sounds like 'little smasher.' And then there is the word for hospital - in German: krankenhaus, which sounds like a 'house for kranks.' I am both amused and bewildered by how the Germans literally translate a concept into the most plain and logical word they can think of.

When I repeated this to my colleague Jess at work today she laughed and asked, 'Have you not seen that video on YouTube about how German sounds compared to different languages?' Of course I had to have a look and I googled the video while munching my lunch. It was very funny, but I was feeling a little guilty about laughing at the way a whole nation speaks, until I realised that it was made by a small German comedy company and that they were laughing at themselves and everyone else too. You can watch the video below:

I don't know if being able to laugh at yourself is something that is inherently German or is just a cultural trend that has emerged in the Germans of my generation. But I do know a little self-mockery can't do any harm and that it is something that both the Brits and the Germans may have in common. That and our love of potatoes......

The August Break Day 2: Circles

Today's theme is circles....and here is my entry (with the help of my friend Natalie and some illuminated balloons)

The August Break 2013....

I have decided to undertake The August Break 2013 challenge as posed by blogger and photographer Susannah Connway (http://www.susannahconway.com). The rules are simple. One photo a day for the month of August based on the bellow titles:

Susannah has also very kindly set up a Flickr page for the challenge so everyone embarking on their 1-photo-a-day adventure can share their work. http://www.flickr.com/groups/the-august-break-2013/pool/

So...first up, a photo showing today's Breakfast!

As Susannah says: 'This is all about being present and enjoying taking photos just for the hell of it.'

Let the Fun begin!

A State of Delirium....

I have spent the last week in a state of delirium. During the start of the week I was plagued by that all too familiar pain of a wisdom tooth. Wisdom teeth; what a waste of good mouth space. I have never felt any wiser for having 3 cumbersome invading teeth that are a legacy from the prehistoric days of my ape ancestors. (where is my fourth wisdom tooth you ask? Fuck knows. It decided to not make an appearance and has never emerged from the right side of my mouth)

Off I popped to the dentist to see what he could do about the back arching, jaw clenching pain on the left side of my face which felt like someone stabbing me with a hot steak knife.
'Hmmmm...' he said non-committally when I asked if perhaps they could remove the offending tooth. After staring into my mouth for what felt like an eternity and frequently rubbing a tiny mirror to rid it of my saliva as he pushed it into the back of my cheek, he finally gave me the bad news. Apparently my impacted wisdom tooth is wedged underneath my molar next door and to remove it would mean shifting or removing my molar and warrant major dental surgery under general anaesthetic. He then pointed to some white and grey blotches on a tiny dental X-ray and seemed surprised that I did not already know about my two back teeth cosying up to each other in my jaw. Well, what do you know? Since I am not a dentist and have had no formal training in reading X-rays I obviously had no idea that the two teeth were practically on top of each other. I did know I was in pain and that I had inherited my father's genes for crooked teeth, but I guess I had hoped that any of the 3 to 4 dentists I had seen in the year before might have notified me of my unwise wisdom tooth.

After giving me a bottle of fancy mouthwash and sending me on my way with a large bill, I was well and truly dismissed by the dentist. Then a few hours later I felt my throat growing sore. And within a day or so I had a full blown throat infection. That was when the delirium started. I lay in bed shivering, teeth chattering complaining weakly to my husband 'I feel as if I am freezing.' After putting a hand to my forehead, he said ' Trust me. You're not. In fact you are getting hotter.' I used to have fevers all the time as a child (I was a sickly little kid) but as an adult it has been quite a long time since I had a high fever and I had forgotten how strange your dreams and episodes of restless wakefulness can become when you are several degrees higher in temperature.

The first mistake I made was trying to read Into Thin Air by Jon Krakaeur while sick in bed. The book is a thrilling first-hand account of the Mount Everest disaster of 1996. The word 'disaster' refers to the death of 8 climbers and the injury and traumatising of countless others on the mountain in May 1996. It is an absolutely gripping book filled with feats of daring, stories of high altitude survival and accounts of pure stupidity on the world's highest mountain and probably the worst place to have an accident on the planet (ie. 8,848 metres above sea-level where nothing grows or lives).

It is not, however, the best reading material for someone with a deliriously high fever. After consuming half of the book, I fell into a fitful sleep during which I tossed and turned while dreaming of ice and snow and climbing a 180 degree vertical wall of rock as dead climbers drifted past me clutching onto huge bottles of mouthwash and packets of paracetamol. 

Last time I had been so sick was in Stockholm after a week of heavy work escorting 20 students around the city and attending lectures at the Stockholm School of Economics. My husband flew out to join me for a weekend of fun around the city on the Friday night. We attended a crayfish party and drank Akvavit and I felt that familiar dizzy feeling of an oncoming illness. By Saturday night I was tossing and turning in the hotel room while weepily giving my husband a verbal tour of Stockholm, a city he was never going to see that weekend as he searched in vain for something to eat for dinner and ended up resorting to Scandinavian MacDonalds in front of the TV. That night I dreamed of a giant Swedish chocolate ball (or chokladboll for those of you who can pronounce Swedish) chasing me through the streets of Stockholm while I vainly tried to force-march a bunch of 5 year olds to the Nobel Prize Museum carrying a giant salmon and riding a drunk Elk.

The fact is I have a shit immune system and I have the bad luck of being to married to someone who has the constitution of an iron ox. My husband never gets sick, which might actually end up being good luck if any of our future children inherit his genes. His super-immune body does react violently to all sorts of stimuli such as pollen, insect bites and certain detergents (even the metal on the hand poles in the tube give him a mild rash- what?!) but he never gets sick. I am sure he had the same thing I did last week, but it manifested as a small sore throat, while I took to my bed like a feeble Victorian heroine from tragic literature. It can't be down to stress. Sure I get stressed and without a doubt that contributes to making my health crap, but my husband can get himself into a tizzy about just about anything, so it is not his ability to relax that makes him more sprightly. I think it honestly comes down to genetics. 

My family are the snifflers. We get sick. We are feverish. We are feebly run-down and we cough in public. If we can get passed all our little ailments, we do, however, finish the race of life last. Because we live a long long time. On both sides of my family I have relatives who lived to be 97 - 100 years old. And there's the rub you see. Because presumably I will have lived 100 years of life during which I have missed birthdays, events, concerts, exams and days at work because I was sick at some point or other. Except that when I am 100, no one is going to care about how many sick days I have taken off work.....

Being sick is no big deal really and I am lucky to have never really had too much seriously wrong with me (except for some visits to hospital for asthma) but I do regret missing out on things because of illness. I hate not being able to attend birthday parties of beloved friends or missing out on quality time with family on holiday because I have yet another virus attacking my body. 

But most of all, I hate the waste. The waste of the days and the hours that I spend recovering from an illness, that instead could be utilised for the pursuit of pure enjoyment and leisure, of creative endeavours and new experiences. 100 years of life is a long time and it would be a pity to waste so much of it in bed.....unless it is with a book by Jon Krakauer...now that on the other hand would be time well spent!

The Joy of Crop Circles.....

So I have figured how to circular crop a photo. I am pretty sure almost everyone else in the history of computers, the internet and photo-editing software has already done this, but it is a giant leap for me! Now I can crop photos of my favourite subject: food! And more specifically....CAKE!

Finally the Rains have come....

After weeks of stiflingly hot weather, the rains broke through the thick humid air last night and there was an almighty downpour. Thunder and lightning crashed through my sweaty half-sleep and our bedroom curtains were billowed out into the room like something out of a horror movie with the wind of the storm.
'Thank god!' I thought. I don't do well in humid hot weather. I get sinus headaches, I sweat, I feel sluggish. I like a moderate temperature. Nothing too cold and nothing too hot. Great Britain has always been a damp country. Mould is prolific everywhere and damp sticky transport is the same in winter as it is in summer. I can't count the amount of double-decker red buses with steamed up windows I have been in over the years. But the heat this summer has been out of the ordinary and our tiny flat, which is freezing in winter has, sure enough, revealed itself to be boiling in summer. We lie naked at night, all erotic impulses squashed by the humidity and heat, a bedroom that could double up as a sauna, fanning ourselves with gorgeous but useless ornamental Japanese fans.

And then it rains! It rains at work, at home, during the night and during the day. At night, I leap out of bed, excited by the thunder and lightening and the sound of hail on our skylight and run into the living room to gaze out of the window, totally unashamed of my nakedness like a toddler. During the day, I leave my work computer and sit by the open window of the office. I open the old white sash window frame as wide as possible and sit with my arms peaking out listening to the heavy droplets of tropical-like rain, smelling the fresh green scent of thirsty plants and wet earth and gazing at the downpour soaking Regent's Park across the road. The air is so much cooler after the rain. The pressure drops. I can breathe again. Black Taxis swish by in a rush of water and people in the street below scurry by with their jackets over their heads. But frankly I just want to go out and dance around in it!

Back from Nowhere

                                                                 me and me, a photo by ClaraJean1 on Flickr.

I have been neglecting to write in my blog for a long time now. To be honest, I assumed no one was reading it and what with work, travel and play calling, I decided to take a break. In the last few months I have concentrating more on my photography. I've snapped at students, inanimate objects, my daily meals, my long-suffering husband and even persuaded one of my friends to pose for me. But the urge to write has also crept up on me in the last few days and so I am back. Not from the moon or some exciting foreign holiday but from nowhere really.....

So what is new? In the last few months of cyber silence, spring came and went (very briefly), summer visited London with humidity, sudden rain showers and sweaty people on the tube. I turned 30 (wisdom, at last!) and celebrated my first wedding anniversary. One of my best friends got married and was pushed to her reception in a wheelbarrow (this seemed quite natural at the time, although none of us could quite say why) and she then revealed to me that she is expecting her first child! I visited Brussels on a business trip with some lovely students and some not so lovely students and then took a nice week's holiday in the Peak District where I saw so many sheep, I could have sworn they were amassing for some kind of attack on humanity.

And through it all I took photos. Lots and lots of photos. I have become serious about the camera. I have fallen more in love with photography than with origami (my previous craft obsession). I literally cannot wait to get my digital SLR out of its case, feel the comfortable weight in my hand and snap away. My biggest problem is subjects. I don't feel very comfortable photographing people, especially not people in the street that I do not know. I also don't feel comfortable asking my friends if I can photograph them and when I do, they always pose or pull funny faces, which is understandable. It is unsettling being in front of a camera. So I end up wandering around London or more specifically, my flat and taking photos of random stuff like bottles...or food...or flowers...or even the bathroom window in the sunlight. I honestly need to get my act together and do a photography course. So that comes next and who knows, maybe it will be exciting enough to blog about?.....