Bruder Klaus revisited

I visited the Bruder Klaus Kapelle a few years ago and was totally blown away by this tiny little chapel in the middle of the Eifel countryside. Last week I went back and found it to be just striking as it was the first time. It doesn't look much from the outside but the inside is amazing and it's this contrast that makes the Bruder Klaus Kapelle so special. Swiss architect Peter Zumthor created the structure by building a kind of teepee out of tree trunks. Then he covered them with layers of concrete on the outside creating a beige coloured block. He placed steel tubes at various intervals through the concrete and then he burnt the wood on the inside and removed it, creating ridged interior walls that slope upwards leaving a gap in the roof. At the end of each steal tube he placed a glass ball so now when you walk through the triangular shaped door into the tear drop shaped space you look up to open sky frame by rough ribbed walls dotted with globes of light. Sun streams down through the hole in the roof in the summer and snows collects on the floor in winter. It's quite breathtaking. You can find out more here Bruder-Klaus-Feldkapelle .I strongly suggest you visit if you are ever in the Eifel.

God is listening

Renovation

After many years drooling over the DesignSponge website's 'Before & After' pages I have finally attempted my own project. I rescued a 1970's sideboard and turned it into a fake Chinese cupboard.

Here's how it looked before:

DesignSpongers will probably be horrified as this type of 70's furniture is back in fashion now - but it reminded me way too much of my Grandmother's furniture. And as I've been lusting after a Chinese style cupboard for years, I decided to make my own.

Next up - a great hulking, round doored, faux 1920's wardrobe. It's a good size for hiding things like my plastic bag stash, the hoover and ironing board, all the coats we never wear and maybe the kids.

Spam

nearly fell for this one.

Abendbrot

"Let's have breakfast for dinner today - pleeeeese!" the kids implore when I ask them what they'd like for supper. Abendbrot is the staple evening meal of most Germans - and it makes sense when you consider that most people here eat a hot meal at lunchtime. Served up on these cute "Frühstücksbrettchen" who can resist breakfast in the evening.

Thanks again Aldi.

It's that time of year again - early September, the leaves are just about to start turning brown, there is a slight chilly breeze, the nights are arriving a little earlier, but the summer wardrobe is still very much in place and people are still sitting in the sunshine outside restaurants and cafes around town.

In other words - it's time to start stocking the Christmas chocolates in Aldi!

In 'Aldi World' they just skip all that rubbishy in-between bollocks the rest of us call 'Autumn' and march straight into Christmas.

So now I have to walk past the stacks and stacks of marzipan potatoes, chocolate covered almonds, domino biscuits, vanilla kipferl, gingerbread balls and hundreds upon hundreds of double chocolate covered dingsbums I don't even know the names of, whenever I go shopping.

Some people may be able to stash their Christmas goodies somewhere in homes, from September, until they're needed in December, but I can't.

People like me don't 'keep' chocolate in a cupboard. They eat it straight from the shopping bag.

So, Aldi can you maybe just *hide* all that Christmas chocolate heavenliness when I walk in the shop? You're retail geniuses, create some kind of holographic shield that flashes into place when I walk past and shows me plastic plants, or power tools, and then remove it for the stashers of this world. Otherwise I am doomed. I walk in thinking "I can do it. This year I'll stash it all in the loft, where I'm too sacred of the 2ft gap between the end of the ladder and the loft floor to go get it". Then I'll come home and think, "Sod it, I'll eat it all now because if I put it in the loft it'll go mouldy and stink because I'm too sacred of the 2ft gap between the end of the ladder and the loft floor."

Why, you ask, the pressure to buy it now? Because in December, when I 'kind of' need this stuff, they'll be selling beach bags and towells, or will be having a Spanish week with speciality olive oil and spicy sausages. Apparently no one in my family wants sangria and tapas at Christmas again this year.

Hair today - is not there tomorrow

In the UK, under-arm and leg hair is BAD, as is chest hair, back hair even the hair on your privates. Here in Europe, it's OK.

Well it used to be. Anyone old enough will clearly remember when Nena (of 99 Red Balloons fame) lifted her arm up on Top of The Pops. Oh the outcry: "99 Brown Pit Hair's" shouted the Sun's headline the next day, "When will Europe's Wookie women discover the razor!" screamed the Mail (probably).

Meanwhile - the German reaction was "Ja? Und?"

When I got here I thought I could start to relax the whole shaving routine - but it was not to be - there's not a hairy leg, pit, chest or back in sight these days, everyone seems to be depilated and shaved to within an inch of their lives. And what with Brazilians and all those other fancy Vajayjay treatments, short and curleys are about as welcome as genital lice - which - thanks to the lack of short and curleys are on the decrease. I guess there's an upside.

Even men are hairless - I've noticed this in the sauna and I don't like it. The downstairs needs a bit of shrubbery to hide in if you ask me otherwise there's an unpleasant resemblance to one of those nude rodents.

These days if I see that rare thing, a hairy leg on a woman, my initial thought is: "Thank christ, hair's back in fashion." But then I look again and think, "Get a razor luv."

I must stop complaining about Deutsch...

Why English is so hard to learn (a poem)...

We must polish the Polish furniture.
He could lead if he would get the lead out.
The farm was used to produce produce.
The dump was so full that it had to refuse more refuse.
The soldier decided to desert in the desert.
This was a good time to present the present.
A bass was painted on the head of the bass drum.
When shot at, the dove dove into the bushes.
I did not object to the object.
The insurance was invalid for the invalid.
The bandage was wound around the wound.
There was a row among the oarsmen about how to row.
They were too close to the door to close it.
The buck does funny things when the does are present.
They sent a sewer down to stitch the tear in the sewer line.
To help with planting, the farmer taught his sow to sow.
The wind was too strong to wind the sail.
After a number of injections my jaw got number.
Upon seeing the tear in my clothes I shed a tear.
I had to subject the subject to a series of tests.
How can I intimate this to my most intimate friend?
I read it once and will read it agenI learned much from this learned treatise.
I was content to note the content of the message.
The Blessed Virgin blessed her. Blessed her richly.
It's a bit wicked to over-trim a short wicked candle.
If he will absent himself we mark him absent.
I incline toward bypassing the incline.

Uncredited (unfortunately)...

Lots of my friends have been telling me about their "Kleingartens" and the bountiful harvests they're seeing this month. When I first asked, "What's a kleingarten" they said, "You know - it's what you call an allotment in the UK". OK I thought - a tiny piece of barren soil in amongst other pieces of bleak earth with crappy looking sheds made of corrugated iron, in depressing inner city wastelands - seen 'em in London - got the picture.

In fact the only thing a Kleingarten and an allotment have in common is that there's a bit of soil in them.

In Germany a "Kleingarten" is a little piece of paradise: beautifully manicured lawns, herbacious borders, fruit trees, honeysuckle creeping majestically over handmade trellis, miniature Bavarian Alpine houses, awnings, electric lights, kitchen's, TV's, flushing toilets, sauna's jakuzzi's and sound around 3D cinema's (some for sure) - you could live there quite comfortably all year. Apparently the only rule is that 25% of your little garden must be used to grow veg, the rest....? Go crazy!

In the UK an allotment is: a piece of earth about 5ft by 10ft. There is no more to be said about them. Aside perhaps, from the fact that they are generally depressing and godforsaken.

To make my point quite clear:

This is a kleingarten:










This is an allotment:








This is a kleingarten:









This is an allotment:

inselaffe