Read in 2025 - 2: I Am The Messenger

I Am The Messenger

Markus Zusak

Lent to me by my book-loving friend who periodically exchanges books with me, I had not known the author before and started to read without any expectations other than it should be good, since so far everything I have borrowed from this friend has met my taste.

It turned out that I really, really liked this book, for various reasons. The setting is - unusual for me - Australia, in a part of town that has seen better days. Not that the Australian factor is over-emphasised, but it is unusual for me to read of a "typically hot November day" or Christmas spent in shorts and t-shirt and drinking cold beer in the shade of the porch.

The main character is Ed, a 19-year old cab driver, flanked by a cast of quirky characters like his three best friends, one of whom he is deeply in love with while she keeps saying that he is her best friend and therefore she doesn't want to spoil their friendship. There is also Ed's Mum and memories of his late Dad. The other love in his life is his old dog, very much a character in his own right.

With an unqualified, low-pay job and no real perspective or ambition for more than playing cards with his friends, walking the dog, occasionally visiting his Mum, Ed's life could go on like this for years and years.

But when he and his friends are accidentally caught in a bank robbery, and equally accidentally Ed manages to stop the gunman, everything changes.

After his unwilling 15 minutes of fame, Ed starts to receive playing cards in the mail, with cryptic messages on the back, sometimes more, sometimes less difficult to decipher. In any case, he has to act on them, and act he does.

I am not going to spoil things for you by telling you what he has to do and about the people he meets along the way, but by the end of the book, loose ends are tied up and Ed - as well as the reader - learns what it was (and is) all about.

An unusual story, quirky characters and the language to match - I can recommend this if you want a story that is mysterious but not a mystery as such (no murders, detectives or crime-solving), not a historical drama or family epos and neither romance nor comedy, but with elements of both.

More about the author can be found on wikipedia.

Weather Week

For me, last week was largely dominated by the weather: There was everything from icy fog to spring-like sunshine, with a range of temperature spanning below freezing to (for some) short sleeves. Strong winds were blowing, but we did not get storms such as had been forecast for the UK.

The week was off to an icy start on Monday (20 January) with a long-lasting fog at -5C/23F making me glad I was working from home. The only time I ventured out was for the approximately five minutes it takes me to reach the nearby Day Spa for a back and shoulder massage during my lunch break, followed by a quick pop in at Aldi's, just another few minutes from there. 

I partly made up for the lack of exercise by doing a tiny bit of rope-skipping in the evening - only 120 jumps/skips. At my fittest, when I was still regularly going for runs AND went to the gym AND did ballroom dancing most Saturdays, I managed 400 to 500 without needing a break. Those were the days...!

Tuesday (21 January) looked beautiful with the icy fog turning every twig and leaf into a crystal-covered work of art. 

The view at 7:00 am from my living room...

... and about half an hour later from my kitchen.

A bit of blue sky was welcome...

...and at about 11:00 it was even brighter, although the blue was gone.

The mulberry tree outside my bedroom window looked beautiful...

...as did this group of trees at the cemetery.

At -4C/25F, it was only marginally warmer than the day before, but I felt the itch for a walk and managed to put in almost two hours in the afternoon, visiting the cemetery and doing a wide loop back home, where I worked for another hour or so before it was time to leave for the pub.

It was my team's first quiz of 2025 (quiz nights picked up again after the Christmas market break on the 7th, but this was the first Tuesday nearly all of us could make it) - and fittingly for our first quiz of the year, we ended up coming first!!

Great fun and the win a rather surprising treat, to be honest - we finished the first half missing two of the possible points, and in the second half, we missed another point, but still had one point more than all the other teams.

The decisive point that put us on 1st place was gained by my sister, who was our guest player that evening - she was the ONLY person in the entire pub who guessed the breed of a dog right, shown on the big TV screen. It was, if you want to know, a Malteser.

One of the points we embarrassingly enough didn't get was the answer to the following question: What was Portugal's currency called before the Euro?

Would you have known...?´

As usual, I worked at the office on Wednesday (22 January). It was again an evening spent with my sister, as we met at our Mum's for a delicious meal.

Sunrise on Wednesday, as seen from my sister's flat.

Winter pastels at their best!

I was lucky to catch this view from my kitchen that morning, the sky changed so quickly.

During the night, it got considerably warmer, and by Thursday (23 January) morning, the thermometer reached 8C/46F. There was some rain, but it stopped in the course of the morning, and around lunch time, the sun made an appearance - enough for me to make me walk to Benningen, picking up work again afterwards.

Looking back towards Hohenasperg

The colours were a lot more intense in reality.

Friday (24 January) was special in that for the first time in months, I heard the unmistakeable spring song of a blackbird when I opened all my windows first thing in the morning. I can't tell you how happy that sound made me, a sign of things to come, even if proper spring is still two months or so away, and it was nowhere near the full dawn chorus yet that I so love to get up to.

After work and my usual cleaning round, I took the trains to Offenburg (not the fast, long-distance one that I had originally booked - that one was 35 minutes delayed) and that evening enjoyed a meal with O.K. at his cottage for the first time since New Year's Day.

Sunny, windy and not just mild, but warm - that's in short the description for Saturday (25 January). 17C/62F is definitely NOT our typical January weather, but that was what we had on that day.

O.K. worked until sunset in his Mum's garden and around her house, taking advantage of the daylight hours and warm, dry weather. I did a few jobs indoors, and then we both agreed that I couldn't be of much use with the trimming of hedges etc. but should go for a walk. 

And so it was that I found myself enjoying the spring-like weather, walking for about 2 hours before returning home and making coffee for O.K. and myself (he didn't even come in for that, such was his drive to finish the jobs he had set out to do).

Looking back towards O.K.'s village...

...and ahead towards the next village.

 This bench looked very inviting, but I wanted to walk, not sit.

Usually, this is one of the first places to find snowdrops, but they aren't out yet.

In the evening, we had a quick but delicious meal of ready-made pasta (a kind of ravioli, filled "all'arrabbiata") and a tasty rucola salad with flakes of grana padano.

Sunday (26 January) was cooler at a max of 9C/48F, but still mild and sunny. It would have been perfect for a hike, had it not been for O.K. and his fellow musicians playing at another band member's 60th birthday mid-afternoon.

We still managed a lunchtime walk of about an hour and 15 minutes around the village, which was pleasant and better than not being out and about at all.

The birthday do did not include partners of the musicians, and so we spent good part of the day separately. Still, it was good to be at O.K.'s for the weekend, having our meals and enough time to talk and laugh together, also popping over to his Mum's for a bit to make sure she was alright and didn't need anything (she'll be 85 this year and has only been home from hospital for a week).

We watched a documentary about Norway in the evening, a country I think I would really like to visit one day.

The Surprise

In my previous post, for Saturday I mentioned that my sister had given me a concert ticket for Christmas, and that she also had a surprise in store for me. It wasn't the concert as such, as I knew that, but it was who else was there.

So, last Saturday (18 January), I walked to Kullman's Diner opposite the train station, where my sister had suggested we grab a bite to eat before travelling into Stuttgart. On my own, I would not have eaten at that time, but it is always nice to share a meal, and since the concert was her present to me, I went along with her suggestion.

Rounding the corner to the entrance of Kullman's, I saw my sister standing there already... but she was not alone: Our two best friends from when we were six and seven years old were there as well, all three ladies grinning at me from ear to ear!

Let me quote from my own post about what was an important event for us in October of 2023: 

"When my sister and I were seven and six years old, we moved into the middle of three terraced houses here in Ludwigsburg. Next door were two sisters our age. The four of us became inseparable - we went to school together and spent most of our free time as a foursome. 

In our late teens, a rift went through our small, tight-knit group. I won't go into detail; let it suffice to say that while I kept in touch more or less regularly with one of the sisters, everyone went their seperate ways. This kind of thing sometimes happens when childhood friends go to uni, start work, have partners and start their own families. 

When [in 2022] first our Dad and two weeks later their Mum died [...], and was soon followed by my sister's best friend R, the idea of a reunion of the four of us was born. 

It took us a year to make it come true, and so on that Sunday, my sister and I drove to a small town nearby where one sister lives with her family (the other one lives in Switzerland). 

There was not a single moment of awkwardness, but instead, we picked up the threads that had been resting (in my sister's case) for over 30 years, as if no time had passed. We still share the same sense of humour and there were many laugh-out-loud moments, but we were also able to talk serious stuff such as the deaths we'd had to cope with."

So, imagine my surprise and delight to see the other half of our quartet! I guessed instantly that this couldn't be a coincidence, which was of course confirmed.

We had our meal at Cullman's and then boarded a local train to Stuttgart, followed by a short trip on the city tram to the concert venue.

The band was Heaven 17 - probably familiar to those of you who, like us, were teenagers in the 1980s. While we loved their music back then and had several albums and 7'' versions (all on vinyl, of course - this was well before CDs or online platforms), the band never performed live until well into the 1990s, by which time we weren't listening to them much anymore.

Not my picture; I nicked it from the ticket vendor's website.

Like many other New Wave / synth pop bands during that decade, Heaven 17 were from the North of England - from Sheffield (Yorkshire) to be precise, home of our esteemed blogging friend Neil a.k.a. Yorkshire Pudding.

On the way to the concert, the four of us kept speculating who from the old days we might spot there, and indeed we ran into someone from the old clique. He had not changed much and was easy to recognise, but when four tall ladies all of a sudden were towering over him, calling out his name, he was quite overwhelmed and at first could only stare and stammer "Ludwigsburg?!" :-D

We got drinks and positioned ourselves in the audience (standing space only) so that we would be able to see everything on stage and have the full benefit of the sound system without it being one-sided. 

The concert started, and we loved every minute!! Glenn Gregory was entertaining and seemed very much down to earth, really engaging with the audience. His way of talking reminded me a lot of my late husband (who wasn't from Sheffield but from near Barnsley, but his choice of words and sense of humour were very similar).

Martyn Ware didn't say much but made up for it with his flamboyant outfit. The lady at the other keyboard and the two background singers were as beautiful as they were brilliant.

All the old favourites were played*, and then some. The mood was great, the audience being totally "there" from start to finish, and we kept demanding more until the band ended up to give us five extra songs - and all that in spite of Glenn having a chest infection and being on antibiotics. Twice, he played only an acoustic guitar and sung unaccompanied. There were also tracks by The Human Leage (of course written by Martyn, who was a founding member of that other great band from Sheffield) and by David Bowie, whom Glenn cited as a big influence on his musical career.

Afterwards, we took the tram and the local train back to Ludwigsburg, where we chatted for a little until the husband of one of our friends arrived. We said our good-byes and all agreed that it had been a GREAT night out! Had anyone told us in our teens that 40 years later, the four of us would attend a Heaven 17 gig and meet R.B. from the old gang, we wouldn't have believed them!

*If you want to have a look, there are some videos on youtube from that evening:

Heaven 17 - live @ Im Wizemann Stuttgart 18.01.2025

This one is the longest, but I must say that in reality, the sound was tons better.

Here is a video of Let Me Go from that night, it is more close-up than the long video:

Heaven 17 Live - let me go, Germany Stuttgart 18.Jan.2025 Im Wizemann

Here is "Trouble":

Heaven 17, live Trouble, 18.Jan.25 Germany, Stuttgart, Im Wizemann

The four of us did not record anything - we just wanted to ENJOY, not be glued to our phones.

Icy Week

Last week was cold, as can be expected mid-January in these parts. Some nights and days were icy, and Wednesday was particularly so: An icy rain turned the roads and pavements in my area into glassy surfaces, causing hundreds of accidents over the course of the morning, with people on foot or bikes falling left, right and centre, and cars crashing into each other or against walls and fences everywhere. Rescue services, medical staff and the police were kept busy, and there is still a backlog on related operations in many hospitals.

Monday (13 January) started at a wintery -7C/19F, but it was a sunny day and would have been great for a walk, had it not been so bitingly cold. I was out twice for a short time, first to stock up on groceries and then for my regular back and shoulders massage at the day spa, which is only about 5 minutes on foot from my house.

It was also Full Moon, and the large silvery orb appeared at the roof of my neighbours' house before sunset. Can you spot it?

After sunset, it was of course a lot easier to see!

The weather was more or less the same on Tuesday (14 January). I was glad to be working from home, just like the day before, and only left the house after work to help my Mum with her putting away most of her Christmas decorations. Of course I stayed for a delicious home-cooked meal: A perfectly shaped cauliflower baked in the oven, accompanied by spuds and sausages.

The moon lit my way home from Mum's, as bright as the street lights.

On Wednesday (15 January), the aforementioned icy rain made getting to work really tricky. The right thing to do would have been to stay home, but it was my regular office day with two "big" meetings that I wanted to attend in person and not online, and so I stubbornly left the house, wearing a pair of boots with good profile.

Well, when you walk on mirror-like surfaces, you can have the best profiled soles in the world - they are no use when there is nothing for them to grip on. And it was exactly like that. I very, very carefully dragged myself along on fences, garden walls and lamp posts, but every time I had to cross a street, there was of course nothing to hold on to. What is usually a quick walk to the station took me three times as long, and at one point, two young gentlemen helped me to safely cross the road - I can tell you, I really felt OLD at that moment, but they were very kind about it, and I was most grateful!

At the station, nothing had been done to make the platform safer, but most people were sensible and climbed on and off the trains with caution. Those who didn't usually landed on their behinds, but I didn't witness any bad falls and eventually made it to work in one piece. I was completely exhausted and had not even started work yet!

Of course everyone who did come to the office that day (half of my colleagues wisely stayed home) shared their "icy" stories. Fortunately, by the time I left work, the ice had gone.

Thursday (16 January) is partly covered in my previous post. I was glad to be working from home and for the chance to go walking for a couple of hours after three walkless days.

On Friday (17 January) after work and a quick round of cleaning, I went to my Mum's to set up a new IKEA coffee table for her. If you have been reading my blog for a while, you may recall that I actually like setting up IKEA furniture and usually don't have any trouble with it. 

This time, all went well, too - until the very last part... two drawers (which were super easy to put together) needed to be inserted into the corpus of the coffee table, while having to match holes in the drawers' back and side walls with hooks and bolts on the telescope-like metal bars. I perfectly understood what had to go where, and with some faffing (and my sister's help) was able to put the drawers in as they were supposed to be, but their fronts wouldn't fit as expected. A screw underneath each drawer that was meant to be turned to adjust the height of each drawer simply would not budge, no matter how much we tried. In the end we gave up, and my Mum had a friend look at it, who managed to complete the task on Sunday. I regarded this as a personal failure and was glad to hear that Mum's friend did not have to dismantle anything (meaning I had not done anything wrong); without knowing in detail what he actually did, I suppose it was a question of strength, which I don't have.

Anyway, I had another good meal with my Mum, a nice, thick, hot vegetable soup, before going home.

O.K. and I spent the weekend seperately again, because his Mum was in hospital for surgery (all went well, I am happy to report) and he was looking after her cat, and of course he wanted to stay close just in case, not be 150 km away.

Saturday (18 January) saw me finally cleaning my windows - always a job I leave until I really can't stand it any longer. I don't mind house work at all, but windows are a truly unloved task for me. It's a bit like doing my taxes; when I finally kick myself into action, it doesn't take all that long and really is not much trouble at all, but the sheer thought of it keeps me untypically postponing the task.

Late afternoon, I walked to the station where I was to meet my sister for a meal and then to take a local train into Stuttgart; she had given me concert tickets for Christmas. I was in for a big surprise, and will tell you more about that in an extra post.

Sunday (19 January) lived up to its name with wall to wall sunshine, but it was cold at -5C/23F in the morning and barely reaching 3C/37F during the day.

A quiet morning was followed by a lunchtime walk with my sister. We chose the palace grounds and then went for a meal at a café in town which we both like.

Back home, I had a nap, taking advantage of the family upstairs being out (so no little feet running back and forth over my head), and spent the rest of the afternoon playing my favourite computer game. 

The week ended talking to O.K. on the phone, watching the news and then something on Netflix, and finishing a book I have really been enjoying.

A Memory Half Confirmed

In terms of walking, this week has been lousy. It was largely grey, cold, wet and/or icy underfoot, and the precious few moments the sun came through were during the busiest times at work.

By Thursday, I was getting stir-crazy and simply HAD to go walking. I finished work as soon as I had completed my most pressing tasks, which was at about 3:30 in the afternoon (after I'd been at my desk since 6:30 in the morning, with just an average lunch break), giving me 1 1/2 hours until sunset and almost 2 hours until darkness.

My first impulse was to walk to Benningen, but as I reached the first crossroads, instead of turning left I went right, suddenly wanting to go to Kornwestheim, where I'd not been in a while.

Once there, equally on a whim I decided to visit the cemetery, where I'd not been in probably a couple of years. 

Kornwestheim is where my maternal grandmother lived until she married my grandfather, and her mother - my great-grandmother - still lived there until her death in the early 1970s. Many times during my childhood, we went to see our great-grandmother, and I suppose it was some time after her death that my Mum or my Grandma (or both) took me along when they went to the cemetery to look after the family grave.

In my memory, it was always sunny and warm, which makes sense - on rainy days, there would have been no point in going there, as the flowers and other plants on the grave didn't need watering then.

I also half remembered a huge white statue placed rather prominently on a bit of open green in the cemetery, and how that statue used to impress and attract me. To my little girl's mind, it was Jesus, someone absolutely good and trustworthy.

Walking the paths on the cemetery now, I did not see the statue in between the bare trees and sad looking tombstones, and was beginning to wonder whether I had either imagined it (we all know that the human mind has a funny way with memories) or the statue had been removed. 

Instead, I went to the columbarium, knowing exactly where that was, and looked at the compartment that holds the urns of my Mum's parents. 

As I walked away from that site, intent on going right and leaving the cemetery by its main gate, for some reason I looked left - and spotted the statue not far away, still at its rather prominent site, and of course I had a closer look.

The reasons why I had not seen it before were that a) it was nowhere near as huge as I remembered (I was a little girl then, and it's a common effect that we remember things like a certain house, a tree, a street etc. much bigger from childhood than what they are to adult eyes), and b) it was not white but a dull grey, with darker grey on top, where no doubt some moss or lichen has formed over the years.

Still, it was the statue I remembered, and on approaching, I saw a fairly new information board nearby. It proved me wrong once more: The statue was not Jesus at all, but a widow and an orphaned child, the child being more or less my height (I'm roughly 1,74 m/5'7" tall).

The statue was erected in 1959 to mark this particular part of the cemetery, dedicated to the graves and memories of the people who died or went missing in the two world wars. The grieving mother raises her arms, asking for peace and to remind us of the dead, appealing to present and future generations to prevent war.

Albrecht Kneer, the sculptor, was 36 when the statue was erected. Born in 1923, he was a child at a time when Germany was still struggling with the aftermath of WWI, and 25 years old at the outbreak of WWII. Like many others of his generation, he must have seen or experienced unspeakable horrors, and a lot of his sadness and despair over the wars must have gone into his work.

One thing I remembered about the statue was right, though: Its whiteness. The material is called Muschelkalk in German; I have found various translations for it in English: coquina; lacustrine limestone; shell limestone or shell lime. For coquina, the website "Geology Science" has a picture that goes well with the idea of the white statue that I remember, but of course it has weathered to grey now.

In any case, I was quite deeply moved by this unplanned visit to the cemetery and my encounter with a half-forgotten memory.

First Working Week in 2025

Last week saw me (as well as many other people in my part of the world) returning to work after the Christmas/New Year period. I was ready to pick up normal life again after two weeks of celebrations with plenty of good food, family and friends, and our trips between my place and O.K.'s.

Monday (6 January) was my last day off work; it's a holiday in some federal states of Germany, including Baden-Wuerttemberg where I live. O.K. left after breakfast, since he had a performance with some of his fellow band members in the village next to his in the afternoon and didn't want to risk heavy traffic on the motorway.

The day was unusually warm at 14C/57F and sunny, and of course I had to walk to Benningen, didn't I! 

What lies ahead for me this year? I know what lies behind the horizon of this picture, at least!

Later in the afternoon, I changed into something nice and walked to the concert hall in town, where I met with my sister and Mum's friend R. At Christmas, Mum had given the three of us tickets to a concert by the Gershwin Piano Quartet - four men at four grand pianos, playing mostly (but not only) Gershwin. Usually, everything they perform on stage has been arranged by themselves, since there are hardly any original compositions for four pianos around.

The concert was fantastic! We had great seats and enjoyed the evening immensely. The first half was dedicated mainly to Russian composers Rachmaninov and Rimski-Korsakov, while the second half was (almost) all about Gershwin. It was truly incredible what those four men managed to do! If you want to know more about them and their music, click here for their official website (in English); under "media" you'll also find videos that give you an inkling of what we heard and saw.

I am trying to embed the 7 minute trailer from their website, also to be found on youtube, and hope that you can watch it - it's worth every second, believe me!

So, once again, Mum: Thank you for this great Christmas present!

I started work on Tuesday (7 January), working from home. Usually, when I have been off work for 2 weeks, there are close to 200 emails waiting for me. This time, there were only 55 - most other people had not been working around the holidays, either, and I was able to catch up with most of my tasks right on the first day with only a few calls in between. 

I even managed a walk to Asperg and back before sunset, returning to work for another hour or so after that.

For the first time in 2025 I went to the office on Wednesday (8 January). Thankfully, the day before, one of my colleagues had turned up the heating in my room, which had stood empty and unheated since December 18 in 2024. It was warm-ish but I was still glad of my cosy hoody, and went to get myself mugs of hot tea a few times during the afternoon.

It had begun to rain around lunch time, turning into a sleety snow over the next hours, and local trains were at their usual chaotic self for the trip back to Ludwigsburg, but I made it and was glad to be home in my warm flat at around 6:00 pm.

Thursday (9 January) was again warmish at 11C/52F, but rather windy. I worked from home, interrupting the afternoon for an hour's walk in between two appointments.

The ruins of horse stables where I walked that afternoon.

It was my sister's birthday on Friday (10 January), and after finishing work and cleaning my flat, I went to the location she had chosen for her party - a small museum of local history in a former gatehouse from the time when Ludwigsburg was much smaller and a garrison. The wall around the town served mainly to keep unwilling army recruits in and less for keeping undesirable elements out. Only very few remnants of that wall are still visible in places, but there are still six gatehoues at their original sites, and one of them was all for my sister and her guests that evening.

She had cleaned and set up the place with tables and chairs already the day before with the help from a friend, so there wasn't really all that much left to do for us apart from getting the buffet ready, which was quickly done.

Carrot cake I had ordered from our favourite café in town, as a surprise for my sister (it's one of her favourite cakes).

The empty space on the buffet table was later taken up with fresh, crusty Italian bread.

The 15 of us had a great time! It was really good to see some of our friends I had not seen in a couple of years or so (it was of course also good to see those who I have met not that long ago, but you know what I mean). There was way too much food, but my sister gave everyone who left pieces of cake and other things from the buffet to take home.

I was the third-to-last person to leave the premises and arrived home after a ten minute walk at around 1:30 am.

By lunch time on Saturday (11 January), my sister and I were back at the venue, clearing up, cleaning and putting the chairs and tables back in order. I believe it took the two of us somewhere around 1 1/2 hours. 

back to normal

We split the remainder of the buffet between us - it meant I did not need to buy anything to eat for the weekend, and I also took home two of the potted primroses my sister had put on every table.

Spring is still at least two months away, but here's a first little greeting!

The day was sunny but cold, and because I was still tired after the lovely party the evening before, I went to lie down for about an hour when I came home, and spent the rest of the day doing quiet things such as reading, playing my favourite computer game, watching TV and nibbling at the party leftovers.

Today, Sunday (12 January) was another sunny day with temperatures hovering around freezing point all day. I slept long enough to feel reasonably well rested and late morning went for a walk to the lake, to see whether it had iced over or not. It had, but the ice was still very thin. People were out in full force, walking around the lake on the very muddy paths (you don't want to see my boots!) and soaking up the afternoon sunshine.

A new mural in a passage underneath the railway

Katharinenkirche ("Catherine's Church") in the suburb of Eglosheim

The lake (Monrepos) with its thin layer of ice

I was only out for 1 hour 40 minutes, made myself a spot of late lunch (you guessed it - using up more leftovers) and spent good part of the afternoon in my yellow armchair with a book.

Due to conflicting schedules, O.K. and I have spent the weekend separately but, as usual when we can't see each other, we spoke on the phone two or three times every day.

Now a full week is ahead, with five working days instead of four, and a great highlight waiting for me on Saturday - stay tuned for more about that in one of my next posts :-)