Monday 4 March 2019

End of February, Beginning of March

February ended with plenty of sunshine and temperatures around 15 Celsius (59 F) in my area. The 28th, last Thursday, saw me working in Marbach, at my favourite client's. I have shown you pictures of the place (German Literature Archive) before; simply type "Marbach" into the search box in the top left corner of my blog, and you'll find them.

This time, the sun shone on a still rather bleak looking landscape of muted browns and little green; no leaves on the trees yet, and not many flowers out to add some colour to the picture. But on closer inspection, there are signs of spring everywhere, and by the weekend, even the daffodils were out. I hope there will be some left by the time my sister and I arrive in Yorkshire in less than three weeks!


The entire weekend was different from my usual weekends at O.K.'s: It started and ended earlier, and it was all dominated by carnival activities.
It started earlier, because we were invited to a birthday party on the Friday evening, which meant I had to leave work already at around 3:00 pm (instead of my usual 5:00) so that I could be there in time. Thankfully, the trains were only a few minutes late each, so that we weren't the last guests to arrive.
On the invitation, full carnival attire was requested, and so we wore what we'd already worn at last year's carnival dance in the village hall.
I was again the black cat to O.K.'s warlock (you can just see the rim of his hat next to me and a bit of his bright green satin robes on my shoulder).


We slept in on Saturday and then went for a run. This time, we took a route I'd not been running for many months; it is 7 km long (as opposed to last week's 5), and I did reasonably well. The sky was grey with glimpses of sun in between; it was very windy in parts and we were glad of our long running pants.

The first daffies are out in front of O.K.'s cottage!

The rest of Saturday was spent very leisurely with coffee and cake in the afternoon and a delicious selection of cheeses with bread and salad in the evening. We watched a movie and made sure not to go to bed too late, as Sunday was going to be a very full day for O.K.

Traditionally, O.K.'s village is dominated by carnival on the Sunday and Monday. As he plays the trumpet in the village band, he is involved in the parade on Sunday afternoon as well as in the street party (the main road through the village is blocked for cars that day) and the band's performances at various venues. 

We all (the family) had lunch (goulash soup) at his parents'. O.K. then had to leave to get ready for the parade with the band and the other groups, and we went outside to watch. Here they come:



(O.K. is in the picture but you can't see him, which is how he prefers it!)

The street party went on for almost two hours, in spite of it being a relatively small village. Young and old, native villagers and recent move-ins; they were all there, and nearly everyone wore some kind of costume. The children of course had a lot of fun and proudly displayed their princess dresses, astronaut suits and other costumes. The crowd on the street then dissolved, with most people going to the various venues where food, drink and more music was offered, and a few going home.


Just after the parade was the last time I spoke to O.K. - he was then too busy moving from one venue after the other where the band was to play. His sister and her husband kindly took me to the train station just after 5:00, and I arrived home at around 20 to 8 - about 3 hours earlier than usual.

Carnival isn't a big thing in my area, but schools are closed this week and many families take the chance to go on holiday, often skiing. Therefore, I expect a relatively quiet week at work - suits me!

16 comments:

  1. I didn't realize that people in Germany celebrated Carnival like that. What fun! I love the daffodils, too.

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    1. They do, Jennifer, especially in predominantly Catholic areas (which my area isn't, but O.K.'s is). The parades in towns like Cologne are huge and always shown live on TV.

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  2. I enjoy watching carnivals but I've never taken part in one. My daffodils are out in all their splendour and I'm much further north of Ripon of course. Unfortunately the gales here has decimated mine and I imagine that Storm Freya will have done so in the Ripon area. I hope some survive for you though.

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    1. Storm Freya? Somehow this has passed me by completely; I must ask my sister-in-law whether everyone is alright.
      As kids, we had lovely costumes, sometimes princess dresses handmade by our grandma. Nothing as elaborate as this anymore for me - I make do with a wig, the cat ears and a tail!

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  3. Sounds like you had an enjoyable weekend.

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  4. This sounds like a fun weekend....Busy for OK, of course. And every day is closer to Yorkshire time.

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  5. Oh, you are the cutest Black Cat!!!

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    1. Thank you, Francesca! I even had a tail attached to the small of my back... I sat on it in the car so I had to straighten it out first when we arrived at the venue!

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  6. Being from the Karnival part of Germany I used to stand in the street watching the parade go by and try and grab some of the Kamellen. Only as a teenager did I dress up and we’d go to one of the hotels where parties were held (invitation only). But this all stopped soon enough and now I can’t even be bothered to watch on TV. This year was very windy, I hear, and they were thinking of cancelling the Zug in Cologne and Duesseldorf. I don’t know if they did though.

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  7. It was indeed very windy on Rosenmontag, but as far as I know, none of the big parades were cancelled. They may have put a height limit on the floats, but other than that, all went as usual.
    As a kid, I loved being in costume, but stopped completely doing anything carnevalesque once puberty hit. Only with and through O.K. have I rediscovered the fun bits of carnival again.

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  8. Is Carnival always associated with this time of year in Germany? Funny, for some reason, I've never come to connect the word with a special time of year until I started thinking about it now... But I suppose that's because Sweden has been a Protestant country for several hundred years (and nowadays mostly secular) ... We do have the word 'karneval' for this kind of event, but if it's linked to any special time of year, here it would be to student events of similar kind on 30th April (Walpurgis night). ... A memory also popped up for me when reading this post of yours, of visiting Trier in south Germany back in 1983, and some flower festival going on there just then. But checking my photo album now, I see that it was not called Karnival, but simply "Trier Blumentage" - and it was at end of August. But it did involve a parade! :)

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    1. Yes, Carnival is always towards the end of winter/beginning of spring. The actual date is linked to Easter Sunday: The Wednesday after the 7th Sunday before Easter is Ash Wednesday, marking the end of Carnival (at least that's what wikipedia says). In my (predominantly Protestant) area, it is not a huge thing, but in O.K.'s predominantly Catholic part of Germany, it is really BIG.
      The Trier Blumentage sound beautiful!

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  9. I didn't realise that Carnival was a tradition in Germany. I always associate it with southern Europe, somehow. It all looks like lots of fun - I think these events in a dull month like February are well worth having!

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    1. It depends, Jenny - some dislike the excess drinking that often goes along with it. But I think if you are with a bunch of friends and know your limit when it comes to alcohol, why not!

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