Read in 2014 - 17: An Astronaut's Guide to Life on Earth

My birthday table was, this year as every year before, once again laden with presents from those who care about me. Each gift was the obvious result of someone thinking about me, and finding something they were sure I would like.

Each and everyone was truly appreciated - but it is inevitable that some gifts stick out more than others. For instance, I was given plenty of coconut-flavoured sweets and chocolates, which were of course meant to be eaten, and are long gone since. 

Other items were intended to create a more lasting effect, and one of them was the book I have just finished reading: "An Astronaut's Guide to Life on Earth" by Chris Hadfield.

It was from my sister, part of a stack of books she gave me in the hope I'd finally start reading something better than a lot of what she finds me reviewing on my blog. With Chris Hadfield's book, she was certainly right! Knowing that I have been interested in all things Space for decades, she could be certain that this particular book was going to be a big hit with me. And so it was!

The author is a (retired) Candadian astronaut who has been in space on several missions, including his last one, a long-term stay aboard the ISS, where he served as commander for some months. He has become known to a wider public through his youtube video, performing David Bowie's "Space Oddity" (with adapted lyrics) on the ISS. Nobody, least of all himself, had expected this video to become so viral - what started out as a fun idea from one of his sons ended up being viewed millions of times during its first three days online.

Now, don't get the wrong impression about this book. It is definitely NOT yet another celebrity's attempt at milking their short-lived status. The Space Oddity thing is mentioned only briefly towards the end of the book, and clearly conveys how amazed the author was when he became aware of the video's impact. Most of the time, the book is just what its title promises: a guide to life on earth, nicely embedded with an autobiography.

We learn about Chris Hadfield's early fascination for space travel, and how for many years he did not think it actually possible to become an astronaut himself. We also learn how, in spite of not thinking it probable, he did a lot to achieve that unlikely goal, and how, against all odds, he reached it. Not everything went smoothly all the time, but he had determination and dedication, plus the very important support from his wife, family and friends.

Chris Hadfield gives some unusual advice, such as always aiming to be a Zero, sweating the small stuff and the power of negative thinking. All of this advice is presented with a good mixture of humour and seriousness, and makes perfect sense. Almost as if by chance, he also talks about what it is like being an astronaut (which usually means spending a lot more time working very hard on earth than flying in space), how a mission is prepared (and why it takes years of preparation even for a comparatively short ride), what living aboard the ISS is actually like, and all that space travel involves, from pre-flight quarantine to launch, from re-entry and landing to the considerable physical and mental strain experienced for weeks, even months, afterwards.

Some quotes I want to share with you:

See, a funny thing happened on the way to space: I learned how to live better and more happily here on Earth. Over time, I learned how to anticipate problems in order to prevent them, and how to respond effectively in critical situations. I learned how to neutralize fear, how to stay focused and how to succeed.

I'm pretty sure that i can deal with what life throws at me because I'Ve thought about what to do if things go wrong, as well as right. That's the power of negative thinking.
The CSA's [Canadian Space Agency] budget [...] is less than the amount Canadians spend on Halloween candy every year [...]. Similarly, NASA's budget is not spent in space but right here on Earth, where it's invested in American businesses and universities, and where it also pays dividends, creating new jobs, new technologies and even whole new industries.

This is a book I recommend to everyone. Even those who are not at all interested in human spaceflight will enjoy it, I am sure. It does not make you want to jump up from your armchair and ring NASA to sign up for the next astronaut class, but it does teach you one or two things about life on earth, things we'd all do well to remember from time to time.
And, just to add one more good thing about this book: I did not find any typo or example of bad editing. Not a single one! 

Monday Evening Walk

When I arrived at the hotel where I was going to stay all of last week on Sunday night a week ago, it was too late to go for a walk, but it was not too late on the Monday, after a day of lessons.
I walked along the same path I had been on before; the first picture here is of the same area (just from a different angle) as the first "walk" picture in this post, so you can see what a difference those few weeks since the end of March made.

This time, I also tried some different paths where I had not walked before, and came across this very friendly cat. I sat with it for a while on the sun-warmed stone steps, and it purred loudly and didn't want to let me go.

It turned out to be the warmest and sunniest day of that week, and I was glad I'd been out for about two hours before going back to my hotel room, where I took my big fat ring binder and went over the day's lessons for another hour or so.

And Again: Back to School!

Saturday afternoon, I came home from the second part of my course. You can read about the first part here and see pictures of what my hotel room and the surrounding area looked like. This time, I had a room that looked exactly the same, just everything mirrored, and at the opposite end of the first floor up. The surrounding area had changed in that the season has advanced; there was now a lot more green on the trees than last time, as you will see in my next posts when I'll ask you to join me on some of the walks I undertook each day after lessons.

This is the front of the hotel. All very new; it only opened a year or two ago. 

The other side of the building, as I saw it every day on my way back from class (the building where our lessons took place was just a few steps along the same road, which is why I chose this hotel.) My room is on the first floor above the stilts, the one to the far left of the building.

The breakfast room. This picture is from my mobile, which explains the bad quality. Hotel guests can have free hot and cold drinks and fresh fruit (something I took advantage of) all day long until 10.00 pm. Breakfast is the standard continental buffet type; nothing special, but as far as I could tell (I did not try everything there), of good enough quality.

One evening while revising in my room, I was distracted from my notes by an extremely bright glow outside. It had been a grey overcast day, and all of a sudden, the sun broke through, already sinking, lighting up the entire building on the other side of the road. This picture doesn't really do it justice - the glow was so brightly pink and golden, it looked unreal.

I enjoyed classes just as I had done during the first week of the course, but I must admit I found the Thursday and Friday a lot more knackering than I'd expected. Monday to Wednesday were easier in that classes ended between 4.30 and 5.00 pm. Thursday, we had a brief oral exam; each of us had been given a topic to present in 10 minutes maximum, and we all sat in while the others gave their presentations. That meant finishing at 7.00 pm, which is quite a long day if you've been at lessons since 8.30 in the morning and not exactly used to such academic work. The Friday was another long day until 6.00 pm, and our teacher on that day was a true expert in his field (IT security), and a very kind man - but not the most gifted of speakers. It was difficult to stay focused, and by late afternoon I was so tired I really had to struggle not to fall asleep (and I wasn't the only one). I was so tired that I was very much tempted to just retreat to my room and lay down after the end of the lesson, but I pulled myself together and went for what turned out to be the most interesting walk I'd had all week. No revising that night, though!

I took these "before" and "after" pictures of our classroom with my mobile phone. 

Next time I'll be back there will be at the end of June. On the Friday of that third week, we'll have to write our final exams for several subjects. Until then, I will be good and do some more (lots more, actually!) revising.

Read in 2014 - 16: Eugene Pickering

A short book that kept me company on my kindle for the train ride to the second part of my course last week, "Eugene Pickering" is a story by Henry James and my very first read by that author. Originally, the story appeared in 1874 in three volumes of "The Atlantic Monthly", a "magazine of literature, art and politics", as it called itself. Later, the story found its way into several books containing some of Henry James' shorter novellas; apparently, it was never published on its own.

From the start, I found it interesting that the narrator not only remains unnamed, but appears as a spectator and advisor throughout, never as a prinicpal, acting character - except for when, towards the end of the story, he shows initiative by travelling to Cologne to look after his friend and then persuades him into further travelling with him.

Motherless Eugene has had a very secluded upbringing; his stern father wanted to make sure the boy was untouched by all bad influences. For a while, he was allowed a companion for his home schooling; the story's narrator was that companion and became the only friend he ever had.
Many years later, they incidentally meet again, and the narrator finds his old friend, now free of the omnipresent authority of his father, ready to embark on life with all its adventures. The inevitable happens - the naive, inexperienced Eugene falls in love with a woman who has the reputation of being an adventuress.

Taken on its own, that would not be so unusual, but Eugene has a promise to maintain he had no influence upon when it was first given...
The way things turn out in the end is more or less what I expected, but of course I won't tell you here. 

This was an interesting, althougn not exciting, first encounter with Henry James for me. He lived from 1843 to 1916, and of course you won't have difficulties to find out a lot about him on wikipedia and elsewhere on the web. I have some more of his works as free ebooks on my kindle, and I will read them... sooner or later.

By the way, the painting on the book cover has nothing at all to do with the story. I often wonder how such cover art is chosen; most of the time, whoever makes that choice has probably never read one single word of the book in question.

Too Much of a Good Thing?

Can there be, as the saying goes, too much of a good thing? Yes, of course. One can have too many cocktails, too much chocolate, too many nights out, too long of playing one's favourite computer game, and so on. But I can never have too much of the good thing called YELLOW!

My first yellow dress I bought in, I think, 2007. It is still a firm favourite in my wardrobe, although I do not have as much occasion to wear it as I would like to. It is too low cut for work, and of a lightweight linen that needs really warm weather to feel comfortable. You can see that dress here, if you like.

There is now a second yellow dress in my wardrobe, a casual find when I happened to walk through H&M the other day. Does it happen to you, too, that you find the nicest things when you're not looking for anything?

I wrote about the many yellow items and how I prefer to combine them on my blog before; that older post is here. 

Last time I bought a new dress, it was this one in March. It may not look it, but it is one of my most expensive pieces. On the same day I bought the new yellow dress, I also found a top at H&M and a white summer jacket to wear to the office - the yellow dress, top and jacket together cost less than the March-dress alone. The jacket looks a bit large, but it is supposed to be my size, and a look at Comma's website tells me that it looks rather large on their model, too.

The polka dot top (just in case you didn't know - I love polka dots!) is not purple, but a deep navy blue; it is the camera that makes it look purple.

What I really "need" now (if one ever really "needs" clothes...) is a pair of white shoes smart enough for the office, and sturdy enough for the way to work, standing around at the train station and walking to and from there.

When I found the white jacket, I was with my sister. We had met in town for our first visit to the ice cream parlour of this year, it was a beautiful sunny and warm day. On our way home we stopped at that store. While browsing the clothes racks, we came across a collection of particularly ugly things. I forgot the name on the label, it was something "Royal...", but the only "Royal" thing about them was that they had evidently been designed by the King of Bad Taste!

My sister persuaded me to put them on just for the laugh, and took these pictures with her mobile. We had such fun, and I just can't believe someone is willing to spend money on this stuff and really wears it in public! The 80s Revival is over... such outfits did not look good the first time round, and even less so now.
If I ever should be invited to a Bad Taste Party, I'd know where to look for an outfit :-D

Speaking of 80s outfits, I found this yellow retro sweater at Aldi's a month or two ago. It is my favourite outfit for days spent at home doing the cleaning and ironing, very cosy and roomy.

Read in 2014 - 15: The Postmaster's Daughter

While trying to find information about the author, I came across this blog which gives a brief account of Louis Tracy's life - the first 21 years of which are shrouded in a bit of mystery - and a picture.

"The Postmaster's Daughter" was first published from July to September 1916 as a series in "Country Gentleman" and then printed as a novel the same year.

It is a fun-to-read detective story, with (of course!) a love-story thrown in, and kept me guessing at the "whodunnit" until fairly far ahead. The characters are described so well you can easily run the movie in your mind. Some of them are likeable, some less so, but all are very much "there".

The book is neatly divided into 23 chapters (probably the way the story was originally serialized in the "Country Gentleman") with such intriguing headlines as "The Face at the Window", "The Seeds of Mischief", "On Both Sides of the River", "A Matter of Heredity" and "The Truth at Last". Don't some of these sound like the names of episodes in Midsomer Murders?

To briefly summarize the story without telling too much, let me just say that well-to-do bachelor John Grant finds the body of a famous actress he once was in love with but has not met in three years on his own grounds, miles away from her London work place. What was she doing there, and who had a reason to want her dead?

The village near his house is soon buzzing with rumours and suspicion, especially when it becomes known that Grant spent part of the evening of the murder in the company of the prettiest and cleverest girl around, the postmaster's daughter.
What roles do the calm and polite village chemist, the butcher, the landlord of the "Hare and Hounds" and the sporty horse dealer play? And where does the ghost of Owd Ben fit in?

Grant summons his best friend for moral support when everyone seems to point at him, and it does not take long for Scotland Yard's best men to appear on the scene.

In the end, all is revealed, although the culprit is not brought to justice (in a way, he is, but I won't say another word!).

This was, as you probably have guessed, a free ebook from the Kindle store, and one I very much enjoyed for its witty dialogue and good characterization of people.

A Saturday Walk

We've been having an unusually warm and sunny March and April, with the exception of a few chillier and less bright days. For this weekend, rain and lower temperatures were forecast, and when I got up on Saturday morning, I was not at all sure that my Mum and I would be able to go on the walk we had planned.
By the time I'd finished cleaning the flat and getting my groceries shopping done, though, the sun was coming out and it looked like we'd stand a good chance of having our walk without getting wet.

So off we went, across the fields to the nearby town of Kornwestheim, where I so often get off the train one stop earlier on my way home from work in order to enjoy the rest of the trip on foot.

We went to the cemetery where my maternal grandparents' urns are in a columbarium. This month, my grandmother would have been 99 years old. We are not frequently visiting the cemetery and rather remember our dead family members in other ways than placing flowers or lighting candles, but we'd not been there in quite a while and so thought it a good idea to have a look and make sure everything was in order.

Chestnut trees are in full bloom now

On our way there, we stopped at a children's playground so that my Mum could have a little rest on a bench. There was not a single child in sight, and so I tried the swing. As a child, I absolutely loved swings, and in my memory, I have spent hours and hours on a particularly favourite one, very high, at the playground in the palace grounds. Of course it probably was never hours, but you know what it's like when you're a kid; your concept and perception of time is quite different to when you are grown up.

We arrived at the cemetery and found all our relatives' graves in order. I took this picture of the beautiful azalea and rhododendron shrubs, knowing full well that I have taken nearly the same picture last year (you can see it here), only that it was the end of May then - and the new picture is 5 weeks earlier, calendar-wise. Just goes to show what a difference this very mild winter and early warm spring makes.

Our next stop was the town park (Stadtgarten), which also features in the post I have linked to above. There, we sat on a bench near the fountain for a while; it was peaceful and quiet, with only few people about.

The pond is full of goldfish, and we watched this heron catching and swallowing some - I was too slow with the camera to show you that.

A loose feather was sticking up on the back of the heron. After he'd finished his snack, he walked off across the daisy-covered grass, and the feather moved downwards until it fell. Until we had worked out what it was we saw sticking up, I was a bit worried the heron might be hurt, but he behaved so unbothered that we just kept watching him until we were sure he was alright.

The upper part of the Stadtgarten is laid out in beautiful flower beds. This was our last stop before we went to have a cold drink at a café near the train station, where we later took the train home. It had turned out to be a very warm and sunny day, and I was dressed for chilly and possibly rainy weather, so the cold drink was very welcome.

Last night, finally, there were thunder and lightning, and the long awaited and sorely necessary rain arrived. Gardens and fields, parks and woods will look all the more beautiful for it.