Last of November, First of December

The last three days of November were here, starting with Monday, the 28th. It was a good day for desk work, which I did all day, and not ideal for walking. Nonetheless I went out after work; the soft drizzle wasn't too bad but I decided against the muddy fields and instead visited parts of town where I had not been in a while.

This tree in front of a bank next to one of our main roads is always particularly beautiful.

The rain continued into Tuesday (Nov. 29), but I reached my work place for the day largely dry. People at the German Literature Archive in Marbach always make me feel welcome, and we had a productive and pleasant meeting. 

View from the top of the hill where the archive and museum are; Ludwigsburg is shrouded in fog.

View towards Benningen on the other side of the river, where I so often direct my walks.

By late afternoon, it stopped raining, and so my Mum, my sister and I met up to visit the Christmas market together. I was so happy when my sister suggested that, and all three of us enjoyed it. We started early enough for it not to be too packed yet, and when the crowds really descended on the market, we went home.

Sorry for the blurry pictures - I was not focusing properly while making sure to keep up with my Mum and my sister.

 

I had to be up early on Wednesday, the 30th, for an appointment at the breast cancer screening centre. They invite me for a mammography every two years, and I duly go. In the past, I have had false alarms, and I am not scared or anything, but better safe than sorry, right? The result should arrive by letter some time this week.

Sunset was going to be at around 4:30 pm with full darkness around 5:00 pm, so I had to go early if I wanted to walk in daylight, putting in maybe another hour or two of work afterwards. I did that, and in spite of the day being entirely grey, it was good.

It's unusual to see so much foliage still on the trees in December, but it looks beautiful and lights up a grey day.

Benningen town hall, next to the station where I always board the local train to get back to Ludwigsburg.

Thursday, the 1st of December, was here: I had not just one, but FOUR Advent calendars to open! (All of them with chocolate...)

Work was on-site at my client's today, but they are saving on energy bills and the office building is not heated properly. I knew that and dressed warmly, but no matter how warm you dress, when you sit most of the day and only your fingers move at the keyboard, the chill creeps into you anyway. They have also set the taps for the toilet sinks on cold water only - I HATE having cold hands to begin with and then having to wash them in cold water! Next, I was looking forward to a hot lunch at their canteen, which is usually really good. To my disappointment, my food was only luke warm... at a restaurant, I would have sent it back, but in this situation, I ate quickly to get at least a remainder of warmth. Still, all things considered, it was a good day, but I am considering NOT working on site there this week.

Friday, the 2nd of December: The much awaited Schrottwichteln ("Secret Rubbish Santa") with my girl friends was taking place at my home, as per our tradition. Several times, I have posted about this event on my blog; as a group of friends, we have been doing this for at least 20 years. We started out alternating between our respective places, but ever since my husband died, I have been the host, and it is always a cheerful evening. That does not mean that we do not talk about serious or sad things - we do -, but mostly, that night is a happy one.

There were only four of us at my flat, with our friend from Northern Germany joining us by video link.

The next morning, Saturday (Dec. 3), I got up early again. My trains to Offenburg were on time; I arrived at O.K.'s cottage at lunch time for a quick snack before we set off: The next two hours, we went from door to door in the part of the village assigned to us, selling tickets for the village band's annual concert. 

For the past two years, the concert could not take place, but now we were back, and it felt as if we'd only been round people's doors last year, not three years ago. We sold many tickets and had a few nice conversations, but I was more than ready to go home and spend the rest of the afternoon and the evening in the warm cottage, doing a few household jobs while O.K. had to go out again - so close to the concert, there are extra rehearsals scheduled for the band, not just the one band practice on Wednesday evenings. 

On the 2nd Advent Sunday, the 4th of December, we only went for a quick walk around the village in the early afternoon; the rain increased in intensity, and by the time it was dark, the sound on the cottage's roof windows made one glad to be indoors. After coffee and cake, we put up a few bits of decoration; while O.K. put in another hour or so of trumpet practice, I read blogs and played on my ipad. We finished the week with a delicious meal of cheese, bread and wine, followed by a movie on TV.

A (Not Quite) Lost Place

If you have been reading my blog for a while, you will know that I have a soft spot for what are nowadays called Lost Places. In this post I have described why I don't really agree with the term, but for the sake of simplicity I use it, too.

Last Friday afternoon, as mentioned in my previous post, I went on a guided tour at such a place: The former production site of a company making chicory "coffee" and other products. The company was called Heinrich Franck & Söhne, later fusioning to become Franck und Kathreiner GmbH and eventually becoming part of Nestlé. The Ludwigsburg production site was originally chosen because of its direct access to the railway; it was a bit of a "what came first - the hen or the egg" thing. The site was closed down in 2018, taking away not just many jobs, but also the scent of roasting chicory so familiar to all Ludwigsburgers.

In the four years since the closure, about half of the buildings have remained abandoned (and some of them long before that), now owned by the City of Ludwigsburg. One building hosts various tenants, start-ups and small companies glad for the chance to rent rooms for much less money than they would have to pay for modern facilities. The outdoor space next to the train station was open to the public during the summer months, as I have shown you a few times on my blog.

Now the City of Ludwigsburg has been thinking long and hard about what to do with the rest of the site, and citizens had the chance to be involved. One such element of involvement was the guided tour I went on, and where I took these photos.

View from across the road; the train station and town centre are behind those buildings:

Advert for one of the small companies inside the biggest building:

I find such signs intriguing. What information or instruction is deemed necessary to be on permanent display in a work environment? What kind of language is used, how good (or not) are grammar and ortography? Layout?

Inside the oldest building; this one has not been used in many years, as production was modernised some time in the 1980s. That building is listed and contains mostly wooden structures, which means any future use will have to deal with tons of regulations:

Outside the walls, nature has been trying hard to make room:

The railway track designated for the exclusive use of the company has always been fenced off, inaccessible to the public. It was strange to look at the familiar platforms from that perspective:

Another sign:

Where do those stairs go? We were largely, but not entirely, free to roam - always under the instruction to be very careful, of course.

Can you remember telephones like this one, with a round dial? I certainly can!

I wonder why the upper sign was deemed necessary in Italian as well as German, but not the lower one:

The oldest part of the entire complex is the wall supporting the railway tracks on this side of the town, built more than 175 years ago:

The space that was open to the public from May to September looks very different now:

It will be interesting to learn the results of citizens' involvement; on the Saturday after our guided tour, two events were offered where everyone was invited to share and discuss their ideas for the site, but I did not have time. One lady from my volunteer group went, and she will give us a report at our next meeting.

Last Full Week of November

The last full week of November and the 1st Advent Sunday is behind us; December starts the day after tomorrow. This year, it all feels different and yet so much is the same as "always". It makes for quite a mix of emotions, I can tell you.

Almost every day that week, we had a mix of sun and clouds with a few sprinkles of rain in between. It was colder than the month had been so far, but still "too warm for the season", according to the weather folks on TV. 

Monday, the 21st of November: Only one month to go until winter solstice, and the slow but sure increase of daylight! The fortnightly meeting with my volunteer group was cancelled, because there would have been only three of us. This gave me the opportunity for an after-work walk; nothing special, but good for me nonetheless.

Our Christmas Market opened on Tuesday (Nov. 22) - the first one since 2019. I didn't go, because my Mum, my sister and I had planned to write the cards I'd had printed to notify everyone of R's death. 

The parcel from the printer's arrived as scheduled, but... the card was done entirely wrong! Instead of the photo we had chosen to be on the front only, it was printed on the front and back, so that you could only see half of it when you looked at the card. Instead of the card opening to the side (like a book), it opened from bottom to top (like a wall calendar). And instead of the inside showing a poem on the left and the actual notification on the right side, they had squeezed both pieces of copy on one side, upside down when you open the card. That was definitely NOT what I had ordered, but now we needed to react fast.

My sister talked to the people at a local copy and print shop, and they agreed to print our cards over night if they got the data this afternoon. I prepared a USB stick and met my sister at the shop after work; we explained what we wanted (I also showed them the wrong print) and placed our order to be picked up the following day.

We popped in at our Mum's to pick up two parcels she had asked us to post for her, did that and then went home for a quiet evening in. With all the back and forth and the dismay about the card, it was good to see my sister.

For my lunch break on Wednesday, we met up at the shop again. The cards were now exactly how we had wanted them, and I was very relieved. For our actual lunch, we walked over to the Christmas market and had one of our favourite foods, a "Holzofen-Dinnede", as shown here. It was our first "proper" Christmas market food since 2019, and tasted just like it should, piping hot directly from the wooden stove.

After work, the three of us gathered round our Mum's dining table and wrote the cards; my sister posted them that same evening while our Mum heated the vegetable lasagne she had prepared for us (the best ever).

Thursday, the 24th of November - Christmas Eve exactly one month away. It will be so very different this year with just the three of us there. 

I worked on-site at my client's office with our customary walk around the block after lunch. For the evening, my boss had invited us to our annual party; he was supposed to cook a festive meal for us at his home, but a spontaneous change of plans meant the three of us (our fourth colleague was excused) met at the Holiday Inn next door instead. It was good to see them and catch up with each other, and our boss drove both me and my colleague to our respective homes afterwards.

A day of mixed activites was Friday, Nov. 25. I spent the morning working from home as usual. In the early afternoon, I attended a guided tour on the abandoned industrial area next to the train station; I have posted about it a few times, for instance here for its official opening (in parts) to the public.

The Mayor of Ludwigsburg addressing the crowd of about 50 before we split in two groups for the tour

 

The tour covered 10 stops where we were asked to leave our feedback and ideas for future use; what we would like to be kept and what needed changing in our opinion. Half of the area is now owned by the city of Ludwigsburg, and they really want to develop it for public use, not the enclosed space it was during the decades of production.

I took many pictures but will show them to you in an extra post.

By the time the tour finished, I was freezing - all that standing around, listening to explanations and people voicing their views, mostly in empty unheated buildings. But my flat was warm and cosy, and when my friend arrived shortly after 6:00 pm, I was alright again. 

We were to meet our former school mates at the Christmas market later that evening, but we always want a bit of time to ourselves before we meet the group, and even more so this time as she has recently lost her Mum and I my Dad - we used to live next door to each other, and I have known her mother since before I was six years old. After an hour or so, we left for the market. It was packed, and I thought about leaving a few times, but then adjusted, had something to eat (you can guess what, can't you) and to drink. We later walked the short distance to a restaurant where a long table was booked for us; nobody ordered food, but some of us had plenty to drink (not me). At some stage, it was all getting a bit too much for me, nice as it was to see my old school mates, and I was first to leave.

Saturday saw me doing my usual cleaning, washing and ironing; O.K. arrived mid-afternoon. After coffee and cake, we went for a quick walk before dark. I then retreated to the kitchen where I prepared Kässpätzle for the three of us - I had invited my sister for the evening, and Kässpätzle is great for when you have guests and want to get the kitchen warm and cosy. 

My basic recipe for Spätzle remains unchanged since I posted it here, but I do not add ham anymore and use a different mix of cheese and cream. The Merlot I served with the meal was good, too, but best of all was my sister joining us.

During the night and very early Sunday morning, the temperature dropped to just below frost at -2 Celsius. O.K. and I had our customary leisurely breakfast before going for a walk in the sun. We then went to my Mum's for coffee, and afterwards, I put up a few first bits of Advent decoration and lit the first candle on the Advent wreath bought last week.

This year, the Advent calendar village is at my place - we switch between the two of us every year.

Then it was time to cook so that we could eat at 7:00 and it would not be too late for O.K. to start the long drive home.

A Soothing Walk

At the end of my previous post, I mentioned that I went for a walk on Sunday (Nov. 19). My Mum and my sister were going to spend the afternoon together, so there was no urgent need for me to be there.

The rainy morning did not deter me; I took my little brolly with the fox print, a gift from my sister some years ago when we were in Ripon together and spotted it in a shop. Twice during that day I actually needed my umbrella, each time only for a few minutes until the shower had passed.

I took the local train to Marbach, which takes just over 10 minutes, and started my walk at the station at 12:05, leaving the town on the route my Mum and I used to walk so often when my parents still had their allotment near Steinheim.

It was windy, and the clouds were hurrying in the direction I was walking, with blue bits of sky and sunshine in their wake, so I was certain I would not encounter many more (if any) showers.

My Mum and I always liked that stone wall and the orchards in this part of the walk:

Coming out at the top end of that hill:

First view of Steinheim, where I was going:

Coming up to the first houses, what was that near one of the trees?

A black-brown fluffy cat, not at all interested in me but in the rustling of small animals in the grass:

Crossing the bridge over the river Murr to enter the small town properly; the river was not showing signs of the dry summer months anymore:

Steinheim has many such corners:

Now leaving the town, a long uphill stretch lay before me, lined with vineyards, some of them abandoned, others still working:

I reached the enclosure where my parents' allotment was. Today, not one single car was parked behind the locked gate. The weather was not gardener-friendly, and I would not have gone in anyway, even if the gate had been open.

The sun had bravely been trying to pierce through the clouds, and finally worked its magic over the land, lighting up Lehrhof, a tiny hamlet seen from the lane leading past the allotments:

The white building was where I wanted to go next. It is a place for seminars, deliberately far out so that the  there can completely focus.

Meanwhile, some other people had figured it was "safe" to go out and not get too wet:

The empty flag poles near the seminar building were lit up by the sun:

On I went...

The woods in the background were my next goal.

Silver birches:

But first, I needed to eat; breakfast was long gone, and it was nearing 2:00 pm. I perched on the driest part of a bench to eat my sandwich and chocolate bar and drink some water, with this view:

It was windy there and I did not want to stop for long, and soon made my way into the woods:

I have always felt at home in woodland, and this path was particularly beautiful. The woods here have a different character to the Black Forest, gentler and more leafy; each with their own beauty.

The path dipped into a valley, leaving the woods behind:

It then went uphill again and along the ridge opposite to where I had been walking before; if you know where to look, you can see the spot where I stopped for my late lunch:

Wide open skies always have a positive effect on me:

I walked through Steinheim again and left the small town at the same spot where I had entered it. The cat was still there, although now in a different orchard:

Nearing Marbach, this is a spot my Mum and I always stopped for breath after the first uphill bit:

A familiar view for me and my Mum:

I reached Marbach station with about 20 minutes to spare. Sitting on a bench was welcome after the 20 km or so of walking in about 3 1/2 hours I had walked. It was not yet sunset when I arrived home; I was a little tired but felt very calm after that soothing walk, and spent a quiet evening, talking to O.K. on the phone later and watching another episode of All Creatures Great and Small.