Jester's cap - #165

The four corners of the bronze collar at the base of the Heuenensäule depict significant influences on and through the city.

This is the second, an extremely successful symbiosis of the strong French and Carnival influences that pervade the city.

A Jacobean hat, from which springs the jester's cap.

(The French are OK with me, carnival definitely isn't my tasse de thé..)

Gelati - #164

Can't miss it.

This sign's been outside the Italian ice cream parlour for as long as I can remember.

I'll have yogurt, apricot and pistachio.

As always.

Kumasi Asante Kotoko - #163

That's "Have another beer" in Ghanaian. I think

Or the name of the team that had to stand in on short notice for Werder Bremen (which is one of the top teams of the Premiere Division) who couldn't field a decent side because of injuries in the training build-up to the season.

They've been Ghanaian champion more times that you can count (even if you take your shoes off and add up on your toes as well) so Christoph (who's hugely famous around here from his appearance in a docu-soap about the Vertical Village) and I reckoned it might be a pretty good kick.

Not a really good kick, mind you, but a good evening out.

Which it was. Mainly because there were only 3498 other folks there, which meant that queues were short and no waiting for liquid refreshments or sausages in a bun. Mostly for liquid refreshments.

So the first half was OK - a bit patchy and no-one had a clue who was playing, because the PA system was on the blink and then the announcer had trouble getting his mandible around some of the more tricky names.
Subotić. Vrancic. Baljak (from Banat Zrenjanin). For example. (And those are the local ones...) He elegantly got around naming the guests with "Well, the ones that have left the field aren't on the field anymore and the ones that weren't now are".

And the we had a couple more confusions er.. infusions of the liquid amber at half time. Actually a crouple of cropples.

And we got the imperssion impression that the second half was condisar.. consudera..con-sider-ably better than the hirst falf and the new singeing Laurent, well, what a beauty he is. Gets the ball, belts down the lane... line and then louses it um ...l o s e s it, so if I was Kloppo - Eyyyyy Jüürgen....! I'd tell him to belt doon the lane and then give it to onesome else. From OUR team. Hmm, heh.

But there wuzz a goal at some shtage and then the ffaucheur chauff... driver picked ush up and it was a good evening (officer..) and I bleve we won, so we were VERY HAPPY.

Driver not so, I gather from the dark looks next morning....

With acknowedgement to the late Henry N. Manney III for the liberal absorption of "Wi' a drap o' Watter fra' the Burrn" - Road and Track October 1966

Speechless - #162

Night sky the other evening.

Lousy resolution (Treo 650 smartphone - what can one reasonably expect)

Summer sun - #161

Heliopsis helianthoides or false sunflower.

We stumbled upon this chappy in Vermont in 1995, staying at Beaver Pond Farm Inn in Warren, VT when it was still run by Bob and Betty.

This is one of those plants that drifts in and out of fashion - we'd never seen it over here, so we brought a plant back and it's thrived ever since.

A couple of years later, it was in every garden centre you could imagine.

And it's great!

Soil Type Normal Sandy Clay Soil pH Neutral Alkaline Acid Soil Moisture Average Moist Care Level Easy

Walk of Fame - #160

Mainz's Walk of Fame leads from the Shillerstrasse to the Unterhaus, next to the City Hilton.

You won't find Brad Pitt here, but you'll recognise the names of the creme de la creme of Germany's chanson, performance and cabaret* artists.


Like Erich Kästner, for example


*Not the stuff you'll see in Las Vegas. Poltical, very un-PC, witty, biting humour.

"Cabaret is like a match; it can't ignite without friction" - Werner Finck

Here we go again... - #159

Friday evening. 6 p.m.

Mainz 05 vs. Bremen.

Me and my mate Christoph.

A beer before the game, a beer and a sausage in a roll with mustard at half-time.

If they win, we'll be more than happy.
If they don't, we'll still have had a nice evening out.

(I'd very much like to be more than happy...)

Just the bee's knees - #158

Artichokes are really only thistles with a college education.

The Italian folks on the market (they're Sicilian, to be more precise) must have taken their eye off the ball for a couple of days, because they're now selling artichoke flowers, instead of the artichokes themselves.

Bees included. (It's the bee's bum, actually, but I didn't want this post to be NSFW)

Artichokes, of course, are the best diet food in the world.

They smell decidedly unappetising when being boiled (so you're not tempted to graze through the fridge while you're waiting), and you expend more energy in wrestling off the leaves, biting off the edible bit and transporting the mountains of debris to the compost heap than you get in minimal calorific contributions.

If it just wasn't for the mayonnaise...

Something old, something new - #157

The view as one emerges from the circular stairwell of the Theatre underground carpark, with the back of the original State Theatre on the right and Klaus Möbius's Kleines Haus (the State Theatre's modern extension) on the left.

How this for starters - #156

The zucchini blossoms were so fresh on the market yesterday that bumble bees were still zipping in and out in a futile attempt at pollination.

So the best thing to do with them is to cut them in half length-ways, dredge them in tempura batter and fry them quickly in really hot grape seed oil.

Of course, you'll have scorched and peeled some red capsicums by this time, so whizz those in the blender with a drop of olive oil and you've got something to dip and nibble on with pre-dinner drinks while you watch the rain put paid to the idea of eating outside.

And you don't want to know what else we had.

I wouldn't want to be responsible for a salival tidal wave engulfing the planet...

School holidays - #155

How very excellent!

You can drive into town on a Saturday morning and you're the first car at the lights.

You can find parking - this is the underground car park below the theatre at 9:30.

Even better if you're commuting to work.
And even more better if holidays in the neighbouring state of Hesse overlap with those in Rhineland-Palatinate.
(Holidays are staggered by state to avoid a sucking noise and the resultant emptying of the country. Like in New Zealand.)

It's like driving to work on a Sunday. Every day.

Dire, though, if you want to head south on the autobahn on a weekend when a major state's holiday starts.

Traffic reports on the radio pretty much ignore any congestion of less that 10 km and I've heard "100km" frequently.

It's hurts just to think about it.

Here be giants - #154

The Heunensäule - Giants' Column - is the centrepiece of the market square in Mainz.

Not easy to miss it, really.
Neither would you be if you were 6.40 metres high and weighed 16 tonnes.

It looks as if it's been there forever, but it's actually a fairly recent arrival.

It was originally one of 7 (or 14, depending on whom one listens to) sandstone columns destined for the rebuilding of the cathedral after the fire on the day of its consecration in 1009.

They were stored close to the quarry in Miltenberg, about 100 km from Mainz, in preparation for transportation and then the architect changed her mind. (I mean, it must have been a woman..). Didn't need round pillars anymore. Won't go with the curtains....

And there they languished for almost a thousand years. (The word is that 7 of them ended up as multiple millstones, which makes sense given their tempting shape)

And in 1975, the good people of Miltenberg agreed to gift one of the remaining columns to Mainz to form the focus of the newly revamped squares around the cathedral.

The bronze collar was created by Gernot Rumpf, a local-ish artist (coarse translations not required, thanks...) and the four corners of the sculpture depict 4 key influences on and through the city: Roman, French, Church and Regal.

The shot shows the detail on the bishop's mitre.

More to follow.

Well, well, well - #153

The market square in front of the cathedral is where you'll find Germany's oldest Renaissance well.

It dates back to 1526 and was erected by Cardinal Albrecht von Brandenburg, Elector Prince and Archbishop of Mainz to celebrate Emperor Karl V's victory at the Battle of Pavia in 1525.

A Virgin and Child figures crowns the structure, supported by St Martin, St Bonifatius and St Ulrich.

Below that, it gets quite busy and confusing, with cherubims, seraphims, skulls, drunks and naked farmers sprinkled liberally around.

No, I have NO idea why they would want to do that...

Renewable energy sources- #152

Here are two, anyway.

Wind and sun.

Shame that the aircraft back there is burning carbon-credits as if they're going out of style...

Forbidden fruit - #151

The modern equivalent of cattle rustlers around here are the folk who sneak out under cover of darkness (and sometimes not even that) and plunder orchards.

Cherries, plums, apples, apricots, pears.
Big bags full.

They'll even dig up potatoes.

Farmers don't have anything against one's picking a cherry or two on the morning constitutional through the countryside, but I'd be all for connecting up the fences to the National Grid.

And hanging, drawing and quartering has a nice ring to it.

After a session on the rack, that is.

Bastards.

Patchwork - #150

The countryside around here gives you an idea of the challenges involved in achieving economies of scales in agriculture around here.

Certainly looks picturesque, but no sooner have you turned your combine-harvester around, you're at the end of the field again.

These patchwork structures developed over generations - children inherit the farm, so it's split up (if they haven't been otherwise compensated), son marries a local girl so one field's here and the other's waaay over there.

Their son marries a girl from the next village, so they've got a field over there. Let that run for a few generations (and 9 aren't uncommon around here) and what you see here is what you end up with. You can spend all day driving from one field to the next.

Attempts are sometimes made to consolidate fields in a process called Flurbereinigung, but no-one's ever really happy.

Everyone reckons that the land they got out of the deal is too steep/too flat/doesn't drain well/drains too quickly/has too many weeds/isn't as fertile as the old field/is too far away/isn't far enough away/too big/too small......

Bean anywhere interesting lately...? - #149

Yummy.

Schusters, our Kleiin-Winternheim farmers, have the new season's beans on the market in Mainz.

Nothing better than to boil them until they're still al dente together with a couple of sprigs of summer savoury (Satureja hortensis) or Bohnenkraut - Bean herb - as it's called here, mix them with minted new potatoes, some finely chopped spring onions and a vinaigrette using decent olive oil.

And decent vinegar.

Now crisp some pancetta and crumble it over the top.

Excellent.

On second thought -#148

Stumbled over this just excellent example of corporate landscaping in the Weissliliengasse yesterday.

A pillar of interior-lit sandblasted glass on a stainless steel plinth, set in a bed of pea gravel with clipped Taxus in geometrical beds defined by weathered steel and umbrellaed by maples.

Clean, elegant, tasteful. Find your own superlatives.

But then look at the website. (I did, because "Leoff" didn't ring any bells at all.)

It's horrible.

This is what they say about themselves

Shocking translation - ships are "she", companies aren't. For a start.

But it's the worst sort of gobbledygook - the stuff that I thought I'd left behind when I quit the rat race to become a farmer.

(That's what Patrick Maisey reckons, anyway - "Now that you're a farmer, John..."

Bullshit bingo. Cram as many buzzwords into a sentence as you can, even at the expense of verbs.

Read about it here and play it here.

And cringe

This is Corporate Life in real-time..

Tags: bullshit bingo, Leoff, Mainz, Patrick Maisey

Here we go round... - #147

...the Mulberry Tree.

Morus Nigra.

They were introduced into Europe to satisfy the demand for silk - silkworms just love the leaves - and were planted mostly in southern Europe. (Until cheap imports at the beginning of the 20th Century made it uneconomical.)

Carl Theodor, elector prince of the Palatinate and Bavaria, decreed that they also be planted in his region and this plaque - affixed to Christoph Schultz-Werner's garden wall - describes this tree's significance and history.

A picture of the tree itself later, perhaps, if the sun ever comes out again.

MKOP - #146

"MKOP" is the name of a restaurant in Albany, just north of Auckland in New Zealand.

Stands for My Kind Of Place".

Which it definitely isn't - the only thing they get vaguely right is the beer, and that's not enough for an $80 check.

But this place - Villa Vinum in the Grosse Bleiche in Mainz - definitely is.

They've got good (and interesting) wines, pasta, olive oil, tapenades, glasses, single malt whiskies, a cafe and nice people.

I could spend all day just looking.

And tasting, of course.

Caffea Moguntia - #145

The "tin shed on wheels" is a welcome sight at the Friday and Saturday markets.

And it's a perfect fit - the colour even matches that of the Cathedral's towers.

Almost.

God's waiting room - #144

That's how my Uncle John used to refer to the retirement village they were in, anyway.

This is a brand new retirement home in Gonso.

It's a good looking structure - clean lines, lots of glass, good proportions and a contrast of light blue and green pastels on the side and a stunning ochre front.

Possibly an easy colour to remember, once the grey matter starts diminishing and getting short-circuited...

Humming along - #143

To be honest, I've never seen this machine on the road.

Then again I don't live in the Untere Zahlbacher Strasse in Mainz, where Juwi has its headquarters.

Their slogan is "Energie wird fühlbar" - Energy you can feel - and it doesn't take a brain surgeon to work out that they're active in the renewable energy sector which is serious stuff in Germany.

I bet it's pretty quiet, so I'll certainly take care to look left, look right and look left again.

(Or was it "look right, look left and look right again"...?)

Looking Over Strange Terrain- #142

In other words - lost.

I found this confused-looking chappy stumbling around on the market on Friday.

Based on the kit he was wearing, I think he might have been looking for the Tour de France.

Doesn't surprise me that he was disorientated, though.

Probably doped to the eyeballs....

The new church - #141

Our village has been solidly Roman Catholic for ever, pretty much.

The earliest reference in church records in Mainz date back to 1100 and the Franciscan nunnery relocated to Mainz-Weisenau in 1544.

Which wasn't quite yesterday.

So it's nice that the Protestant church finally got built.

It's tucked away on the Andreasplatz - St Andreas could see it, if were to lean a bit more over to the left and then peer to his right - where Schreiber's barn used to be.

Given the constraints of the building site, it's a fine piece of architecture. Or perhaps because of the site constraints.

So we've now 2 sets of bells in the village.

Ms. JB's pen friend from Mumbai was staying with us years ago and she used to enjoy so much sitting out on the deck and listening to the silence.

"And those wonderful bells" she'd say.

I do like the way the late evening sun reflected a crucifix onto the wall.

Newcomers - #140

This is the Eckert family's vineyard in the village.

Definitely newcomers.

A mere 9 generations of vintners.

Only been here since 1696.

The Franciscan nunnery had been gone 150 years by the time they turned up, for goodness sake! The Romans hadn't been seen in 1500 years or so.

But we're pretty happy to have them here.

Good wines (more gold medals than you can poke a stick at), Volker and Inge are just the nicest people and they put on pretty good concerts in their courtyard.

And they're doing a pretty good job for sustainability and in ensuring that we'll have something to drink further on down the road, by training 41 young vintners since 1997.

Here's the website.

And if you want to have some fun, click on "Die Eckerts" and click on Volker's head on the picture to bring up the family tree. Now click on the names of the last 4 generations to see the family resemblances.

(Terrible picture of Inge, mind you. She's much prettier than that....)

St. Andreas - #139

This is St. Andreas - St Andrew - seated in front of the eponymous church in our village and looking across over the Hauptstrasse (Main Street - yes, we have then here, too..) at the old and new town halls.

Both this and the tall bronze pillar on the other side of the road were created by Barbara Albrecht, an artist resident in the village, who has a significant body of work, including the stained glass windows in the cemetery chapel, depicting the six stages of life..

But that's not the only link between the two sculptures.

St Andrew - a fisherman, like his brother Peter - is holding a net which disappears under the cobbles and reappears at the base of the bronze pillar that depicts the history of Klein-Winternheim.
Flickr has more. Here and here

A nice way of linking secular and religious.

Just don't trip over the net...

The other football team - #138

This is the Sportverein 1919 Mainz-Gonsenheim, with the Vertical Village in its delicate pastel tones looking benevolently down from on high.

They currently play in the Southwest Regional League which is pretty much the lowest level of organised football (soccer) around here. Village/small town stuff.

But they've got their own website (which is at least as good as Mainz 05's) and their merchandise is dead cheap

And Jürgen Klopp lives just around the corner, so maybe they can get some tips from him...

Looking good - #137

No late frosts.

Warm weather and lots of bees at blossom-time.

No hail storms. (Yet...)

Warm weather predicted for next week.

If this keeps up, we could be in the running for a good vintage

The end of an era - #136

If you want to buy your monthly tram ticket at the newspaper kiosk in Mainz-Gonsenheim this morning, you're out of luck.

Yesterday was the last day in 32 years that Karl-Heinz Bendinger didn't get up at 2:30 am and get to his kiosk at 4 am to open at 6 am.

And he's also pretty much the Poet Lauriate of Gonso. For years he's written a poem for a his regulars and slipped it in their newspaper or magazine.

Today, he's probably having a lie-in.
Which he thoroughly deserves.
(2:30? am? I can't even begin to understand the concept of anything that early. It hurts my brain to even think about it...)

Popped in to see him on Saturday - he's one of Mrs JB's tenants in the Vertical Village, but I'd never met him - and the back room of his kiosk (which is right in the middle of the main drag through Gonso at the corner of Kapellenstrasse) was full of presents from his heartbroken customers. And a big bunch of roses that he was giving to his customers.

He also got a present from MVG, the public transport operator in Mainz. (He has the highest turnover of any of the ticket offices outside the CBD - €200k annually. So he's probably generated revenues of €6m/$8m or so for them over the years)

They gave him one of those fabric shopping bags with some of their advertising giveaways - sauna towel, sweets, condoms....

Now wasn't that generous of them.

Odyllic - #135

A splash of carved red coral that caught my eye in Odile Landragin's garden yesterday.
And here we all are again...

Shanghai, China - Mumbai, India - New York City (NY), USA - Manila, Philippines - Albuquerque (NM), USA - Hamburg, Germany - Stayton (OR), USA - Los Angeles (CA), USA - Hyde, UK - Oslo, Norway - Brookville (OH), USA - Melbourne, Australia - Stavanger, Norway - Bellefonte (PA), USA - Bucaramanga (Santander), Colombia - Joplin (MO), USA - Singapore, Singapore - Selma (AL), USA - Cleveland (OH), USA - Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia - Chandler (AZ), USA - Stockholm, Sweden - Seattle (WA), USA - Boston (MA), USA - Arradon, France - Evry, France - Baton Rouge (LA), USA - Maple Ridge (BC), Canada - Boston (MA), USA - Grenoble, France - Cottage Grove (MN), USA - Greenville (SC), USA - Hilo (HI), USA - Nelson, New Zealand - La Antigua, Guatemala - Brisbane (QLD), Australia - Singapore, Singapore - Tel Aviv, Israel - Hong Kong, China - Sequim (WA), USA - Paderborn, Germany - Saarbrücken, Germany - Rotterdam, Netherlands - Tenerife, Spain - Kyoto, Japan - Tokyo, Japan - Sydney, Australia - Naples (FL), USA - Cologne (NRW), Germany - Wassenaar (ZH), Netherlands - Saint Louis (MO), USA - Cypress (TX), USA - Ocean Township (NJ), USA - Mainz, Germany - Toruń, Poland - Menton, France - Monte Carlo, Monaco - Singapore, Singapore - North Bay (ON), Canada - Jakarta, Indonesia - Montréal (QC), Canada - Tuzla, Bosnia and Herzegovina - Minneapolis (MN), USA - Baziège, France - San Diego (CA), USA - Prague, Czech Republic - Ampang (Selangor), Malaysia - New York (NY), USA - Kajang (Selangor), Malaysia - Sharon (CT), USA - Newcastle (NSW), Australia - Port Angeles (WA), USA - Nottingham, UK - Villigen, Switzerland - Chicago (IL), USA - Torquay, UK - Brussels, Belgium - San Diego (CA), USA - Mexico (DF), Mexico - Saint Paul (MN), USA - Cape Town, South Africa - Paris, France - Seoul, Korea - Manila, Philippines - Milano, Italy - Austin (TX), USA - Chennai, India - Madrid, Spain - Seoul, South Korea - Wailea (HI), USA - Toronto (ON), Canada - Ajaccio, France - Buenos Aires, Argentina - Silver Spring (MD), USA - Zurich, Switzerland - Sydney, Australia - Budapest, Hungary - Moscow, Russia - Auckland, New Zealand - Torino, Italy


Odile Landragin has been here before and she'll be back again, because her garden in the Herman-Ehlers-Strasse in Mainz-Gonsenheim is unique. (And if she was looking for an apprentice, I'd happily work there.)

I get groans when I say it's an "odyllic spot", but it has to be seen to be believed.

And one good thing about the (almost) non-stop rain over the last 4 weeks is that a) it cuts our water bill and b) makes Odille's garden look even more lush.

This weekend, she's hosting Dorothee Wenz, a ceramic artist and Elke Wolf, a goldsmith who doesn't have a website I can link to..

They've spread themselves out throughout the greenhouses and garden, with just excellent displays.

Rings in a bed of sand suspended in glass jars, Dorothee's tall ceramics (that always remind me of Dr Seuss's animals for some reason) in a sunken garden. ear studs in pots of wheat grass. (More over at Flickr, if you're interested)

So - all in all - a good afternoon out.

(And there was free cider and apricot flan..)