This is the life - #1051

Schloss Sörgenloch used to be the manor house of the eponymous village, a hop, skip and 20 minutes on the bike from here.

And there's not a lot that can beat sitting on the terrace at lunchtime on a Friday, chatting to Thomas Heinicke, the owner, and slurping one of Jürgen Hofmann's wines in preparation for something yummy from the kitchen.

Organisation - #1050

Roland Rother is the coolest mechanic I know.

It's just that he's not very well organised.

He's got as far as returning calls on the answerphone, but he still can't stop his  guys from slinging stuff willy-nilly on his desk.

Called in to pick up one of the Saabs after a service and he goes

"Now WHERE'S the key....?"

Searches high and low, calls up the apprentice ("He's on his way home, I'll kill him....") who drove it to the parking lot.

5 minutes later, an red Audi 100 appears at something approaching the speed of light, with a young driver whose face matches the colour of the car perfectly...

"Deja vu... - #1049

...all over again" said Yogi Berra, a baseball player and manager*

I KNEW I'd seen it before and it then struck me that FishandChips had published it and we'd determined that "Reul" is a narrow passageway between building, with its origins in the Latin "rivulus"

What's really weird, though, is that she took her image a year to the day before I took mine..

* He also came up with classics such as:

"You can observe a lot by watching."
 "Always go to other people's funerals, otherwise they won't go to yours."

Gulliver woz here -#1048

I was lucky enough to get an electron microscope for my birthday the other week.

Only weighs 3 tonnes and they have to throw some more uranium rods on the local nuclear power-station when I switch it on (to avoid widespread brown-outs), but it gives you an amazingly Lilliputian view of the world.

Here's Anemone Hupehensis var Japonica and an unidentified buzzy thing.

Expect more from the land of Jonathon Swift in the near future.

My friend the Baron - #1047

Years ago, my Mate the Professor gave me a bottle of this wine and it took me yonks to trace it back to its source.

And by one of those strange but fortuitous coincidences of mistaken identity, Sigmund Baron von Kripp thought that we knew each other fairly well.

We didn't, but we hit it off straight away and stuck with "Sigmund" and "John".

Dropped me a mail the other week, saying he'd be up here visiting a mate from college and did we want some wine?

So we're sitting on the deck chatting and he says "It must be great to be able to live so...compactly"

(We've got 130 m2 built in 1978 on 1/8th of an acre, he's got a castle dating back to 1300-something with 400m2 of living area set on 3/4 of an acre right in the middle of the village of Parcine in South Tirol. Which is the German-speaking bit of Italy).

"You get lost in our place" he said.

But we did get talking about MDP, he reckons I'm a crash-hot photog and he wants me to do a photo-shoot for his website and sundry advertising when I'm next down there.

"I pay very generously." he said. "In wine"

Suits me down to the ground...

"Well, I guess she'll grow into them... - #1046

Scene at the Urige Weinkeller, Bodenheim

For whom the bell tolls...#1045

 Now you see 'em.

Now you don't.

Lydia Bugner has a bell-push next to her asparagus garage.

It's the "Asparagus bell" during the season.

When the asparagus is finished, she turns over the slate and - hey presto - it's the "Cherry bell"

My daily dose of Vitamin P - #1044

Thirsty work, this blogging.

Vitamin P, you ask?

Paulaner unfiltered wheat beer.

Good against scurvy, fallen arches and tornadoes.

So they say... 

Cheers Bat....

Meg. World famous in...#1043

..Nelson Mainz.

They even name buildings after her over here.

Shhhh. Especially if they're the Hechtsheim warehouse of the Maler-Einkauf eG (Painters' Supply Co-op)

But don't tell her - just let her think that it's in her honour.

Which she undoubtedly spells "honor"...

Death throes - #1042

While the financial wheeling-dealing-horsetrading continues in an attempt to squeeze as much money as possible out of save the Karstadt group of department stores ("You can have it for €1 if you take on all the debt". "OK, but I don't pay any rent on the properties" "Noooo..." "In that case, I'll have to let them go down the tube.."), there's the sad daily spectacle of employees piling up cheap fabrics in front of the store and watch helplessly as passers-by do a credible impression of vultures picking the carcass clean.

Sad.

They call me merrow Yarrow -#1041

"Quite rightly" would say Donovan Leitch.

Multicoloured Achillea millefolium blossoms (Common Yarrow or Schafgabe to you....) on the market.

I was convinced that they put the stems in different coloured inks to get the colours, but the lady swore otherwise.

The lady with the purple hands....

They don't call them "push bikes"....#1040

...for nothing.

Mainz has a mixture of bike lanes, pedestrian precincts where you ride at full whack, pedestrian precincts where you can ride at walking pace and pedestrian precincts where you push.

The Augustiner Strasse, for example.

Some people forget.

Not the police.

The rest of the story (the best bit?) is over here on YMBFA.

Huh? - #1039

Signora Anna on the market has real veggies.

And organic lemons that a supermarket chain would reject for "not being perfect"

She also has the only zucchini blossoms on the market.

A group of people were behind me asking rhetorically "Zucchini blossoms? What do you do with THEM?"

I pretended I hadn't heard them mention "rhetoric" and said "Cut them in half with the baby zucchini, dredge them in tempura batter and fry them in olive oil. Or make a zucchini risotto and chop the blossoms in at the last minute."

They looked at me as if I was trying to explain quantum physics by yodelling.

Or worse...

In all his glory - #1038

Splurged big the other day and bought the chappy who's been (in a heavily cropped version) my avatar for the past few years.

And from whom else, but the inordinately talented Beate Thiemeyer

This is a bit much - #1037

Some shops close and you don't miss them.

Walk past an empty shop front and say "What used to be in there?" or "When did they close? Didn't read about that in the paper"

Then there are places like Studio 27 in the Kirschgarten in the Altstadt.

 Gisela and Anselm Vlatten have "small business" written all over them and stamped on their DNA.

You talk to them and they'll say "Oh, we were in that building back in the 1970s selling this or the other and then we moved to that building and sold something else. We had the toy shop back in the 80's too. Didn't you know that?"

Studio 27 sells good design objects.

Nutcrackers, pepper-mills, classy ceramics, jewellery, fabrics, fashion accessories for a discerning market.

And now they're closing.

The business is running OK, but they got a bill from some authority the other day that made Anselm say "I've had enough" to which Gisela said "Me too. Let's pack it in"

Which is fair enough, because they're both over 70 and they've deserved a good few years to enjoy life.

Doesn't mean I won't miss them, though...

Spot the customers - #1036

It's either too hot (possibly) or too early (unlikely) for an ice cream.

At least the tablecloths stay clean....

They make 'em big in.... #1035

..Texas Mainz.

Phenomenal ravioli at the excellent cheese/excellent ham/excellent pasta/excellent everything stand on the market.

These are filled with ricotta and either basil, rocket or cep mushrooms.

Simmer in water for 4 minutes, flash-fry some sage leaves in olive oil, shave some parmigiana over and you're away.

Do people actually LIVE here? - #1034

My mate, Bill Leslie, visited us years ago and commented on the fact that villages died out at lunchtime.

"Do people actually LIVE here, John?" he'd ask "Where are these 60 million people I've read about"

It got to the stage that we'd hold our collective breaths as we drove through yet ANOTHER deserted village, dodging the tumble-weed and then wordlessly cracking up as we hit the "You're are now leaving Menschenleerdorf. Drive carefully"

Thought of him the other day. (Think of him most days, actually....)

It's 9am on a Saturday, it's already 30ºC (that's 86º in feet and inches) and the place looks as if a neutron bomb has just been dropped.

Deserted, apart from a tram.

Heading up the Gaustrasse and out of town.

Not many folk on the market, either.

Grate weather we're having....#1033

Scene in the Domstrasse outside the Cathedral Museum.

In a bit of a pickle - #1032

If you're quick enough and grab the bud of a caper flower (Capparis spinosa L.) before it blossoms, you can pickle it in a brine solution and then chop it finely and add it to strips of red peppers, chopped green olives. lemon zest and decent olive oil.

Or you can wait until it's blossomed, pick and pickle the fruit and add it to hot melted butter with some lemon zest to be poured over a nice fillet of pan-fried white fish.

Heatwave - #1031

 

 Cue for a song: Joan Osborne with the eponymous (look it up - that's what dictionaries is for) song from the terminally excellent "Standing in the shadows of Motown"

35º yesterday.

Think that qualifies.

And - just because it's Sunday and Germany stuffed the Urus last night - another treat from Joan Osborne.

What Becomes Of The Broken Hearted - same film.

Choice moment: look at the backing singer at 2:58. Pure pride and competence.

Last Dit(s)ch Stand- #1030

Selling bretzels and assorted colourful mini-pizze is a hard road to hoe in this sort of weather.

When the outside temperature is only marginally (if that...) lower than in your oven, folks will stay away in droves.

Actually, they sit in the ice-cream parlour and gloat.

Especially if they're Antipodeans....

Pretty maids - #1029

...all in a row.

Which is either

• a movie with Rock Hudson

• a Joe Walsh song on the Eagles' definitive "Hotel California" album

• a pressie from a family of Mrs jb's admirers from Uzbekistan.

[Clue: the latter.]

These folks are as poor as church mice, haven't got 2 farthings to rub together, but when the grand-kids sponsor a trip for them back to the homeland, they spend their pocket money on chocolates and gifts for Mrs jb.

Happens all the time.

Yo Helen! - #1028

 

Helen, MDP's favourite stand-in blogger, resurfaced briefly the other week before disappearing to that country next to New Zealand for the next 6 weeks.

Met up at the Gutenberg statue,  TSOW was AWOL (could have gone for a merry-go-round ride, though, on one of remnants of the Johannesfest still littering the city), ended up at the Mainzer Kaffemanufaktur for a halfway decent espresso  and a free rather dodgy granita (and they knew why they were giving them away...) and the upstairs/upmarket ice cream place in the Römerpassage for .... well, yes.

And a fine time wuz had by orl.

And out of the blue....... - #1027

....Seppl!


Hubert von Goisern is from Linz.

So is Seppl.

We used to work together in the 1970s/80s and we paired up pretty well, being the only 2 non-Germans in a VERY German team.

We had a a pompous little turd of a team leader and it was a constant joy to the 2 of us to be able to say "Listen, you foreigner...".

Or write "F#@%" under one coffee cup and "YOU" under the other and sit opposite him, sipping slowly, alternately and with great pleasure down to the last drop.

As if butter wouldn't melt in our mouths. 

He's also a Hubert groupie.

Stood out in the crowd a bit, what with his traditional kit and silver-blond hair.

Oh, did I say that he flew up from Linz especially for the occasion....?

Slipping through the cracks - reloaded - #1026

So Hubert's barge fronts up in Mainz, we're all sitting expectantly on the bleachers when Hubert's roadie riverie  takes the mike and says "We have a slight problem.....".

It's more than a slight problem, actually - Hubert keeled over on stage the previous night in Offenbach and is in hospital with what sounds like incipient pneumonia.

But wait! We have a solution. Xavier Naidoo, a local hero from Mannheim of South African and Indian descent and who has been jamming with Hubert and his crew here and there along the way, is going to step up to the crease.

[Booing]

And there are 2 options: leave and get your money back (which about half do, still booing as they queue for their refund and getting aurally battered by what they didn't want to hear in the first place...grin) or stay, enjoy the concert and get cut-price tickets for a repeat concert that they'll set up for later in the year.

We stay.

Mrs jb isn't too keen on Xavier Naidoo - "All sounds pretty much the same" - but you have to respect him for learning the ENTIRE SET within 24 hours and fronting up the whole deal.

With the exception of the yodelling, which the drummer reckoned he could "sort of" do. Which he could.

Xavier brought along a couple of his rapper mates, did a couple of his own songs, but the rest was Hubert's stuff, supported by the band and 3 really cool backing singers, one of whom (Elisabeth Schuen, pictured above) is a mezzo-soprano and does serious classical stuff in real life.

Great concert.

Hubert von Goisern - Haut und Haar

Hubert von Goisern - Abreisejodler

Söhne Mannheims - Und wenn ein Lied

Söhne Mannheims - Zurück zu dir

Slipping through the cracks - #1025

This one almost didn't get done.

2 years ago this month, Hubert von Goisern's barge docked in Mainz's commercial port for a concert.

Hubert's an Austrian alt.rock musician who mixes in traditional elements (yodelling, anyone...?) and who's been described as an "Alpine Rocker".

He also tours.

For 2 years straight. 

On a barge.

This tour kicked off in Linz, his home town, and headed east through Slovakia, Hungary, Croatia, Serbia, Romania and Bulgaria to the Black Sea.

Then he turned round and headed west until he got to Rotterdam.

And every day or so, he'd drop anchor (or whatever you do on a barge), fold out the stage and backdrop, plug in the amps and rip into a concert for the folks on terra firma.

For which we were lucky enough to have tickets.

To be continued

Gorgeous. A joy. Inspirational. Satisfying - #1024

Thus wrote an English commentator of yesterday's stuffing of the Argentines result.

The boutiques in Mainz seem to be getting into the spirit of things, too.

I mean, how else do you explain away this colour combination at Augustine in the Leichhof?

I'm actively encouraging Mrs jb to invest heavily in these items (also to disprove an entirely undeserved reputation for being a skinflint..) to wear during the semi-final on Wednesday and the final next Sunday.

Get a bit festive

One for the first half, one for the break and one for the second half.

She might be able to return them on Monday, too...

The (j)bee's knees - #1023

When you have bits of your inner meniscus cut away via keyhole surgery, all the gunk and stuff that stays in the joint glues your kneecap to whatever else is in there.

One of the jobs of the physios is to get the kneecap moving again.

As in:
Get a firm grip on the kneecap and move it up and down, left and right, for as long as it takes, all the while ignoring any screams of pain and appeals for mercy from the patient.

Not quite that bad, but it's something I could have done without.

These tender fingers belong to Lisa, one of Holger Bergmann's nubile slaves employees.

She's really good.

And she hasn't even finished her studies...

Greasy spoons - #1022

My life seems to have been littered with hamburger joints, motorway cafs and greasy spoon eateries.

When you work shifts at airports, you take whatever food's on offer.

At Heathrow, it was the 24 hour landside restaurant in Terminal 2 (eggs, bacon, sausage, tomato, fried bread and baked beans with a pint of saturated fat thrown in for good measure)

In Frankfurt, it was the 24 hour airside restaurant opposite B arrivals (currywurst/fries and what passed for a hamburger back in the pre-McD days).

Plus - being Germany and with a total disregard for the fact that aircraft and alcohol don't mix - beer.

When you drive on the M1 (or better, the A1) in the UK, you've got the Watford Gap/Blue Boar (where Jimi Hendrix famously wanted to play when he came to the UK, thinking it to be a club because all the roadies talked about meeting up there...) or The A1 Truckstop Lorry Park Transport Cafe where an old crone called Nora would serve eggs, bacon, sausage, tomato, fried bread and baked beans (with a pint of saturated fat thrown in for good measure) with a fag (cigarette) dangling from her mouth.

But don't things change.

Smoked salmon rolls? At a motorway (autobahn, actually) rest area? Eh?

Indeed, and REALLY GOOD espresso that's consistently good made with a REAL ESPRESSO machine by friendly barista who give you the customary glass of water.

At the Serways concessions, anyway.

Still wouldn't mind eggs, bacon, sausage, tomato, fried bread and baked beans with a pint of saturated fat thrown in for good measure, though.

Not ALL the time.

Twice a week, maybe......

Monthly Theme Day - Reflections - #1021

Thinks (reflects?): Either a sunset or a 50 megaton nucular thingie taking out Wiesbaden.

Either way.

Mainz's soon-to-be-relocated container port

The usual gang's along for the trip - click here to view thumbnails for all participants