Long time no see. You looked a lot better clad in scaffolding. I had forgotten quite how unbelievably ugly you really are.
But I will never forget being deprived of the use of my balcony for two years – in mid pandemic where it would have been really nice to be able to use one’s own balcony. Not to mention the repeated cleaning up each time a load of various types of debris – and cigarette stubs (!) – had been thrown onto the balcony, and each time layers of some kind of dust covered EVERYTHING on it. All documented here: “The balcony that would not be affected”. And the lack of light – again – during the pandemic!! – in my living room because of the scaffolding. After I had been told that my balcony would not be affected. As far as I know the biggest lie ever told to me.
The work on the wall is finished and the mats were finally removed.
I – yet again – spent about half a day trying to clean up after the most recent work. Specks of white pain all over the balcony, including on the furniture, relatively easy to remove, but time consuming.
The glue from the tape with which they fastened the mats can probably be removed, but I don’t know how.
I have also started removing splashes of cement from a while ago now that I know that Cresco never had any intention of removing them. They are harder to remove, but with time, I guess I just have to get it done.
One type of stain will never go away. They are on the wall as well as on the floor and seem to have somehow seeped into the surfaces.
I would like to add that the floor of my balcony, as well and parts of the wall, for example as seen in photo number 3, had been freshly coated just before this whole thing started.
The – for us – most claustrophobic part of the scaffolding is still there, despite the fact that it no longer seems to be needed. It was added independently of the main scaffolding, and could therefore be removed independently of the main scaffolding so as not to ruin more of the summer for us than necessary.
From 1 January 2021 to 15 July 2021 (date of my second vaccination plus two weeks :-)).
12 July
One month with Max. Or: Adopting a seven-year-old Podenco mix from Spain, in equal measure cuddly, stubborn, funny, anxious, craving attention and affection, and with a strong hunting instinct.
Last night, in an attempt to have some sort of a social life outside my own home, we went to visit a friend of mine on the rooftop terrace of the building she lives in. Ninth-floor level, to one side overlooking Engelbecken, amazing almost 360 view. I could spend a whole day there discovering towers and other buildings, not to mention all the birds passing by above, and taking photos. The menu was sushi and sunset. It was quite a chaotic evening. Max was jittery the whole time, begging food (which he never does at home) and attention, “panic-barking” (something in between his normal, to the uninitiated quite terrifying bark and a howl) on occasion, although he was clearly tired. He sometimes had trouble keeping his eyes open but remained standing all evening. When we got home, he fell into a deep sleep, and slept for the next six hours without barking even when the newspaper was delivered at the door, and without waking me up for cuddles. So perhaps there is progress in all the chaos.
Up to now, Max has been barking, although for shorter and shorter periods, every time the lift in my building goes, which is sometimes at regular intervals all day and all night. He also wakes me up once or twice during the night with what I can best describe as an apparent anxiety attack. I have not had a full night’s uninterrupted sleep for four weeks and am dizzy with fatigue.
The difference between that rooftop deck and my corner restaurant where he lay down for almost two hours while I had dinner and watched football? Apart from the obvious, all I can think of is that in the restaurant, I did not talk at length with anybody, whereas on the rooftop, I was trying to talk to my friend. Max has also previously been showing signs of extreme jealousy, not only towards other people but even towards my PC and my camera 😊.
That was the worst news. I also hugely enjoy having Max around and am looking forward to being able to venture further afield and go for some proper walks. After having tried a couple of types of muzzle which did not work out (Max bit one of them into several pieces) I am having one made to measure, from Hauptstadthund in Hufelandstraße, and we will hopefully get it at the end of this week or the beginning of next week. Then comes the task of getting him used to wearing it. That done, walks should be less stressful (since he will not be able to pick up and eat everything he finds in the street), and we can then go on public transport, and with some proper walks away from the traffic in our area, Max will probably get so tired that we can get more sleep. As it is now, I don’t even have the energy for any of Gabi Fastner’s you tube sessions and feel in worse shape than I was four weeks ago. Not quite the idea behind getting a dog 😊.
Somebody asked me if I would have adopted Max if I had been quite aware of what I was getting into. That is a very difficult question to answer. I really like Max, and have done from the beginning, but this is admittedly harder than I thought it would be. At home it is all bliss, and on short walks around the block also, but I had hoped to be able to take him with me almost everywhere, and that seems to be a more long-term project, if it ever happens. However, after being flown from the shelter in Benidorm to Berlin, he has been with at least two other foster families, and as far as I am concerned, that nomadic existence stops here.
I am also wondering how well he was treated in the shelter where he spent three years before being transported to Berlin. The other day, I raised my hand to grab something off a shelf just above him, and he flinched and ran out of the room. A normal reflex? I don’t know, but it pained me to watch.
The way I see it is that this is a last-ditch attempt to help Max live a safe and comfortable life hopefully with (much) less stress and anxiety. Someone’s got to do it, and it might as well be me. I have the time, and the means (e.g. all the money I have not been spending since March 2020 😊) to hire a professional trainer (and I have found one who is very supportive, which is a great help: “Yuki & Jun”), as well as cleaning help and dogsitting (occasionally, for my own mental health). I also know that it can take months before a dog like Max fully settles in and trusts a new owner. So hopefully, with time, we can have the same kind of companionship bliss everywhere else as we have at home.
For now, I desperately need a full night’s sleep from time to time 😊. I mean after tonight, when, if Max will let me, I start attending this zoom course: https://strudelmedialive.com/classes/photography-shake-up, which, in terms of European time, takes place at the awkward hours of 1AM to 3 AM. But Kai is a great teacher and I need a focus (at least one ….) in addition to Max.
8 July
First time for Alfred (first mentioned under 6 July) to come and clean my flat for me, and dogsit. He turns out to be quite knowledgeable about shelter dogs and knew exactly what to expect also when he took Max for a walk. I am not sure what I enjoyed most – being out with my camera for most of the afternoon, or returning to a clean flat and a dog that had not been panicking while I was away.
Heavenly rain this morning, and heavenly to have a balcony (despite the pain-in-the-butt scaffolding) that allows me to be out there even when it rains. Spent the best part of the morning listening to the raindrops on the canopy and contemplating my modest pot of wildflowers.
6 July
Max and I are both strangely exhausted after 1,5 ours with the trainer. We learnt the boundary thing, actually quite difficult to explain, but it has to do with getting Max to lie down where I want him to lie, and to stay there for as long as I decide (so far, although he always lies down in whichever room I am in, he immediately gets up and follows me around when I move). The whole exercise has to be done in a “meditative” atmosphere, and will teach him several different skills, including coping with frustration.
And a milestone, this time mostly for me, but definitely Max related. I have decided to give myself the luxury of a weekly cleaning help, not least because of the dog hairs :-). After more than three weeks focusing almost exclusively on Max’s mental health, I feel quite drained and acutely aware of the fact that I am no spring chicken, and cleaning is the last thing I feel like doing. I much prefer to spend quiet time, or on short walks, with Max.
I also realise that, with my second-vax-plus-two-weeks date coming up, I will probably start missing going to the occasional exhibition, cinema, or whatever else where I can’t take Max with me, and he is not yet very good at being left alone for any considerable length of time. Not to mention having people round for meals without having to worry too much about cleaning first.
So I found Alfred, of justaskalfred.de, who will come here once a week and keep my place looking civilised. And guess what – he likes dogs and Max likes him (actually, Max likes everybody ….) so we have included taking Max for a walk around the block in his tasks.
This feels like wild luxury but money well spent. I can have some ME time without worrying about Max howling or whimpering or panic-barking back home. And I can come home to a clean flat and missing Max (truth be told, I miss him when I wake up in the morning and when I have been to the supermarket :-)).
By the way, travel plans have changed: the trip in the last week of this month has been cancelled, and it looks as if our first overnight outing will be end August/beginning September. I will attend the annual meeting of AIACE Deutschland (the club of Germany-based former employees of the European Union). There is at least one day where it would be difficult for me to have Max with me or check in with him at very regular intervals, so through pawshake.de, I have found Faith to come and spend the day with him in and around the hotel. Zen-Meister Nicola the dog whisperer reckons it will be less stressful for Max to come with me instead of finding a dogsitting arrangement where he would not see me for five days.
I am very happy that Max is such a human oriented hound (but wish I could read his thoughts when he gets anxiety attacks seemingly out of the blue, which still happens about once a day).
In the meantime, we have to start over with the muzzle-training with a new and, according to Nicola, more suitable muzzle (part of our homework for the next couple of weeks) and make short trips on public transport so that we can start making trips outside of the centre of Berlin. I have a feeling that a day away from traffic noise two to four days a week will have a positive effect on Max, and – quite frankly – I personally really need to get out and WALK – not just amble around the block three times a day :-).
4 July
Max has been with me for three weeks now. Indoors, at home, he is capable of relaxing completely (like below, where he is listening to the piano lounge collection on jazzed.com :-)), but he is still very nervous a lot of the time on walks, and the more traffic there is, the more stressed he is. I hope he can get used to it gradually.
In Der Tagesspiegel today, there is an article about the ruin of the Franciscan Monastery Church at Alexanderplatz. I have walked past it countless times but never taken the time to walk around it and take a closer look, so that is where we went on one of our walks today:
There seems to be something about that ruin and big rocks. The first one is in front of the ruin, and I took that on an earlier occasion. The others I only discovered today. I don’t know what the story is, if there is any.
Big milestone: Last night I took Max to my local, corner, go-to, comfort food, Croatian restaurant, to eat and watch the football match (which Denmark won :-)), and to see how Max would behave. I have been going there on and off since I moved to Berlin and they treat me like royalty, so I thought it would be a good place to start. It was the first time I ate there for about a year.
Surprise, surprise, Max was exemplary for a couple of hours. Unlike at the, so far, two café visits, he was actually lying down most of the time, calmly observing the other guests. Not in my wildest imagination had I expected this to be possible already at this stage. And we have not even started the real sessions with Nicola the dog whisperer. The first on is on Tuesday and will include “dog meditation” exercises. Yes, go ahead and laugh, but I happen to think this is the right way for Max.
I had brought neither chewtoy nor water, and did not think to ask for water, and perhaps that was a big mistake. Suddenly, out of the blue, when I had long finished eating, and the match was nearly over, he got really restless, had clearly had enough, and could not wait to move on. Luckily, the restaurant is only two minutes walk away from home. When we got in, he ran to his water bowl, and subsequently spent about an hour on the balcony, vigorously chewing one of his chewtoys. Sorry Max, my mistake, it will not happen again.
Here is Max settling in at Restaurant Glashaus on the corner of Lindenstraße and Ritterstraße last night:
2 July
Max approves of his new balcony mat:
1 July
Fertiggeimpft! That has to be a candidate for word of the year 2021. Remembering the mile-long queue for my first vaccination, and adding the time to get to Tegel, I thought that would be too long to leave Max alone. About an hour seems to be his current limit, before panic sets in. Therefore, a friend kindly agreed to come and dogsit. Max seems quite happy, as long as there is another living being with him. I wonder if a goldfish would do the trick. Just kidding.
So this chewtoy was not much of a challenge for Max: https://youtu.be/KR9271SnYXs. Instead of chewing the toy full of food, he took one look at it and unceremoniously bit the lid off. After emptying the toy, he proceeded to completely shred it.
Shadows:
On our afternoon walk yesterday, I met up with a friend and went to Café am Engelbecken. As we were sitting quietly, even Max seemed quite relaxed, Max suddenly jumped up and snatched a flying sparrow out of the air, chewed it up a bit and spat it out on the ground. I was so shocked that I immediately threw it in the lake, which is when I discovered the two new coot babies. As long as they don’t fly, they will be safe from Max. It is quite clear to me now that he does not consider stationary prey enough of a challenge to his reflexes.
27 June
First this: I know there are people who like to follow Max at least in his first weeks in his new home, and I can see that some people are making comments, but for some reason, I can’t access the comments, so if anybody writes something to which they would like a response from me, please e-mail me at this address instead.
Morning walk at Urbanhafen and Landwehrkanal.
26 June
Something to read during Max’s time-outs:
Below are Max’s food bowls. I would like to say that it is because variety is the spice of life for dogs too, but it is more likely to be because I could not make up my mind which two or three I preferred. The are designed to make gluttonous dogs eat more slowly and not inhale an entire ration in one giant gulp:
Two short videos showing just how much, or how little :-), they slow him down, and one where he is doing his best to destroy a really sturdy chewtoy:
And finally, this was a great day with progress on many fronts, some of which have already been mentioned.
Work on the balcony took a big leap forward. On the walk, Max sat patiently and let me take some photos of my local Biergarten, Brachvogel, by the Landwehrkanal, which burnt down earlier this week.
Most of the rest of the walk went so well that I made a quick decision to attempt another milestone with Max: A café visit. We went to Café am Engelbecken where I had lunch and coffee, and Max was – well – not exactly sleeping under the table, but also not too jittery as I had feared. There was plenty of water available for him, and I had brought a chewtoy which kept him occupied some of the time, and the rest of the time he was standing up, looking around him, and clearly not 100 percent at ease, but definitely manageable. He did not try to get near the water or chase after any of the sparrows although they came very close.
I am not entirely certain Max would agree, but for me it was nice to be out and about after almost three days indoors with Max asleep right next to me only interrupted by three or four very short walks in the immediate neighbourhood.
25 June b)
And there is more good news: They are finally working on the wall which forms the back end of my balcony! Max is not enjoying the sight of two workmen on my balcony, so I will take him to Landwehrkanal for the rest of the day, despite Nicola’s advice to only take him out for short walks. We will take lots of breaks just sitting, chilling, watching the world go by. Better than being stressed out in your own home.
25 June a)
Progress. I now have copies of papers showing Max’s chip number and three vaccinations. Just a pity that it is sometimes necessary to threaten hell and damnation before something suddenly and miraculously happens.
Relief. The mandatory dog liability insurance drawn up with adam-riese.de, with coverage as from tomorrow, and the form for registration with Finanzamt filled in and in the mail. Max is now legal.
Still up in the air: I was told that Max was six years old, but by now that would be more like seven I think. However, on the photocopy of the small part of a piece of paper I have received confirming Max’s chip number, there is a date indicating that his date of birth was set to 1 January 2018 (???????). I do know that his exact date or month or even year of birth is probably unknown, but it makes a difference, not least when it comes to nutrition, whether he is three years old or seven years old.
24 June
I am very grateful to have Max, but frustrated to not have any kind of documentation on him, since his passport has disappeared (if it ever existed). I find it strange, careless, and highly irresponsible of the people who organised his travel from Spain to Germany to not have made sure that the passport was where the dog was at all times. Since some time in August last year, the passport was somewhere (or so they say), and the dog somewhere else.
A dog liability insurance is mandatory in Berlin, but I can’t draw one up without the chip number. For all I know, he is not chipped (it would not exactly be the first time I have been lied to since I moved to Berlin – that seems to be a common and largely accepted occurrence in this country), although I assume he would not have been able to enter the country if not. But I guess there is always a way, for example by car. And he is supposed to have been vaccinated (what we call his passport is called “Impfpass” in German) but I have no idea when or against what.
I am planning our first trip by train to stay in a hotel for a couple of nights towards the end of July, so I really need that liability insurance.
I am now wondering whether I could get into deep sh.. for accommodating a dog without documents and – who knows – perhaps without the lawful chip and vaccinations?
If I don’t get some proof that Max is “legal” by the end of this weekend, I shall start “naming and shaming” those involved (except his most recent foster family of course – I am sure they have done everything in good faith) on all social media so that others don’t end up in the same sticky situation.
23 June
Max the canine burnout patient, who has seemed jealous of Mr Canon, and even knocked the camera off my lap one day, quite deliberately, with his snout, let me leave his side for a while this morning to try to get back in photography mode. He even looked on with interest while I focused in on the poppies on my balcony.
22 June
Change of plans, hopefully only temporarily, after the meeting with Nicola the dog whisperer yesterday.
Since then, just a short walk in the early evening yesterday, and one this morning, and the rest of the time spent focusing on relaxation to the point that we have both been in what seemed like a semi-coma on several occasions. With Max’s head in my lap, and he fast asleep, I tend to drift off even when trying to read or watch a film.
The fact that the solution for anxiety, or what I called nervous energy, is NOT the more exercise the better, seems counter-intuitive to me, but when I think about it, in my previous life I did learn that humans with severe burnout must never feel encouraged or pressured to exercise but only go for leisurely walks if they genuinely feel like it, and they rarely do for the first couple of weeks after the diagnosis. Who knows – perhaps the same kind of mechanism.
Even on the short walks along familiar routes, I have concentrated on trying to calm him whenever I saw the signs, according to Nicola, of extreme stress and tension (the frantic pulling and sniffing and eating whatever he can find if I don’t pay attention, the ears pulled back more than you sometimes see with his type of ears, the increased barking when somebody is in the stairway, and – something I had not been aware of – horizontal ridges on his cheeks just under his eyes. That area should be smooth or, if any ridges at all, they should be vertical).
Whether all this is already paying off, or whether it would have happened anyway, there already seems to be progress after 24 hours. The last part of our walk this morning was completely sniffing free and his ears were standing out in the interested but not anxious position and the cheeks smooth. The barking when the lift goes seems to have reduced somewhat. And I went to the supermarket and when I returned, Max was excited and whimpered slightly, but there was none of the ear-splitting, panicky barking or look of utter terror in his eyes. A great relief, probably for both of us.
In the meantime, I have also learnt not to greet him profusely because he needs to know that it is not a big deal to have been left alone for a little while. I had shut him in the bedroom with his water bowl and favourite chewtoy so he was not able to wander around the flat and discover that I really was not there, but he seems to like that room a lot, so if I have to do that every time I leave, that is a perfectly viable solution.
Max is such good company when he is calm so anything that might help him with his anxiety, which clearly really makes him suffer, is worth a try. It is an interesting journey, and a learning curve, for me too.
21 June
Added after the meeting with Nicola:
So Max is basically a Zen-Meister indoors but a nervous wreck on walks. Very good two-hour home visit and short walk with Nicola Wilke-Stoll, professional dog trainer, https://www.yukijun.com/. I learned a lot already – for example that all of Max’s less good habits on walks, and his whole demeanor outdoors, indicates stress and tension and he is a whole different dog in the flat vs. outdoors (I kind of knew that but now that she has pointed out the signs to me it makes sense), so for the first couple of weeks, I should limit our walks to the minimum necessary for “nature calls” and focus on letting him relax indoors. It can take from a couple of weeks to a couple of months for an anxious dog to feel comfortable on a new turf.
I got several more useful tips and now look forward to receiving Nicola’s offer and proposal for a training programme. It is a help that he already obeys the basic commands. Nicola has a very calm and soothing presence and I have a feeling it will be a great pleasure, also for Max, to work with her.
When out walking, Max is constantliy and frantically sniffing around for something to eat. In the last few days, that has actually gotten a lot better, but not 100 percent, and he might still suddenly lunge towards a garbage bin or any leftovers which people have thrown on the ground. I would like that to stop completely.
On Tuesday afternoon, we met up with a friend to go for a walk. He greeted her calmly enough, like he has been taught by his foster family, Mike and Lena, but the minute we started walking, he started pulling frantically, much worse than he has ever done with me before, and there was nothing I could do to stop him, or make him listen to me or look at me, much less snap out of it. He is a strong dog, so I was exhausted after that walk. Almost home, the three of us sat for a while in Besselpark, and Max took his craving for affection out on my friend, leant on her and insisted on being scratched behind the ears and generally stroked and patted. This calmed him down to the point that he almost keeled over. For the rest of the walk, he was much better, though not as good as with me alone. I thought the pulling was mostly about scavenging, but now I am wondering – what was it really about? Just new situation with a second new person there, not knowing how to handle it – or?
Nutrition. Max seems insatiable, so I want to find the optimal food for him. Also, he does not seem to have a whole lot of stamina, and appears quite tired after about five km (our morning walk), and on Tuesday afternoon, we walked about the same distance, and before we had reached home, while we were in the shade, Max lay down and refused to move for a while. Admittedly, it was quite warm but not as warm as it is going to be in the coming days.
I think I have the muzzle thing covered – he walks longer and longer with it on, but perhaps the trainer has some further tips. I somehow don’t think he will freak out on public transport, but we have not tried that yet.
Handling new situations (which we have not tried yet, so perhaps I am doing him a terrible injustice) such as keeping relatively still during café and restaurant visits, and in Tierpark. Many zoos around Germany allow dogs, including one of the Berlin zoos, so I want to be able to walk around there with him just watching the animals with interest without trying to lunge at them.
I will mention the “leaking” as described under 20 June.
The separation anxiety. During our walk on 20 June, I stopped to take photos of Restaurant Brachvogel, or what is left of it, which burnt down last Tuesday night. I secured Max’s lead on a lamppost and removed myself perhaps ten steps from him. This caused him to start barking and whimpering, which only got worse when I was back next to him. Again, like the other day when I had been to the supermarket, he seemed overly anxious and panicky and it took a while to calm him down. Will he learn to trust me more with time, or is there something else I can do? I just read that I should ignore him for ten to 30 minutes when that happens, to let him know that it is no big deal to be alone for a little while, but at home that would be really difficult. He barks very loudly with a look of utter terror in his eyes.
The thing with squirrels and, to an extent, rabbits.
20 June
On Friday and Saturday, Max suddenly started “leaking”, even immediately after coming back from one of our more and more frequent short (due to the heat) walks. Apparently, Max has a bit of a history of that, and I am hoping it has to do with stress and anxiety in the new sitution, surroundings and routines, and/or the heat, which are things I might be able to do something about myself, rather than having to take him to the vet. I am almost 100 percent certain he is not in any pain.
So I have been giving him even more affection, praise and reassurance, also when he was not actively asking for it, feeding him water melon from the fridge (without seeds and rind this is claimed to be very healthy for dogs) which he seemed to really enjoy, and a handful of ice cubes at regular intervals also go down really well. He has also discovered that staying close to one of the three fans I have set up around the flat is more comfortable just now than snuggling up close to me. Up close and personal is more suited for the long winter evenings :-).
Whether because of all that, or it was just something that cleared up by itself, he has not leaked a drop so far today (and it has already been a long day for us since we got up at four to put in our five km, and quiet time on “our” bench at Landwehrkanal, in before it got too hot).
By the way, before Max moved in I imagined that I would have to take him out for a short walk first thing efter I woke up – throw on some clothes, don’t even think about coffee or brushing teeth or anything. But that is not necessary at all. I have time for a coffee, a shower, and for getting ready for our proper morning walk before Max signals that now it really is time to go out.
I took my 100-400 mm lens on this morning’s walk and took some annoyingly grainy photos.
19 June
Milestone: Trying to get back in photography mode, I took my camera with me on this morning’s walk, for the first time. Around 5.30 AM, it was already warm, and some of those who were out and about were probably actually on their way home :-). Did not get any half-way decent photos – only these:
18 June
I read somewhere that dogs should go on a mix of familiar and unfamiliar walks, so for now, our morning walk (unlike our late afternoon/early evening walk) is exactly the same, and will be for at least another week. Later, I will start alternating the fenced-in dog park on Tempelhofer Feld with the current one: Straight to Zossener Brücke, along Landwehrkanal to Admiralbrücke and back on the other side, a little less than five km.
These days, we go very early to beat the high temperatures – up to 35C – which is a tad uncomfortable for me, and – surprisingly – also for Max, considering he is from Spain, and I am sure there was no aircon in the shelter in Benidorm.
Max now knows our morning walk, and is well on the way to having “marked” every tree and lamppost. (What happens after a rainfall – will he have to start over?). He walks better and better on a loose leash. His former foster parents had trained him really well, but with me I think he took up some bad habits again just to see what he could get away with and to make me work hard for the title of leader of the pack 😊. And knowing I would have to give him plenty of praise and affection in the process.
He would pull and sniff the ground frantically a lot of the time, but now he is doing that less and less and keeping his head high, calmly observing what is going on around him, more and more. At Urbanhafen, he can practise his impulse control near the ducks and swans, and on the home stretch there is “our” bench where we can chill and watch the world go by for a little while, Max with the muzzle on – something he has come to expect and seemingly accept. Soon we will be able to venture further afield on public transport.
Milestone: After our walk and my breakfast, I went to the supermarket, leaving Max alone for the first time, for about 75 minutes. I don’t think he barked or howled while I was away but he barked and whimpered and trembled when he saw me again, and it took a little while to calm him down. Poor thing. I suffered from anxiety attacks for about a year and a half just before and during my move to Berlin – not that I barked, but I might have whimpered and trembled, in private 😊 on occasion, and if he felt only half as bad today as I did then, I feel truly sorry for him.
The other day, I left this note in every mailbox in my building, hoping I – and not Hausverwaltung – will be the first to know:
It was such a lovely (if very early) morning that I took these photos with my crappy Samsung Galaxy 10 phone camera. Soon I will be able to take my real camera with me on my walks with Max.
17 June
I am so happy to have Max, I should call the continuation of this The Max Diaries. On the other hand, once things settle down, there will be less and less to write about.
People have been asking me why I do not want Max in my kitchen. There are many reasons:
In the specific case of Max, he is totally obsessed with food. On walks, he is always sniffing around for something he might be able to eat – (including poo from other animals) and I don’t want him to be constantly searching for food in the kitchen. Therefore, ideally, he should not associate my kitchen with anything that has to do with him or his food. His food is in a cupboard in the corridor, and I get his water from the bathroom.
He likes to stay close to me whenever he can, and I don’t want him to get in the way when I am cooking or accidentally step on his feet.
For general reasons of hygiene. Especially when I start having visitors again, they have to be certain that Max was never anywhere near the food.
I want to be able to eat in peace. There is nothing worse than dogs begging food at the dinner table.
He seems to have accepted his fate in that sense and a lot of the time sits right outside the kitchen looking at me as if he feels totally abandoned 😊. But I have to add that last night I had my dinner on the balcony and Max was calmly at my feet and at no time did he try to grab my food off my plate. And I am sure that was not because he did not like the smell of my vegetable/lentil curry 😊. He is the opposite of a picky eater and will guzzle down anything he can find.
The temptation is to give him more food in the hope that he will feel less hungry, but I don’t want him to be overweight. There is nothing more pathetic than a dog with a fat body and legs that can barely carry him. I think the trainer, who is coming on Monday to assess the situation and put together a programme, is also an expert on dog nutrition, so this is another thing I will discuss with her.
16 June
Next challenge for Max: getting used to wearing a muzzle. He has never in his six-almost-seven-year long life worn one, but it is obligatory by law on all public transport and in all U-Bahn and train stations, so if we are ever going to venture further than five to eight km away from home (taking the return walk into consideration also …), there is no way around this.
I had bought this one for the day I picked him up to bring him home because the idea was that we would take a bus – another milestone since Max has never been on public transport a lot. It was clear from the start that he hated it, looked utterly humiliated, was reluctant to move, and within five minutes he went berserk, dislocated it and had a part of it in his mouth. I had to remove it and call a taxi.
Since then, I left the muzzle on the floor and he has been sniffing it and on occasion even playing with it.
On this morning’s walk, I brought the zen-mitten and left the muzzle hanging just by the collar around his neck. About three-quarters of the way, after he had spent some energy, I found a bench where we could chill, I “tranquilized” him with the mitten, and put the muzzle on him properly. He was not thrilled but we did manage to sit for a while and calmly watch the goings-on in Urbanhafen, and then walk back home still with the muzzle on. He did make one or two half-hearted attempts to remove it but quickly gave up when praised continuously and fed an occasional treat.
I am hoping to avoid the Hannibal Lecter style muzzles which I find much more humiliating since the tend to scare the sh.. out of, rather than reassure, other passengers.
15 June
This morning, we had the first mad-barking crisis when somebody whom I assumed to be the janitor washing the floors was right outside the door. After a bit of reassurance, he (Max – not the janitor) let me brush him with this hairbrush-meets-massage mitten, and within seconds rather than minutes, he was like in a trance. I now call it the zen-mitten.
A bit later, on our way out for a walk, we met the janitor and Max calmly acknowledged his presence and walked on. Coming back, we met another neighbour and Max was exemplary again and did not jump up.
On the other photo, there is Max a bit later, mustering all the impulse control he has in him at Urbanhafen. A bit later on the walk, we were able to sit quietly for a while on a bench watching the swans come quite close but without incident. Max was just watching all the sceneries with a lot of interest but calmly.
As from yesterday, Max has a new harness after we went to Fressnapf in Stresemannstraße – highly recommended, super helpful and very nice. Max, being so obsessed with food, was of course a complete nightmare among all those open containers of food for dogs, cats, hamsters, bird, you name it – Max is not a picky eater – he even eats poo – any poo. More about that another day.
Anyway, the issues at hand: Max had a harness, and for walking, a kind of string that went around his snout quite close to his eyes. He walked beautifully on a loose lead most of the time with that on, but clearly did not like it and frequently and violently tried to remove it, sometimes in the middle of a street where he would refuse to go any further. The problem was that without that string around his face, and the lead attached to his harness only, he would usually be all over the place, pulling like mad, and I was unable to control him even after everything I had learnt on youtube :-). Also, with all the pulling, the front of the harness gave him a kind of chafe wound about 7 cm in diameter which was alternately scabby and raw/red.
The guy at Fressnapf, who was wonderful with Max, told me that they were no longer selling those string-around-the-snout systems because there had been too many accidents with them. He suggested a kind of harness that in combination with a collar has succeded the other system. The new harness does not touch the chafe wound at all. Max does not walk quite as well like this, but definitely better than with the old harness only. So I am hopeful we can work with this, especially with the help of the professional trainer, and that the chafe wound will heal completely.
I am not bothering to take my camera with me on walks with Max yet, so have to make do with things I can photograph without leaving home.
Anyway, Max is still liking what little space there is currently available on the balcony. When I get the full use of the balcony back, and the scaffolding finally disappears so that I can leave the balcony door open during the night (still naively hoping that will happen this summer), I will get him an outdoor bed for the warm summer nights. Although for now, he seems to prefer to be in the same room as me at all times but I am sure that as he settles in, that will change. Otherwise, I might have to sleep on the balcony as well :-).
Max is such a sweet dog. You can tell he really wants to cooperate. And as exciteable as he is, he is equally easily chill-able. He deserves a good life with lots of comfort and exercise.
13 June
It’s official. Max has moved in with his pillow (but, alas, not with his passport which even his latest foster family did not manage to retrieve from the people who organised the adoption. Surprisingly careless, and I am losing hope of ever obtaining this piece of documentation and history).
Here he is on our first walk around Besselpark. He walks beautifully on the lead as long as he wears that string thing around his snout, but he does not like wearing it and frequently tried to remove it. However, when I take it off him, he is suddenly all over the place and pulling like mad. I have tried everything I have learnt on youtube 🙂 to no avail. This is definitely the first issue to resolve with the professional dog trainer who is making a home visit to put together a programme in a week’s time.
On the other photo, he is calmly observing what is going on on the other balconies and in the courtyard. Although he gives one bark and one growl whenever the lift stops on our floor, he does not bark when hearing voices from outside. One test passed with flying colours. Another thing which is a great relief is that he does not consider the balcony an outdoor area in the sense that he is allowed to pee or poop there. Another test passed with flying colours.
12 June
Wondering if Max would like to have his own Instagram account. Just kidding! I actually hate Instagram and only use it to post photos of cars parked on bike paths in Berlin.
This site, and Facebook, is what I am prepared to spend my on-line time on. I tried to give Twitter a chance, mostly for photography-related exchanges, but it quickly took such proportions that I gave that up again (I still have the account but rarely check it and try not to use it at all – I just don’t feel I can learn anything from it). Facebook suits me better, for keeping in touch with friends all over the world, for information about gallery and other openings, interesting on-line events, etc. Neither Twitter nor Instagram seem to meet my needs the same way.
Walk with Max in Treptower Park. He does understand “playing fetch”. He just can’t always be bothered. But since I don’t run, and I am certainly not going to cycle with him in Berlin, I need to find other ways to make him run. Once he has settled in at my place, I will take him to the “Hundeauslauf” at Tempelhofer Feld (a large, fenced-in area where dogs can run free) two or three times a week to let him blow off steam.
7 June
Windows update. Normally the great laptop killer but this time my laptop is still alive. I only had to spend hours reinstalling everything, and all my photos from this year have vanished from both Lightroom and OneDrive.
4 June
Birkenwerder, Boddensee and Briesetal, photos forthcoming in a separate post.
2 June
Picked up Max for a walk in Plänterwald (where he is currently residing). He walked really well on the leash, ignored distractions such as cyclists and joggers, and passed other dogs with just a side glance and a quick growl – I was not sure whether that should be interpreted as a greeting or a warning. I had brought an extra long lead and a toy so we could play a bit of fetch, a concept which he nearly understands but there is room for improvement :-).
It was a great experience and gives me confidence to move on to new challenges, such as public transport, and café visits. Last week, I took him to Engelbecken just to see how he would behave at the lake with the birds, and if I had not paid attention, he would have jumped in, so that will be something to work on, since he is not a small dog, and he is very strong (55 cm shoulder height, around 20 kilos). I am hoping to train him to the point that I can safely take him with me pretty much everywhere – of course as long as he is not a nuisance to other people.
Our route was on or near the “walking the Berlin Wall” route, and we passed one of the memorials – Mauerdenkmal an der Kiefholzstraße. In Treptow, a total of 15 people lost their lives on the wall, including two children.
1 June
YAWN! Documenting life in a pandemic is getting boring, and fortunately it seems to be coming to an end, at least this time around.
Here in Berlin, as of Friday this week, restrictions will be eased further, and it will no longer be necessary to bring a negative Covid19 test to sit in the outdoor areas of cafés and restaurants. If everything keeps going in this direction, I will have managed to get through this whole shitshow without getting tested at all.
My hair? Don’t ask. My first haircut appointment in I don’t know how long is on the day precisely two weeks after my second vaccination.
Hotels are also opening this weekend at least in Berlin. I don’t know about the rest of Germany but in any case, all travel plans have been put on hold until I see how soon I can take Max the dog on a longer train journey. I do know that most hotels in Germany allow dogs.
31 May
Catsitting in Prenzlauer Berg. A stroll around Ernst-Thälmann-Park. Sun finally strong enough to actually produce shadows. And was treated to the spectacle of two squirrel children playing and virtually flying from tree to tree at dizzying heights.
27 May
Very happy. Have just had a message confirming that I may adopt Max der Mischling, a.k.a. Scarface (meant affectionately – I think it makes him look cool).
Mind you, about a year ago I received a similar message, from another dog adoption agency, and in the end it did not work out. In the morning on the day they were going to deliver him at may place, I woke up to find an e-mail, sent around midnight the night before, to say that “something had come up” so they would not be delivering the dog after all. In addition to the disappointment, I had bought quite a lot of dog things (which my local Fressnapf store kindly took back), and registered my dog ownership with the authorities as well as drawn up a dog insurance.
This time, I am not doing any of all that till Max has actually moved in, hopefully on 13 or 14 June, as I have a cat-/housesitting commitment to finish first.
The only thing I am doing right now is contacting a professional dog trainer near me, as I will need some help with a couple of issues which the knowledge I have through youtube tutorials only seemed to solve to a degree.
26 May
Yesterday, I picked up Max the dog so that he could spend about 24 hours with me at my place to see if we might be a match. He is a six-year-old, large-ish “rescue” from a shelter in Spain, via a foster family here in Berlin. He is, I am happy to say, completely house-trained, but still a bit of a handful on walks, exciteable but also very sweet, and he was extremely calm and obedient while indoors and seemed to feel right at home. He is a fast learner and for example immediately understood that he is not allowed in my bed, nor in my kitchen. I am definitely hoping to adopt him, but I have competition, so am not getting my hopes up yet.
Here is a photo of Max, and another photo I took on the way back after I brought him back to his foster home in Neukölln:
23 May
Just a couple of photos of a very fast flyer. That is going to take some more practise.
21 May
Two walks today. Around noon to meet a friend for a coffee-to-go on a bench:
And in the early evening with a “walking-around-taking-photos-bubble”:
20 May
Over the past decade, as the closure of Tegel Airport approached, alternative uses for the buildings were debated and many suggestions put forward. This was one of the more novel ideas:
But seriously, it was nostalgic to be back at Tegel yesterday for my first jab.
Status so far: Like most people report – arm feels like somebody punched it. And I am sneezing a lot, but that is probably because of standing in line outdoors in a cold wind for about an hour. It took a lot longer than I had expected, but that gave me ample opportunity to watch how they processed an unbelievable number of people while I was there. There is something fascinating about this kind of mass vaccination effort. And so many staff and helpers involved, with nothing but friendliness and smiles.
It really hit home how momentous this whole thing has been and is. Something I have not been able to comprehend from my warm and spacious sixth-floor perch, nor from my walks trying to avoid the most crowded areas. The enormity of it. History in the making. And a triumph of science that vaccines are available so soon.
For my second jab, I will be better prepared to brave the elements. Then again, hopefully it will finally be a bit warmer in July.
19 May
It seems that we can slowly start going to restaurants and cafés (outdoor areas) bringing a test (or fully vaccinated). I have no idea how or where to go about getting tested, so I will just wait. I am definitely not standing in line for any length of time in order to be able to sit at a café and drink a cup of coffee. I can wait til mid-July (second vax plus two weeks) when I will be as immune as everyone will ever be.
I am sure more ideas will pop up along the way. Hopefully, I can remember how to book train tickets and hotels :-).
In any case, I am getting tired of calling this “My Corona Diary” so this might be the last post in this category. I might be back in the autumn with “My Corona Diary IV” when the first wave of a vaccine-resistant variant hits us. That was my inner COVID pessimist speaking.
18 May
This morning’s walk to Tempelhofer Feld and the cemetery next door – photos in this separate post.
Woke up to a funny kind of light and a double rainbow.
And then there was another rainbow at the end of the day:
16 May
A case of great sadness combined with an acute feeling of dread prompted me to go back to Tempelhofer Feld. Got suitably windblown – and soaked – twice :-). Photos here.
15 May
Saturday morning: Tempelhof airfield to work on this week’s assignment for the black and white photography course.
The former Tempelhof airfield, now a huge recreational area categorised as a park, is one of my favourite places in Berlin. A large playground for young and old but unfortunately, plans for building, at least around some of the periferi, are gaining ground.
I hope it does not happen, or at least that only a fraction of the land becomes built on. The park contributes greatly to the quality of life for many, many people, whether they visit daily, weekly, or monthly. For obvious reasons, it is even perfect in terms of supporting public health during a pandemic.
It has a rich history evocative of both unspeakable human cruelty and suffering, and of courageous acts of solidarity.
For me, it is within walking distance – even by two different routes depending whether I want to enter from Tempelhofer Damm or from Columbiadamm, but it is also within easy reach by public transport.
To have a space like this just a few steps away from a major public transport hub is something unique in the world and in my opinion must be preserved.
14 May
In the afternoon, an event took place in support of the construction of a bridge across the River Spree from near Märkisches Museum and the Mühlendammschleuse. For reasons that were not entirely clear to me, some of the boats normally moored in Berlin’s historical harbour in more or less the same place were involved by supposedly forming a symbolic bridge on the exact spot where the bridge will be built. Apparently, there used to be a bridge there.
A couple of more friends have fallen by the wayside, unfortunately.
I simply cannot deal with anti-vaxxers at this time. They seem to completely forget that quite likely, they only exist because somebody before them took the decision to get vaccinated, or to have them vaccinated in infancy, against one disease or other.
Due to rain and mist I had written off this day as a walking and taking photographs day but in the end had to take a few from my 6th-floor perch.
12 May
Practically all my life I have been hearing about that conflict, most of the world has been anxious about developments there, US presidents and other leaders have wasted time and clout trying to find a solution, resources in every way, shape or form, including human lives, have been wasted, indescribable human suffering, because both side are behaving, essentially, like spoilt brats and are not at all interested in the peace which the rest of the world has been hoping for. Why not just ignore them and let them fight it out and self- and inter-destruct?
I, for one, am SO tired of hearing about it.
11 May
So tired of not being able to use my balcony. I am beginning to suspect that I made a mistake by telling them how much it would mean to me to have it back after two years. They could easily finish work on the wall at the end of my balcony which is also the end of the building they are renovating, and removing that part of the scaffolding since it is independent of the main scaffolding. But now they have probably decided to make that the very last thing they do. In another couple of years. I feel part desperate and part depressed. And their unbelievable arrogance and total indifference makes me so angry, and I don’t know what to do with that anger.
And more friends are now ex-friends since they turned out to be anti-vaxxers.
Hopefully, by the time I have been vaccinated plus two weeks, so mid-July, we are allowed to travel within Germany, so I can go the North Sea for a couple of months and not have to look at all the ugliness on my balcony every day. (I know, that is wishful thinking – I am quite convinced that thanks to all the a-holes and retards (anti-distancers, anti-masks, anti-vaxxers, people who insist on travelling internationally, even with children who can be carriers without anybody knowing about it) in the world, a new mutation resistant to all known vaccines will come crashing down on us and we have to start all over). And I only live on the sixth floor and all floors are quite low-ceilinged……
Today just these photos, a propos of nothing:
And then, as if today was not ruined already, the owner of the flat next door rang my doorbell and was right outside the door – I hate when people do that – and started blabbering about the awnings on our balconies. She wants to get a new one for her balcony and suggested I do the same and that we make sure that they match. I did not know whether to laugh hysterically or scream or strangle her. So I just shut the door. Who the f… cares about matching awnings the way this part of the building looks and has done for years and will do for another couple of years? I can’t even roll out my awning thanks to the effing scaffolding. I hate this world.
And don’t anybody EVER turn up on my doorstep unannounced, just in case I am in this mood, they will wish they had not.
10 May
I went out to try to get some photos for this week’s assignment for the course on black and white photography. I did get two or three I might use, but got distracted by first some inconspicuous architecture, and then by nature, as always and ended up back in Ernst-Thälmann-Park and took an overdose of photos of a heron exploring the small lake there and helping itself to the abundance of goldfish (same bird, different poses). The teacher will not be impressed.
I also noted that it was good to see that some people heeded the annual call to action to polish Berlin’s “stumbling stones“. I am ashamed to say that I completely forgot about that this year.
And finally, these are for the Epic Fails folder but I still like them because you can see in the reflection that it still has a fish in its mouth.
9 May
Walking home from Prenzlauer Berg quite early, took some photos that turned out to be overexposed, so have played around with them.
Later, I made my way to the Nordic Embassies where there was to be a demonstration against Denmark’s asylum policies, more specifically, the current plans to send a number of Syrian refugees back to Syria.
I have always found Denmark’s was of handling everything to do with immigration, refugees, asylum seekers and non-Danes generally quite sickening. It borders on megalomania and xenophobia when the attitude is that only people descended directly from Gorm the Old have the right to live in Denmark. And under the current social-democratic government, this is more pronounced than ever before. The politicians that founded the kind of Denmark I grew up in in the 1950s and -60s must be turning in their graves.
On the way there, details from the Landesvertretung Baden-Württemberg, the Embassy of Saudi Arabia, and from the Nordic Embassies compound:
Unfortunately, not many turned up for the demonstration, but it was good to see at least as many non-Syrians as Syrians.
On the way home, took a detour into Tiergarten to check on the Rhododendron. Only the white ones are in bloom so far. Also, I counted several more Mandarin Ducks, which I now know to be vicious beasts, than ealier. Where do they come from? And where do the indigenous ducks and other aquatic birds which they chase away go?
Later, to make the best of the suddenly lovely weather, I went for a round in Ernst-Thälmann-Park again, and was amazed to find this pair of Mandarin Ducks there all of a sudden. Fascinated as I am by them, I am starting to think they might be invasive. There are more and more of them everywhere. I counted at least twelve males in Volkspark Friedrichshain this morning (see separate post). They are less and less wary of humans, and they are agressive and territorial towards other birds – even indigenous ducks that are twice their size.
Walking back across the large lawn, I was equally amazed to see how big some (human) “households” are – 20 to 30 people some of them . And by the same token, the number of retards that still do not understand (or bastards that will not understand – I am not sure which) that as long as they spread Covid19, it will mutate. So thank you very much to all those who ignore the guidelines, meet with hordes of friends, travel between countries, even with children who might be carriers without anbody knowing it, etc. By the time most of our vaccination dates come round, we will probably need a whole new vaccine.
7 May
Before the rain, or as it would turn out, the snow – I am not kidding – I took an early morning walk in Ernst-Thälmann-Park.
Had to relocate to Prenzlauer Berg to catsit and took a quick walk in the neighbourhood.
5 May
In the morning, evidence that the sun was rising:
Later, the weather turned out to be even more erratic than in the last couple of weeks, so this was day number – not sure – of not going for a walk. Just some random photos taken from home yesterday.
3 May
Sunset and the shadows it can cast if it comes from the right direction:
Earlier in the day: Rain, a rainbow, and some big news (no, unfortunately not about my balcony):
As from today, people over 60 (I am 68) as well as younger people from specific groups, can make appointments for the Covid19 vaccine without an invitation. After spending hours trying to make those appointments online, which kept going wrong sooner or later in the process, I called, initially without any hope of getting through, but now I have two appointments (19 May and 1 July, in Tegel). I should have known that in this country anything works better than on-line :-).
Still – I would rather have had the fulll use of my balcony back.
2 May
It is still cold, grey and wet outside and I am still inside (day 4, or is it day 5?) feeling like I have been run over by a bus and that I never want to go anywhere near other people again.
Typical. On the day I had convinced myself to go out and try to make some street portraits for the street photography class this Saturday, it is raining. Saved by the bell. I had decided to go to one of the enclosures where dogs can run free, and had even prepared some handouts explaining my assignment. So now I feel like I have been given a day off.
That gives me time to think about the assignment for the new course I have joined. In the name of life-long-learning, and trying to make the best of the Corona hiatus, and because I enjoy their courses which are of a very high quality (repeating the link to them here), I signed up last minute to the “Seeing in Black and White” course which came off to a good start last night.
Watching rubble being removed. Good to see that the amount that lands on my balcony is, all things considered, negligible.
28 April
Some more early-morning experiments while keeping an eye out for yesterday’s feathered visitor:
Singing to the setting moon ……..
…. and a bit later singing to the rising sun?
27April
Moon rising and setting:
Moon setting – behind a church I had not noticed before.
A surprise visit on the scaffolding, street side. I have only seen one a couple of times before in one of the local cemeteries, but never managed to photograph. Did not stay long. I had to be careful not to fall out the window . Eichelhäher/Eurasian Jay/Skovskade:
He/she returned several times throughout the day and I now have hope that it will be a recurring event and that I will be better prepared at some point and get some better photos.
No more colourful visitors on the scaffolding, although I continued to keep an eye out. An opportunity to experiment and play around with more “things I can photograph without leaving home”:
26 April
Goodnight Moon, good morning Earth.
More things I can photograph – and play around with – without leaving home:
Making a wish. There must be a culture somewhere, or there surely has been one, where making a wish while watching the full moon rising was a thing.
Incidentally, to have my balcony back would be much more important to me than receiving the Covid19 vaccine. Since the vaccines only have a between 72 and 94 percent efficacy, and numbers are still going up and up (to a large degree thanks to the retards who still don’t know what 1,50 m looks like) we will still need to wear masks for a very long time to come, and people my age will still need to adhere to restrictions, both those imposed by the authorities and our own, additional personal ones. Therefore, the vaccination(s) will not make a huge difference to my lifestyle for at least another year, so being able to use my balcony fully, to have all that daylight back (both were among my main reasons for buying this flat …), and to not have to clean up all the time, would definitely be cause for celebration, perhaps alone, and occasionally together with one vaccinated friend at a time, but celebration nonetheless 😊.
22 April
Went back to one of my favourite places in Berlin – Tempelhofer Feld, to finally visit the part the furthest away from the airport building. Discovered some “relics of historical uses”, and that sheep are now grazing there.
I have posted about this place before, but here and here is a bit more information should anyone want to read more.
Sheep in the wind. They probably felt a lot warmer than I did.
21 April
First and only remarks about Meghan and Harry in this space: When their engagement was announced (November 2017, according to google) I gave them five years. So they still have a year and a half to go ….
Not a great morning out in terms of photography and certainly not in terms of photos for the next assignment in my street photography course. I might be able to use one or two of these, but still hope to get some better ones during the week. This was my route https://www.komoot.com/tour/350931537.
Of course the sun came out just as I got home.
A visitor on the neighbour’s roof, and that orange newcomer on the roof of Berlinische Galerie is still there. Soon I will not be able to see it due to the leaves on those amazing, very tall birches.
“Found still-life”:
18 April
German national memorial day the nearly 80.000 victims of the coronavirus pandemic.
The assignment for next week in the street photography course is “gesture and detail”. Perhaps these two photos taken randomly out of one of my windows might fit the “gesture” part, but I hope to take better photos during the week.
Néstor, the teacher in the still-life photography course I attended which ended a couple of days ago, claimed that everybody creates still-life in their homes, more or less consciously, thinking about shapes or light or colour in the way they place or store objects. I was sceptical (except if you call flowers in a vase still-life, which I guess it is) until I took a look around and was reminded of the day about a year ago when I was looking for a place to keep my newly acquired Corona-hair accessories (to keep my hair out of my face) – in a manner which I still thought was going to be very temporary, or at least not as permanent as it now seems. So perhaps Néstor was right :-).
17 April
Chuffed. Got praise for my first assignment in the street photography course class this evening. All ten were picked from the photos from 11 and 13 April.
13 April
Another walk to the area around the central station and Reichstag (walked around there quite a lot) and on to Bellevue S-Bahn station, surprisingly a total of 13 km.
Went out to meet up with a new “walking around taking photos bubble” – Ira – and to start gathering photos for this week’s assignment in the street photography course. I was reminded how I find it much more interesting to take photos of architecture, or anything else really, than of people. That will be a bit of challenge for the rest of the course, but some of the ones I took today might fit the requirements (street photos where light plays a major part and there has to be people in them too). Some of the photos I took might fit the requirements.
Berlin – the bike-friendly city. Hahahahahahahahaha.
It is a pity that I don’t like the taste of wine any more. Today would be a perfect day to close the curtains, drink a bottle of wine, and go to bed.
I received an invitation to the annual meeting of owners. A shitload of paper by snailmail. Still no option to have things sent by e-mail. My instinct when I receive paper mail is to throw it out immediately – WHO THE F… keeps all that paper around anyway? – but the papers do not seem to be available anywhere online.
And the “meeting” will take place by power of attorney, sent either by snailmail or by fax. You read correctly. By fax. I thought I had to go to a museum, and not to a Hausverwaltung in a city like Berlin, to remind myself what fax machines look like.
Can it be that our administrator (Schön & Sever) has not heard of zoom, even now?
But worst of all, after having fought for over five years for a place for people to park their bikes somewhere in the courtyard – there is A LOT of unused ground (except for litter which makes it look like dump) there and with Berlin land prices that seems a terrible waste, but always being told that bikes were not allowed there – there is now a proposal to use that space for more car-parking spaces!!!
I can’t believe what I am reading. There should be NO cars in our courtyard at all, if you ask me.
Instead, those who wish should have the option (in addition to a proper shed for bikes) to place benches and tables, flower beds, grow herbs, there is plenty of space …
So in a city that pretends to be bike- (not to mention environment-) friendly, it still has to be as easy as possible for people to park their cars, and as difficult as possible for people to park their bikes. And the obsession with paper persists.
When is Germany, or at least Berlin, going to enter the 21st century?
9 April
Today’s walk with my – currently – one remaining walking bubble (I wonder whether we will still be talking about bubbles in this context a year from now) – to Tiergarten – the route on Komoot: https://www.komoot.com/tour/344763442.
7 April
I am such an idiot.
6 April
Weather forecast just as horrible as yesterday – sleet showers, windy, 5C.
Workers next door started screaming and shouting shortly after 06.00 as usual. Looking on the bright side, if they had not, I would not have spotted the moon rising shortly before sunrise.
On a day that would also offer hail and snow and finally a sunset which probably said something about the weather tomorrow, if you are able to interpret clouds.
By the way, after too many lazy months of not exercising properly, getting fatter and fatter, and really feeling the void that not being able to go to the gym classes left, a friend recommended Gabi Fastner on Youtube. Her channel has turned out to be just what I needed to get moving again. It is in German but easy to understand, and she does all the exercises herself so it is easy to follow, and there are various lengths, from 11 minutes to 85 minutes, so there really is no excuse. Highly recommended.
Back to more normal temperatures and slightly overcast. Had to stay home for a couple of deliveries.
More things I can photograph without leaving home:
31 March
An unusually warm day.
Cleaned the balcony – again – let’s see how long it lasts before the neighbours throw another load of rubble onto it.
Then just a short walk to my local cemetery – Friedhöfe am Halleschen Tor – usually a good spot for bird photography, although today, not so much. But I was treated to lengthy blackbird concerts, many squirrels, and what appears to be a resident rat.
On the way home:
30 March
Some more still-life for the course. I will be told off about the shadows, but I like them and they are there on purpose.
28 March
An epic fail turned into a pattern, the setting full moon, and some still-life inspiration with shadows.
Later, Berlinische Galerie Audiowalk number 3, find it here.
Thanks to the clouds, a different view every morning. And a bit later, some rain.
And finally, a spectacular sunset:
26 March
No birds around, but the roof of Berlinische Galerie is always quite interesting in the morning mist, now also with a new splash of colour (or have I just not been paying attention?). Best before the leaves unfold to block the view.
Later, a couple of sparrows and slightly unusual sunset.
25 March
Sigh. Mrs Merkel has apologised. For making a hasty decision after many hours of gruelling debate in a time where everybody, obviously including government, is suffering from severe Corona fatigue. Not for sixteen years of foot-dragging and IT angst and keeping Germany in the late 19th century when it comes to digitalisation, believing that communicating by fax and snailmail is safer, resulting in an overwhelming and sluggish bureaucracy and now also in a hopelessly slow vaccine roll-out. I would have thought most Germans were rather waiting for that apology.
Later, a walk around a couple of cemeteries in Prenzlauer Berg, and Volkspark Friedrichshain. Photos in this separate post.
24 March
Apparently no hard lockdown and “five days os rest” for Easter after all. I think Mrs Merkel is suffering from Corona fatigue. I don’t blame her. If there was ever a time in my life I was happy to not be responsible for making life and death decisions on behalf of an entire nation, it has been the past year.
Anyway, I will continue my own Covid-19 restrictions in addition to what the authorities prescribe, and stick with zoom courses etc. My current still-life course is interesting, but I now know (what I suspected) that it is not my thing. Mainly because patience isn’t. I prefer to be able to set it up, take the photo, and tidy the things away again in less than an hour and not spend hours or even days or weeks setting it up, making micro-changes, pondering over it, like I now realise is the norm if you are really into it. And then analysing, discussing at length ….. I already dread the questions I will face: Why did you choose that colour cloth? (Because it was there). Do you really think the dead tulips add to the photo, and if yes, what? (I can’t make up my mind whether they add or detract). Are the hard shadows on purpose, and if yes, why? (They actually are, but I have no idea why except I think they look great). What is the relationship between the different objects? (Uhm, they were all readily available in my home and the idea came to me in a split-second and not over great lengths of time like it was supposed to ….).
The other day it struck me that this regrowing thing, using trimmings that would have been thrown in the bin or the compost, reminded me of the Vanitas theme but with an added hope of new life. Or something.
I am submitting these for tomorrow’s class:
By the way, this regrowing craze is not total bollocks as I thought it was when I read about it as the new black a couple of years ago, but unless you have a big greenhouse and a huge garden, it will not make you self-sufficient in vegetables. The most you can hope for is some snippets of nutritious greenery to add colour and texture to salads and such. And a whole new style of house plants.
23 March
Current lockdown extended till 18 April. A hard lockdown – “five days of rest” – announced for Easter (1 to 5 April).
22 March
Discovered this little fellow posing in the tree below my bedroom window.
It seems sloppily organised. For example, the list of things needed arrived too late so if we do not have all of it that is just too bad – no time to buy it. And the introductory video we are supposed to watch before the course starts is very difficult to find – so difficult that I and several other attendees are unable to find it – and all our comments about it are being ignored. What is the point of providing space for comments if nobody pays any attention to them?
So anyway, all that was not the teacher’s fault, and the course is great. Martin Timm’s courses are always great.
Failed attempts at high- and low-key lighting:
Failed attempts at ICM ((:-) not really my day today hahahaha)
16 March
Back to Stralau, this time with Anne S.
10 to 15 March
Since my several weeks long retreat to the North Sea to spring-clean my head is not going to happen any time soon (overnight stays still not allowed), I am having a six-day pretend-retreat at home. The advantage is that I can then also do some real spring-cleaning.
Evidence of a sunrise on 10 March and of a sunset on 11 March, and the end (or start?) of a rainbow:
Shadows, and one ugly pigeon:
Visitors on the scaffolding on 13 March:
The online course on still life photography mentioned on 7 March has started. The assignment for next week is to elaborate on and further develop the still life submitted originally, and experiment with the various types and directions of lighting.
It already bored me sh..less to create the original version, plus I got rid of about half the objects in it immediately after I took the photo, so there is no way I am going to recreate it let alone taking more photos of any of the items, so I shall probably just drop out of the course.
In order to challenge myself and my utter disinterest in still life photography, I have signed up for this on-line course in ….. still life photography.
Before the first lesson, I am required to send in a photo of a still life with at least five objects representing me. This is what I am sending:
5 March
With the list of things to do – and read – at home getting longer and longer, and masterclasses bought but not yet watched, I had set aside the extra-long weekend (including “Frauentag” Monday 8 March) for those tasks. However, weather beautiful if a little cold, and one of my “walking bubbles” suggesting a walk in Treptower Park, I was too weak to stick with my original plans.
So that was a good start to my productive weekend :-). I think I need a discipline transplant.
4 March
When sadness overwhelms, send for the camera lens you have been dreaming of for a while. Then go out and test it in less than ideal light conditions, and at the same time pretend to be a tourist in your adopted city.
Meet on Strausberger Platz, GDR architecture Kino International, Moscow Café, Rathaus Mitte, Haus des Lehrers, grafiti in Dircksenstraße, Hackesche Höfe and the next courtyard, Sophienstraße 18 Facade, Koppenplatz Denkmal, Auguststraße via Clärschens Ballhaus, Tucholskystraße, New Synagogue, through Jewish Cemetery to Große Hamburger Straße, James-Simon-Park, Rosenstraße No 2 Denkmal, Jugendstil Klosterstr. 64, and the piece of the first Berlin Wall from mid 13th Century in Waisenstraße 14.
3 March
2 March
Visit to the Jewish Cemetery in Weißensee. Photos here.
Part of my morning ritual is to watch the Danish TV programme Deadline. This morning, somebody was asked whether he would like to see everything going back to pre-2020. He said he hoped not. Some good has come of this past year which he hoped would stay: thanks to distancing and better hand hygiene almost no cases of for example the flu (also a killer though on a smaller scale) for a year; a vaccine revolution; less air travel; ….
It brought me to reflect on what I myself miss and what I don’t miss, which is at the same time a reflection on how I spent my first four years (pre-Corona) in Berlin.
One volunteering job (Tierpark) is on hold because of Corona, and I don’t miss it at all. I doubt I will be going back even if and when it becomes possible. (I really miss the other volunteering job – UNICEF in the Berlin Philharmonic – but it no longer exists since with the new conductor, they are no longer UNICEF ambassadors). However, there is a handful of people I got to know through those jobs whom I am looking forward to seeing again in other contexts.
I will probably be looking for one or two other volunteering opportunites if I can find something that does not involve but I am not in a hurry.
I of course miss going to the theatre and concerts, but I will definitely be more critical in terms of buying tickets. Having gone from never being home in the evening to being home every evening will probably end up as something in between :-).
I miss pub quizzes, but I can’t see myself attending any before I and pretty much everybody else have been vaccinated (October/November? And that is only if all goes well and we do not get a fourth, fifth and sixth wave of a new vaccine resistant mutation).
AIACE – the association of former European Union employees – the Berlin section is quite active and I got to know a few people there – since we are all pensioners, we have all been extremely careful this past year and will continue to be, and I have only seen one friend from there very briefly a couple of times, but that is also something I look forward to taking up again.
The Luisenstadt Stammtisch – not sure whether I miss it or not, apart from two or three people I met there.
I don’t miss being expected to hug almost total strangers. I don’t even miss handshakes, but I do hope the idiotic elbow and foot bumps will go away again.
I am starting to miss hopping on an S-Bahn or regional train to go a bit farther afield for a walk, but those are my own Corona restrictions and I am slowly abandoning them.
I have seen areas of Berlin which I would not have seen, or at least not within such a short time, if it had not been for all the extra time and the need to get out from time to time on walks to areas that I can reach on foot.
My love-hate relationship with my DSLR camera is now almost a purely love relationship, most of the time :-). Before Corona, although I had been doing photography courses from time to time, I never really set aside the time required to practise. I am a technological klutz, and leaving the camera in the cupboard for months on end and forget everything I have learnt is not the way to go. I upgraded my gear, determined to make the best of lockdown, have dedicated a lot of time for photography, and have been and still am attending various on-line courses. Now, I don’t like leaving the house without my camera. I will never be a particularly good photographer, but taking photos, and feeling I am learning something new, makes me happy, it makes me look at my immediate surroundings with new eyes, and it gets me out of the house more often. It has done wonders for my mental and physical health this past year, and it will continue to be a major focus no matter what else happens in the coming months and years.
Another thing that helped was my opportunites to make several short trips within Germany last summer. I feel privileged not only to be able to afford it, including first-class train tickets (fewer fellow aerosol-spewing passengers), but to to live in a – for me – still relatively new country, so much bigger and more diverse than Denmark, with a never-ending supply of places to go and see, and I love travelling by train (I HATE flying – it has never stopped me going places but I can definitely live with the thought that my flying days might be over). For three or four months, museums, zoos, hotels and restaurants were open but relatively empty, and I thoroughly enjoyed those breaks, despite having to wear a mask much of the time – that is one thing I will never get used to.
There are people I miss seeing – I have really only been seeing two friends, one at a time, for walks, because I know they are as careful as I am. I have avoided seeing children and younger people and I also have not seen people who have continued seeing children and young people. On the upside, I am now accepting video calls, thanks to a young (soon to be seven years old) friend who wanted to talk to me that way regularly :-).
But apart from some difficulties initially getting used to having gone from not really being at home a lot to almost always being at home, where I guess I felt bored, or lost, like everybody else, those feelings are Iong gone. Despite the nightmare next door, I actually enjoy being in my home. The time passes quickly. I have not even managed to fulfill my ambition of getting back into reading fiction mode. I seem to be too restless, which has been the case for about seven years now. Reading non-fiction goes better, although I am still not able to focus on it for hours on end which I used to do until a couple of years before I moved to Berlin. Perhaps I should now promise myself to make this a priority for March. Getting back into mindfulness would probably help in that area as in all others.
I miss being able to invite people to my place, but in future, it will probaly be fewer people at a time. I also miss people coming to stay (after all, that was the reason I insisted on a flat with a big guest bedroom and a small guest bathroom :-)) – and of course especially my brother and his family.
And then there is the weight control issues which most of us now have. I used to go to the gym (Holmes Place Fitness Center on Gendarmenmarkt) between one and three times a week. I especially liked their Rückenfit classes, a combination of floor exercises and a bit of yoga, pilates and stretching, very good for the old bones and overall wellbeing. In what I now know is typical fitness centre behaviour all over the world, they not only kept charging the usual monthly fee, but when they started offering online classes – a service which I thought they should have offered for free to those who were already paying a monthly fee – they charged the same amount again. I found that too frivolous, so – given the one-year termination period, as of this month I am no longer a member.
Rumour has it that there is going to be a fitness centre in the monster building next door. If this is true, it will be an opportunity too convenient to pass. At the moment, I may have the discipline and inclination to walk about ten km three times as week, but not to follow any exercise programmes online. Unfortunately.
It is of course a relief that not only has Corona not taken anyone I know – yet – but everybody I know seems to be as well as can be and have so far come through it mentally intact, with just a few extra kilos, and hands that occasionally feel like sandpaper. A lot of friends my age are pensioners like me, and like me grateful to not have to worry about losing jobs, businesses, homes …..
That WAS the plan, but because I am an idiot, I did not realise that – it being Saturday – the Jewish cemetery would be closed, so my walk turned out a little bit different.
Through Ernst-Thälmann-Park, a detour into Einsteinpark which is mainly closed off for revamping, through Volkspark Prenzlauer Berg and back. The route on Komoot: https://www.komoot.com/tour/322831450
26 February
Had to take a tram AND the S-Bahn to get to my check-up at the opthalmologist. Life in the fast lane.
By the way, why is the subject of a Covid vaccination passport so contentious? We already have the yellow vaccination cards recording our vaccinations from measles to smallpox to ….. What is the big deal?
25 February
A last-minute request for emergency catsitting in Prenzlauer Berg. An opportunity to seek out some new stomping grounds. So tired of the usual ones.
Met one of my “bubbles” in Volkspark Friedrichshain.
Happy to have witnessed this spectacle. Six male mandarin ducks vying for the attention of one female, involving maneuvres such as elongating their necks and puffing up their neck feathers, and making manly noises. The males disappeared one by one until it looked like a done deal.
More photos from Volkspark Friedrichshain (the route on komoot: https://www.komoot.com/tour/321844344):
Afterwards, in Greifswalderstraße:
24 February
A couple of days ago, I read about a rather distinctive-looking sunset in Denmark, caused by “red desert dust”. Did that phenomenon reach Berlin this evening?
23 February
Meeting Anne S. for a walk, the second part of which will be a part of my project to walk the Berlin Wall, following the book “Grenzgänge ….” one of the last stages in the book, which is one of the few walks I can do without the use of public transport – from Schillingbrücke to Checkpoint Charlie. I am sure I have been on that route several times at one point or other but never with a focus on the trajectory of the Berlin wall.
If numbers keep being (relatively) low, this will be my last Corona-restricted “stay-the-f…-home” weekend – for now ….. this time around ….. whatever ……
Around sunrise, followed by some sunrise-coloured freesia:
Magpies – a rare sight in the vicinity of my home. They make a nice change from the eternal crows and dumb pigeons. They disappeared as quickly as they had turned up. In decline? Just passing through?
Thick fog this morning, can’t even see the buildings on Potsdamer Platz. A thin layer of frost seems to have been deposited everywhere, and it does indeed feel like breathing tiny icicles.
I had left some water in two glass bowls on the balcony:
And some more “things I can photograph without leaving home” – getting a bit boring so I treated one of them to some ICM:
13 February
Just bought a train ticket (1st class = hopefully fewer fellow aerosol spewing passengers) to Warnemünde (direct train, no stopovers) – daytrip on Monday 15 February.
I have checked and double-checked, and it is perfectly legit, but still feels deliciously like being a little bit naughty.
I have planned the walking route to check out the most notable sculptures there, and whatever else meets the eye, but it is not a big place and I have about five hours there, and spend the rest of the time mucking about on the beach: https://goo.gl/maps/B7g1aVGFvwKqts5CA.
Very excited to see the sea again, although it is only the Baltic Sea. To me, the North Sea is the real sea, but it takes too long to get there and back on the same day, and overnighting is still verboten.
The days are becoming perceptibly longer. Mixed feelings, but at least life might become a bit easier in late spring and summer, like it did last year, before the fourth, fifth and sixth wave hit us next autumn and winter (which are normally my favourite seasons).
The smell of toasting spices instantly restores the will to live.
12 February
Incredible. After hearing and reading the word “VIRUS” on a daily basis and ad nauseam for about fourteen months, some people still think Covid-19 is a bacteria. If only it were – we would not be in such deep shit, would we? What planet are people on?
Anyway, it was a beautiful day:
I decided to take a closer look at Park am Gleisdreieck, once a post-war wasteland with disused rainway tracks, now a prize-winning recreational area and another great playground for young and old.
The route on Komoot: https://www.komoot.com/tour/315235646.
At this point, I discovered that I was close to the burial place of the brothers Grimm at the Alter St.-Matthäus-Kirchhof, so I decided to make the detour. Also buried here is Rio Reiser, whom I had not heard of until a recent debate in my local media to rename Heinrich-Heine-Platz after him. I am not sure this has actually happened.
There is not even a stone on Rio Reiser’s burial site.
On the outside of the wall surrounding the cemetery, a reminder of the Grimm burial side inside:
Back to Park am Gleisdreieck:
And now the home run:
11 February
Yesterday, the lockdown (such as it is ….) was prolonged till 7 March with a few exceptions such as schools and kindergartens opening earlier. I had hoped they would revoke the 15 km rule. I am desperate to hop on a train to go and walk by the sea, if only just for a couple of hours and then return on the same day.
Another thing that does not seem to change is WHO’s seeming need to state the obvious and announce pure logic as revolutionary news. First they lectured us that the better the mask, the more droplets would it stop. Now, surprise, surprise, they are telling us that two masks stop even more drops. Duuh.
Met Anne S. for a walk to Engelbecken – now a skating rink, and Landwehrkanal.
Spotted this sculpture 🙂 in Oranienstraße on my way there:
Not as much activity on Engelbecken – temporarily converted to a skating- and icehockeyrink – as I had expected (or feared) – perhaps there will be more on the weekend. PS the seemingly lone boots function as goal posts.
Feeding frenzy on Landwehrkanal.
By the way – no – it is not (yet?) considered safe to walk on the ice on Landwehrkanal. The police arrived five minutes after I took the photo.
10 February
I have neither the equipment nor the skills to take those truly spectacular close-ups of snowflakes, but it is still fun.
9 February
Chickened out of another outing, this time with an alternate walking friend met in the Facebook group “Wandern in Berlin und Umgebung”, this time because the S-Bahn lines are severely disrupted today – a bit pathetic, but it IS minus 10 C, so I am not risking having to wait around for transport for any length of time.
So, another “things I can photograph without leaving home” day. Among them, a brave cyclist.
8 February
Winter has finally come to Berlin. I even threw out my ticket for the botanical garden which I had wanted to visit after my dental appointment in Steglitz this morning. It was snowing too heavily, sideways due to the wind, and just too unpleasant for any kind of outdoor photography.
By the way, to those who live in warmer climes and spray fake snow on their windows at Christmas, the second photo shows what that looks like in the real world. The snow settles on the bottom part of the frame, and does not defy any laws of physics, i.e. not up the sides, and not upside down at the top. It also usually only settles on the outside of the window.
7 February
Despite some rather hostile weather conditions, and my self-imposed Corona rule of not going out on weekends, when my “Corona bubble walking friend” suggested braving the elements, I could not resist. The walk is described in this separate post.
6 February
Spent a bit of time on the balcony.
5 February
A short walk in the neighbourhood (details in this separate post), to the nearest places of interest according to these books:
2 February
Those little b…… are so damn quick, but also, there is something I am missing about the 90D focusing system. I must look into that if I can find the time in my insanely busy schedule.
1 February
Around sunrise:
Took a walk to Tiergarten.
Will I ever get the hang of that BIF thing?
Birds are fun to practise photography on, but I also do love trees, especially in winter:
31 January
Uh-oh. I know that behaviour. Some of them are performing that “I love you and I want to have your baby” dance, while others are looking around for suitable nesting places. Such as for example the plants on my balcony.
Coming up to the third consecutive summer of shade and claustrophobia now. How much longer will that monster be stealing half my sunlight? And how much longer will I have to look at that ugly wall?
It snowed during the night and I happened to have an almost sleepless night :-). Fortunately, that does not happen often. Perhaps it was the deafening silence which a bit of nightly snowfall always seems to cause.
29 January
Today I wanted to check out a part of the Neukölln Schiffahrtskanal (not really worth it – perhaps it is more interesting further away), and shop my monthly supply of fresh fish in Karadeniz Balikcisi fish shop (unfortunately, they do not have a website to link to) in Adalbertstraße number 4. Highly recommended.
My route on Komoot: https://www.komoot.com/tour/310084563.
Then broke one of my own Corona rules and took a bus to where Sonnenallee meets the Neukölln ship canal.
Lohmühlenbrücke, apparently immortalised by Wim Wenders in Der Himmel über Berlin:
By the way, this is hilarious: One of my favourite groups on Facebook is “Canon 90D Owners by Michael the Maven”. Since I bought that camera, the group has been an invaluable source of information and inspiration. No matter how stupid your question seems to some of the most experienced and technically savvy members of the group who understand the science inside out, there is always at least one who can be bothered to reply in a way that technological klutzes such as myself can understand. But it is also humbling and intimidating, since most people post tack sharp photos of for example birds in flight, taken with the best equipment money can buy, with steady hands, access to exotic-looking birds, and stacked macro photos (stacking is a technique I don’t think I will ever have the patience for, no matter how sharp the final result is) etc. etc. However, I decided to post to that group this technically rather crappy photo of a bunch of ordinary sparrows for the simple reason that I happen to like the photo very much. And guess what – within the first 21 hours I received 165 “Likes” (some of the which are even “Loves”), and 20 extremely positive comments and no negative comments. It goes to show you never can tell.
27 January
Just a short walk to my nearest cemetery, past the three nearest and largest murals in my neighbourhood.
Playing with eggs, and dicovering tiny lice in one of the Christmas roses on the balcony.
24 January
Still staying home on weekends, still buying flowers to brighten things up. Miserable weather. So here the obligatory tulip photos:
23 January
22 January
21 January
Around sunrise, in what seems to be my “between two buildings” project:
Seeing this swing by close to my window at intervals, out of the corner of my eye, does not startle me as much or as often as it used to, and it is reassuring to know that they are continuing to work. The sooner they finish that monster project the better. Mercifully, I barely hear them these days:
I am not gluten intolerant in the conventional sense, but the older I get, the more I find that my joints really like me best when I try to eat as gluten-free as possible.
I have now found a way to whip up glutenfree pancakes/wraps in no time: Mix equal parts gram flout and oatmeal, or more gram flour than oatmeal, or only gram flour. Add baking powder (1 tsp per 200 g flour) and milk (any kind of non-dairy will work if you want to stay vegen), or even water. The amount of liquid will depend whether you want small, thick “American” pancakes or larger, thinner crêpe type pancakes.
If you want them savoury, add salt and for example garam masala. If sweet, add vanilla paste and sugar, for example coconut flower sugar.
Bake on a frying pan.
Watching the inauguration, terrified something awful will happen, so I need the distraction of taking photos.
18 January
Towards mid-afternoon on the fourth consecutive “stay-the-f…-home” day – as in not even going downstairs to check the mail or take the garbage out – I get an e-mail from DHL telling me they had been unable to deliver a package because I was not at home. Signed in red letters: DHL Express – Excellence. Simply delivered. Is that German humour?
Conventional wisdom has it that a sprained ankle or knee needs to rest, held high, and wrapped in cold compresses for days. This is just not true. If no bone is broken or tendon or ligament ruptured, the joint needs to be kept moving. I developed this home-spun theory many years ago when I had a sprained ankle/foot. Every morning it felt as if it would be impossible to stand, let alone walk. This morning, I had the same feeling with my knee. But you just have to gently move the joint and slowly start putting weight on it and walking.
I have just walked 11 km, and my knee is not half as painful as it was this morning (after a minor accident yesterday). It only looks worse, getting increasingly black and blue all the way round, but that is harmless. It is possible that cold compresses can prevent some of that, and some of the swelling, if they are applied immediately after the incident or accident, but that is rarely possible. Other than that, they may come in handy at night instead of or combined with painkillers, but that is all.
If you want to feel like a patient, and want an excuse to not get up off your fat arse for days, fine, but do not pretend that that is the best thing you can do for your health in the case of a sprained and bruised joint. Keeping completely still is unfortunately necessary when there is structural damage that has to heal, but if not, it is the worst you can do for any of your joints. Not to mention the rest of you.
One of the courier services gave me about half a day to pick up a parcel before theywere going to return it (claiming I was not at home when the tried to deliver it two weeks earlier – that takes a certain amount of hutzpah). Not only that, but they delivered to a pick-up station between four and five km away. So despite not very nice weather, I grabbed my camera and out I went. The route and photos here.
The weather got brighter during the day. Let’s hope it stays that way into the coming weeks. This January already seems like the worst month ever for most people, even without those dark, grey, misty days.
8 January
Fifth anniversary of moving to Berlin! Renovation of the flat I had bought had started one of the first days of January so I moved straight into a furnished flat in Moabit for the first couple of months. Back then, there was a bit of snow both in Copenhagen and in Berlin.
Today, the weather is just miserable – not particularly cold but with the kind of mist that almost feels like fine rain. Nevertheless, I took a quick walk to my nearest cemetery. Brought some nuts and managed this photo of one of the more elusive little b…….
7 January
Received a new lens I had ordered. Just HAD to own it, but this is the last one I’ll buy. Now I have some to sell, because I bought too cheaply in the beginning. This one is not a macro, but nice and sharp. I will find some proper use for this one when walking around becomes easier again – if that ever really happens.
6 January
Note to self: You can’t blame yourself for not trying. Now let it go, and move on.
So anyway, with the flower shops closed these days, it is a good thing that the supermarkets usually have a good selection of tulips, which are among my favourites of the very cultivated cut flowers. An overdose:
4 January
As expected, the current lockdown will be extended to 31 January. Time to find some more online courses ……..
It seems to be further expected to be extended, incrementally, till Easter. No excuse to not get spring cleaning done this year.
3 January
A dull day brightened up by hours of snowfall. A quick walk to the cemeteries by Hallesches Tor (which is actually six different cemeteries).
Family Mendelssohn. Fanny Mendelssohn second from the right and Felix Mendelssohn third from the right.
2 January
A bit bored with my immediate surroundings, I broke one of my self-imposed Corona restrictions – the one about not using public transport until the numbers have fallen drastically – and took a bus to the Central Station for a walk along the Spree and in a part of Tiergarten where I don’t think I had ever been before.
Starting with Cube Berlin, which I still find fascinating:
Then walking along the Spree.
Briefly turning into Tiergarten:
Attempting something more abstract on the way back:
Back around the Central Station:
1 January
There had been a ban on the sale of fireworks in Germany – but not in Poland, which perhaps explains the fact that there was still quite a lot of it around – enough for people to appear on the rooftops across the street, and an excuse to direct the camera at people and houses, and for the police to be out in droves.
A misty, foggy, miserable day, to fit all the disasters of the world, so time to hibernate.
(Continuation of the saga about the balcony “that would not be affected”, and the biggest lie ever told to me).
That part of the scaffolding (which is separate from the rest of the scaffolding as it was built much later) has now been there for two years, and those disgusting mats have been there for three months, for no apparent reason other than restricting my use of the balcony even further.
My question is now (yeah right, as if I ever receive any replies to my questions on this matter) – will this be the third whole summer season that I am unable to use my balcony fully? And the second whole summer season that I can’t invite visitors (2019 and 2021 – luckily for them there were other reasons why I could not invite people over during 2020 ……).
This disgusting mess has now been there for about three weeks for no apparent reason or purpose other than to make the place look even uglier and restrict my use of my balcony even more than they already have done for two years now. I am sick and tired of looking at it. I can’t believe the way they feel entitled to do this to others for so long. And I am completely powerless. Even our Hausverwaltung is on their side. They are renovating a building which is under “Denkmalschutz” which means they can do whatever they like to neighbouring buildings. For years and years.
My only “light at the end of the tunnel” right now is that by the time I have been vaccinated (1 July plus two weeks) hotels and holiday homes in Germany will be open so I can get out of this place and spend a couple of months at the North Sea, and return fit to face another autumn, winter, spring …..? without a balcony and with all this ugliness to look at.
One of the few things I miss about Denmark – apart from my brother and his family, and the proximity to the sea – is the relative honesty. I am not saying everybody in Denmark is pure as the driven snow, and that there are no bad apples, but growing up, I was practically brainwashed to believe that lying – for whatever reason – Is. Not. An. Option. Period. It just makes life easier when you can, on the whole, believe what others are telling you, and vice versa.
Not that making life easier is a thing in Germany. Just look at the garbage disposal system designed to be as cumbersome as possible – a small thing but a daily annoyance. The door to the general garbage bins binds, and has done all the time I have been living here, to the point that I am sometimes unable to open it, even when doing the shoulder-and-all-of-my-not-unsubstantial-weight-on-it thing. To dispose of paper/carton and bottles in separate bins, you have to drag the bins out in order to ease the stuff in, and then push the bin back in. Although I am old, I am not that weak yet, but I still ask myself almost every day what country and which century I am in when things are designed to be so difficult to everybody other than the youngest and strongest.
Anyway, that was a side track. So I was not overly used to being lied to, and I am also blessed with a healthy skepticism, but I have still been lied to, often in small matters which I have noted and forgotten, and often in matters that I did not see at the time, just realised later, and either added them to my mental list of people who are mendacious and unreliable, or brushed them off as not important . I will use the example of the renovations next door to make my point.
Far be it for me to glorify Denmark (after all, there are many reasons I am not living there …) but had that type of renovation been carried out in Denmark, I am quite sure that:
They would not have told us that the part of the scaffolding which is almost ON our balconies would be there for six to eight months, when they obviously knew it would be at least four times that amount of time;
They would not have told us that our balconies would not be affected, when in my case that could not have been further from the truth (the other balconies, all directly underneath mine, have been suffering from lack of light and the claustrophobia of having the scaffolding there but they have not to my knowledge been constantly plagued by thick layers of dust, rubble falling on to balcony and furniture, cigarette burns on one of my chairs, a severe reduction of sunlight compared to what they normally get, etc. etc., all chronicled in this category of posts. Now for almost two years and counting.
They would not have muttered about financial compensation just to appease us temporarily, unless they actually intended to pay it, which, as there has been no mention of that since the meeting where it was told to us verbally (that is the other thing here: whatever you do or say, make sure there is no documentation ……) early in 2019, that was obviously also just to make us go home without asking uncomfortable questions. Not that it matters since nothing will bring back two, soon-to-be three ruined summers. I know that to many, a balcony is not that important, but it is to me, and as I have mentioned before, it was one of the main reasons I bought this flat. Had it been smaller, or not on top and normally flooded in light, I would probably not have bought this flat.
I now know why there is so much distrust and suspicion in this society. It is because everybody knows that they and everybody else lie whenever that is the most convenient solution in the moment. Just something to get used to.
Two cigarette stubs miraculously disappeared, and then two new ones appeared.
As a complete coincidence, I saw one of them – still lit. It is raining today, so the fire hazard is minimal, but the material you placed there about a week ago, apparently for no other reason than to make my balcony look even uglier and restrict my use of it even further, to me looks highly flammable when it is dry.
You obviously consider my balcony nothing more than an ashtray for your workers, (and thanks to you, my flat is worth nothing these years), but it is my home, and believe it or not, despite everything, I love it. So please try not to burn down the house.
You would think that the least they could do was refrain from throwing cigarette stubs on my balcony as an added insult. I thought that had stopped after I complained about it some months ago, when I also found burn holes in one of the chair on the balcony. But no. Of course not.
The promise that my balcony would not be affected was made in a meeting between administrator and owners about two years ago, and is to this day the biggest lie anyone has ever told me. I think it was in the same meeting that we were promised some kind of compensation. I did not pay much attention since the amount was negligible – actually on hindsight completely pitiful – and I just thought yeah yeah whatever since my balcony “would not be affected”. In any case, there has been no mention of that compensation since then, so that was probably just another lie.
The other day, I had just cleaned the balcony floor and shelves for I don’t know which time, and suddenly it looked like this again:
So I cleaned up again, just in time for them to turn up and place some covering there, so now it looks like this:
I guess this qualifies as progress, unless they leave it like that for another couple of years.
But for now, I am keeping up hope. Having the full use of my balcony back would be far more important to me than receiving the COVID19 vaccine. The vaccine would not make a big change to my current lifestyle anyway. I would still have to adhere to most restrictions, including my own, and masks will be required for many months to come, and besides, with the new mutations spreading from banana republics such as Brazil and India, the current vaccines are not going to be much good for anybody in the longer term.
Being able to use my balcony, not to mention the fact that if they finally finish work on that wall, that part of the scaffolding can be removed, and I will get the daylight back which it is currently stealing and has been for almost two years now. All that would hugely enhance my quality of life.
And by the way, the size of the balcony and the light were among the main reasons I bought this flat.
The wall has been looking like this since some time between 22 and 25 September when I came home from a trip. I wonder how long I will have to look at that.
This time, everything is covered in sawdust which I assume will not be too difficult to remove, but I had not planned on having to clean the balcony once more this side of winter.
. And by the same token, the number of retards that still do not understand (or bastards that will not understand – I am not sure which) that as long as they spread Covid19, it will mutate. So thank you very much to all those who ignore the guidelines, meet with hordes of friends, travel between countries, even with children who might be carriers without anbody knowing it, etc. By the time most of our vaccination dates come round, we will probably need a whole new vaccine.
. Eichelhäher/Eurasian Jay/Skovskade:
