I don’t know about you, dear Reader, but I find it very distressing and disappointing to listen / read the news each morning now. Everywhere you turn or scroll there is chaos, complete and utter chaos. Places that used to hold beautiful memories for me are now shrouded in political unrest or devastated by some calamity. At the risk of sounding like an overused cliche, what is the world coming to? In June of this year Germany launched the e-scooters for rent that can be found all over the city. All you need is the app and a credit card,…
Category: community service
The Secret Admirer
Life is full of surprises, some good, some bad, and the trick to enjoying it all in spite of the outcome is acceptance. I met an old friend for dinner last night and had a marvellous time catching up. Family and careers prevent us from meeting more often, so when we do, we definitely make the most of it. The greatest blessing of having such friendships that span almost 30 years, is that we know each other’s backgrounds, culture, family quirks, values and everything that has happened in our professional lives. There is a genuine interest in the professional as…
The Weavers of Darjeeling
The preservation and sometimes restoration of old print photographs is important to me, not just because it is a way of keeping in touch with my past, but there are some veritable treasures in those old archives. One of the first trips I took in India without my family was to the tea plantations in Darjeeling. It was my privilege to be invited along by a German nun (may she rest in peace) who was visiting a convent in the area, so I said Yes! and never regretted it. One of the projects the convent supported was the displaced widows…
Good Omens: Well Worth All The Fuss
I just read a brilliant sentence describing the selfie as being a diabolical invention, and absolutely agree! But that is beside the point. I wanted to find out what all all fuss was about surrounding Amazon Prime´s Good Omens. If the pious Christian groups are to be believed, the devil incarnate has taken over the blasphemous entertainment world, setting Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman loose on the innocent and hapless mankind. Nothing could be further from the truth, considering that the two authors of the book on which the series is based are the most brilliant minds of their respective…
Internet Linguistics
A plethora of words born or invented after the internet have unfortunately become an intrinsic part of our lives. They have made their way into our daily language and I dislike them intensely, beginning with the word welp. What the hell is welp? Who uses it and why? A lot of people on facebook and twitter, I discovered this morning. It may not be in the dictionaries yet, but it is on the Merriam-Webster radar of words to watch. Here’s what they had to say on the matter: “We regret to inform Twitter that welp is a word, even if it’s not…
Commuter Adventures: Rollator Rights & Fights
I have no idea why, but the past weeks have provided me with very interesting insights into life and society while riding the bus around Berlin. I shared my recent experiences with the unpleasant and disturbed man beside me, as well as the day a passenger beside me collapsed. There is yet another incident that made me contemplate the future. Both my mother-in-law and my father used a rollator, and my mother swore she would use one the day she could no longer walk on her own two feet. Here in Germany, a country that takes walking and independent movement…
When Holidays Are Not Holidays
When I registered as a cat sitter this year, I didn’t realise it would be the demise of my holidays as I knew it. It takes a lot of work and the greatest of efforts to gain the trust of both my human and feline clients, and I appreciate them both tremendously. The humans are able to travel worry-free, knowing that their pets are in good hands, and will no freak out when they return from holidays. The felines are content with the fact that they continue to receive the daily service of food-water-clean toilet, with the additional perk playtime…
