UNSER KIND’ – OUR CHILD , this is the title of a book Mum used for recording notes about my development. Here are some of the notes:
“Uta was born on Friday, 21st September 1934, at 19 hrs and 55 min. in Berlin-Schöneberg. Her birth weight was 3200 g, she was 51 cm in length.
Friday, 5th October 1934, Uta 14 days old. This is the day when she was outside for the first time. She had her first solid food on the 23rd December. She enjoyed eating biscuit with orange juice. On 2nd April 1935 she drank out of a small cup all by herself.
On 27th February 1935, Tante Ilse’s birthday, she wore a dress for the first time. She congratulated Aunty with some violets in her hand. When Uta was four months old she raised herself up into a sitting position for the first time. She could…
Russian natural gas, has started using gas it was storing for the winter after Russia cut deliveries to Europe, increasing pressure on Berlin as the German energy giant needs to be rescued “in a few days.”
The country’s top buyer of Russian gas started withdrawing fuel from storage sites to supply its customers, the company said in a statement to Bloomberg on Friday. The drawdowns, which began on Monday, will also help the company to save some cash as it has been forced to pay up for gas in the spot market. Meanwhile, flows through the Nord Stream 1 pipeline remain shut for maintenance.
Harald Seegatz, deputy chairman of the supervisory board, said that Uniper needs urgent help, risking insolvency within days.
“We are currently reducing our own gas volumes in our storage facilities in order to supply our customers with gas and to secure Uniper’s liquidity,” the…
I had written quite a long story about my life. I had used a document in OneDrive to write down whatever I could remember about my early ‘love’
Uta’s (Ute’s) Birthday 21st September 1934
Parents married on the 25th of September 1930
Charlotte, the mother, was 19 when she married
Alexander was 26 when he married Charlotte.
Uta (Ute) was the first born child of Charlotte and Alexander.
So, when they had their first child after having been married for four years, Charlotte was 23 and Alexander was 30.
Aleander had promoted in 1930 to being Dr. Phil
From the moment, that she was born, Uta was loved by a lot of people.
Uta tells about EARLY CHILDHOOD:
Before I was three, we lived in Taunus Strasse, Berlin- Friedenau. Some time during 1937 we moved to Bozener Strasse in Berlin-Schöneberg. This is where Tante Ilse and Onkel Addi lived as well, and also my friend Cordula and her parents.
Later on we did get to know Family Todtenhausen, who lived in the
house opposite our apartment building.
During my early childhood Bozener Strasse was a very quiet street. There were no cars parked in the street.
Ilse had this narrow but very long balcony with a lot of plants to waterAs a two year old I loved to help with watering some of the plants!
The following picture, which was taken in Bozener Strasse on the 21st of September 1947. My brother Peter is nearly six. I stand behind Peter. I turned thirteen on that day. My brother Bodo is on the left. He is nine. Beside him Eva Todtenhausen, who is going on twelve, and beside Eva is Cordula, who is twelve.
I found out now, that Cordula died in July 2011, aged 76. This is very sad news for me.
I had written a lot about my first love, when I was 17, and which became very complicated. I thought I had no choice but to let go of this great love, which lasted only for a few weeks. One year later another guy looked at me in such a loving way, that I could not help myself, I had to respond to him, especially since I had no other love anymore at the time. But this new love did not work out very well for me. I was in my twenties before I could hold onto a permanent love, which was Peter. We married on the 21st of December 1956. The marriage had a few major upheavals, but nonetheless lasted till Peter’s death on the 12th of December 2020. His death turned me into a widow at age 86. Peter had been 8 month younger than me. So why was it not me, who died first? Why do men on average always die sooner than women? That leaves only a few men that cannot find a partner in old age, but a lot of elderly women that have no chance in the world of finding a new partner. I mean in old age you do not really have to constantly live together with your sex partner. From the woman’s point of view, it is not essential to aim for this. I think a limited time togetherness can be quite rewarding for an elderly woman, if a fulltime togetherness turns out to be too complicated. But an in some ways sexually active very old man would, if you look at it a bit reasonably, be far better of to choose a somewhat younger woman for fulltime living with until the end of his life.
I think elderly women who feel they could still be sexually active, but have difficulty in finding a suitable partner, maybe these women could make time for becoming active or appreciative in some kind of creative art that could fulfill them. For instance: Dancing, painting. writing, acting, singing or playing an instrument, doing needle work, cooking, or just listening to music, or reading or watching a play or a movie.
These are lovely memories, Joe. Peter had some very special memories too from way back before he was even three years old. Hearing him talking about it, always fascinated me.
Peter…hello…well,I have to tell you because I know you know also that women have a way of communicating that is like an inquiring caress…I suppose that is how they learn so much about their men. I was the youngest of four children born in quick succession..then there were several miss-carriages after me, so there was a gap of seven years between myself and my younger sibling..and in those years, I believe my mother kept me especially close as a kind of reassurance and comforting security…and I believe it was from that closeness to my mother that I learned many instinctive womanly intricacies…the whispered secrets, the anguish and desire soft spoken into a babes innocent ear, secure that he could never repeat a woman’s most hidden desires…I have to speculate on this, because I was too young to even be aware…but I do remember one incident…My mother was fond…
Bestselling Australian author Jennie Jones takes us back to Swallow’s Fall for one more story: Gemma has a burning need to stay and make a home. All Josh has ever wanted is to get out. Now he has the chance, and all he needs to do is tie up a few loose ends…
Gemma Munroe loves hard, laughs hard and plays hard. Or at least she did before today. Her dream is finally within her grasp – owning the toy shop in Swallow’s Fall and establishing herself permanently. Only one person has the power to get in her way: Josh Rutherford – the love of her life who kissed her and left her ten years ago is coming home.
Josh will be in town for five days. Only five days. He’ll finally sever the ties to a youth filled with poverty by selling the properties that are now his. He’s returning healthy, wealthy and emotionally stable, and then he’ll leave forever. It’s all in the plan. Everything…except for Gem. He never forgot her, but he definitely forgot the effect she has on him. Now she’s got problems, and he can’t seem to leave without trying to help her solve them.
The town itself also has its own plans: Gemma and Josh are thrown together in Speed-Date fiascos, kissing experiments, bar fights and an issue with the North Star – Josh’s compass and the road to his next adventure. Seven weeks later Josh is still in town. Gem has to get through her best friends’ wedding and Josh has to get over Gem. Because he’s not staying. Is he?
Compassionate, incisive and heartbreaking, Christina Clancy’s The Second Home is the story of a family you’ll quickly fall in love with, and won’t soon forget.
“A novel of family and place and belonging.” Rebecca Makkai, Pulitzer Prize finalist
“Tender and suspenseful.” Chloe Benjamin, New York Times bestselling author
Some places never leave you…
After a disastrous summer spent at her family’s home on Cape Cod when she is seventeen, Ann Gordon is very happy to never visit Wellfleet again. If only she’d stayed in Wisconsin, she might never have met Anthony Shaw, and she would have held onto the future she’d so carefully planned for herself. Instead, Ann ends up harboring a devastating secret that strains her relationship with her parents, sends her sister Poppy to every corner of the world chasing waves (and her next fling), and leaves her adopted brother Michael estranged from the family.
Now, fifteen years later, her parents have died, and Ann and Poppy are left to decide the fate of the beach house that’s been in the Gordon family for generations. For Ann, the once-beloved house is forever tainted with bad memories. And while Poppy loves the old saltbox on Drummer Cove, owning a house means settling, and she’s not sure she’s ready to stay in one place.
Just when the sisters decide to sell, Michael re-enters their lives with a legitimate claim to a third of the estate. He wants the house. But more than that, he wants to set the record straight about what happened that long-ago summer that changed all of their lives forever. As the siblings reunite after years apart, their old secrets and lies, longings and losses, are pulled to the surface. Is the house the one thing that can still bring them together––or will it tear them apart, once and for all?
Told through the shifting perspectives of Ann, Poppy, and Michael, this assured and affecting debut captures the ache of nostalgia for summers past and the powerful draw of the places we return to again and again. It is about second homes, second families, and second chances.
About the Author
Christina Clancy’s work has appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Chicago Tribune, The Sun Magazine and in various literary journals, including Glimmer Train, Pleiades and Hobart. She holds a PhD in Creative Writing from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. The Second Home is her first novel.
This is a summary of the book Silent Spring by Rachel Carson Join Reading.FM now: https://fourminutebooks.com/go/readin… Read more summaries: https://fourminutebooks.com/0:00 – Introduction 1:34 – Top 3 Lessons 2:10 – Lesson 1: Pesticides destroy not just the particular pests but whole ecosystems 3:56 – Lesson 2: Once DDT enters the food chain, it affects all the species involved 5:58 – Lesson 3: The two main solutions to the harmful effect of pesticides are education and biological alternatives to deal with pests 7:32 – Outro Silent Spring was first published by Houghton Mifflin in 1962 and has been updated by Rachel Carson in this iteration. In the book, the author brings to light the harm of pesticide use and other environmental effects caused by the present actions taking place in the world we live in today. You can also read this summary on our website, listen to just the audio, and download a PDF of it: https://fourminutebooks.com/silent-sp… For more weekly animated book summaries, subscribe to our channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCoGz… Four Minute Books is a collection of over 1,000 free book summaries, each of which draws 3 lessons from one of the world’s best books. Get smarter in 4 minutes or less! Start reading: https://fourminutebooks.com/book-summ…
Anti Viral Treatment may be possible now when infected with Covid!
From last Friday to yesterday, 10th of July, 2022, Caroline and Matthew were visiting me! 🙂
Yesterday, Sunday, we also saw Monika and Mark, as well as Monika’s son Ryan, Ryan’s wife Ebony, and their sons Lucas and Alexander!
So, Lucas and Alexander are two of my great-grandsons. 🙂
Lucas was born on the 18th of July, 2012, that is just three days after Gabriele (Gaby) had passed away.
Next Sunday the family is going to meet for lunch at the German Club. And in one week, on Monday, Lucas is going to be ten! 🙂
As I mentioned probably already in another post, I am going to turn 88 on the 21st of September this year! 🙂
And Great-Grandson Alexander is going to be 8 on the 27th of September! 🙂
Yesterday all of us had lunch at the close-by Bowling Club. After lunch everyone came to my place where Caroline and Matthew provided afternoon coffee and cake. When the rain had stopped for a while Ryan and a few others went outside to beautify my backyard. They did a very good job at that! 🙂
Matthew stayed inside and played with Lucas and Alexander. He is very good with the kids! 🙂
Caroline did the dishes with a little bit of help from me. Mark was a bit crook because of some very bad Osteo Arthritis. For my birthday this year the family wants to meet at our special Sussex Inlet Holiday place again the same as in 2014 when I turned 80! 🙂
On Friday night, soon after our arrival, we already did have a barbecue with all the family. On Sunday Matthew and Caroline cooked lunch for us. Sunday was a rainy day. This is why it would not have been such a good idea to carry all the supplies for lunch to the barbecue area. It was decided to have lunch on our verandah. Our family had rented four units. They were all next to each other. From every unit a table was carried to our verandah. And everyone carried their own plate, drinks and cutlery from their unit to the tables on our verandah. We had been sixteen people. But Mark had to leave early. Soon after it turned out that four of the young people could not stay for lunch either. In the end we were ‘only’ eleven people, including two year old Lucas’.
Beautiful Lasagne
Red cabbage, potato salad and red wine which we did drink our of cups!
My lunch plate. I had rocket salad, potato salad, red cabbage and a real lot of lasagne sprinkled with Parmesan cheese.
On Saturday Lucas met up with a wallaby.
On Sunday he did get to see some kangaroos.
Watching the kangaroos
With this bit of rain the grass that the kangaroos can eat for sure is to grow a bit more.
A friendly visitor
Saturday night was card game night in one of the units. Expecting Ebony and Lucas needed a rest and went to bed early. Eight people were playing cards, always four at a time. The rest were just watching.
After the card games we asked everyone over to our unit for some drinks of sparkling wine. We had a few bottles of this and Caroline poured the sparkling wine into these blue wine glasses. We were able to use the glasses from all the different units. I mentioned that I was looking forward to my approaching birthday. I actually sang a song about my approaching birthday which may have impressed a few people!! Ha,ha. Anyhow, I was in a cheerful mood.
Here is the song (the German version);
Ich freue mich, dass ich geboren bin und hab Geburtstag bald. Man hat mich lieb und schenkt mir viel, zum Essen, Trinken und zum Spiel. Ich freue mich, dass ich geboren bin und hab Geburtstag bald.
The following day, Sunday, after lunch all the units had to be cleaned before we could leave. Some people were still cleaning while others were waiting outside. Here I am with the group of people who were waiting.
Ryan had come with a van and could take in it all of our stuff that did not fit into our car.
We drove back along this road. 40 means 40 kilometres.
cardamone
Lovely! Happy birthday! Th epics of the animals are great too. Being from the States, I love pics of kangaroos, and that lovely bird.
Yes, thank you Elizabeth. My 80th birthday is coming up in one month. In the meantime we might have another addition to the family. Ebony is very close to giving birth. Three of our granddaughters now have to cope with the death of their paternal grandmother. She died in hospital at the beginning of this week. We are all going to her funeral. So long, Uta
Indeed we had a great time, even though the weather wanted to spoil it. But is winter and often in August we are getting those onshore winds that bring rain. It was good to connect again with mother nature. It could have been the last time we experienced this beautiful part of the country.
Gerard, you published this blog a long time ago! You probably still remember very well the time before you left Holland for Australia. How do you feel about this now?
There must have been some spare money about but when about twelve or so I had a Kodak box camera given by my parents. It was a simple box and had two little mirrors in which to focus on the subject. The film was wound on an empty spool two and a half times and then inserted in the camera; the box would be closed ready for the 8 or 12 photos that it then could take. What a glorious gift it was. The photos took about a week to get developed and sleepless nights would be followed by euphoria when the big day would arrive to get the photos. Money for the development was earned by collecting old newspapers and rags after school.
After the go-a-head for migrating I had spotted a camera far advanced to the Kodak Box. It was…
We’re on a collision course with extinction via environmental catastrophe or nuclear war, and it’s because of the decisions made by powerful people who are continuously working to control what ideas and information we consume. If information was really freed up, along with our ability to collectively control the direction humanity takes going forward, it’s hard to imagine we’d mess it up any worse than they have.
Our civilization is built upon lies and obfuscation to such an extent that advocating for transparency and the democratization of information can be a complete political ideology, all by itself.
Rather than claiming to know what’s best for society (whether we should move left or right, whether we should espouse this model or that model), it is perfectly legitimate to simply support giving humanity the information tools necessary to know the truth about what’s happening so that they can collectively determine for themselves what direction to take.
This would mean supporting the end of the mass-scale manipulations and obfuscations used by the powerful to influence the way the public thinks, acts and votes, and it would mean giving them the democratic infrastructure to steer their civilization in response to the true information they’ve got access to.
It would mean supporting the end of government secrecy and advocating…
AuntyUta 