At this time of the year memories keep coming back about how we celebrated the Advents Sundays during the late 1930s and early 1940s. During those years we always had an ‘Adventskranz’ with four, thick, usually red, candles. On each Advent Sunday one more candle would be lighted. The ‘Kranz’ was made up of fresh fir-tree branches. When we sat down with one, two, three or four candles lit, my little brother and I would be allowed to do some ‘kokeln’, but of course always under supervision by Mum. ‘Kokeln’ would mean that Mum gave us a beautiful fresh twig of the fir-tree branches to hold over a burning candle. This made a fantastic smell. Oh, how we loved this smell. I could tell, Mum loved it too. This quickly brought us into the mood to sing some Christmas songs.
It is still early Sunday morning. We have had our breakfast with some fresh bread-rolls. We lit one candle on our artificial ‘Adventskranz’. The dishes are done now. I look out through the kitchen window and can still see some of the flowers. They usually last only for a day or two. But some more new ones may come up soon.
The other day at Merrylands we bought this NATURAL SOURDOUGH bread. I just have been eating a few more slices of it. This bread tastes very yummy! It is called ‘Roggenmischbrot’. It is a product of Australia and has a ‘true European taste’! There were 650g of it for five Dollars. I think, it is very good value.
Last Saturday we went to the Griffin Theatre in Sydney. We went to a Japanese Restaurant before the theatre. Caroline and Matthew were with us. I had a vegetarian dish, which was very good. I liked it a lot.
On Friday the 13th our group of women went out for lunch together. This had been quite a hot day too. After lunch we were at Erika’s place for our game of Scrabble, for coffee and cake and later on we played Rummy as we always do on a Friday afternoon. Today is Friday again, and I just came home from our games afternoon at Irene’s place.
This picture is also from Friday the 13th of November 2015.
Yes, Merrylands Shopping Centre is now a lot larger than it used to be. Gaby did experience the second stage of the opening, but she died before the third and last stage was ready for opening. After we had our lunch and some coffee in Merrylands last Wednesday we spent a bit of time to walk through the new section of the Shopping Centre. (I think the outside temperature was close to 40C on that day!) As we were walking along all the new little shops, Peter was looking out for a shop where he might find some delicious continental bread. And he was lucky: He was able to buy a ‘Roggen-Mischbrot’. It was sliced, cost only five Dollars and was quite fresh.
We could hear the helicopter landing on Lakelands Park Oval. We found out later that there had been a horrific accident in Fowlers Road. A motorcyclist had been losing control of the bike and crashed into a parked car. The guy was airlifted to a Sydney Hospital with severe injuries.
Posted: 07/03/2015 LONDON — Queen Rania of Jordan said Thursday evening that there is nothing Islamic about the self-proclaimed Islamic State, or ISIS.
She was speaking with Huffington Post Editor-In-Chief Arianna Huffington as a part of The WorldPost Future of Work Conference.
Here is an extract of what Queen Rania said in this interview in March. For the full interview please go to the above links:
“Queen Rania said she thought there are different reasons people join ISIS, including desire for a sense of belonging, for adventure, for a job and/or for the religious rhetoric. She said she sees it as a pyramid:
At the top of the pyramid are those who actually generate that ideology, and I think they’re the worst. Fanaticism and extremism exists in every religion but it always remains on the fringes. And I think what makes it drift to the mainstream is the fact that they were supported. Some did support them with money, and they provided them with the infrastructure, which allowed them to then spread that ideology a lot more.
At the middle of the pyramid are those who … [believe] that there’s a political injustice. That they don’t have a stake in their own societies. That there’s no justice. And I think at the bottom of the pyramid are those who are probably uneducated and suffer from poverty and unemployment, and they are the most vulnerable. Apart from those on the top, it’s vulnerability that makes people fall prey to their kind of rhetoric.
Because there are different reasons why people join, she said, the fight against ISIS needs to be undertaken at different levels — including militarily. “But this can’t just be won on the battlefield,” she said. “At the heart of this war is ideology, and you cannot kill an ideology with a bullet. You can only kill it with a better idea.”
I think this pyramid of reasons is very well explained. Last night we opened a bottle of red wine. I had been a hot day. Our room temperature was still 27C. Our motto was always to drink red wine at room temperature. What if the temperature was well above 20C? I urged Peter to keep the opened bottle in the fridge. This morning I happened to notice an article about red wine in the Huffington Post. Here you can read it:
Among other things they say in this article: “Red wine drinkers, prepare to have your minds blown — when a winemaker says you should serve at ‘room temperature’, they’re not talking about the temperature of an Australian room.
The antiquated term dates back to medieval French drawing rooms which were about 14-16˚C and the average Aussie living room is closer to 20˚C.
So basically our wine-drinking habits are the European equivalent to drinking warm beer.”
Today we saw this movie by Steven Spielberg with Tom Hanks.
Summary in Google:
“During the Cold War, the Soviet Union captures U.S. pilot Francis Gary Powers after shooting down his U-2 spy plane. Sentenced to 10 years in prison, Powers’ only hope is New York lawyer James Donovan (Tom Hanks), recruited by a CIA operative to negotiate his release. Donovan boards a plane to Berlin, hoping to win the young man’s freedom through a prisoner exchange. If all goes well, the Russians would get Rudolf Abel (Mark Rylance), the convicted spy who Donovan defended in court.”
In Wikipedia is explained why the Glienicke Bridge is called the Bridge of Spies:
“Because the Glienicke Bridge was a restricted border crossing between the Eastern Bloc (namely Potsdam in East Germany) and territory affiliated with the Western powers (namely the American sector of West Berlin), the Americans and Soviets used it for the exchange of captured spies during the Cold War. Reporters began calling it the “Bridge of Spies.”
The first prisoner exchange took place on 10 February 1962. The Americans released Soviet spy Colonel Rudolf Abel in exchange for American spy-plane pilot Francis Gary Powers captured by the USSR following the U-2 Crisis of 1960.
The next swap took place on April 1964, when Konon Molody was exchanged for Greville Wynne.
On 12 June 1985, there was a swap of 23 American agents held in Eastern Europe for Polish agent Marian Zacharski and another three Soviet agents arrested in the West. The exchange culminated after three years of negotiation.
The final exchange was also the most public. On 11 February 1986 the human rights campaigner (refusenik) and political prisoner Anatoly Shcharansky (now known as Natan Sharansky) and three Western agents were exchanged for Karl Koecher and four other Eastern agents.”
The above movie refers only to the first prisoner exchange. Spielberg’s movie eerily brings back to me what it was like to live during the “Cold War”. These Cold War years seem to be very much in the past. However, I think it is of great value to relive a bit what they were like. As far as I know there’s no talk right now that we have cold war years again. I wonder, what sort of war is going on instead? With so many refugees all over the world we cannot honestly say that we live in times of peace, can we?
On Friday, the 23rd of October our new oven was delivered. A very friendly guy rang in the morning and told me he could come along at 11 o’clock. He was right on time. Delivered the new oven, took our old oven out to his van, then connected the new oven and explained to me all about it. By 12 o’clock he was ready to leave. He had said it would take one hour.
There had been an extra charge of 149 Dollars for delivery, installment and removal of old stove. We were very happy with this service. Peter had to go to Sydney unexpectedly for some emergency dental treatment on that Friday. Saving his tooth was quite expensive. Peter jokingly always points out that his tooth had cost him as much as the new stove had cost!
When we had a look at what stoves were for sale we could find among dozens of stoves only two that were produced in Australia. The stove that we chose to buy was one of these two stoves produced in Australia. And we are very happy with this purchase.
We had heaps of rain recently. And our Buddha seemed to like it!
The above picture of our kitchen window is one of 75 that I took over the course of one week. Daughter Caroline is totally right in pointing out to me that I am somewhat overdoing it. I think last week I went out for only three short walks in the morning. Each time I took about 25 pictures. I love looking at these pictures for they remind me of what I have been noticing on my walks. If I did not have these photos to look at, I certainly would not be able to remember in detail what I saw while strolling along in the neighbourhood. So, the question is now, what to do with that many photos. – – –
Yesterday, I tried to tidy up a few drawers. I found a few things that could – with Peter’s consent – be thrown out straight away. Other things trigger the memory about what happened in our lives many years ago. I am always reluctant to throw out anything that reminds me about certain stages in my life. On the other hand, I have to ask myself why keep all this stuff? Most likely it is going to be thrown out anyway after Peter and I passed away.
I am determined to set myself some limits. This is why I publish now only about one third of the pictures that I took last week. I start with telling what we did eat for lunch at the beginning of the week. I cooked 500 g fresh green beans with some small cut potatoes, as well as sweet potatoes and carrots. I added a few herbs, small cut garlic and onions and also a tiny bit of cayenne pepper and a vegetable stock cube. Peter had bought a packet of Kransky (sausages), a fatty sausage.
Here is what I googled about Kransky: “Kranjska klobasa is known as Kransky in Australia, to where it was introduced by post-war immigrants from Slovenia in the late 1940s and the 1950s. The Kransky is very popular in Australia and New Zealand. The Waiters Club in Melbourne, Australia, is renowned worldwide for its wide range of Kransky dishes”
Peter likes to flavour his dishes with some fatty sausage. I had all the ingredients in a large pot to make this vegetarian soup. I said to Peter I would be frying small pieces of the Kransky in a little frying pan, and he could then add the pieces to the soup on his plate. I also put pepper and salt on the table.
I took the above picture after we had had our meal. Peter did not use all of the Kransky pieces. There was some soup left over. The soup-pot is seen here standing on our new stainless steel oven.
This is the left over soup, enough for another meal!
I think Peter did finish his soup already, whereas I quickly got the camera to take a picture before I finished my soup. There is apple cider vinegar on the table that we added to our glasses of water. I notice the parsley is on the table too for we added some pieces of parsley to our soup. – The TIME magazine is on the table. The cover picture shows two pieces of fried bacon. There’s an article in the magazine warning people not to eat too much processed meat. I eat very little of that stuff anyway.
Another meal or rather two meals we had last week was kale (Grünkohl). Peter had still some Kransky to go with this. I preferred to have an egg fried in butter on the side. Sorry, no picture of the kale. We cooked the kale for a long time. We have a cutter that can also be used for cutting spinach. This cutter Peter used for cutting the kale into very tiny pieces. The kale tasted delicious with a few herbs added to it. We served it with carrots, sweet potatoes and boiled potatoes on the side. I said two meals, for again it was a big bunch of fresh kale that we cooked and it lasted us for two days.
This is a walkway not far from where we live.It was a drizzly morning. I picked some of the flowers to take home.These are the flowers I picked.The flowers are in our kitchen window.
AuntyUta 