Danke, Goldammer, für das neue Häuschen. Recht schön, dass bestätigt wird, dass beide alte und neue Schnecken hier willkommen sind! LOL

Thanks a lot for the new snail shell, Goldammer.

I’ll be back as soon as something interesting is crossing my mind. At present I’m diverted by clearing up some problems I hate to deal with.

  :-(

eclectus, I think I mentioned this to you before:

both old and new snails --> sowohl alte als auch neue Schnecken

All is well on this side of the Rhine, except that it is too cold for my liking.

Thanks for the new shell, Goldammer!

All is well on this side of the Rhine, except that it is too cold for my liking.

Very very very true for me, too!

It is sooo mean: first, let us have a taste of spring, with weather so you consider, should or could we have our coffee outside in the pergola, and then back to temperatures just above zero and cold winds.

Tiny correcturitos:

patman:

Nice to have you back, btw!!

im CC (it's der Chat in German, therefore im)

but: in Deutschland 

Dort (herum)eiert er herum...

hm -- us

...ausgeblüht (sind) haben.

Marokko

Hoffentlich geht es (die) den Deinen in D noch gut und das bisschen Urlaub wird entspannend

(wird).

(Vergisst) Vergesst es.

Es geht in diesem neuen Häuschen recht lebhaft her! Einiges betreffs Vokabeln habe ich schon aufgenommen: herumeiren, was ich zuerst als Tippfehler von herumirren verstanden habe. Dann aber, als es nochmal erwähnt und genauso buchstabiert wurde, ich dachte, das Verb hätte vielliecht mit "Eiertanz" zu tun, was auf Englisch 'to pussyfoot' wäre, aber jemand in einem Faden hat so spekuliert: "ein auf einer Tischplatte rollendes Ei bewegt sich unregelmäßig, besonders wenn es über die Spitze rollt, und ganz speziell, wenn es roh ist, und verändert oft und in überraschender Weise seine Geschwindigkeit und Richtung, eben so wie ein Entscheidungsträger, der sich seiner Sache nicht sicher ist." Trotzdem bedeutet es mehr oder weniger 'unschlüssig sein', oder??

... ok.. Mahzeit... später zu Maricopa Hot Springs, usw... lol

... herumeiern ... ein Rad, das nicht rund (gleichmäßig) läuft, eiert ... genau, wie ein Ei rollt im Gegensatz zu einer Murmel ... übertragen: keine klare Linie haben, sich vor einer klaren Aussage drücken

usselig: http://www.ruhrgebietssprache.de/lexikon/usse... (6g: dysentery area language /6g)

@virus: Ich tüftele an deinem abschließenden Satz... 'And here, in the other but my language I am getting back to enjoying writing.'

klingt in meinem Ohr seltsam... Vielleicht willst du damit sagen: '..and here [in the CC] I'm getting back to enjoying writing in something other than my own language.' ?? OR: '...in anything but my own language' ? 

I'm curious as to where you got this construction with 'but'... It could be justified as antiquated English, perhaps, or BE?.

Or is there a German construction similar to this?

@waltherwithh: Ich wollte früher noch sagen: Ja, ich kenne diese komische FKK-Thermalquelle namens Maricopa Hot Springs! Eine gruselige Trivialität dazu: Der Massenmöder Charles Manson habe irgendwo da in der Nähe seinen Versteck gehabt..

Und ich kenne auch die unheimliche Totenstille, die man in der Gegend von Death Valley erleben kann. Heutzutage leide ich an Tinnitus und kann nicht mehr so richtig totale Geräuschlosigkeit wahrnehmen, aber vor vielen Jahren bin ich auch mitten im Sommer dahin zum Camping gefahren.. so sehr hat mir diese einmalige Gegend gefallen. Natürlich ist es während des Tages im Sommer wahnsinnig heiß, aber der Vorteil ist, dass man bei Nacht die riesige Gegend fast für sich allein hat, wo man komplett unbekleidet auf einem superflachen Playasee* und unter Milliarden Sterne wandern und austoben kann. Die Nachtluft wirkt so dick und warm und umarmend als stünde man in einer riesigen Badewanne! Es ist eine Erfahrung, die ich denke, jeder Mensch zumindest einmal im Leben erleben muss. Die vollkommene Stille und Geräuschlosigkeit wirkt überwältigend "laut" und ja ehrfurchtgebietend.

Früher gab es da draußen, wo sich Hase und Fuchs gute Nacht sagen, und nur ein Stückel außerhalb der Grenze von Death Valley. eine "ältere" sehr künstlerisch begabte Dame, eine Tänzerin, die sich ein altes baufälliges Motel gekauft und renoviert hatte.. samt Theatersaal, dessen (? zu 'Saal'?) Wände sie komplett mit Balkonen und Zuschauern bemalt hat. Ich habe einige Male ihre Aufführungen gesehen und habe sogar ein paar Gemälde von ihr gekauft. Sie ist ca vierzig Jahre lang auf ihrer eigenen Bühne aufgetreten und ist 2017 mit 94 Jahren gestorben. Mehr darüber: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marta_Becket

*Playasee = 'playa' auf E. = ein völlig ausgetrockneter Seeboden, manchmal riesig... komplett waagerecht und glatt und manchmal mit großen Steinen darauf, die gelegentlich 'unerwischt' und 'wie von Zauber' von hier bis da schlittern.

Since I know that several snails have church choir experience, I figured I might ask here. On Youtube I came across a Dutch song "Glorie aan God" that I find appealing (frankly, more so for the music than the lyrics). Notes say that music and lyrics are by one Mark Williams, that the original English title is "Glory to God", and that Jan Visser provided the Dutch translation. The song can be found in song compilations used by Pentecostals (Opwekking 354) and Evangelicals (Evangelische Liedbundel 245) in the Netherlands.

Youtube provides quite a few recordings, with various arrangements that could broadly be classified as pop / gospel / traditional choral arrangement. As a musical traditionalist, I prefer the last variant, an example of which would be https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RnrKGMHhCXI (I selected this because it's unlikely to be blocked anywhere; the quality is actually pretty good considering this seems to be from a small rural parish somewhere in the Netherlands). Stylistically the song seems to indicate a late 70s / early 80s origin, but I am definitely no expert on such matters.

The strange thing is, try as I might, I cannot find the original English song, or the English lyrics for this song. Neither with Youtube nor with Google. I tried translating back into English and even German ("Das ganze Reich der Finsternis / weiß wer Jesus Christus ist: / Er ist der höchste Herr"), searched for the names of the author and the translator, and tried to look up the song in the catalogs of various publishers that are mentioned as copyright holders in different places on the internet (all but one of which seem to be defunct).

Maybe my Google-fu is particularly bad today. Any pointers to the original English version are welcome.

eclectus, let my try to explain: When I was young, I enjoyed writing a lot ("Deutsch-Leistungskurs"). I realised that I would not be able to write a novel or something like this but when I had a topic like at school (and not just an "interpretation"...) I could go for several pages. The same applies for the travel diaries. Nowadays, I have to write a lot of scientific texts but not so much "literary". But here I can do it even in English! If there had been (conjunctive?) an original sentence, it could have been "und hier, in einer anderen als meiner eigenen Sprache, lerne ich das Schreiben wieder zu schätzen".

Death Valley and Death Valley Junction! We enjoyed the valley and had a breakfast in a little café close to the opera house. The café had a lot of pictures on its walls about the history of that place and was very nice. We were surprised to find something like this in "the middle of nowhere". And you have seen her performing? Wow!

Ja, virus, 'subjunctive' in Englisch: If there had been [something, which, in reality, there was not] ... wobei had = deutsches hätte.

"...and here, in another rather than in my own language, I'm learning to appreciate writing again." ...oder noch einfacher:

"...and here, in something other than my own language, I'm learning to appreciate writing again."

Zu Martha Becket nochmal: Ja, ich wurde sowohl von (oder mit??) Death Valley als auch von ihrer ganzen Story gefesselt und habe im Laufe der Jahre einige Reisepartner dahin mitgeschleppt:-D

Man braucht nicht in the middle of nowhere in Anführungszeichen abzusetzen. Der Ausdruck ist durchaus üblich und sticht keineswegs hervor als salopp oder sonstwas.

... Na ja.. vielleicht weil wir hier in den U.S. –anders als bei euch– immer noch so viel von the middle of nowhere zu sprechen haben?? LOL

@eclectus:

Ich (wurde) war von Martha Becket und ihrer Story gefesselt...

@Norbert

Sorry, I haven't ever come across this Mark Williams or any of his music or lyrics. I found a website of someone called Mark David Williams who is a Christian songwriter, but no idea if it is him, and there's no hint to the wanted song. You probably found him, too. I didn't go any deeper since you seem to have searched very thoroughly already.

Danke, Goldammer, für war und von. Gilt das dann auch, wenn ich sagen will, "I became fascinated with Martha Becket and her story." ??

Offensichtlich bleibt mein Verhältnis zu 'werden' immer noch etwas wacklig;-)

Übrigens, und interessant, denke ich, betreffs: ...and there's no hint to the wanted song. Nur von Nuancierung her, klingt dies in meinem Ohr ganz leicht daneben. Ich vermute, du meinst zu sagen: 'Es gibt keinen Hinweis/Verweis auf/ keine Erwähnung von dem gewünschten Lied' ?? In diesem Fall, ginge besser: '..and there's no reference [at all] to the song you wanted.'

Im Falle von "a hint to something" wirkt hint eher wie ein heimliches Zeichen, das mit Absicht verschleiert ist, oder wie etwas, das einem zugeflüstert wird, so wie eine versteckte Andeutung in einem Spiel, die man verfolgen soll.

ABER: lol... Es ginge sehr glatt: ."..and there's no hint of the wanted song." ...denn in diesem Fall heißt 'no hint of' bloß keine Spur von / keinen Hauch von / keinen Beigeschmack von . Zugegebenermaßen ist der Unterschied minimal, aber trotzdem da;-)

In the old Soviet Union, if a Politburo member realised all the other members had new telephone numbers, he knew it was time to pack the long johns for Siberia ...

(In our case, however, there is a link in the old CC, so no ostracism.)

my revenue before taxes was €11.60, against which I have to offset €8.10 in parking fees

Don't you also owe GEMA fees, leaving you with practically nothing?

Alas, Joan Baez's trademark crystal-clear soprano voice is gone, which is not really surprising with someone her age. The effect is even more pronounced with Debbie Harry, and it makes me sad when I hear her struggle trying (and failing) to reach the high notes on recent performances of 1980's Blondie pieces.

Fascinating, Jesse! I am eagerly awaiting your revenue statistics to see whether my prejudice about the thriftiness of certain German regions will be turned into sound empirical evidence proven by field research!

Ein Schwabe fällt in eine Gletscherspalte. Ein Rettungstrupp trifft ein und ruft dem Schwaben zu: "Wir sind vom Roten Kreuz!". Darauf der Schwabe: "Mir gäbad nix!"

"...but you probably spent more than five minutes of Googling when you researched this."

Well, actually not. I found the statement that GEMA will waive their fees for street musicians in several einschlägigen forums, but I don't have anything official on that.

However, I see virtually insurmountable practical problems in the process of levying GEMA fees from street musicians. But knowing Germany, that doesn't make a difference.

So I just wrote an email to GEMA inquiring about the situation, the answer of which I will print out and close the subject once and for all.

I'll keep you updated.

as I think it's not fair to do so in spots where people can't escape.

Hmmm. Das kann ich gut verstehen. Andererseits ist es manchmal sehr schön, was sie da spielen und ich wünsche mir, dass die Fahrt nie endet. Ich habe (es?) schon ein paarmal erlebt, dass die Leute im Waggon alle geklatscht haben, als das Lied zuende war. Vielleicht wäre es bei Dir auch so, Jesse. In Berlin kann eine Fahrt oft eine Stunde oder länger dauern und das kann sehr langweilig sein. Man hat nicht immer was zum Lesen dabei und die Stimmung ist oft ziemlich öde. Jeder guckt auf sein Smartphone...

You'll just have to abide by the rules

Weil das hier nur allgemein gemeint ist, benutzt man keine Zukunft. "One just hast to..."

...wenn ich was korrigieren darf. :-)

As far as I understood Buddhism is a non prophet organisation.

SCNR

wupper!!!!!!!! How really nice ist that, seeing you in here!

I also remember a wonderful musician in a train...I think that was decades ago in Paris, and I also loved them in the London tube underground pedestrian tunnels which connect the various lines and platforms.

A situation where you can meet lots and sots of musicians in trains, buses, on platforms and of course on any corner in town is the Evangelische Kirchentag. I remember it as a lovely ending to a long Kirchentag day full of discussions, lectures and other activites when returning to your quarters...you are sitting in a crowded train that empies more and more during the journey, and there's a guitar player somewhere in the carriage, playing some of the popular Kirchentag songs, and everybody joins in with singing...

Ebenfalls, Goldammer.

Es ist ein Thema, das mir sozusagen am Herzen liegt.

Ja, Evangelische Kirchentage. Da war was hier in Berlin, oder?

Die Musiker in der U-Bahn sind sehr unterschiedlich. Es gibt solche und solche. Aber ich denke, dass die Zeit meistens viel schneller geht, wenn man Musik dazu gespielt bekommt. Ich stehe nicht auf Ipods. ;-)

Korr. #47 administration costs (das war aber vllt. aus versehen?)

Kirchentag is every other year. It was in Berlin several times already, last two years ago (I wasn't there). This year's will be in Dortmund in June, and I'll go again.

No. 51: Nein, kein Versehen, in der Fachsprache ist der Singular cost häufig zu finden. Dictionary: Kosten

For all who celebrate Easter, here is a popular Dutch Paaslied (Easter hymn). I picked it because it is an ecumenical song (NLB 634, GvL 532 †), sung here in an ecumenical setting. And one cannot go wrong with Handel :-)

U zij de glorie (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XFWOA06SAAo)

Music by G. F. Handel (1746). Lyrics by J. W. Schulte Nordholt (1950s), a translation of "À toi la gloire" by E. Budry (1884). ††

Recorded in the Catholic St. Christopher's Cathedral in Roermond for an installment of the program "Nederland Zingt" by evangelical broadcaster EO (a member of public broadcasting system Nederlandse Publieke Omroep)

† NLB = Nieuwe Liedboek. Zingen en bidden in huis en kerk (Prot.), GvL = Gezangen voor Liturgie (Cath.)

†† English: "Thine Be The Glory". Danish: "Deg være ære"

Easter Greetings!

In den Jahren nach der großen Revolution gab es in Russland noch öffentliche kirchlich-politische Diskussionen. Da lud der sowjetische Unterrichtsminister Anatol Lunatscharski den Patriarchen der Russischen Orthodoxen Kirche zu einem Ausspracheabend mit Moskauer Arbeitern in eine Fabrik. Nach einer langen politischen Ansprache vom Minister Lunatscharski wurde dem Patriarchen Gelegenheit gegeben, in fünf Minuten zu antworten. „Fünf Minuten sind eine lange Zeit“, sagte Patriarch Tychon. Er trat zum Rednerpult und rief, wie es die russischen Priester in der Osternacht tun: „Christos woskresse!“ – „Christus ist auferstanden.“ Wie ein Mann antworteten die versammelten Arbeiter, wie die Gemeinde in den Ostergottesdiensten „wo istinû woskresse“ – Er ist wahrhaftig auferstanden.“ Der Patriarch verließ das Rednerpult und setzte sich zu den Versammelten.

Norbert, also war das denn eine Augenzwinker-Frage, oder hast du das Kirchenlied früher tatsächlich nicht erkannt?

I am confused what question you could be referring to, as I did not ask any questions in #56. Yes, Handel's melody is from "Judas Maccabeus", about 2h20m into the performance. In Germany it has been used for an Advent song (EG 13, GL 228), as you found. Inclusion in the latter did not happen until the 2013 revision, however.

I was not previously familiar with "Thine Be The Glory", as it is absent from Catholic hymnals in the English-speaking world, at least any that I have seen. The original version in French seems likewise to be known only in Protestant circles. Only in the Netherlands is this hymn in ecumenical use, possibly because there the translation occurred more recently. I found a Dutch newspaper snippet from 1963 where someone is looking for the lyrics of this "prachtige Passlied" (magnificent Easter hymn), so it seems not to have been in widespread use yet at that time. In the Netherlands, this hymn is also used at funeral services. I find the quality of the Dutch translation to be superior to the English one.

I can only imagine that hm -- us possibly got confused with Norbert's #20 (where he asked for the English version of this Dutch hymn) and #53.

Interesting! I never came across this Händel tune with an Easter hymn. I only know it as "Tochter Zion, freue dich" which is only sung in Advent, although the text refers to the beginning of Passiontide. I couldn't believe at first that it was included in the EG only in the latest revision (which, however, dates from 1996, not 2013, Norbert!), but that is indeed so. I seem to have sung it "forever". Probably I did sing it before in the choir.

I was in the Osternachtfeier earlier today and so, I already had a wonderful dose of Easter hymns and sung liturgy today. It was very lovely as always, with the service starting in total darkness, only one candle lit in the front. In the course of the service, the light goes out from there into the congregation - everyone has their own candle in a little transparent pot, and those candles are lit from the one Easter candle, and remain lighted for the rest of the service. By and by, the church lights up through the upcoming daylight as well. At one point in the service, the whole congregation remains silent for a few minutes to listen when for the first time all the bells are ringing again (they don't ring during the week before Easter). Today, with this wonderful weather, just when the final blessing of the service was said, the sun started shining through the stained glass windows of the sanctuary and the colored light reflected on the walls.

The Karl Marx who wrote the canon EG 118, btw, hm -- us, was a composer and born in 1897.

You said that you aren't familiar with German Easter hymns - so, what we have as #99 EG, Christ ist erstanden, isn't known in the English speaking world?

(btw, maybe something you might enjoy if you want to listen to the hymns of the EG is this lovely collection where a cantor from Heilbronn presents nearly all hymns of the EG (Württemberg edition) in very simple recordings with solo voice and piano)

My wife and I are in Budapest for Easter. Our German Lutheran congregation here had its Easter morning service in front of the tower which remains of St Mary Magdalene Church in the Buda Castle area. It is marked where the nave once stood. The sun came out during our service. Just before we started singing, the wind carried the tune from another service, and I was surprised: "Oh, that is Tochter Zion!"

Thereafter, a hearty Easter breakfast with the congregation.

https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maria-Magdalena...

@Goldammer: I was referring to the GL with 'the latter', 'the former' being the EG: [...] has been used for an Advent song (EG 13, GL 228) [...] I realize now that I should have made that reference clearer. Sorry for the confusion.

"Tochter Zion" was added to the shared core portion ("Stammteil") of the Gotteslob in the 2013 revision. In some dioceses, it may have been part of the diocese-specific portion in the prior edition from 1975, but I do not know anything about that.

Your hypothesis that hm-us conflated my question about the modern hymn "Glorie aan God" in #20 with my #56 seems plausible. They are related only in so far as that rummaging through Youtube led me from "Glorie aan God" to "U zij de glorie", by following a playlist provided by "Nederland zingt", and that both contain the word "glorie". It was a serendipitous find just in time for Easter.

EG 99, "Christ ist erstanden", is ecumenical in Germany and appears in the 2013 edition of Gotteslob as GL 318. I am not aware of an English translation. Interestingly, Wikipedia states that it is possibly the oldest liturgical song in German. I didn't know that.

Ah, thanks for the clarification! Amazing - if you had asked me how long the revised version of the Gotteslob has been around, I'd have guessed no more than two or three years....I knew that "Christ ist erstanden" is ancient, but I didn't know that it may be the oldest known liturgical song in German - thanks for this bit of information, too!

What do we learn from this? It takes an Austrian to tell the unvarnished truth about Hamburg :-)

If it's any consolation, I have decided that should I ever be considered for a medal (yeah, right), I will refuse it by referring to the old Hanseatic tradition -- or, more specifically, that of Hamburg -- that proscribes the acceptance of such decorations.

@patman2 Someone getting lost underground and never returning? And generations later, a host of zombies will come out of the dark and try to take over the world as revenge...

Sounds like the beginning of a C-class horror movie, do you think we could get permission to use "The man who never returned" as intro for this production? I've never been to Boston, hopefully it is suitable as setting. ;)

Personally, I'm less of a city person, although I grew up close enough to one. Whenever I could I would spend the time in the woods and on the Streuobstwiesen rather than hanging out in the streets. Hamburg is ok, though, at least you can get out very quickly and enjoy rurality, and big rivers are always a bonus.

@ patman2. N.T.A. - Schon mal gehört?

Yes, of course. It’s in my compilation of pop-rock songs, bin #15 In Billboard’s Top 100 in July, 1959. I’ve got the mono recording, but there’s a good stereo recording on yooTube.

Since my aim was assembling top-10-hits chiefly, “M.T.A:” was just a by-catch and I never listened to the lyrics. I took the opportunity now. Thanks for reminding me.

If you’re looking for more Boston-songs (the town, not the band) here’s a list:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_songs_a...

To cu a long story short; After 45 years of collecting “the top-selling contemporary English songs as listed in the US, UK and German charts, digitalizing sound carriers and ripping them, I now overlook 25.000 mp3s, therein each and every top-10-tiltle of 60 years pop history of the a.m. countries.

I found “tin ear” in “dict.cc”; -> kein Ohr für etwas haben (besonders Musik) That might be the idiomatic phrase you were looking for. I reckon, most people don’t hear the difference between a virginal vinyl alum and a CD. Though, when you listen closely, vinyl sounds “warmer” and softer in quiet passages.

Just imagine you were a(n) HSV supporter. Compared to that, any yoke is light!

(n) depending on whether you pronounce the letters the German or the English way

Hi, hm-us, a few very small corrections to start off this Sunday in true LEOnide fashion:

-------------------------------- start of corrections ------------------

sie hätten wohl Pulisic con Anfang an spielen lassen sollen

Hast Du einen Plan für sie gemacht...

der meine lieblich gesammelten Bücher - ich vermute, du meinst "liebevoll"?

wo das Forum laut Norbert schon zugrundegehe - das ist keine indirekte Rede, darum muss hier der Indikativ stehen: "zugrunde geht"

Aber trotz allem gibt es euch noch, oder wenigstens noch einige wichtige / vernünftige / sympathische davon - das "davon" ergibt hier keinen richtigen Sinn. In F oder I gehörte hier tatsächlich der Teilungsartikel hin (en/ne); im Deutschen gibt es so etwas nicht.

...und das gibt mir Hoffnung

-------------------------------- end of corrections ------------------

But knowing you, I'm certain that most of these are just slips of the keyboard, as your expressions and grammatical constructions are very idiomatic and close to perfect, as always.

Well, I'm a Dortmund fan "by proxy" ("angeheirateter Fan"), as my wife hails from that area, and as I don't want Bayern to be champions yet again. But no such luck, the way things are going.

I wish everyone here a nice, relaxed weekend.

hm—us, as you probably know after many years of acquaintance, I am a speaker of a regional variant of German. As such a person, I’m familiar with the view that certain words I use or the way I pronounce things is “wrong”, and I’ve also met the opinion that speaking regional variation of a language is in itself a sign of being “uneducated”. I don’t agree with this view.

Of course it makes sense to have a standardized version in a language which is used for any kind of “official” writing and speaking, in order to be understood everywhere and by everyone. But I find it important to see this as a strictly pragmatical rule and not to combine it with a judgement of right or wrong, and also definitely not with a statement about the assumed level of education of the speaker. It may very well be that the person Norbert listened to had a high level of education and was just thoughtlessly speaking his mother tongue.

As a speaker of such a variant of the language, it is of course very important to learn and to get a feeling for where and to whom one uses which variant of language – deep dialect when you speak to local people (on any level of education, by the way. When Mr Goldammer’s cataract was operated on, we found it very nice that the surgeon was from my home town and the conversation about the procedure, risks etc. was held in our local dialect), “mild” dialect when you speak in an informal context with people from other regions, “standard language” in an official context or e.g. when presenting a speech or a sermon or whatever.

So, the only thing one could say about this person Norbert was listening to is that he could have been a bit more thoughtful about how he was speaking.

To say that what he was saying was wrong and a sign for a lack of education is imo not justified. Same goes for the sports journalist you mentioned.

One more tiny correcturito re "soccer speak":

I had to look up VAR which isn't familiar as an abbreviation in German. It's called "Videobeweis".

Handball = Handspiel

Thanks for the corrections, hm – us. I still like to be told where my weak spots are. ☺

As to my collection there’s no plan for the future. People who liked these old songs are dying off. BTW, it’s not only a collection, but a database as well; each mp3 has been edited and most of them contain data from a huge own data base, like “highest chart position with date and weeks in the charts” for the countries mentioned above” and a raking system allocating each song a score for one or a total score for the three countries listed. Arrgh – it’s too complicated to explain without showing the files.

I don’t know what it’s worth, but it took me at least 30.000 working hours to built it. Hence It has got a value for me. Plus: I’ve got the pleasure to listen to my favourite songs whenever and wherever I want – without using “Spottify” and without YouToobe’s commercials.

hm--us, I'm really sorry that we seem to talk at crossed purposes here and somehow an unpleasant tone has crept into our exchange. No way did I mean to teach you your own language. I apologize if it came across like that.

I was sharing my own experience and my opinion about regional or dialect language in relation to standard language. I don't think that the difference has to do with educational levels.

Of course you are right, I don't know this journalist and therefore the reason why she used this specific word that surprised you so is unknown to me.

What irritated me a little was your assumption, mainly about the speaker Norbert mentioned (whom, btw, neither of us knows!) that the use of other than standard language (no matter whether in your or in my language) is necessarily connected with a lack of education.

Wäre "Seid nicht wie Bob! Handys weg!" passend und umgangsprachlich?

Yep! :-)

Wäre "Seid nicht wie Bob! Handys weg!" passend und umgangsprachlich?

Yep! :-)

I'd rather say "Handy weg!"

@patman, French is even worse, when you're passing the border of sixty-nine: sixty-ten, sixty-eleven... rises to four-twenty-nineteen meaning ninety-nine.

@89

I think 'Handys weg' is fine. Here's why:

1. Seid (nicht)...! => imperative plural => your mobiles/ cells (plural)
2. Sei (nicht)...! => imperative singular => your mobile/ cell (singular)

Of course you could argue that number 1 could mean that each of them has more than one mobile. And yes, that's how it could be understood. Actually, number 1 has two possible meanings, grammatically seen:

a) each of you => your mobile

b) each of you => your mobiles

____

On the other hand, 'Seid nicht wie B., Handy weg!' can also have two meanings, grammatically spoken:

a) All of them have only one mobile. (One mobile for all.)

b) Each of them has one mobile.

(However, 'seid nicht wie B., Handy weg!' cannot mean

c) Each of them has more than one mobile.)

I agree with cookie crumbler and, in order to keep things simple, see two variations as possible:

Sei nicht wie Bob! Handy weg!

Seid nicht wie Bob! Handys weg!

As for patman's question: I personally am not so much someone who learns by doing specific exercises for a specific problem I have, but that's very much my personal way of learning without all too much ambition or pressure. You might just unspecifically listen to as much as possible "material", maybe you could think about topics where numbers play a role and therefore might occur more often than with other topics, and chose videos or whatever on those topics. Then you'd come across those numbers in a "natural" context and would get used to them this way.

Hello snails,

happy first of May to you all.

I'm still here, and reading along, but can't always think of things worth reporting, or of useful contributions to the discussions going on here!

patman2, what you say about numbers is interesting. I'm out of the linguistics loop, so can't recommend anything useful, but it's certainly true that the brain processes (and quite possibly remembers) numbers differently to other parts of speech. I quite often start counting in one language and then go on to another, depending on what I'm counting or where. And some phone numbers I remember in German, others in English. I'm sure this affects how we hear and understand numbers, too. If I come across, or remember, a useful publication, I'll let you know...

As work is still slow, I've been doing some decorating (if I've mentioned this before, I do apologise) and clearing and tidying. We're getting new flooring in some rooms, and as that means all the furniture in those rooms will have to be moved around, I'm taking it as a good incentive to go through accumulated stuff and maybe thin it out a little.

And a fair amount of time and emotional energy is devoted to getting a teenager with English A-Levels-to-be into a German university. Of course the two systems are educationally compatible, but all the practical and planning stuff is so different that I'm feeling quite exhausted by it all. The muddle that is Brexit is, of course, exercising me as well (not least in this context, because travelling abroad may become that much more difficult). The main problem is still the not knowing! And then to see the Government wittering on about all the things they'll do to make Europeans' lives even harder 'after Brexit', when they (the Government) still aren't able to agree on the type and formalities of the actual process - it just makes me sick. (Literally. I feel ill when I think about it, and I can't sleep when I start wondering about what they'll come up with next.)

Für mich liegt auf der Hand:

Seid nicht wie Bob! Hände weg vom Handy!

Danke, dass ihr meine Frage fleißig diskutiert habt. Weil auf dem Schild nicht so viel Platz ist, bleiben wir bei "Handys weg!" obwohl Hände weg vom Handy! gut ist. Emils Vorschlag bräuchte mehr Buchstaben.

Ny belated Happy First of May. Have you all been to your local demonstration of the unions?

@ Amy-MiMi: Don't be like Bob. Put your phone away!

Bravo for (to?) the English version. Here the students are demanded to do something, i.e. not to behave like Bob and to put the phone away. Action is always stronger than a striking “Hände weg”. Which, btw, reminds me of dozens of posters like this: https://www.dhm.de/lemo/bestand/objekt/haende...

But that might be my imagination only. Anyway, I’m not sure about the intention of the campaign. Is it to keep the students from phoning op from using the smart media (playing, writing short messages and tweets, watching films etc)? Probably you’re barking at the wrong tree. I heard in the news recently that the "youth of today" (14-24) rarely use the phone-function (“Achtung, Feind hört mit”) but chiefly use messenger services. Hence the boy on you picture should rather gaze at his phone instead of holding it to his ear.

In fact, If I were a child today I'd probably start phoning less (especially in school), but I would never ever put my smartphone away. It would contain my favourite pieces of music, my vacation photos and those of my friends, addresses and telephone numbers, my diary – my LIFE. I’m old and can hardly read my WhatsApp feeds. But a loss of my smartphone would throw me back to Stone Age.

I didn’t really understand (or feel) the problem of counting in in German or English (or French), Depending on the text given I automatically jump into the correct pronunciation, i.e. “vierundzwanzig” or “twnty-four” (or “vengt-quattre”). 

My problem, on the other hand, is writing “complicated” words, e.g. with three or more consecutive vowels like in “conscious”. These endings I often spell quietly in German while typing slowly”-i-o-u-s”. Probably I just write too little?

Nevertheless. Thanks for the very informative link, patman2,

(Pardon me for no comment on football,)

Jesse_Pinkman: I was in town today, first a leisurely breakfast at Café Sommer's and later a bit of shopping in the Wilhelmstraße. Just after our arrival at Sommer's, a band of three (violin, guitar, double bass) established themselves opposite the café and started to play (very nicely, btw). A long breakfast and several shopping items later (I guess about 2 hrs or more), they were still playing at the same spot. So much for changing places after 20 minutes in Reutlingen pedestrian area! Just for the record....

@RenaRd: (Pardon me for no comment on football,) - OK, I'm in a good mood today, so for once I'll let it pass.

@Goldammer: Thanks for the info. My impression was that it was handled very differently in different spots. Where you saw me, in front of Breuninger, I felt that nobody cared how long I played, and I stayed there for over half an hour. Down Wilhelmstr, just a few meters after the market place, there was a hat shop the owner of which came running out when he saw me and said "Gell, des Schaufenschter wird fei net verdeckt!" As I hadn't intended to do that anyway, I said "Klar, und etwas freundlicher wär's sicher auch gegangen." To which he replied: "Dass mir ons klar send, Sie hen zwanzig Minudde!"

I moved on from there after ten, as the energy was not good at all. I'm sure, he would have called the Ordnungsamt after 20 minutes and 5 seconds.

(To all those who intend to learn proper German: Don't take the above quotes as a reference, that's Swabian dialect.)

Wow, that's interesting about the hat shop. I know the shop of course - actually, I find it very nice that we still have a few such specialized, owner-operated shops, there's not many left of the kind in Reutlingen. So many are branches (? Filialen) of big stores and have a very varied range of goods. A bit further up Wilhelmstraße, there's a shop only for underwear and bras which I also like. But I don't like the way they treated you. I bought a hat there once (one for hiking which can be folded together and then fits in any tiny corner of a rucksack), but they might lose me as a customer!

(Your dialogue is so much cliché of the "unfriendly Swabian", no sketch illustrating this aspect of "Swabian mentality" could get it better!)

I could have written it here in English but wrote it over there in German ... related discussion: Schönes gesehen, gehört, getan, ... VII - #108

No. 109 here: -ious words are not too bad, but I always type extra slow when I come to a word that ends with -uous. So tempting to write -ouos instead!

@ waltherwithh: Anybody interested in Icehockey?

Ice skating was my favourite sport when I was young and I never missed a match of the ice hocky team of Eintracht Dortmund, which played in the Oberliga in the 50s and 60s, the second highest division since the Bundesliga took over in 1958. Stadiums were smaller at that time compared to today’s and chiefly roofless.. There were only five rows of seats for approximately thousand spectators – I never counted more than two hundred. I’m gonna try to upload an old photograph, showing the

round Westfalenhalle, the roller skating area below (which was flooded in winter to be the “Eisbahn”) and at the left image border the BVB football/socker stadium “Rote Erde”, still topless then as well.

https://share-your-photo.com/f030c0d741

In 1968 the Olympic Games in Grenoble took place. I used to watch the ice hockey games on TV. Every time the sports reporter commented “the puck crossing the red line” “or the “blue” line I went crazy, thus I took this disadvantage for the reason to rent a colour TV. Those had just been invented in Germany the year before, but buying was still too expensive for our young family.

Back to your question: Yes, I am. Our team is doing fine and has a good chance to reach the quarter-finals, but Slovakia is a tough combatant in my eyes. Let’s cross our fingers.

-----

Edit 16-0519: Germay : Slowakia 3:2

@RenaRd (#109)

I do not have a problem reading numbers in my mother tongue (or French or English) either. That part of my text was meant tongue-in cheek (as I tried to indicate by using a “:-)”).

I just wanted to share the information, that I – when looking something up in a hurry – unconsciously use digits to remember the number of the looked for page so it seems (one point of measurement does not deliver proof) that my brain considers “jumping to the correct pronunciation” to be an effort worth skipping at that moment.

The weather forecast predicts today to be the coldest day of the week (10 °C / 50 °F max.). So I changed to a (thin) pullover this morning. On my way to work there were people on the bus telling each other (and (to?) the world in general), that this global warming business does not seem to be what some hysterics think it is. Big sigh!

A news item about high-tech knitting, for the knitters among us:

https://www.newscientist.com/article/2201960-...

4D knitting makes rabbits that cuddle and lampshades that move

[...] Lea Albaugh at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, USA and colleagues have used knitting machines to create moving children’s toys and other objects. The knitted items include a toy rabbit that gives hugs when pressed in the stomach, a jumper with a self-moving sleeve, and a lampshade that changes shape. Silk strands are knitted into the fabric as part of the process. The strands function as tendons, enabling the objects to move in certain ways when they are pulled, such as curving or forming an S-shaped bend. [...]

A few correcturitos for hm--us:

"Drittschlimmster" - is not impossible, but normally, one says "Drittletzter".

(What a shame on the VfB!!!)

...und damit wird der (letzte) Verlierer relegiert...

...zuviel des Guten...

This very minute, younger Goldammerson is starting from Frankfurt to his work-and-travel adventure in Canada.

I discovered very interesting aspects of my personality these days, I seem to be more of a helicopter mum than I'd ever have thought...we took him to Stuttgart main station this morning for his train to Frankfurt. I - this has never happened before - missed a turning in central Stuttgart and we lost some time getting back where we were supposed to be - I can tell you, I was under adrenaline like never before. But he caught his train ok and his plane has just taken off. I'll follow him on flightradar24. My tension seems to losen now....thank God...

Few people know the whereabouts of Köpenick but everybody knows the Captain of Köpenick: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wilhelm_Voigt

P.S. Wir sagen nicht, daß das Spiel in zwei Teilen gespielt wird. Es handelt sich um zwei Spiele: Hin- und Rückspiel; die Relegation wird durch Hin- und Rückspiel entschieden.

@patman: It is shameful for the 16th of the first league to lose against the 3rd of the second. Plus, they had started into the season with a number of expensive new players and the intention to compete for one of the runner-up placings that give you a ticket for a European cup tournament for the following season. Instead, they are now relegated to the second league. (But what can I say, I am from Hamburg ...)

I discovered very interesting aspects of my personality these days, I seem to be more of a helicopter mum than I'd ever have thought...

I fully understand your feelings, Goldammer! These days, I arrived at a point that I am badly missing our son. Until two weeks ago it wasn't so bad (remember, our son left on March 19 for Japan) - but now it's worse. The reason is mainly that two weeks ago he wrote "I have fever at 39°C and am in my room in quarantine". He called it "japanische Grippe" - when you google this term, Japanese Encephalitis pops up, ouch (it wasn't, thank God). When I was asking two days later "are you better?" he didn't even read this message for two days. Then, after a while "now the Grippe is gone but I have a cold". My advice: "Tee mit Honig". He didn't read this for some days... after another week I asked again "are you better" - he didn't read it. But then there were new photos on Insta** - phew. And after another day "jap" (=yes). I feel utterly unimportant...

Let them go, let them grow... and all the best for young Goldammer son!

Virus, be glad your son did not go to Spain instead - Spanish flu would have sounded even more scary. 

I hear you! :-)

Yes, hm -- us, we are back to the caves of Lascaux. ;-) I'm not a fan of "social media" but for this opportunity I signed in to be able to follow him (or his photos). Our neighbours' son who has been to Japan some years ago (maybe 16, 17?) was writing a blog which we followed. My son is not really a writing person... (When I sent an e-mail to him asking two, three questions he only answered the first.)

Btw, I really like Union Berlin!! :-)

If there is no decision at the end of the regular time, there will be extra time (Verlängerung), 2 x 15 min. If that does not help, there will be a penalty shoot-out (Elfmeterschießen). https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elfmeterschie%C...

For a while there was the Golden Goal (any goal scored during extra time would immediately settle the matter); promoters of the idea thought it would make the extra time more exciting; instead it became more boring because many teams played extra cautiously and waited for the penalty shoot-out.

There was also a time when a third match would decide if needed.

Imagine there was a time when there was no such mechanism and, in case of a stalemate, the winner was decided by tossing a coin!

Wehen Wiesbaden (by the way, Wehen normally means labour in the context of childbirth - but it is the same as with the Labour Party, people usually do not make associate it this way) played the relegation as 3rd of the 3rd league against the 3rd last of the 2nd. The 1st and 2nd of the 2nd and 3rd leagues advance to the next higher league directly; the 17th and 18th of the 1st and 2nd leagues are relegated directly; hence the pairing of the relegation matches. (In der Tabelle unterscheidet man daher Aufstiegs-, Abstiegs- und Relegationsplätze.)

Between the 3rd and 4th league there is a different mechanism. https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Relegation_zur_...

NB. Where in Winterhude? I grew up on Hochallee at the Eppendorfer Baum end.

Earlier this year, a man was sentenced to a fine for having taken a few sketches from Gerhard Richter's dustbin. It did not help his case that he then tried to sell them but German courts have consistently ruled that a people's garbage is still their property, so he would have been sentenced anyway.

I recall another case where a man put his expensive functioning TV set to the Sperrmüll because it remembered him of his unhappy marriage and he wanted it to be destroyed - the court held that the man who took it committed theft. Nevertheless it is very common to take things from Sperrmüll, and most people find the courts' position absurd.

Back to Richter's case: "Nach Auffassung des Gerichts waren die Skizzen dennoch nach wie vor Eigentum des Künstlers. 'Er hatte den Willen, die Bilder zu entsorgen', sagte die Richterin."

https://www.spiegel.de/kultur/gesellschaft/ge...

(I wonder whether that judge read Kafka. If so, she is accessory to Max Brod's theft!)

"...Nevertheless it is very common to take things from Sperrmüll,..:"

It doesn*'t stop there. Where I live, it happened that "clever" people put a chair in front of the Sperrmüll, "appropriated" and then sold it from the spot without ever even moving it. One reason why Sperrmüll-Abtransport now must be specifically ordered to your address instead of just happening at regular intervals for an entire neighbourhood.

Which in my eyes is a much worse solution. You get a time slot of several hours and have to sit there and guard your Sperrmüll, lest people add theirs to it at your expense (if charged per piece or kg) and responsibility (for dirt and for things that are not accepted as Sperrmüll).

Won't write it here in English again ... sorry ...: related discussion: Schönes gesehen, gehört, getan, ... VII - #186

You are of course right, patman, about the various spots where good food gets thrown away. I never said otherwise. But we were discussing this one aspect in connection with the "Containern" issue.

Aldi started to sell "not so perfect" apples, cucumbers etc. under the label "Krumme Dinger" ( a pun, referring to the fact that e.g. cucumbers which are bent over a certain degree can't be sold as "Handelsklasse 1", and "ein krummes Ding drehen" means to do something which isn't strictly legal)

correcturito: ....dürfte die (Nummer) Zahl größer sein....

Question re your correcturito "leftover food items" - does that imply that the food is still "good", i.e. edible? That's what I wanted to stress. In my understanding "leftover" doesn't imply that the items are not rotten or off.

I edited my earlier answer from last night - I seem to have been a little bit verpeilt then.

Was verdorben ist, würde ich nicht als leftover beschreiben, eher als inedible oder spoiled.....answers my question 100%. Leftover would only be used for items that are not gone off.

Wow, that's very snailish in here at the moment, isn't it?

I'll leave tomorrow to my sisters' place, on Wednesday we will drive to Dortmund (with my niece and my other older sister, too) to attend the "Deutsche Evangelische Kirchentag". I missed the last one and am looking forward to immersing myself once again into the very special atmosphere there, to interesting lectures, discussions, bible studies, music events etc etc.....

Whoever is interested and feels like having a closer look into what the Kirchentag is:

Was ist der Kirchentag?

@ Goldammer: RE: Kirchentag in Dortmund

I don’t think you’ll have spare time for some sightseeing in my home town, though I’d still be able to recommend some places and  typical “Eckkneipen”. According to the resp. maps

 the events seem to spreads all over Dortmund. So, if the “Reinoldikirche” right in the heart of Dortmund is one of the destinations, don’t miss to ask for the rustic restaurant “Alter Markt”, situated just around the corner (50 meters), and have a beer there; and a “Salzkuchen mit Mett” in addition, if you like.

https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salzkuchen

Hello dear snails! Only a short greeting from me, because I am also in the *6g/ Kirchentag fever /6g off*. Our performance is tonight, but there is a lot of competition - another, more famous choir is performing at the same time as we do, and there is also the premiere of a musical about Martin Luther. So I dare to doubt that Goldammer will find her way to the Pauluskirche :-).

RenaRd, thanks for the tips - I already know the Reinoldi church, but the restaurant wouldn't work for me as I am a vegetarian snail ;-).

We will visit the football museum tomorrow.

And yesterday we were at the Gasometer Oberhausen and visited the excellent exhibition "Der Berg ruft" - it was really fantastic! Please have a look:

https://www.gasometer.de/de/ausstellungen/der...

And now I have to call it a day - best wishes to all of you!

Is there an institution raising funds for a monument to "the ... of which"? I do want to contribute.

(My teachers, too, taught me that whose is for persons with the possible inclusion of pets and personified countries but not for unanimated objects.)

Then, my sentence would read like this:

In our supermarkets we have a 50% discount corner with food the "due date" of which is close.

It isn't beautiful but is it right?

I'd like to emphasize that "‘whose’ … ist ein besitzanzeigendes Relativpronomen (Possessive Relative Pronoun) und wird für Personen sowie für Dinge und Tiere verwendet: (...)"

https://www.cafe-lingua.de/englische-grammati...

Auf St. Pauli. Sonst gehörst Du nicht dazu. Wat mutt, dat mutt! 

I remember actress Eva Mattes at a solo performance in Erlangen. She tried to impress the audience with how many famous people she knew and how well established she was when she was living, as she termed it, in St. Pauli. - Well, when spinning a sailor's yarn, don't get caught talking like a lousy landlubber! (At least she was smart enough to do it in front of a landlubber audience - except yours truly.)

Re. escoville gottseligen Angedenkens, are you sure he did not mean Of course you can use 'whose' for things (but correct it is not).

NB. Gottesdienst. - Am Ufer der Elbe. (Except if you crossed the river and walked on both banks.)

Es ist eine regionale Besonderheit, genauso wie man auf Schalke sagt, wenn man im Stadion ein Heimspiel des FC Schalke 04 besucht. Ist einfach so. Lokale Tradition.

Entlang der Ufer hat Ufer im Plural; bei der Neiße würde ich Dir das glauben, bei der Elbe auf Höhe St. Pauli Fischmarkt nicht.

Will I ever get used to it without a laugh? The car, whose engine was broken, was town to a garage.

There are even more of those typical regional idioms referring to a location, mbshu. I spontaneously recall “Vatter is auf Arbeit (auch auffe Arbeit)“. :o)

BTW, hm .. us; I wrote about my recent reading somewhere above: „The Girl Next Door“ by Ruth Rendell and found it a little lame,calm, unhurried – like a journey in an old time train. It became more “density” after a while and quite thrilling in the end, I can recommend it in good conscience.

@ Lucy-E: My tip was not about eating but showing a Goldammer a Swabian, a typical “Dortmunder Bierkneipe”. Have fun at the “Kirchentag” even without meat. *g*

Many thanks for the corrections, Amy and patman2. My “became”-mistake was especially awkward because that’s a typical beginner’s false friend: to become = bekommen. In fact I recalled the sentence when I got to bed and planned to alter it in the morning. But it was too late .. :.(

Sorry, RenaRd, your tipps came too late....I didn't see them in time, and, I must confess, even more embarrassing, I didn't recall that Dortmund is your hometown.....I would have walked around with more awareness of the fact.

I regret not to have tried the Salzkuchen!! I'm sure I'd like it.

My niece and I were hosted by a very very friendly lady from Bochum Gerthe - quite a way to get to Dortmund from in the mornings, considering the "Bibelarbeiten" (one hour lectures on a chapter from the Bible which was the same for all the many simultaneous Bibelarbeiten and is very often given by celebs) started at 9:00 a.m.....

I had a very good time, lots of input that needs time to sink in and settle, great music, spontaneous conversations with nice strangers, and so on and so on, Kirchentag eben....

And of course I had no idea Lucy was singing - I might have gone there to listen to you and meet you, had I known!

Great to see kisan, HI!!

And Amy-MiMi, I hope things are fine in your neck of the woods - has summer break already started for you?

The page your link leads to demands that I take my adblocker out, mbshu, and sorry, I do that only for very few pages....

Another regional specialty with "auf": A Swabian might say (if he or she is a bit older): I gang uf Schduagert = Ich gehe auf (=nach) Stuttgart

My link was to an article about a kids' group eager to visit the Kirchentag - with a vivid description of how their bus landed in Dortmund's red light district and had trouble finding the way out of it. (Being from Hamburg, I did not even know that Dortmund has that kind of thing!)

Ah, I think I read a headline about this somewhere...

I'd like to add to my tale that I really enjoyed the Abschlussgottesdienst in Germany's biggest soccer stadium *), Borussia Dortmund's "Signal Iduna Park". Great place, and great event. It is a very special experience to celebrate a service with tens of thousands of others, undescribable, really. Were you there, Lucy?

Patman, I read the Gabaldon saga years ago and I enjoyed it a lot - however, towards the end I got a bit confused with all the complicated aspects, twists of the plot and relationships between persons, and I do recall that in the "juicy" scenes, she kept mentioning nipples a bit too often for my taste...."not nipples again", I thought when such a scene was about to unfold....

*) Leo says that "stadium" is mainly BE. What would an AE speaker call it, then? Maybe this should be added to Leo....

Ahh....got it, hm -- us....

I read them in German back then, patman. I don't remember why, since I enjoy reading books in the English original. Maybe because Mr Goldammer wanted to read them, too, and he can't read in English.

I was wondering if the sentence about your wife's opinion about the sex scenes was what you wanted to say?

Ein bisschen ungewöhnlich sei es, findet sie, wenn auch nicht geradezu unhygienisch…

says - as I read it - that she found it a bit unusual, even considered if she thought they were unhygienic but in the end decided that that was a bit too much - so: unusual, but not unhygienic.

And did you mean langwierig or langweilig?

hm -- us: Afrika Cup is one of those words which were transferred into German without translation - to me it's not like keeper and Torwart. (Didn't know that was a thing for Carly.... :-) )

What - a penguin in short sleeves? Truly shocking.

Hals- und Stimmbruch für das Konzert!

Just a quick correcturito for patman: Wandermöglichkeiten; einen Besuch zu planen / erwägen /...für die sich ein Besuch lohnt.

Such wonderful, colorful birds, Amy-MiMi!

I have been wondering before whether it's only an impression I have, or a fact, that birds of North America are much more colorful than our species.

If Wachtelkönig still listens silently here - maybe he knows something about it?

When will your bike tour take place, Amy-MiMi? I'm looking forward ot a travel report!

Amy, I am sorry to hear about your mother. Your father sounds to be keeping up, that's heartening at least.

Those birds sure are beautiful. This picture of a northern flicker is particularly impressive. Birds (or birbs in internet lingo ;)) in general are fascinating and cute and I love watching them, though not as profesionally as some of you, admittedly.

Every day over these past weeks, at a couple seconds to 8 o'clock in the evening, a jay will land on the railing of the clock tower and start screeching. We aren't sure what its intentions are, whether it has a nest inside the tower and is warning predators away or if it's annoyed by the jackdaws it has to share the tower with or if it is just trying to drown out the church bells. You can set your watch to the guy or gal, who is not all that little, as I found out just recently when one wanted to land on my balcony while I was sitting there. They are as big as pigeons! We both got pretty startled.

Another neighborhood bird is our "Alarmamsel". Every evening without fail, he will sit on the roof across the yard and go into alarm mode. Apparently that's about the time when the kestrel (another inhabitant of the tower) takes off to hunt. So the blackbird on the roof starts, and then another one further away picks up the call, then another one and so on until the eintire neighborhood is filled with blackbird warning cries. And. They. Are. Loud.

Sorry for butting in, just felt the need to tell you about "our neighborhood birbs".