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Dienstag, 10. Juni 2014

My Daily Banana

 
 
Photo of the Day:
 
 
It looks like a forest, it's only a small wood but it's great for strolling

Event of the Day:

10th June 1966

Janis Joplin gives her first live appearance on stage in the Avalon Ballroom, San Francisco, United States. 
 
 
Janis was the singer in the group Big Brother Holding Company.
It didn't last long though, she soon outgrew them and formed her own group
 The Kozmic Blues Band
 
She must have been twenty-three years old, because only four years later she joined the Twenty-Seven Club (that's the exclusive and very mournful club of twenty-seven year olds who lost their lives at that age, Jimmy Morrison, Jimi Hendrix, Amy Winehouse to name a few.) 
I loved the music of Janis, her interpretation of Gershwin's Summertime goes down in my books as one of the best recordings ever.

 
Birthday of the Day:

10th June 1891


Al Dubin,
 
 Swiss songwriter (Tiptoe Thru the Tulips)
 
 
covered by Tiny Tim in 1968.
 
Tiny Tim.
 
 
 
 
Tiny Tim an American music artist, who died in 1997 was a freak who had his moments in the sixties. He played an ukulele and sang in a falsetto / vibrato voice. It was terrible but a highlight in the tristesse. of the time. Tiny Tim's version of Tiptoe Through the Tulips peeked in the Billboard charts at number seventeen.



Died on this Day:
 
10th June 2004
 
Ray Charles
 
When he died Billy Joel gave a parting speech
 in which he praised Ray as being
the greatest singing artist of all times even bigger or better than Elvis

A black singer/songwriter born in 1930 and blind from the age of seven, the Rolling Stone magazine rated him number ten in the "100 Greatest Artists of All Time". In 1979 the State of Georgia, United States adopted his song Georgia on my Mind as the official state song of Georgia.
 
 
My minds eye:
 
It's the same every time I write a blog about such a monumental event such as the christening, it's like an anti-climax and I don't know what to write about. Do you know the feeling?
Yesterday was easy, we got up late had a long breakfast and plonked ourselves onto the sofa, that sums up our doings until one in the afternoon. It got too boring, I had to get out into the fresh air, do something. I got niggly with Heike about nothing, it really was time to get out; so we did, we had our stroll around Niebüll.
In the last sentence I said something about fresh air, well it wasn't fresh, it was hot and sticky but at least it wasn't boxed in with four walls. We walked around town for an hour (you can nearly walk the whole perimeter of the town in one hour) and then we landed at our favourite baker's shop for ... (I'm not going to say it, that would be repeating myself). As we were sat outside the baker's the world sailed by, the young rebels with their souped up jobs, the rockers on their souped up bikes, the granddads out for their Sunday drive, the cyclists dressed up for winter, spring and thank god for summer and a beautifully revamped tractor whizzed by.
In Risum-Lindholm there is a garage where they specialise in restoring Schlüter tractors. You can't imagine how expensive they are, for the amount they cost when revamped you could buy a new luxury car some of them are as expensive as a house EUR 250K. If you're interested the firm is called Schlüter Schmiede Jensen
 
 
 

 
I managed and not too bad either (meine Meinung)
Se you tomorrow!





Montag, 9. Juni 2014

Martje Amber Petersen's christening
 
What a lovely day, it didn't look like that when we got up this morning. The sky was black, lightning was cracking its whip and buckets of water were falling from heaven. That was at eight, at nine thirty when we drove to Risum I had the roof of my convertible open, the sun was shining and the car was heated up like in a sauna.
We arrived, the rest of the gathering arrived and the first tears fell: Martje saw me and did a knee fall; she forgot that she had her new, pretty and white tights on and now they were green. The tears dried up quickly, there was excitement in the air (well for the kids and the future godparents and if I think about it for me also, I'm still a kid at heart).
The service went well, it's Whitsunday and the Pastor, Tim Ströver, told the story of the beginning of the church on this day; of how the disciples came out of hiding and went into the world speaking to the people in every country be it Hebrew, Arabian, Roman, English, French, you name it they could speak that language. On the first day of the Christian Church they baptised three-thousand followers.
The story is good and interesting, if you're a grownup, for the kiddies it was too much so they mucked about, not much it was amazing how disciplined they were. Gretje let everything happen without a word or should I say moan.
After the service we all gathered at Kirsty and Jan-Erik's house for a meal and drinks and coffee with cakes and more drinks. If anyone went home hungry it would have been their own fault.
I'm still suffering four hours later, I ate too much cake.
 
 
 
 
Gretje it's your show today,
it is time for you to join the community,
we all say welcome,
such a pretty and quiet girl <3


Gretje's Christening song

The arrival
Heike, Lynda and her friend Dirk

The Godparents
Martina and Horst
A perfect choice, two that did not have the fortune of having children of their own
 

Family Petersen arrives,
Fentye and Martje dressed up like twins
and look how clean Martje is, it lasted only one minute and she want down on her knees.
White tights and green grass are a bad combination

When she realised that she had mucked her knees it was time for the first tears of the day

They didn't last long,
and now it's off to the church
The gate to the St Sebast zu Risum Church

Pastor Tim Ströver waiting for the congregation.
He is new in the village and took over from Pastor Spiesswinkel last year when he went into pension.

Pastor Ströver, a young and talented pastor,
his service differs enormously from his predecessor

Gretje in her Taufkleid (christening dress)
The church interior,
the altar,
it points to the south,
I wonder if that has any meaning?

The church interior,
the pulpit.

The church interior,
the christening font

The church interior,
a picture next to the pult.
Is this Saint Sebast?

The church interior,
the organ

The church interior,
the Lord's supper
Gretje in a good mood,
she was like that the whole time
 
Gretje with her father Jan-Erik and Martje
 
Martje is always giving her sister a kiss,
sometimes it gets too much for Gretje and she rebels by whining
 
Martje, the wild one
with her Oma Petersen
Fentje

Fentje and Mama
Doesn' Fentje look an angel?
It doesn't hold on very long,
in the past few months, since she started in Kindergarten
she's found her tongue and loves to stick it out at me.
Cheeky bugger :-)
Gretje with her Godmother Martina
and how proud she is, I love it!
The christening is over, now come the family photos
Lets start with Oma Irmtraut and Uroma Marianne (Tick Tack Oma)
The Petersen family with Heike
from the left Oma Irmtraut, Martje, Fentje, Tick Tack Oma, Godfather Horst, Oma Heike, Papa Jan-Erik, Godmother Martina, Gretje, Mother Kirsty and Opa Andreas
The same but with me behind Kirsty
The church service is over and we leave the church in dazzling sunshine.
I quite like the Pastor, modern
It's about time the church got younger in person and idea.
The families Petersen and Martin together on one photo, all except yours truly
Doesn't matter though
now a picture of the proud grandfather
and the proud grandmother
I can't end my blog without a flower photo.
Poppies

 

 
 

Sonntag, 8. Juni 2014

My Daily Banana:
 
 

Photo of the Day:
 
A pretty little house in Niebüll
 
With a tree growing out of the chimney
 
What a lovely afternoon
 
 
 
Event of the Day:

08th June 793

Vikings plunder St Cuthbert's monestary on Lindisfarne

Lindesfarne is a small tidal island in the North-East off the coast of Northumberland; it is often referred to as the Holy Island
 

 
 
Lindesfarne for me is a progressive folk group thet I remember from the seventies. One great song they sing is Lady Elenor. I saw them play in Tondern, Denmark sometime in the eighties at the famous Tondern Folk and Jazz Festival (always on the last weekend of August, if anyone is thinking of going. I can highly recommend a visit, it's the biggest folk festival in Europe with an international billing. They have had Pentangle, Arlo Guthrie alone and with the family, RunRig, Lonnie Donegan when he lived and many, many more great acts.)
 
Tondern Folk Festival
 
 
 
Birthday of the Day:

08th June 1940

 Nancy Sinatra
 Jersey City
 
 
 
singer (Boots are Made for Walkin') and daughter of Frank Sinatra

 
 
Died on this Day:

08th June 632

Mohammed,
 
 
 
prophet of Islam (Koran), dies (according to tradition)

 
 
Bicycle ride of the Day:

My ride today took my once more through the Koogs.

A Koog is new-land, which has been won from the sea. Most of the countryside around Niebüll is new-land and below 0.0 metres (sea-level). We are protected by dykes, but if we would have a storm with waves over ten metres, a stip of land at least twenty kilometers wide would be flooded.
Around Niebüll the land is marshland and in Leck, where Lynda lives
 (fifteen kilometers from Niebüll) it's geest land from zero to fourteen metres above sea level, that's where the flooding would stop.

That was a short excursion into our history and geography, now back to my cycle tour.
 
The Bottschlotter Au
look how peaceful the water flows

The other side of the road looking towards the Bottschlotter Sea
a small nature reserve lake

Wide open country, no natural woods, it's all gained ground where the North Sea used to flow.
Waygaarddeich, a small village five houses at the most.
Under the German name of the village you can read the village name in Friesian, the original language of this part of the country that has nearly died out. Earlier in time when the language was in use nearly every town and village had its own Friesian dialect.

A farm in Waygaarddeich,
terrific setting


I rode through the Koogs to Fahretoft a beautiful village about fifteen kilometers south-west of Niebüll. It has many old and well kept Friesian houses crowned with thatching.

Village limits shield

This is where the monster tractors unload their goods and there's a corn-scales in front, I always ride over it when I travel through Fahretoft

The scales only weigh insteps of  ten kilograms, rounding upwards.
 My bike and I weigh somewhere between 100 and 110 kilograms.

A thatched roof house in Fahretoff

Another dreamy thatched roof house in Fahretoft
 
 
 
 
It was then north-west to Dagebüll-Kirche. Dagebüll is a village split-up in two parts, Dagebüll-Kirche and Dagebüll-Hafen where the ferries transfer to the North Friesland islands. The two village halves are three kilometers apart. Dagebüll-Kirche is built around a very picturesque church which was built in 1731.
 
Village limit shield in Dagebüll-Kirche
I like the Friesian name
Doogebel-Schärk
Can you pronounce it?
The church was built in 1731, but without a belfry tower, that came in 1906
 
 
 
Next I turned north past Bibi onto my normal route. Where I met my friend the labrador, he was really happy to see me, he even got up to greet me. I gave him a cuddle and scratched his back and throat, he loves that and lent harder into it. Lovely dog, I'm glad I don't own one though, they have to be looked after, they pooh and pong and if you go on holiday you need a minder to look after it; no thanks!
 
My friend, an older picture of him, I had it in my May 8th blog.
Isn't it sweet?

I wouldn't like to drive it when the wind conmes from the side
 
 
I really enjoyed my cycle round, hope you can see why by looking at the pictures.


That's it for today, see you all tomorrow, be good and have a peaceful Whitsunday :-)