(more takes at Jen's)

1.

It was a bracing 14 degrees in sunny Bavaria when we headed out late yesterday morning for castles Hohenschwangau and Neuschwanstein. 14 degrees in Bavaria in December does not turn into 40 later in the day.  As the tour guide said, it is winter half the year here.  The rest of the time it is cold and damp. ; ) This made for a rather brisk hike up the hill between the pair of schlosses. (Is schlosses a word? schlossen?)  The little ones struggled through the tour but we were thrilled to be able to show them all.  

It is a strange feeling to be in this place, so far from home, yet oddly familiar this third time around.  As he watched Asher carry Abbie up the hill Allen was talking about us making this same ascent carrying Colin 24 years ago.  You just never know where life is taking you. 

2.

We have found the alphabet (car) game to be far less a challenge in Germany… at least until you get to X.  

3.

Today the bigs and their Dad are taking the cog up the Zugspitz while the little girls and I hang out at the house. I have been there and the little girls were unlikely to appreciate the polar environment at the peak. Abbie says we are having a party.  It feels like that!  I know for myself that I can truly relax and indulge in copious amounts of tea and books and naps guilt free when I am away from home and certain that there is nothing else I should be doing. I love my home.  I will be glad to go back.  But sometimes even a homemaker needs to be removed from the workplace to really kick back. 

In that spirit, I am going to start a monochromatic French cross stitch that looks like it would stitch up quickly. 

4.

I have noticed that the windows in Bavaria, while still sporting lace, often have lace tie backs as well as the valances so prevalent further north. I was thinking back to those seen in homes I knew growing up.  Do you remember dotted Swiss?  And pom pom fringe trim?  If you read the comment on the Christmas past post there was a good point made.  We have such a variety of products and style in America today that there is no longer an identifying style in American homes. There is not that variety available here and the home we are staying in, as well as its neighbors, looks much like those I stayed in during the early 80's and heaven knows how long before that.  

That made me think of my Gram's living room re-do shortly before she died. The one thing that struck me when I sat in her living room that last time was the curtains.  There were new Roman shades and smartly striped panels intended by well meaning daughters to update the home.  Very tailored and stylish.  They actually looked better aesthetically than what came before.  But they didn't look like Gram any more. Though I have toyed with redecorating many times I am reminded that when we filled the china cabinet and hung the crochet valances in our new home this past summer a child passed through the room and said, "Oh!  It looks like our house now."  Who are we decorating for? The 'market'? Or our family? 

5. 

In a similar vein, Alannah was saying one of her German friends has two trees because their father thinks a tree should only have straw ornaments like these and stars and the girls of the family like the American style colored balls. I had to laugh.  I like both and may graduate to two trees next year to accommodate my growing collection.  Insert Fiddler on the Roof chorus here…

6.

I am totally absorbed in an Irish novel found in the bookcase here at the house.  It was only after a half dozen chapters that I read the reviews and all the conflicting opinions regarding which parties and groups the novel supposedly condemns and indicts. (assuming a work of fiction can truly indict at all)  Perhaps it is better that way.  I had already become engaged and must finish now.  

I am not a reader who takes a story of personal tragedy and necessarily applies generalities about denomination, politics and class.  This world is a vale of tears wherever you live and we each respond to injustice and tragedy in our own ways. But we do not – cannot – entirely avoid either – whether religious, faithless, wealthy, or poor.  As I keep saying, we do not get to choose how people treat us, we only get to choose how we will respond. I love this line:

"Perhaps his happiness was curiously unfounded. But cannot a man make himself as happy as he can in the strange long reaches of life? I think it is legitimate. After all the world is indeed beautiful and if we were any other creature than man we might be continuously happy in it."  - Sebastian Barry

7.

An aside which I think relates is a conversation husband and I had yesterday. We both take pictures while traveling.  He tends to take the sweeping landscapes and I gravitate towards the close-in shots. He is about the big picture, and the literal. Mine is the tiny details, the impressionistic, the analogous.  We are a good team. I think these different perspectives impact how we respond and analyze things as varied as travel photography and novel reading.

Tea, books and cross stitch chart beckon on that note.  Will talk to you again when we get back home. Have a marvelous weekend.