Turquoise flowers remind me of summer

Yesterday started the fall - calender wise. Summer has long endet in Northern Germany and I'm already sick of grey, rainy, short days.
Here I'm showing my adventures into crochet, not my priority normally. I couldn't resist this one book, so crochet hooks were in my travel bags for Corse in July.
"Flowers" in cool mediterrenean colors decorate two lovely old houses in the summer heat.
I have so much longing in my heart, so soon I will pack again for the South - hunting for the sun - the colors - the sea - the romarin - the rocks.

Der kalendarische Herbst ging gestern im Norden mit einem herrlichen Sommertag los.
Ansonsten ist hier seit langem alles andere als Sonne und Sommer. So sehr ich Herbstfarben auch mag, bin ich in keinster Weise bereit für die kommende dunkle, graue Saison, die hier immer so endlos lange anhält. Ich glaube, ich werde dann viele Sommerposts schreiben.

Trotz viel schlechtem Wetter war ich wenig am Notebook tätig, weil nach langer gesundheitsbedingter Pause die Priorität bei Beruf und Haushalt liegen muss.
Ganz abgesehen davon, bin ich wegen meines Fußes noch immer zweimal wöchentlich bei den Damen mit den magischen Händen. Vor allem: Ich kann wieder Sport machen, der mir besser tut als so manch anderes.
Also, kommt November, kommt neue Kamera, kommt mehr Lust auf Dokumentation.

Während oben genannter Phase surfte ich nicht nur endlos in Blogs, sondern auch in Stoff- und Buchläden.
Auch wenn ich eigentlich nicht häkel und Gehäkeltes nur manchmal mag, konnte ich Photos aus diesem Buch einfach nicht widerstehen.

Somit landeten im Juli Häkelnadeln und Baumwollreste in meinem Reisegepäck und hier schmückt eines der Ergebnisse den Schatten spendenden Wein über der Frühstücksterrasse.

In den Gärten zweier wunderbarer, sehr unterschiedlich gelegener, alter korsischer Häuser entstanden in sommerlicher Hitze "Blumen" in kühlen Mittelmeerfarben.

Diese frühere Mühle steht direkt an einem Fluss mit Badestellen in der Castagniccia, der hügeligen Gegend im Osten von Korsika. Deren Landschaft ist geprägt von tiefen Kastanienwäldern. Zu früheren Zeiten war das Kastanienmehl eines der Hauptwirtschaftserzeugnisse.
Heute ist das Haus als Sommerhaus zu mieten. Leider gab es kein Album mit Hinweisen auf die frühere Geschichte. Im Laufe der Tage fand ich auf meiner Spurensuche einen alten Kanal, mühsam hineingehauen in die felsige Schlucht weiter oben im Flusslauf. Dieses Wasser dürfte das Mahlrad im Keller des Hauses angetrieben haben.

So schön es dort war, mein Herz schlägt mehr für die eher kargere, bzw. anders grüne Mittelmeerlandschaft mit Pinien, Macchia, Rosmarin und Kakteen.

Dorthin mache ich mich bald noch einmal auf
*** die Sonne suchen *** die Farben *** die Weite *** das Meer *** die Felsen***.

Corner View ::: Seven

I really like the chance to reflect my life in terms of Corner View.

This week the topic is Seven.
I'm into rock climbing. Routes are not only but mainly described by a number.
This number indicates the difficulty. There are different scales in the world. I talk about the UIAA 7 that is used in Germany.
7 was my personal goal.

In former times of the heroic alpine climbers that was the very top.
For the young sport climbers of today it's just the start.

Being able to climb a (german) 7 allows a greater choice of rock, of mountains, of routes.
I never really managed the 7, just scratched it a bit.

But over the years I did climb some fantastic routes. As you can see I prefer the ones near directly at the sea.

On the picture below is one of the more relaxed ones,above my most exciting one. Yes, I was scared. Yes, it was worth it in many aspects. It felt great to do something like this at least once in my life.

Last year I was really in shape, with my body and mental.
This year I only started last weekend - very careful - with very easy routes.

Btw, around the world there are different scales. Mostly I climb in Southern Europe. With the scale used there I would never even think of a 7.
But for this post I needed the German scale ;-)

Probably the most boring post about climbing, rambling about a 7.

This week you can see the links to further Corner Views at tressfam.

*******************************************************************

Thanks for all your so friendly, nice, appreciated comments.
Yes, I did see quite some places of this beautiful world.
But I also saw many years already.

Although this is 'already' my second post after a long summer break I'm still not really back into posting, reading and commenting. I guess this might go on for a while.
I'm spending a lot of time at the physiotherapeut and try to do as much yoga and walking besides my full-time job, for the benefit of my good-healing foot.
Sorry, if I don't come back to you as I did before.

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Corner View ::: School ::: in Ladakh

After summer break I never really landed in blogland. Also Corner View's first topic "school" cried for skipping.
I'm a teacher and the German school politic is so crazy, I'm not very eager to talk school nowadays. From this summer in Hamburg elementary schools classes on craft, wood, sewing are almost cancelled and on art very reduced. And this is just a minor (though not in my eyes) crazyness.

Thanks to Ian from An Englishman Abroad memories came back to my most exciting teaching experience.

While spending time in the Himalaya in 2004 a friend of mine introduced me to Dr. Tsering Palmo and her Ladakh Nun Association.

Ladakh is the most northern region of the huge state of India. Most parts have the Hindi religion. Ladakh on the other hand is characterized by the Tibetean Buddhism.
The small city of Leh is the capital.

Traditionally most of Ladakhs familiys (and Tibetean at least in former times) send at least one boy to a monastery (called "gompa") to become a monk and get educated. The girls stay home, not being able to read or write and so on.

Dr. Pelmo seeks educations for the girls as well and their chance to study and practice the Dharma (Buddhist wisdom).
She also undertakes the labor of spreading information about health and so on in the tiny villages all over the vast country. Often those villages are hard to reach, only by foot with a duration of days.

During my revisit in 2005 Dr. Pelmo informed me that those were the weeks where she gathered young nuns from those villages. They get English lessons by a native speaker Lady, intense Dharma studies and more.

Dr. Pelmo asked me if I could help out somehow, not knowing that I'm a teacher.
So I offered what I can and organized 3 afternoons of paper craft. My purpose was giving fun to the girls and women and more important, enable them to teach this to the children of kindergarden age in their villages. Because this is what they will be doing.

Folding boxes, hats and ships is not one of the skills to survive, but for sure it lays traces in the brain for further education in all senses.

For teaching I needed all my senses. English was the common language, but not spoken by all.
The candle was not for a cozy atmosphere (with paper around!) but electricity was broken, as it happened every day for some minutes or hours.

Complete concentration.

My adventure was to get the supplies. There is no MacPaper.
This color orgy of pink and yellow for sure was not my fav choice but you use what you get.

The young women mostly enjoyed working the ships. In the middle of the desert part of the Himalaya. I told them storys of Hamburg and the harbour.
Cultur exchange :-)
Proudly the wrote their own name and the name of their villages on the flags.

For the lotus blossoms I got napkins from my daily restaurant. Your eyes might be big by now.
German chocolate Leh! That was the treat for the last day.

With a lot of labor and a lot of love the home of Leh's nuns gets nicer each year (picture from 2005).

Leh is situated some hundreds of meters higher. Down I rode my bicycle. Up I got a lift with the 'school bus', that took the nuns to the Temple for religious studys. The boy just put my bike on the roof.

:::As always money is always appreciated.
If you want to offer something, feel free to follow the first link to Dr. Pelmos page or go to this Dutch site, also in English and German. :::

Little kitten also enjoying the class :-)

Thanks for reading the long post and following me to a very special place on this beautiful earth.



Jane is turning over the hosting of Corner View to other participants. Go to her post for further information.