A winter walk in the Taunus

Bruce — Tue, 29 Jan 2008 09:12:43 +0000

As January draws to a close I wanted to share the photo that has graced my desktop over the course of this month. I usually like a solid grey on my desktop to avoid distractions, but had to make an exception for this one of Simone's. The Times liked it too; it was selected for online publication in their travel photo competition (week 3). Simone took the photo on Christmas Eve 2007 while walking with family in the Taunus hills near Frankfurt am Main, Germany. The bleakness of the fog-enshrouded scene is offset by a few penetrating rays of sunlight, hardly enough to counter the bone-numbing cold and icy cheeks I can almost feel. On another level the group of walkers seem insignificant and vulnerable in this forest of tall and strong trees. Click thumbnail to enlarge imageA winter walk in the Taunus

German comforts in Wellington

Simone — Sun, 18 Mar 2007 01:58:59 +0000

From http://www.bioneural.net :

When you leave your home country for any length of time it's natural to look for the tastes of home. As luck would have it, it's not too difficult to find German eats and treats in Wellington as Germany and New Zealand share a love of good food and drink. Bread I left Germany fourteen years ago, spending 13 years in small-town England and the last 6 months in New Zealand's capital city. What has never left me in all those years is the desire for good German bread: sourdough and rye, heavy set and crusty. It keeps for weeks and—just getting a bit dry—is still perfectly edible if you have the will and good teeth. I call it "real bread", as opposed to the "white fluffy stuff" that has more E numbers in it than I care to think about and that Bruce loves to munch (you can't really say "get his teeth into" as this action is impossible, if you know what I mean). I took to baking my own bread some years ago in the UK, after a fellow German gave me a sourdough starter and an earthenware baking pot, the latter helping to imitate the heat patterns of a bread oven on a small scale and turning out perfect loaves every time. Needless to say that the baking pot is big, heavy, cumbersome and not suitable to be transported half way around the world to New Zealand. Luckily New Zealand has had a long-standing history of German immigrants ...

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A winter walk in the Taunus

German comforts in Wellington