Signs of Spring

This is a compendium of posts from another place, gathered here for your convenience.

(March 20)
I guess it is Spring after all. I saw a ladybug and killed a mosquito yesterday.

(April 12)
Signs of Spring: moving the plants outdoors again.

(April 14)
Just had coffee and cake in bright sunshine, in the garden behind the office. I'd say that it is a good 12 °C (20 °F) warmer than on Friday. Perhaps this is finally Spring?

(April 15)
1. The lizards have emerged from hibernation and were sunning themselves on the stone wall by the railway gardens as I walked to lunch.

2. Over the span of a single weekend I went from walking on the north side of the street to enjoy the warmth of the sun, to walking on the south side of the street to avoid the heat of the sun.

(April 16)
3. Hay fever. Ah well, it can't all be golden.

4. The local restaurants have budded out, covering the sidewalks in tables and chairs.

(April 17)
5. Eating icecream outdoors in the garden behind the office, in shirt-sleeves.

(April 18)
6. It takes ages for the water to run hot, because the heating is off.

(April 19)
7. Cold rain on the weekend. Eh, whatever.

(April 23)
8. Feeling a tickle on my arm at work, and looking down to see an ant wandering along between the hairs.

(April 24)
9. The joyful shrieks of the kids at the daycare centre, as the pretty brunette caregiver hoses them down in the garden.

10. Dandelions, hundreds and hundreds of them, covering the road and railside verges.

11. Eating an icecream cone as I walk back to work after lunch. (Maracuja / Peach Cream, since you asked).)

12. Magnolias!

(April 25)
13. Comfortably wearing a short-sleeved shirt to work.

(May 1)
14. Entering the yellow phase. Tulips, daffodils, goldenrod, other stuff I can't name.

15. The swifts (not swallows) are back! Heard (and saw) them screeching and wheeling above the rooftops today. Bliss.

(May 2)
16. A fragment of eggshell on the pavement, quite small; the palest turquoise with tiny flecks of fox-orange.

17. A bright blue butterfly crossing my path.

(May 6)
18. Towering clouds stacking up miles high into the sky.

18a. And rapidly turning very dark indeed, and giving forth much lightning and thunder.

18b. And me hurrying to get home before the storm, making it to the very streetcorner of my block before the first drops fell.

Olds

As in, not news.

That was a pretty long and busy month, in a long and busy half-year or so since changing my working arrangements with G and U.

During that month, a friend was murdered, shot down in the street by his disappointed lover. We weren't particularly close, he was the owner of a pair of my favourite restaurants, but we'd known each other in that way for nearly twenty years. It was something of a shock.

But who the hell carries a gun around with them anyway? Quick poll: do you know anyone who regularly carries a gun (other than those who have a professional reason to do so, like on-duty soldiers and cops)? I don't, at least I believe and hope-to-god that I don't. I think I would stop associating with someone whom I discovered to be a gun-carrier.

While I was writing, a plumber arrived to fix my 28-year-old misbehaving heating/waterheater, which has been broken for several days (I wasn't the only person to have a four-day long weekend). It's fixed for now, but is officially moribund and will need to be replaced in the proximate future. I shall write to the landlady outlining the situation and asking for advice.

Spring arrived while I wasn't looking. I remember walking home at night and seeing bats for the first time, several months ago now, and thinking that I should blog about that, then getting home and doing other stuff* instead. The swallows arrived a few weeks back, probably while we were finishing up the competition, but I missed their arrival.

That's interesting: I am certain that I saw the first bats of the season, and yet I am equally certain that I didn't see the first swallows of the season. In both cases the externals are the same: look up, no X; look up again, X. What makes me think that the swallows had been there unseen, or conversely what makes me sure that the bats weren't? Perhaps this: that bats are nocturnal, had they been out earlier I would have seen them; swallows are diurnal, so my seeing them is conditional upon my being about in daylight. No, that doesn't explain why I was certain that they had been here before I saw them. Perhaps I'd heard them unconsciously and registered their presence.

* If you thought "he means Second Life," pat yourself on the head.

Signs of Spring

The swifts (not swallows) are back, four days later than their return last year! I regret to report that I didn't note their departure last autumn, so I can't say how long they were away this winter.

Walking home from my downtown shopping yesterday afternoon, I saw a pair of crows chasing an eagle out of their territory, which I guess means that the 2008 nesting season has begun in earnest.

I've had a mild but very persistent migraine for some 20 hours, from early last night until this afternoon, and the echoes are still ringing. I stayed in bed most of the day, dressing only when I went for a walk an hour ago, and shall be in bed early this evening again.

[Updated] not a migraine, but Föhn fever, because half a dozen other people also had the same symptoms at the same time.

Another one bites the dust

Friday again, how quickly the weeks fly past. The linden trees in Rose Street have fully leafed out and are casting dappled shadows on the sidewalk, which will soon be falling on the office floor and even my onto my desk. I've been wearing my leather jacket to work (with sweater and scarf) this week.

Leaving work last night, the air was so mild and the sun still so high (at 6:45) that I walked downtown to the Königsplatz and treated myself to a beer on the terrace of the Kunstmuseum. I sat for an hour watching the passersby, commuters and shoppers and flaneurs alike, and noting how the shadowline of the setting sun crept up the hillside opposite. Very pleasant.

Today, very mellow and relaxed, in the mood for making an early start to the weekend. Shabbat shalom, my dears.

Still mellow

... even though it is again cold and rainy, not at all weather for picnicking.

Which reminds me that after publishing that last post, I met G, U and Ralph for a picnic at the Bärenschlössle! Yes, my dearies, a genuine sitting-on-the-grass-in-sunshine picnic in mid-April. Quite pleasant it was too.

Today at work on the translation again, surprisingly relaxed even though G and the part-time assistant from our last competition were there preparing for the next competition. (Yes, the office was chosen to take part again; I will have little to do with it because I will be a fulltime Münstermann when I return from my father's 80th birthday celebrations in Toronto.)

I am hard put to say what exactly has put me in such a good mood in the last few days. Favourable biorhythms, perhaps, or the glow resulting from making new friends in RL and SL. In any case, my mood continues mellow and gently happy. I hope that your days are going as smoothly.

Mellow

Walked to work in Rose Street today to the sound of church bells and birdsong. It's a mild (12°C or so) sunny and windstill day, I'm sitting at my desk with the windows and doors open. Behind me, one of the office computers is copying some music CDs (my own, I hasten to add) for use here: Glenn Gould playing Bach's "Goldberg Variations" (the 1985 version), Barenboim playing Chopin's "Nocturnes," and an oddity: the Estonian Philharmonic Chamber Choir singing "Orthodox Chants of the 17th and 18th Centuries."

Sheer boredom has prevented me from stating that it has rained for at least some part of very day for nearly three weeks. Today's forecast is for 17°C and mostly sunny, but the long-range forecast is for 8°C and rain again. Blah. Getting dull. This time last year, I was eating lunch on my balcony aka the summer office.

I walked home on Friday at sunset, and because the evening was so nice I made a detour around the Feuersee, and there saw the first bat of 2008 swooping above the pond. Spring advances. The chestnuts have leafed out and are putting up their little pyramids of blossom; the lindens in Rose Street are in full leaf, though the eponymous roses aren't yet doing much.

[Updated at 1:30 pm] walked home via the Feuersee again, and had my first ice cream cone of 2008. Bloody marvellous.

Definitely Spring

Public Service Announcement: The chestnut trees have leafed out, the magnolias are budding. Pictures in the very near future.

Coughing, tired. Rain. Blah.

That is all.

Spring redux

Because the cries of anguish from those still be-wintered are not yet loud enough. I'll have you know I was walking around with my coat open as I took these shots.

Spring

For J.



(I apologise for the daffs being so dark, the sun was setting as I took the shot. It'll be replaced by a better one tomorrow.)

Since you were wondering

Being the answer to an unasked question.

The nearest beach (defined as "access to salt water") is at Venice, some 430 kilometres away as the crow flies.

I really wished that I had been there today. It's funny how I get through winter without feeling the need to get away (except perhaps to Canada for some real winter), but when Spring comes I get itchy feet: I want warmth and sunshine and smelling-of-vegetation-and-flowers and I want them now.

Trivia, Saturday edition

almostDaffodils
Originally uploaded by udge

Being a fine crop of whiffle.

As promised, a photo of Spring caught in the very act of tensing its muscles. These daffs are growing wild in a semi-unmaintained roadside planter thingy outside our office.

I spent over an hour today reading through my building-volume calculations for the competition in Smalltown, and conclude that I was right. There is only one error that I can see, and it's on the order of a hundredth of one percent of the total volume, so I would say that we are as near as dammit to correct. Good. [Updated: it is to laugh. Read the follow-up here.]

Cooking an early dinner as I write, comfort food: a Maultaschen, zucchini and mushroom omelette. It's still daylight outside, though the sun has set: Spring is truly on its way. The weather office says that there is no further chance of frost during the next six weeks or so.

On having second thoughts

I took down a post which I'd written this morning, because the first two comments (Savtadotty and Antonia) proved that it was badly written: unclear, off-topic, not thought out, factually wrong. My bad. Sorry.

I shall rewrite it and post it again, probably tomorrow.

In other news the swallows are back! I saw the first of them circling above the rooftops this evening, as I was walking around the Feuersee with an ice-cream cone, taking the long way home. They left around July 28th; this is a week earlier than their return last year.

In other, other news courtesy of the great Neil Gaiman or rather his Web Elf, the fascinating and heartwarming tale of the rat tickler.

The holiday spirit

roses_trellis
Originally uploaded by udge.

I have had a marvellous three-hour holiday this afternoon, walking in the Stadtgarten in brilliant sunshine under a cloudless blue sky. The day could not have been better, my mood would not have been brighter, had I been in Nice or Florence. (My dinner would have been much better, but that's another story.)

Holiday is a state of mind, not a place.

And (according to the forecast) tomorrow will be just as blue and even warmer. O frabjous day! Callooh! Callay!

I took over a hundred pictures of vegetation (and many bare branches) against the sky, seventeen of the best are on Flickr.

Wonderful

Warning: readers still in the climatic zone called "winter" may wish to avert their eyes from this post.

It's 22°C here in Stuttgart, the sun is shining and the sky is blue. I had lunch with G and U at an utterly crappy Biergarten-type-restaurant with an open-air terrace on the Killesberg, which was almost redeemed by its magnificent view down the Neckar valley towards Esslingen. I decided after lunch that it was too nice a day to return to work straight away, so I walked down the hill through the Hohenpark to the Löwentor subway station; then decided that it was still too nice a day to return to work, so I walked on through the Rosensteinpark to the Mineralbäder subway station, and there boarded a train home. Three kilometres and a hundred vertical metres of hillside, or an hour of sun, fresh air, Spring smells and birdsong.

Life is great.

In other news given a clear view of the horizon line and no clouds, Venus is visible for about 40 minutes after sundown, directly above the point where the sun set. Go have a look. It's easy to tell whether you are seeing Venus or just a star: Venus is by far the brightest object in the sky, outshining everything but the moon, and is already visible while the sky is still bright blue.

In other, other news today's Dilbert is particularly brilliant.

In otherest news courtesy of the Late Edition, my Visual DNA:

Read my VisualDNA™     Get your own VisualDNA™

The weekend starts here

Three posts in one day! Inconceivable!

Spring is definitely here, for now. I wore my leather jacket to work this afternoon, for the first time in 2007, and was quite warm enough as long as the sun shone. Flowers are bursting out everywhere, there are birds singing from every tree and rooftop, the very air smells of life.

My life, however, is at something of a low point. I have fallen out of most of my good habits (rising early, meditating, daily blogging, eating properly) since starting the competition at the New Year and can't seem to get back on track. Work is going badly, and I am working badly too (making too many mistakes, not taking the work or the mistakes seriously).

In other news today's favourite song is from this CD. It should to be played very loudly indeed to get the full effect.