Café Leisure, sort of.

 Having moved north, bi-weekly, my type of leisure activities after work has changed a lot. 

 

My favorite swimming spot, this afternoon,
with a cuddly water temperature of 10 degrees C.

Formeost, of course, is my daily walk along the lake towards one of two bathing spots, and my daily swim. Relatively short, as the water temperature is on the coolish side, but the duration of my stays in the water is increasing, and I enjoy this new habit of mine so much that I can’t find the fitting words to describe the pleasure in a satisfying manner.

As I am still living in a nurse’s dorm with limited space and rather unattractive kitchen facilities I have also developed a new habit of going to a café that is part of a not-too-far-away organic food store at least once a week. Either for a piece of cake and some cappuccino, or, as today, for a bit of lunch.

Lemon tart and apple cake, both very delicious.

Vegetarian Potatoe Soup. Delicious - but I don't mind a bit of bacon in there, either.

 

The second time I went there I watched this little robin through the window 

 

(listening to birds is another pleasure I am delving into, although I must admit that my ability to recognized their different songs has not improved dramatically yet, despite my frequent referral to a bird-identifying app) 

 

Screenshot from BirdNET identification

and already then I thought this might become a potential Café Leisure for times when I am up north. Alas, they don’t have customer internet, and phone reception in the area seems to be a bit on the weak or instable side of things, which is why I haven’t actually taken the computer there and written a post on the premises. I guess I could, however, just write it there and post it later when I return to the dorm and it’s wi-fi service. Certainly the place would qualify for what I was thinking of when I first started writing posts under this label.

My room in the dorm is rather sparsely furnished, and although I did bring my small sewing machine, I have taken it out only once so far, because there is no adequate space to put it up and use it comfortably. I used it to attach flaps on my uniform tops to the back so they would not stand up and make me look ridiculous.

 

This little machine was an acquisition when the Featherweight Sewing Machine Hype was really gaining ground and I had been infected with that virus of desire, too, but didn’t want to spend that kind of money as they were being sold for. I had seen an Elna like this several years ago and developed a certain desire for one like it, but never acted upon that yearning. Amidst the Featherweight Hype, however, I remembered, searched the internet and found this one, for less than a quarter of the price that Featherweight were going for. I haven’t used it much yet, but figure that I will do more so once I move into my own apartment. Which should be soon-ish, as I have actually signed the rental agreement and am supposed to receive the keys towards the middle of the month.

When I come up north next time, I will be coming with a small van full of stuff, and then it will be more of ‘living’ rather than camping out in a dorm. I don’t think it will change my new habit of daily walks and swimming, though, nor, perhaps, the weekly stroll to the Café Leisure. But it will open up more options for being creative by having a table to put up the machine without running the danger of banging my knee on the corner of the bedding box which served as a ‘table’ yesterday.

And once I have my own wi-fi in the apartment I may certainly take the computer to the Café to write, and post later that night, for why not?

Café Leisure - almost

 It has been years since I last used that heading for a post, and it feels like many more years that I have actually done that. Sitting in a café without any pressing matters or stuff going on. Can't even blame it completely on the pandemic, because the last time I used that label was 2017. ok. before I started the nursing course, a lot changed with that already.

So today I went to Landshut to get myself an international driver's license so I will be driving legally in the US when I go to visit in November. The last time I visited the US (and rented a car!) I never even thought about bringing one or needing one, so I guess it was just as well I didn't do any serious speeding. But this time the travel agent told me to get one, so I managed to figure out how to make an appointment online (not extremely straightforward - made me wonder how to people do that if they are elderly and even less computer savvy than I am?) and figured I would spend a bit of time at the café before going to my Spanish lesson later on. But then I realized I needed a plug adaptor, too, because mine seems to have disappeared, and I went to the phone company to clarify my contract and how to deal with it all in the States, and then I thought it was too late to sit down in a café and just lounge. Although I had taken the computer with me to be prepared. So the café visit was canceled. Perhaps next week, between my job interview and the next Spanish lesson? 

The first part of last week was spent at Petersberg and we had three quiet and peaceful and warm and sunny days of sewing. Nobody talked about the news from around the world, nobody talked politics.

I made progress on my piece for the next 20 Perspectives challenge.

It needs to be finished in a week, so I better get going with the quilting, which I did not start there.

I also continued making blocks for a self-trial based on an interview I recently did with Caroline Hadley  @geometriquilt for the next issue of the member magazine for the German Quilt Guild. I love her Sunday Posts of quilt designs and was captured by a very yellow version of her Sunday Sketch #372 a number of weeks ago. Caroline is kind enough to be happy when somebody tries to put her designs into fabric, and I had started pretty soon after the post appeared. But it had not progressed far beyond a few prototype blocks to figure out prolific production, so a chance at actually sitting down and prolifically produce was very welcome indeed.

Of course, by now I have some own ideas I will incorporate into the top, to make it more mine, which will be fun to figure out. And looking at this picture I think the yellows need to turn a bit more yellow still, but perhaps that is due to the unflatterin lighting in this picture.

While at the retreat I saw that Ursels QuiltCabin had just had a shipment of PSS's oval templates arrive in their shop, and because I had been wondering how I could get at those without having to pay the outrageous post-Brexit customs and shipment costs I went ahead and ordered them. Plus...

... a bit of yellow fabric Caroline and I had talked about during our conversation. 

 Probably more expensive than if I had bought it in Houston in 2 1/2weeks, but now at least I won't have to lug it home across the Atlantic. Hope to get some sewing time in tonight!

My Inner Ccritic...

I had submitted a small quilt for the SAQA Benefit Auction pretty earlier this year, long ago, in fact. And for the first time in several years I have not done any pre-advertising for the auction. Nor did I do my own ‘Dream Collection’ as I have done for several years in a row. I had not even had a chance to look at the different sections to find out which section my quilt would be in… But I received  a mail from Martha Sielman two days ago that my quilt had been sold. 

Piece for the SAQA Benefit Auction 2017
"Crossing the Red Line" - sold!

And not for the lowest auction price either. So that helped alleviate my bad conscience - which at some point prior to the beginning of the auction I had decided I would not have anyway.

About a week ago I had a small exchange with Jeanne Hewell-Chambers after quilting quilt #265 for The 70,273 Project, and I wasn’t too sure whether I really liked the pattern I had chosen. We talked about the inner critic and how you have to silence that part of your brain, and afterwards I realized that the pattern was indeed really pretty good. When you look at it, off the machine.

The 70,273 Project: Quilt #265, quilted, waiting for binding etc.

So not feeling bad about not sounding the trumpet for SAQA for once is in that same line. So much has been going on, I have been doing so many things, I might as well for once say ‘no, sorry, no time for that right now’. At least I sent in a quilt, it sold, and I will send in another one next year, too. And perhaps I will then pre-announce the auction again, too. But unfortunately I do have a very strong-voiced inner critic. I assume that is partly caused by the fact that my father, a philosopher, wrote books about achievement, performance, success, and that way such a frame of mind was vividly installed in my way of thinking. It's hard to step down from that, and it's hard to be a kind and caring observer of oneself. So when Margaret Cooter wrote about 'making time to do and make' only a few days ago I was truly touched inside. With all the things that have been going on during the past (almost) three years - since my involvement with German Refugee Politics began - there hasn't been enough of that in my life. Will it come back? I hope so. On Wednesday I am once again going to accompany one of the Senegalese students from my last year's class to the Central Foreigners Registry and Authority to try and get him a work permit. I am not expecting an easy ride (it hasn't been so far), but I have told myself once I succeed with his case, there will be more time for my own making and doing again. 

Yesterday I quilted another top for The 70,273 Project, this time it was #224. 

The 70,273 Project: Quilt #224,
quilted, waiting for binding etc.

The 70,273 Project: Quilt #224,detail

And I have started to stitch a small piece I am supposed to hand in by the end of the month. Kind of under the pressure of a deadline… 

text messages 14 in the making

But it’s been going pretty well yesterady and today, so maybe I will actually finish in time. How is that for relaxed and leisurely making and doing...? Perhaps I should take another trip to a Café Leisure soon.

Travel preparations

Every once in a while I take a look at Austin Kleon’s blog which is always a source of good thoughts, and sometimes good laughs. The other day I found this post on not listening to the news - for a while at least - in the beginning of the day: https://austinkleon.com/2017/07/27/being-woke-without-waking-up-to-it/ 

My husband, who goes to bed very early and then wakes up very early, too, frequently listens to the news on the radio while still lying in bed. By the time we meet at the breakfast table he has already had his share of the latest world developments and is then eager to share these with some avid listener. I’d often rather just have a peaceful breakfast and not know much about the latest political misdemeanors all over, at least not at that point in the day. 

So I really enjoyed last week, after I had dropped off my son for his four days of basketball camp, when I was staying in a small holiday apartment all by myself. The apartment came with the largest TV-screen I have ever had at my disposal, but I did not turn the thing on even once. 

Neither did I buy a newspaper. I just slept, went on short bike rides (it was very hot) - but I managed to pass two of the transport ships on the Donau-Main-Canal while riding along on the bike path,

 studied a bit of my Spanish vocabulary, and relaxed. It was an extended no-news-at-the-breakfast-table for me... Another kind of Café Leisure, although I did not actually go and sit in a café.

Now I am preparing for Birmingham, where I am going tomorrow.FoQ, once again, and I am really looking forward to it.

When I come back on Sunday I have a few hours to repack, and on Monday next week my son and I are leaving for a three-week-trip to the US. When I was making the original plans I thought it was a good idea to have the two trips immediately following each other, now I am having second thoughts whether it would have been just a wee bit wiser to give myself at least a full day at home before heading back to the airport. But I had messed up the date of the total eclipse in the USA, which I definitely wanted to include in my itinerary and believed it would be earlier than it actually is. So in order to have at least overcome some of the jetlag before the big event I thought it would be better to leave on the turn of the heel. As departure dates are coming closer I am realizing that I am not 30 anymore and that things like this, which would have been no problem at that age, aren’t quite the sensible thing to do anymore. But I will manage.

So I went to the eye-doctor checkup this morning, ordered a bunch of textbooks to look at for next year’s class because I found out only today that new regulations have been passed for textbooks that might be used in the kind of class I will be teaching, made spaghetti for lunch, tried to persuade my 12-yr-old to go to the pool (unsuccessfully, he claims nobody else will be there, and is in a very ‘chilling’ mood right now), and am packing my bags. What will I take to stitch? Don’t know yet. Must be more than socks to knit, though….