A Week in Germany: Saturday

21. 01. 2012

Up early. Off to Heathrow's Terminal 1. Been a long time since I’ve been to the old Terminals 1 and 2-3. Flights to the States leave from the new Terminals 4 and 5. Since Bibs was born 4.5 years ago — Yes it was just her half-birthday which Montessori celebrates for children whose birthdays fall in the summer holiday. Sadly she celebrated the day not in school, but home with a nasty flu caught from her brother, and then passed on to her mother. The family flu.

Anyway, since Bibs was born 4.5 years ago nearly all our travel has been to Boston to welcome or to visit grandchildren. Today we are off to Germany for a week. When Bob worked at Citibank he travelled in Europe a lot for meetings. Often I would meet up with him for a long weekend wherever he was. That’s how I saw the highpoints of many European capitals during the early years of living in London. He has convinced his new bosses that visiting clients in Germany may be a worthwhile expense even in these straitened times. And bank travel is now in the back of the plane where I always sat, but for one or two hour flights to Europe, even once cosseted bankers can cope.

Frankfurt is a one hour flight, but a bit bumpy through the cloudy stormy weather system sitting over northern Europe since the planes don’t have enough time in the air to fly high above the continental weather. Easy trip into the city to our hotel, near the train station, filled with tour groups from the States and from Japan.

Losing an hour in the London to Europe time difference always makes it imperative to hit the ground running on arrival or what was the point of getting up so early in the first place. So we headed out immediately for lunch and the itinerary chosen by me, always acknowledged as the family tour leader. In the half hour walk to the Domplatz, we passed in the train station a small group of people demonstrating their wish to bring back “Glass-Steagall,” holding up posters with FDR’s face.  In the mall across the street from the train station, we passed a larger demonstration of people demanding the release of Bradley Manning. A few blocks further, and we passed by the “Occupy Frankfurt” encampment under the giant Euro sign at the ECB. America truly belongs to the world.

An excellent lunch at  Paulaner am Dom, chosen from a TripAdvisor list of Frankfurt favourites, a schnitzel  for Bob and a bowl of pea soup with a pretzel on the side for me. And a large stein of the excellent Paulaner dunkel bier from Munich. The restaurant was once in a medieval hostelry facing the back of the Dom, but a bombing raid wiped out most of the historic heart of Frankfurt in 1944. So everything has been carefully and authentically rebuilt, but the aura of medievalism can never be quite recreated.

The red sandstone Dom dedicated to St Bartholomew was built in 1877, ten years after the previous church was destroyed in a fire. This building was reconstructed after the 1944 bomb damage gutted the interior and reduced the building to a shell. Nevertheless it is  filled with a treasure load of medieval altarpieces and tomb monuments, because it is the fifth church on the site, and a previous incarnation was the site of the election and coronation of the Holy Roman Emperors, hence the name Kaiserdom.

The tower dominates the old city's skyline

A tomb monument

A jolly Germanic Last Supper

Even better, it may be closer to February than it is to Christmas, but the lighted Christmas trees still flank the high altar and the stunning Krippen tableau—the crèche scenes beloved in Germany—is still in place at the back of the nave.

Christmas trees lighting the dark afternoon

The Krippen is so large, one view was not enough to see both the stable
and the Three Kings approaching

Now I don’t feel so bad about the snowmen who are still  settled on our mantel in London, nor have I had the heart to remove the Santa hats from our welcome bears. A local toy store is also not in a rush to move past Christmas.

Outside the Dom is a fenced area that is called the Archaeological Garden that is an active dig site, and at the moment mostly covered with white tents, but around the edges some excavated foundations are visible.

The 12^th century Nikolaikirche in the Römerplatz, the historic heart of the city, has a simple plaster and red sandstone interior that is very beautiful. Some of the medieval tomb covers and sculptures were saved after the bombing and have been installed on the walls of the nave.

St Nikolai has a huge carillon, and here is a You Tube link

A carved pediment over the entrance

Mayor Siegfried zum Paradies and his wife Katharina Netheha zum Wedel.
Both were created by Madern Gerthener (1410/1420).

By mid-afternoon, we at last reached the Archaeological Museum in the Carmelite Monastery built in the late 15th century. What an amazing place. The monastery has been refitted to house the museum without destroying the integrity of the original religious foundation. The museum’s collection is displayed in the church nave under a ceiling that still retains bits of the painted decoration. The collection is a combination of local finds and an extensive collection of Classical and Oriental pieces. The local finds are the most interesting although textual commentary on the artefacts only in German does limit the appreciation for those of us who studied German in high school and currently remember only about one in four vocabulary words. However a short video with a choice of written captions including English was a wonderful virtual reconstruction of the buildings being excavated in the Archaeological Garden outside the Dom. The building is a Carolingian-Ottonian Palace begun in the 9th century by Ludwig the Pious and various chapels and churches that eventually became the Dom.

The star attraction at the Museum is the monastic cloister whose walls are adorned with a 15^th century cycle of wall paintings recounting the life of Christ. 

The cloister is lovely, but the glass enclosure kept catching
the light in my camera lens.

By the time we walked around the cloister, the daylight was waning, and the skies were dark with rain clouds, so we will have to return another day when the light is on our side to see these amazing paintings done by Jörg Rathgeb between 1480 and 1526 on two sides of the cloister. The paintings are done as connected vertical panels beginning with the Nativity.

The weather was deteriorating by the time we returned to the hotel for a late afternoon rest, and a long nap in my case, and when we heard the rain and wind pattering on the windows, we opted for an easy supper in the hotel restaurant.

  

2012

We've been talking about you, 2012, for so long, I feel I know you already.  As someone who puts little faith in pre-planning life, most years are a blank slate—perhaps blank notebook fits the metaphor a bit better—when the cover opens in January.  Here's 2012 with full pages for two-thirds of the year already. Wedding planning will fill the early months for Susan's wedding in May. Before that, there is a wedding in California in April; the Queen's Diamond Jubilee gives the nation a special holiday in June; the grandchildren will be visiting for July; and the Olympics and Para-Olympics will cap off the summer.

Blessedly, the final third of the year's pages remain blank at the moment, but events, anticipated and unexpected, welcome and dreaded, will always be hovering, ready to change the script or to add a paragraph or page that will alter the plan, sometimes for the good, sometimes not. I am balanced at the tip of a pyramid, never quite sure if, or when, I will slide down a side and need to rebalance the equilibrium. Pre-planning of the serious kind just makes the balance feel more tenuous, adding unnecessary stress to the mechanics. So far, so good, not too many complaints or mishaps, slides mostly rebalanced, but that doesn't stop the events, if and when, anticipated and unexpected, welcome and dreaded from hovering.

Meanwhile, 2011 ended with two weeks in Hingham for a New England Christmas with the grandchildren.

Getting the tree ready

To be transformed by Santa

For three happy children

10 a.m. Downshire Hill

Not sure how this happened. I just heard the smash and the breaking glass!

The woman talking to the policeman is the driver.

She opened the door and got out of the car immediately.

Very little damage to her car.

Police and fire on the scene, but no danger appears.

They smashed open the window to check the place.

Not just another day!

How I Spent My Summer

They have left, Megan and Barnz and Bibs and Bobs and Trixie, after spending 6 weeks here in London with us. We all had a wonderful time, and my London now includes a whole new city devoted to entertaining children who are under 5 years old. 

Here is a selection of photos of what we did this summer

One day it is the Fourth of July Parade in Hingham Massachusetts

And the next day your car seats are strapped into an airplane

Unless you are lucky enough to snag a bulkhead bassinet

And then you find yourself living in a flat in London

Where Daddy can enjoy real British food

And you can meet your Grandma Diana for the first time

Where you travel by train and bus and Tube to museums

Bobs on the Cubist Slide at the Tate Modern

Bibs at the British Museum

Bobs joining The Tiger Who Came to Tea at the V&A's Museum of Childhood exhibition
 on the life and career of Judith Kerr who is best known in the States for her book When Hitler Stole Pink Rabbit which recounts her family's escape from Germany in the 1930s

In England she is best known for The Tiger Who Came to Tea and for Mog, a series of stories about the family cat Mog who gets into trouble, but always saves the day.  Dressing up in Mog costumes,  while Bibs holds tight to Pink Rabbit

And there were lots of places to play including football with the Little Kickers

And lots of playgrounds including Coram Fields where the goats run free

Coram Fields is the site of the 18th century Foundling Hospital founded by Captain Coram to take in children whose parents could not afford to care for them. The remaining building is now the Foundling Museum. The grounds are used for the playground and other social service organisations serving children.

Playing with Ann Read's granddaughter Chloe at Golders Hill Park Toddler's Playground

Trixie enjoying her day at Golders Hill too

The Peggy Jay Centre on Hampstead Heath was  the best place ever
 for Under 5's to have fun

The wonderful Peggy Jay Centre pavement where vehicles of all sorts were available for testing 

  Nearby was a big kid playground that had a wading pool for the occasional days when the temperature was warm enough not to wear a sweater. Megan and Barnz were happy to miss the lengthy hot and humid spells in the US while here. Barnz and Bobs are wading on a day when we forgot swimsuits.

Even the South Bank Summer Festival "Beach" offered sand digging for Bobs who never
 passed up a sand pit or a puddle on offer. Bobs's first theatrical experience, Archaeology: A Worm's Story at the Polka Theatre for children included digging in sand for the second act. He was enthralled according to Megan who accompanied him. Bibs and I went to a very English panto-style revue based on Quentin Blake characters at the same time. They also saw the Polka Theatre's adaptation of Lauren Child's Charlie and Lola during the day they spent at Lollibop, the Festival for Under-8's at Regents Park. English children are immersed in stage productions from birth.

Until late July when the school term ended, Hampstead's Community Centre  offered a drop-in morning playtime for  toddlers with a weekly calendar of music, art, and cooking activities, 4 days a week for a minimum fee. Lots and lots of toys on hand and a morning snack too.

The Kentish Town Farm, celebrating its 40th Anniversary next year, is a 30 minute walk for us.

 Bobs admiring a very big pig. The Kentish Town Farm, is located in railroad rights-of-way where several lines come together. For Bobs, the trip to the farm meant looking at animals while watching trains whizz past. Two for the price of one (except it's all free).

In our time at home we all fell in love with the BBC's children's show Octonauts, on the TV screen behind Bobs. The Octonaut team live in the underwater Octopod saving creatures in trouble and teaching us all about the ocean environment and the plants and animals who live there.

Bobs was inspired to draw a whale

with excellent results. Whatever there is to say against TV for children,  it's hard to argue that the Aardman Animation Timmy Time cartoons, and Lauren Child's Charlie and Lola episodes  aren't wonderful entertainment. And when you add in characters like Postman Pat and Chuggington the Train and Madeleine, it's hard to turn the set off. And then there is Baby TV, which seems to be French, or Swiss, or Belgian in production. There is nothing more soporific than 15 minutes in front of Baby TV. The cult book Go the F--- to Sleep might be unnecessary if everyone had access to Baby TV!

The joys of TV watching were interspersed with music

and cooking

and reading

and with learning to crawl

and finding new places to settle

and some cuddling

We also had special days. The Lewisham People's Fair with Aunt Susan and Uncle Cato
 and awesome butterfly face painting,

A pretty big Ferris Wheel

And a carousel that made Bobs happy

Trixie however had her reservations about fun in which she cannot partake 

On a day when Megan was in bed with a flu, Bob and I drove Bibs and Bobs to Bekonscot Model Village, a place I have always wanted to see, but it never seemed quite right without children along. The village is huge and recreates real and idealised sites of Britain, and a few fantastic ones including the fields of dinosaurs and hippos grazing on our green and pleasant pastures.

There were model trains traveling through the town to watch for

And a child size train to ride around the village.
A definite must see for every return trip by the children 

And the most special day of all was Bib's 4th Birthday.
Oh Joy! The Birthday Bunny found her in London after all!

And was quite generous too

Wearing her favourite present, a dress hand-smocked by Megan
with mermaids of Megan's own design

We took off on a special outing to Kensington Gardens

for a ride on the Carousel

and a visit to the Princess Diana Playground

Followed by a butterfly birthday cake from Marks & Spencer at home 

Two days later there were even more and even better cakes, with glitter and fairies and flowers,
 made by Uncle Cato's mother who generously hosted a birthday party for Lavinia
 for the extended Wilkes family, Barnz's mother's family, to attend.

And where there were even more presents including this beautiful alphabet poster designed by Uncle Andy Tuohy (and available for sale at the best art museums in southeast England. And any Scouser should look for his Liverpool Alphabet poster, and other goods, available at the Tate Liverpool in September.)

Great Grandma Janet was able to wish her first great-grandchild a Happy Birthday in person

And Trixie met Great-Grandma Janet, Aunt Libby and Uncle Andy,
and Uncle Bernard for the first time.

The following day, Bib's Birthday celebration continued with a special overnight trip to Paris.  She is a huge fan of the Madeleine video series, and was hoping to attend Miss Clavell's school while in Paris, so she donned a dress similar to the one Madeleine wears and set off very early with Mommy and Daddy and Dolly.

Waiting for the Eurostar at St Pancras

One minute you are on the Eurostar writing in your Moleskin Diary

and 2 hours and 20 minutes later you are in a café in Paris

Now to find Madeleine and Miss Clavell's school

At Notre Dame?

At the Opera?

Along the Seine?

At the Louvre?

A message has arrived. The school is closed for the summer holiday,
 and Miss Clavell has taken all the girls to New York.

Oh well a comfortable bed

and sharing Daddy's Strawberries in Port are consolations

A new day and time to look for the Eiffel Tower

Taking the boat to the Eiffel Tower on a very rainy day

And there it is!

Visiting the Eiffel Tower: a dream come true

The metalwork is like lace

The stone footings are enormous

The Observation Deck doesn't offer much of a  view on a rainy day

Au revoir 

Back to London wearing a real Paris hat

One last special outing was a visit on the High Speed Rail Line to Folkestone on the South Coast
 to visit Great Grandma Janet, Grandma Diana, Uncle Bernard, Aunt Libby and Uncle Andy.

A beautiful day to look at France across the English Channel

Folkestone is attempting to revitalise itself through cultural initiatives including a Triennial Art Festival
 of  outdoor art installations. Bibs and Bobs are disguised as Edwardian children. 

Bobs proved to be an able walker of Great Grandma Janet's dog

We finished the afternoon with some delicious gelato

and back on the fast train for the 45 minute trip to London.

And now they have returned to the States. The summer is winding down here. Our end-of-summer August Bank Holiday is next weekend. Then it will be September and the new season of activities and cultural events will begin. In Hingham, Bibs will return to her Montessori School, and Bobs will attend a  play program a few mornings a week. Trixie will probably walk before her first birthday in October, so Megan will have no rest!