Tag: kite

culture, landscape, leisure, meeting, nature, people, photography, review, summer, travel, vacation, world

Throwback Thursday: I’m back ….

solaner

Last week I was on a short family vacation at the Northsea: me, my wife, and our grandson (5 3/4).

We were gifted with fantastic weather. Nicely warm and sunny days at the beach and on the many playgrounds the town set up over the years. We visited that town not for the first time. So, we were able to see the development. Especially my wife was there quite often when our kids were smaller. She went with only one at a time, while the others stayed home with me. Now, all of them are adults and traveling with their partners.

Being at the coast means having a good portion of wind around you all the time. During low tide, the beaches grow. When low tide is in the evening, you can have much space for flying a kite. We’ve chosen that way for the kite instead of going to the kiting ground because there are more pro-kiters and a small kid does not have the room he needs for his little kite.

Take care!

leisure, photography, seasons, summer, vacation, world

Throwback Thursday: Türelüre-Lißje

solaner

Maybe, you remember my post from Sunday, when I included a part of a sculpture I stumbled upon a few years ago in Aix-la-Chapelle during a day trip. I liked the artistry of the sculptor, and how he was able to model the mimics of the kids. Later at home, I tried to find out a bit more about it.

When spotting the fountain from a distance, you can see kids playing. While trying to find a good angle to take an image, I came closer and closer. When coming closer, I noticed the faces and wondered about the discrepancy between the face of the girl in the middle in comparison to the boys’ faces dancing around her.

The scenery consists of four kids. Three boys form a circle with their arms around a girl, apparently of the same age, crouching down in the middle. When looking at the very detailed modeled faces, you can see, that the boys are happy, mischievous, and showing some schadenfreude.

The name of this sculpture is “Türelüre-Lißje”. This is not German. It’s in an old local dialect relative to Lower German.

Lißje, or Lieschen is a belittling form of the woman’s name Lise (short from Elisabeth, sometime Gisela). The other part “Türelüre” is a kind of ring-a-ring-a-roses. When pronouncing this, it’s also a reference to the time, when the story happened: the time of the French occupation in the Rhineland (1794-1814)

 

You can see, in this image, that the nearly kid-sized figurines are part of a fountain and the water below the girl is also a reference to the background story. The girl was stopped by the mischievous boys and prevented from going to the toilet. They danced around her until it was too late.

 

This final image is in my option the essence of the scene: the girl is captured and in fear while the surrounding boys, although only one is visible in this frame, are blocking the viewer to come any closer and at the same time hindering the girl at least on two sides to escape. In addition, the boys are leaning towards the center and covering the girl even in this direction.

For me, it’s kind of a memorial and picturing the cruelty already available even in small kids.

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe once said, “Let men be noble, helpful and good”. It’s the first sentence of a hymn, he wrote in 1783. It’s a wish and a product of education. It’s not god-given. We have to work hard to respect each other and treat everyone equally.

 

These are the lyrics of one version of the old song (local dialect) handed down from the 19th century with my translation to German and English:

Türelüre-Lißje uus Klapperjaaß
Wovör hat dat Kengsche et Böksje esue naaß
Haue die Schelme va Jonge jeddooe
Haue dat Kengsche net pesse losse jooeh
Türelüre-Lißje uus Klapperjaaß
Dovör hat dat Kengsche et Böksje esue naaß

Türelüre-Lieschen aus der  Klappergasse
warum hat das Mädchen ihr Höschen naß?
Haben die Schelme von Jungs verursacht
Haben das Mädchen nicht pinkeln lassen
Türelüre-Lißje aus der Klappergasse
Darum hat das Mädchen ihr Höschen naß.

Türelüre-Lißje from Klappergasse
why did the girl wet her panties
the rascals of young boys have made things
didn’t let the girl pee
Türelüre-Lißje from Klappergasse
that’s why the girl wet her panties

Klappergasse (rattle alley) is the name of a small street in Aix-la-Chapelle. It’s said, a windmill once stood here. Maybe the girl used to live here because the lyrics says “Türelüre-Lißje from Klappergasse”.

We have a saying here in Germany:

Was Du nicht willst, was man Dir tue
das füge such keinem Anderen zu!

What you don’t want, what people do to you
don’t do that to anyone else!

Take care!

photo-of-the-day, photography

Monochrome Monday 9-02

solaner


Three weeks ago, while scouting a location, I saw these kite flyers paragliders. It was amazing to see them bringing their kites up in the air. Although there was not much wind the man in the middle didn’t have any problems bringing his kite up. The lady to the left, instead, struggled a lot. I don’t know anything about kiting, but I like watching them. So, I can’t tell, if it was a lack of physical power, less experienced, or simply bad luck. Apparently, the guy in the middle was waiting for her and while waiting he had to fight hard with his kite and the wind to avoid being lifted up.

The guy to the right came later. He was still preparing everything. Although his kite is already in the air, the kite wasn’t connected to his body. So, he was unable to start. He even didn’t have his security backpack pulled on.

Unfortunately. I wasn’t alone. So, I couldn’t wait long enough to see them in the air.

This plateau is about 100 meters above the ground. It’s a heap built from the dead rock remaining from digging for stone coal in the underground mines for centuries. As the mine is closed since 2001, the area is converted into a park. There’s a path around the heap. This path is about 6.4 kilometers long. The whole park is around 7.5 square kilometers in size and offers a lot to the people.

Although the park was opened to the public in 2011 and has a very interesting sun observatory to visit, I wasn’t there up to now. The main reason was, that the sun observatory was closed again only shortly after the opening because of construction problems. In a documentary I watched the week before the visit, I noticed a demonstration of a part of that observatory: the point for observing the solstice. Apparently, the film team got access to the closed area for that sequence or it was taken from their archive. What a pity. Next week, I showing you the observatory.

Take care!

animals, astro, bird, landscape, nature, night, photo-of-the-day, photography, plants, star, travel, world

Lens-Artists Photo Challenge 178: “My choice: a small Namibia selection”

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Today’s host for The Lens-Artists Photo-Challenge is Tina. Her topic for today is “you choose” 😊 How funny. From her comments on my post last week I know, she’s quite eager to see some images from Namibia. Thus, I made a tiny selection from the images taken there.

I’m still in quarantine. Because I’m working from home, the two past weeks didn’t look different than the months before. Nevertheless, I was able to develop a couple of images. I’m not done developing my images from Namibia, but there are some I can show right now.

As usual, click on an image to enlarge it.

Take care!