In spite of the *** snow outside...

Easterbunny made by my nephew.
Sliced my left index finger open with a cutter yesterday.

birthday

"When you're five, you know your age down to the month. Even in your twenties you know how old you are. I'm twenty-three, you say, or maybe twenty-seven. But then in your thirties something strange starts to happen. It's a mere hiccup at first, an instant of hesitation. How old are you? Oh, I'm—you start confidently, but then you stop. You were going to say thirty-three, but you're not. You're thirty-five. And then you're bothered, because you wonder if this is the beginning of the end. It is, of course, but it's decades before you admit it. "

from "Water for Elephants" by Sarah Gruen

Started reading the book yesterday and it took me 36 years to get to that stage. Had to think really hard about how old I´m going to be in 40 minutes. Doooooom....

Will try to bake some stuff for my birthday tomorrow ;).
Actually love baking and making things in general, just don´t do it much anymore.

I want spring!!!!

Just love Calvin & Hobbes.

a question of perception...

I spent my last day in South Africa being a tourist, going round Cape town in  a double decker bus and had lunch in a restaurant in Camps bay, a posh suburb at the sea.
There was this beautiful beach right in front of me but I had to keep looking at the petunias and begonias in front of me, thinking why people should be so careless about their decoration that one is presented with dying plans while trying to enjoy the - lovely, asian - food.
See what a job can do to you, ruin a beautiful spot like this ? :)

If it looks windy on the photos it´s because it is! Something you don´t read much about in the tourist brochures of Cape Town is their  "Cape doctor", a very strong and annoying wind that led to a closure of Table mountain on half the days I spent in this city.

Apparently "windfree" is the most sought after and expensive asset when buying property in Cape Town - this is what trees in not-so-wind-free-zones look like:

The little things...

...can be just as amazing as the big ones. I should know, I´m 1.59 m.   In South Africa I loved these velvet mites, belonging to the Trombidiidae, which turned up in Goegap after some rain as much as the gemsbock and other big stuff.
In Goegap you don´t go out on a safari in a car and expect to see Lions, Elephants or the occasional rhino. You just head out and keep your eyes open and something interesting always turns up - and if it´s "only" a weird fluffy mite. It takes patience but at least for me it was very rewarding and I felt so much closer to nature than packed in a safari car with lots of other tourists.
These are not insects, they´re arachnids, related to spiders - remember, always count the legs ;).

There´s a nice website called "real monstrosities" with something about these weird creatures, at least their indian relatives.

It does also have an entry on the Black and Rufous Elephant Shrew (Rhynchocyon petersi) which I´d love to see one day - but we had elephant shrews (Macroscelididae) too, just not as colorful. They´re the nicest thing to watch, some of the pairs lived close to "our" mice which we did observations on.  This one kept on entering one of "my" traps and I grew quite fond of it :). Don´t worry, it came to no harm and stayed in the trap for a maximum of 30 minutes.

While I´m at weird creatures, this lizard with a forked tail lived lose mto our colony of captive mice. Forked tails are not that unusual in reptiles. This one wasn´t kept in a tenk as it might lkook, it juzst entered one of the glass tanks which were stored outside by accident.

been on the telly...

...for the third time. At my workplace. At 15:56 thats me.

Don´t know what this is all about? Wikipedia explains.

Ted Talks

Someone who I met on my volunteer-travels (they do broaden the horizon)  liked "Ted-Talks" on facebook and I got curious, had a look at the site and loved it. So I thought you might be interested, too?
For the "only" german speakers there are subtitles on many of the talks.

I haven´t watched that many, but these ones are my favorites so far:

Talk on statistics by Hans Rosling. Don´t be put off, it´s very entertaining!

The magic washing machine - and I agree wholeheartedly!
 I guess there aren´t that many people in Germany my age who have been hand-washing their clothes, but during somne volunteer placements I did, it adds up to 6 months in total - and  hated it!
It takes so much time and energy I´d rather have spent on something else.
I know it might look idyllic on the TV, but in Ecuador, where I watched women wash and hang up the clothes for their whole family I was SO incredibly grateful to live in an industrialized country.

Brene Bown on vulnerability
Bobby Mc Ferrin plays the audience

the sun

is back! Glad I could soak up quite a bit of sun in south africa... picture taken a 5 min walk from my home, took Heiko (the dog) for a walk along the ems after work. Sorry about the quality, taken with my mobile phone - yes I´ve finally arrived in the 21st century.

unmistakable signs of spring...

... storks and motorcyclists are on their way again