A wonderful meeting

Mr E, mini me and I yesterday evening returned from a quick two day trip to Frankfurt am Main in Germany. We arrived there on Thursday evening…

… and on Friday afternoon I went to visit an academic library and meet with the librarian there, none other than fellow blogger Herba Minor! Last August I went to a large international librarian’s conference called IFLA and had hoped to maybe meet other fellow blogger-librarians there. That did not happen but the idea did arise to do a little personal exchange instead. The first part of that exchange happened last Friday; sometime next year part two will happen when I will happily welcome a return visit.

Herba gave me a full on tour of her library and we had such a great professional exchange. Turns out academic libraries in The Netherlands and Germany deal with many similar issues. And I think I’m going to steal an idea from them for at least one of “my” libraries…

It was also just lovely meeting Herba in person after knowing her from blogging for so many years, she felt familiar to me right away. We didn’t only talk about libraries, there was a lot of catching up on other topics as well, including Mr. Armitage. It was just so very nice to finally connect in person. Afterwards we met up with Mr E and mini me for dinner and had the most lovely evening to boot.

On Saturday, Mr E, mini me and I stopped by a church I used to go to in Frankfurt when I lived not far from there with my family in my late childhood/early teens. It was (and still is) an English language Anglican/Episcopal church and also very instrumental (together with the US Army base library that we used to frequent) in me not forgetting my English after we moved to Germany from Israel…

We also took a brief look in the little town of Friedberg for a bit (which was very close to where I lived), before we headed home again.

We had a lovely short trip and I’m already really looking forward to Herba’s return visit some time next year!

#2023BirthdayFundraiser is coming!

Right now I’m in the middle of Slovakia, very much enjoying my summer holiday. This, for instance, was today (or really, yesterday, as I’m posting after midnight): visiting the open air museum and the castle of Stará Ľubovňa, with a view on the Tatra mountains…

I didn’t come here to blog about my holiday, however. I mean to share more holiday pictures but so far have been reading books instead of blogging in our down time, so the pics may come later.

The thing I did come here to share was Guylty’s post announcing the yearly Richard Armitage birthday auctions in aid of LOROS. Yay, it’s that time of year again!

The fundRAiser is a little earlier this year, see for dates (starting this coming Thursday, August 3rd!) and all other rules and preliminaries Guylty’s announcement post HERE.

I’ll be returning home again on August 7th (Monday), right on time to dispatch the few items I have donated after the auction and fixed-price sales end on August 10th. Meanwhile, I’ll try to keep up with some of the fundRAising excitement as we continue our holiday, it’s always fun to do (the fundRAising AND the travelling).

Good & Bad

In good news: my summer holiday has started! Got everything I needed to get done at work all done today and this evening Mr E and I went out for dinner in our home town to celebrate. The skies are grey but the temperature was nice and we ate outside. The terraces of the restaurants were filled with people.

In bad news: while I checked my phone for something else over dinner, I also saw Richard’s tweet about his father passing away…

He must be devastated that he has now also lost his father. My heart breaks for him and I wish Richard all the very best in coming to terms with this loss.

Finding a little peace again

About two weeks ago I drafted a whole “worry list” post because there was so much to worry about and I was just too busy with too much going on. I ended up not posting it as I didn’t have time to properly edit it, it also just felt too whiny and open to discussion and I didn’t have the energy for discussion.

Now I’m two weeks on, it’s the weekend and things are looking up again. The worry about my son has resolved itself into a new strategy which I hope will make him happier, my mother in law was in hospital but is fine and at home, the market I organized for refugees has been done and dusted and gave me a real boost of positive energy. There was some big tension at work and on Thursday morning (the most difficult day) I happened across this little ad for a shirt that completely summed up my mood that day…

(OK, I don’t drink coffee, but in all other ways this was spot on)

However, things turned out alright in the end. I have for now been able to calm things down somewhat and while it was difficult, I do feel a real sense of accomplishment there. I’m also glad that the worry about my husband is lessening a bit as he is slowly doing better. Other worries do remain (my mother, wanting to move but there are so many ‘buts’ connected to that, work-volunteer work balance, a small health issue of my own that I still have to make an appointment for, etc.) but I guess I can’t do more than take it all one step at a time.

In the midst of all the unrest and turmoil, we try to do and plan some fun things to balance it all out. Mr E and I went to the cinema together last week (Dungeons and Dragons which was quite fun even though we don’t know the game at all) and last weekend, Mr E and I were treated by family (for our birthdays, which were in March and early April) to a trip on a ‘Dinner Train’. It is exactly what it says in the name: you eat a nice dinner while the train you’re on drives around for a little over two hours. I look terribly pale and tired in the one picture but it was a really lovely thing to do.

We have also pre-booked our summer holiday. We will be going to Vienna for 5 days in July (I’ve never been there before). The kids will come with us there and after that Mr E and I will continue on our own to Slovakia for two weeks. We’re doing it all by car, which gives us a lot of flexibility.

Next week will be a short working week (only Monday and Tuesday) as we head into several holidays here. This means I also have time for a little London getaway! Next weekend (Friday evening – Monday afternoon) I will travel to London on my own to visit my brother and to see To Kill a Mockingbird at the theatre with him. No other plans yet for London, it’s all open, but there’s always something nice to do there.

I feel more peace settling over me now than I have in many weeks and that’s a good thing. It also helps that on some days the sun comes out and we can actually sit outside for a bit. Our cat enjoys that too…

Here’s hoping for more calm waters for a while yet.

Sunset

Yesterday at the end of the afternoon, as we hiked near our little house in the woods, we enjoyed this…

We had big plans for today but in the end we decided to hang out at the cottage instead (I finally made some time to catch up on my reading of other blogs), enjoy the views of trees and listen to the birds whistling even through closed doors (it’s too chilly to sit outside). We’re loving our little mini break.