Autumn

September made something good on the disappointing summer, with mostly dry weather and several lovely Indian summer days under strikingly blue skies. Why is it called “Indian summer”? The expression in German is Altweibersommer” (old women’s summer) which is associated with the spider webs that you find everywhere at this time in the mornings. It is said that "weiber" didn''t really mean women in old German, but rather "weave", or making a net or web.

October had some lovely days as well, and moderate rain so far. The last days were grey under fog, however.

I filled in the October gap in A Stitch a Day, one pattern has still to be done though. Doing this reminded me of my visit to Germany a year ago, and of the colourful autumn there with all sorts of yellows and reds and combinations of them in the leaves of trees in gardens, villages and forests, and in the vineyards. I realised once again that we don’t have this colourful ceremony preparing us for winter here.

Does the reason lie in the type of trees, or is it the dampness of air and ground that prevents it?

Anyway, I took the camera to catch some of the autumnal features around my place. Here is the path to the pasture, which is the most of a “leaf walk” I can get. Ash, willow and hawthorn leaves are collecting there. A faint yellow is the most of colour they show, quickly turning into brown.

I found the ewes already expecting my husband with the feed bucket. See how they ignore me this time? They took me as sign and promise that my husband would follow with the feed, looking behind me down the path where they expect him to appear. They had to wait a while longer. I was early.

Meanwhile I took this foggy picture of Dowra.

Along the path I had noticed earlier a pleasant smell as if emitted by flowers. I hadn’t realised first where it came from. I suppose not all people would recognise the flowers in the foreground here, appearing at an unusual time for shrubby plants:

Yes, it was the smell of ivy flowers that my nose had detected. They are only found on old plants. The leaves of these don’t show the stereotype shape commonly associated with ivy. Sheep love ivy leaves. Sometimes I harvest ivy that grows up trees trunks for them, by tearing off the woody stem in the hope that it comes off with everything attached, and the mass of leaves higher up in the tree falling down on me eventually. It doesn’t always work, though. Sometimes the woody stem just breaks.

Red colour? I found it here in holly berries. I don’t know why they are associated with Christmas. Every time I looked for them for Christmas decoration in December they had disappeared.

Here is an autumnal scene in the corner of a field with red rose hips.

Red, orange and yellow are hidden under a shrub, displayed by the fruits of the Pitcher Plant. Fly catching must have been successful here in some instances.

I can’t remember where I read that opening up the flowers at flowering time and looking at what you see there, can forecast the whether and harvest for the year.

Japanese anemones are my autumn garden flowers. They keep flowering for a long time. I’m always amused by all their “bobbles”. The flower buds are bobbles, so are the ovaries and seed heads. See a collection here:

Bubbles, not bobbles, cover this delicate structure built in maidenhair spleenwort:

Water bubbles also embellish this necklace, which I found hanging from a bare branch of the wild rose, with beads.

An unexpected shower

I met another visitor yesterday again. He wore a golden costume.

Not on my flowers, but in the poly tunnel. I had met him before about two months ago, when I had removed some old beetroot plants that were full of holes, caused by slugs I had thought, because I had found some of these on the plants before. But when I pulled the plants out, some green caterpillars fell off them as well.

With this action I had also removed the shelter of my golden visitor. He was sitting there a bit irritated, but then started to eat the green caterpillars. I collected the remaining caterpillars from the plants and fed them to him. That was a most unusual experience for me.

Yes, I’m not sure what other potential visitors I killed by that. But at that moment it felt right to feed the caterpillars to him as I had deprived him of shelter and food.

I hadn’t seen him again since. But yesterday when I used the watering can in the tunnel he got a sudden shower from it. That caused him to make a big leap away.

He was kind enough to stay under the carrot leaves for a while for a photo shot:

Sunny spells

Summer this year?

After an astonishingly dry and nice March, an April quite as you would expect, and an excessively rainy May – when the hawthorn hesitated to go into flower but couldn’t avoid finally to blossom in that rainy period, which resulted in a much lesser amount of berries than last year – we welcomed Summer for his stay of two and a half weeks or so in early June. He must have been around since, because he popped in frequently, but always shortly, hours or even minutes would be the appropriate measurement, with only few whole days in between. That’s what they call “sunny spells” in the weather forecasts. And why July officially turned out to have been remarkably above average in rain, but also in hours of sun. August might yield similar results.

There were periods in July that felt like November, sometimes you suspected spring to be back in his April outfit, hadn’t there been the summer vegetation. Indeed, if it wasn’t for that and the day length, one could say we had three seasons around during the “summer” months. Taking into account the wetness of the ground now, one could add winter to it as well.

So lets call summer this year an erratic, unreliable, inconsistent, unpredictable, fickle visitor.

My vegetables were not so pleased about him either. Many of them do better in dry summers. When I didn’t manage to remove the Zucchini blossoms in time for example, the water that had collected in their flowers stayed there after they closed and caused them and the fruits itself to rot. In good weather the flowers would just dry and fall off.

Similar happens to the beans now, after they had started off well, now in the prolonged rain their flowers get mushy and rot instead of falling off, and a grey mould develops on them and the beans’ tips.


Remember my post about bed watching?

One of the beds I watched then was a stretch beside the tunnel where I had sown some annual summer flowers. In May the little plants that had emerged were drowned by the water that came down the tunnel and ran in from the concrete terrace beside it. I hadn’t seen this in years before. So I dug the little plants up carefully and made a mound with the soil, and a little trench all around it. Then I planted them all back into the mound. I was rather sceptic at the time what would come out of that. How weak they looked compared to the strong Lady's Mantle.

It turned out that the plants faced the weather and provided much joy in the last weeks. In fact they gave me the most of a summer feeling I could get this year, with the various colours and shapes of their flowers. They have grown into a nice little border – with two storeys one could say.

Godetia, Clarkias, Love in a Mist grow and flower under a canopy of Cosmos which – with their filigree leaves let enough light through to the smaller plants below.

These are just always graceful: Love in a Mist, in German called Jungfer im Gruenen

And when summer pops in for his short sunny spells, he is accompanied by most beautiful other visitors, who particularly love the Cosmos flowers, such as this Red Admiral:

Here he has unfolded:





Beautiful Peacock:





Flower sharing:

Marjoram flowers elsewhere are also buzzing with visitors during sunny spells, some of them wearing lovely patterns as well.

This Small Tortoiseshell must have had a lucky escape:






I don't know who exactly this and the following visitors are:

Here are two visitors to the Hydrangeas:

The Speckled Wood doesn’t visit flowers, but likes sunbathing sometimes.

What a joy to see them all here.
Thanks for coming!

And hopefully there will be more sunny spells that interrupt scenes like this one this morning.

A settlement pattern: Carrick-on-Shannon - a donut?

This post is prompted by an article in last week's Leitrim Observer, our weekly local paper, that reported about a recent public meeting of the Carrick-on-Shannon Chamber of Commerce, "in order for opinions to be voiced with regard to how business in the town can be improved".

I've often thought about Carrick, and last October, when I was back from Germany, I walked the town with my camera. I thought this is a good occasion to put some of these pictures up here, because Gerry Faughnan, the President of the Chamber has said something that reflects what went through my mind:

"Carrick-on-Shannon is unique, it's like a donut with people circling around it."

Let me first tell a little bit about Carrick-on-Shannon. It is the county town of Co. Leitrim. Like the little village of Dowra, near where I live, Carrick is located at a county border, in its case it is the southwestern border of Co. Leitrim to Co. Roscommon. In 2006 it had a bit more than 3000 inhabitants, but these seem only to be those on the Leitrim side. In any case it is of a size that would be called a village where I grew up.

Carrick is the administrative centre of the county. As there is no public transport, apart from the train and buses, from Dublin to Sligo - the train station is outside the centre in Co. Roscommon - Leitrim people have to travel to Carrick by car. There is also cruiser tourism during the season, and it was always noticably quieter at other times of the year.

I admit that I don't get to Carrick as often as we used to, because we do our main shopping "unpatriotic" at the famous Asda in Enniskillen. Like the government we have to cut costs. The distance to Enniskillen is about the same as that to Carrick. And Enniskillen has a yarn shop, with unfortunately only acrylics, but they do for my swatches.

When I arrived here in 1992 Carrick was a nice small provincial town with shops located in the old centre that mainly consisted of Main Street and Bridge Street. These are clearly visible on the picture below with their rows of small traditional town houses and backyard buildings.

picture source:

http://www.bannon.ie/propertydetails.php?ID=73&PremType=Land

Here is a nice website, designed by Gartlans, where you can walk a historical tour through Carrick, not quite up to date, the conversion of the former courthouse into the Dock, an Arts Centre, is not yet mentioned.

Gartlans' Internet cafe was in 2003, I think, the place where I made my first aquaintance with the Internet. (What did I use it for? Looking for yarns, mind you. I now have Internet at home, but with a speed of mostly 26 Kbps I had to make collages from the pictures, which don't take as long to upload. We are promised wireless broadband by the National Broadband Scheme by 2010. Hope it will work with the trees around me.)

Here are some pictures of the older parts of Carrick-on-Shannon, with the renovated Market Yard, that hosts a weekly farmer's market - but apart from that is also mostly empty - in the centre; and the Dock to its right.

In the last years a lot of building has taken place around the old centre and outside town. Housing estates, offices, retail and enterprise parks, a cineplex, government buildings, hotels, etc. Tesco and other retail development was built in a flood plain. Let's not forget MBNA, the major employer for the town. The picture is not up to date in this regard, and the outside areas are not visible anyway.

The Bush Hotel of course was already there, with its 200 years history. Here is a nice article about it.

Lets not forget the Shannon. Here is the old bridge, and new marina. I'm not sure what the three wooden posts are meant to be. I find them irritating.

The cruisers in the bottom picture above were there before the houses in the back ground, which are arranged in a similar accumulation. As would be the cars that are missing in the car parking spaces in the foreground. If you read the report about the Chamber's meeting, you can guess why.

It is here, behind the Landmark complex, where free car parking is still available:

Despite of all the new buildings the centre now feels not more, but less busy. Many shops are empty. Not just old ones, but most of the newly built retail and office buildings. Sometimes a new shop opens only to soon close again. Many new residential buildings are also empty. Whilst the town had population growth, it is not of an amount that justifies all the new buildings. Employment opportunities in Carrick, as in Leitrim as a whole, are limited. With all the for sale or to rent signs, the lack of people and activity, there is indeed a feeling of "depression", of discontinuity and uncertainty. And that could already be felt before the credit crunch. I'm also kind of lost at what the function of the town is meant to be. The report about the Chamber's meeting says there was a suggestion to introduce shuttle buses that would bring people into the centre from the retail parks outside town. That says a lot. It sounds like a desperate attempt, doesn't it?

(I'd be happy if a bus would go from here to Carrick, at least twice a week.)

Yet Carrick is still a nice town. Here I've put together some of the nicer new spots:

You see the fence on some of those? There are some nice lanes leading away from the main streets, but they end all at this fence. There is no connection of the old and new parts of the town centre, because behind this fence is the hole in the donut. I suppose it is this what is meant by "Central Park" in the report about the meeting. The address is "Flynn's Field, Townparks".

I first show what was meant to be there:

picture source: http://www.bannon.ie/propertydetails.php?ID=73&PremType=Land, brochure

Here is the description of the proposal:

mixed use development comprising retail, residential, cinema & offices. The development consists of demolition of all existing structures on site. The scheme consists of 249112m2 gross floor area & 10660m2 basement carpark. The development varies from single storey (6m) to 5 storeys over basement (17.89) comprising:(a) retail shopping centre, gross floor area 10610m2 of 19 retail/service/cafe units, circulation area and anchor unit of 3228m2 gross floor area. (b) 6 duplex apt. blocks at 1st, 2nd, 3rd floor level comprising 60 duplex apts. (30 no. 2 bed & 30 no. bed). (c) 539 parking spaces on 2 levels accessed via ramp from 'new street' to the rear of Landmark Hotel. (d) 5 screen cinema, gross floor level of 2360m2. (e) 2 floors of office accommodation of 1209m2. (f) 150 bicycle parking spaces, bin store, site works, landscaping, ancillary works. (g) pedestrian access. The site is 1.22 hectares (12,197m2).

I feel this is over the top, much too overambitious and out of character with the town. Wherein would lie the connectivity that would give the town the feeling of a whole, of identity? More empty shops, offices and appartments? That seems to have been the vision of the town planners who gave it permission.

Now, here one can see what is there since a few years:

The site is for sale with full planning permission, and in the current economical climate it is to hope that this monstrosity will not be built. But planning permission only expires in 2010. Meanwhile no one will be able to buy the site I suppose, to do something good. Wouldn't it be great if the Council could do that, and the people of the town could take part in finding their mutual vision of how the "heart of Carrick-on-Shannon" should beat?

I've found these lines from Carrick by Susan L. Mitchell on Garlan's Carrick-on-Shannon website:

"Here in your little streets begin

Again for me the young surprise of life, give back the eager eyes,

The bounding hearts, the hands that clung

The song other comrade voices sung".

And also this about the smallest chapel in Ireland:

"A remarkable example of one man's deep love for his wife, this tiny R.C. chapel on Bridge Street in Carrick is the smallest in Ireland and reputedly the second smallest in the world.

When Mary Josephine Costello died at the age of 47 on 6th of October 1877 her heart-broken husband, Edward Costello, had her body embalmed and placed in the care of the Marist Sisters in Carrick-on-Shannon. He immediately commissioned, no expense spared, to have erected this beautiful Chapel in her memory and a last resting place for them both...

On the front gable in one of the component stones of the building is a raised monogram - the Costello coat of arms with the motto "Ne te quaesiveris extra" - 'Seek not thyself outside thyself'."

Important: Greenpeace action re GMOs in Europe, Take part!

otPlease sign the online petition for your minister to support the call for reform of EFSA’s GM food approvals at the Environment Council this Thursday 4 December 2008:http://www.greenpeace.org/international/campaigns/genetic-engineering/take-action/Helpchangetheundecided/

Help change the "undecided"

Belgium, Bulgaria, Denmark, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Malta, and Slovakia – These governments are being lobbied by the agro-chemical industry and pro-GMO politicians like EU Commission President Barroso to weaken the GMO risk assessment system in Europe. Their votes on 4 December are crucial, which is why we need them to resist the tactics of the pro-GMO lobby.
Some ministers are showing symptoms of the "Monsantosis virus":
- Memory loss relating to the precautionary principle;
- Hearing problems muffling the voices of the vast majority of EU citizens who overwhelmingly reject the use of GMOs in agriculture;
- Blurring of vision when presented with scientific evidence exposing health and environmental problems - caused by GMOs;
- Reported loss of ability to act in a democratic and transparent manner.
- Proven inability to perform risk management roles, relying exclusively on the always positive opinions of the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA);
- Loss of mental alertness, falling for untrue claims made by agro-chemical companies such as stating that -GMOs have higher yields, can provide a solution to climate change and mitigate hunger. Will you write them a prescription, for their own health and the health of the planet:

See text of your letter by clicking the link above, sign and send.

A settlement pattern: Esslingen am Neckar

Updated (see end of post)

I’ve been to Germany for ten days, the first time after five years, staying at the place where I lived from my pre to late teens.

I don't know whether it's the fact that I'm getting older, or whether it's this time where recession and banks are a recurring subject here and there, or that I’d observed the building boom in Ireland inflating and finally bursting, that drew my attention more than during and after earlier visits to the character and features of the city where I once lived. I kept thinking about this city, and I feel urged to write about it. I actually lived in the village of Berkheim then, but this has since been incorporated into the city of Esslingen am Neckar in Baden Wuerttemberg.

Esslingen am Neckar is located in a “Ballungsraum” (= packed area) and is the second largest city there after Stuttgart, the capital of Baden Wuerttemberg, situated only 10 km from this. It's old centre is in the Neckar valley, but it has long grown up the slopes and into the surrounding area. It had 91.557 inhabitants in March this year, in an area of 46,43 square kilometres. For comparison: Co. Leitrim, where I now live, has appr. 29.000 inhabitants in an area of 1.876 square kilometres.

Now, here is a view from the balcony where I stayed:

This shocked and disturbed me first. It was not quite like this at my last visit. When I moved to this place as a child, it was to a small area newly zoned for mixed residential and industrial development. There was nothing but arable fields, allotments and orchards around. Then at some stage a large road was built at the end of our garden, as well as the first factory building. I remember that I was not pleased about it then. Yet I later worked there twice during my school holidays. Piece work was done that time. According to their website "Festo is a worldwide leading supplier of pneumatic and electrical automation technology. The globally aligned, independent family enterprise with headquarters in Esslingen, Germany, has evolved into a performance leader within its respective industry over a period of 50 years."

My disturbance is now mixed with fascination however. The company is not foreign, but indigenous. It employs approximately 2000 people at this location. I can see that its existence there makes sense.

Here are some pictures of the representative side of the complex.

The buildings have various features to minimise their environmental impact. The following sounds all impressive at least.

This website tells us the following about the building:

"Objectives for the new company Festo Pneumatic were a high degree of flexibility, an ecological and energy optimization, associated with a resource-saving house technique, as well as the use of pneumatic solutions. Even the communication of the employees should be encouraged, through short distances between the different areas. The result is an exciting and technically innovative buildings at the same time, which offers about 33,900 sqm gross area for the employees. The new building is similar in layout of a hand with six fingers. The 'gaps' form five courtyards with outdoor and garden areas. In these atria are galleries, cafes and event zones. Air was used as building material and so pneumatic roofs span the courtyards. The transparent building with a high proportion of glass meets the requirements of a low enertgy building. The low energy consumption of the building is based on the use of geothermal, solar heat gain and use of process heat from the production sites."

The solarserver says that "the world’s largest solar thermal vacuum tube collector system provides power for the largest adsorption cooling system worldwide" there.

According to this it further got the "green roof of the year award" from a German green building association.

I don’t know how many spaces the car park building has, and what percentage of employees travel by car. The company intends to expand further onto this field and adjacent allotments):

This will be a case where green space will have to go. In the vicinity of these monstrous industrial buildings, that have several storeys below ground - so I was told - and indeed everywhere between the densely built up and populated areas of this region there is free space, consisting of arable fields, allotments, forests, vineyards and “Streuobstwiesen” (orchards).

No one is allowed to build there, unless it is necessary to open up new areas for specific uses. These are always adjacent to the already existing built up areas, which in most cases have grown around old village and town centres. This has led to visible historic and spatial continuity and connectivity. Residential areas have individual character, they do not look the same everywhere, and are mainly of two types: low and medium rise buildings. Because space is scarce, building sites are dear. People with less money buy or rent flats or Reihenhaeuser (terraced houses) rather than build single houses (Einfamilienhaeuser = one family homes). These have nothing in common with Irish one off houses, but are also close to each other with small gardens, and in most cases individually designed. Residential built up areas are accessible by car and by foot to walk through. Through this orderly development over time, and the connectivity and closeness with the existing and older settlement, the various parts of Esslingen still have village character.

There are strategic roads linking these "villages". New industrial and retail buildings are usually located near these at the outskirts of built up areas, but where they interfere least with green spaces. These green spaces are either only accessible by foot, or, where they consist of agricultural land, only landowners have the right to access them by car. Forest paths and small roads in the arable areas are intensively used for recreational walks, especially at weekends.

Here are a few pictures taken within a kilometre from where I stayed:

A stretch of the Neckar and power station visible at the back:

Around Esslingen are larger areas of green spaces. There are agricultural fields on the “Filder”, vineyards and Streuobstwiesen at the slopes of the Neckar valley, and a large forest area (Schurwald).

picture: www.fernweh.com


On the other side of the Schurwald is the Remstal (Rems valley) where I lived before I moved to Ireland, at the foot of this hill:



picture: www.photohomepage.de

The nearest town there, smaller and already more provincial than Esslingen, is Schorndorf, the birthplace of Gottlieb Daimler, which you see here:

Further afield the landscape becomes less populated and there are rural areas with small villages only. But nowhere will one find residential one off houses, apart from established farm houses which are also often clustered. No one over there would even think of building a house “wherever he wants” in green areas or in the country side.

The city of Esslingen is part of the Landkreis Esslingen, which is a larger administerial area comprising several more towns and their areas. The Landkreis Esslingen has an area of 641 squaremiles and 514 500 inhabitants. Of this area
152,83 km² are built up, this includes roads
191,10 km² are agricultural land
186,49 km² are forests
6,17 km² are water
22,42 km² are nature reserves (3.5 %)
92,42 km² are water protection areas (14.4%)
284,30 km² are landscape protection areas (44.3%)

From its beginnings Esslingen was a trade and industrial centre. Like in Schorndorf, many old mediaval buildings of Esslingen were already medium rise. The old town centre is very beautiful and alive. Here are some pictures of it.

The Alte Rathaus (old council house):




and its older back facade with the "Swabian Man" formed by the timber joists and beams, reaching up his arms:



The main market place with vineyards in background:



The Kielmeyer house used to be home to the wine presses of the important St. Catherine’s Hospital:



One of the small streets and places in the old town:



One of the oldest "Fachwerkhaeuser" in Germany, built between 1328 und 1331 :




The Kessler house, currently home to one of Germany's oldest wine cellars for sparkling wine


This is called Klein Venedig (Small Venice) by locals:




The new Neckar Forum, a culture and convention centre just adjacent to the old part of the city, with the"castle" wall and towers in the background.

Here is a little tour around the old town (in English) with more info.

I felt a great sense of place, community and belonging in Esslingen during my visit. This also becomes evident in the variety of cultural and community events. I personally particularly miss the festivals held in town and village centres, and even in vineyards, and the good and “gemuetliche” gastronomy.

A lot of community activity is organised by volunteers, members of various “Vereine” - a special form of voluntary community organisations - which cover all sorts of activities from sports, music, culture, heritage, nature to care. Interestingly forty unsalaried councillors are elected for a term of five years into Esslingen's district council, which represents the citizens. Over and above this is the Lord Mayor, who is both the head of the district council and a voting member.

Social infrastructure such as schools, nursery homes, kinder gardens, play grounds, seem good and imaginative.

Certainly not all can be perfect there. But it is amazing what has been achieved in such a densely populated industrial city. This could only happen with good planning, and by working with and for the community, by realising the various functions of the city for its people and businesses and by creating over time a settlement that corresponds well to these, whilst estimating, preserving and fostering the towns heritage, the historical and traditional manifestations of functions and activities of earlier times, and carrying some of them through to the present day, at the same time caring for and aiming to preserve the natural environment for its intrinsic and recreational value, such as for example the preservation of the orchards.

One of the early activities and functions of this area is still very much alive: Producing and trading food and wine. This, and consuming it, is indeed part of most of the festivals, such as the onion festival. Apart from trading stands, craft stands, activities for kids, music, flea markets etc. there is always cold and hot local food and drink, which you can enjoy sitting together with others around tables in the streets. You can guess that there is no alcoholphobia, nor is binge drinking common. The Swabians call drinking wine "Viertele schlotzen". Schlotzen is also the word for the way you eat icecream or a lolly, slowly and with pleasure.

I can’t finish without this story:

"The people of Esslingen got the nickname "Onions", or "Little Onions", from an old folk tale. The story goes that, in the Middle Ages, a market-woman tricked the devil into leaving Esslingen. The prince of hell had demanded an apple, but the cunning market-woman gave him an onion instead. The devil took a bite, cried out and spat: "You mean these are apples?! You people of Esslingen are ridiculous! These are onions, sharp-tasting onions. Therefore, from now on you should no longer be known as citizens of Esslingen but as ‘onions’!"

Please find more info about Esslingen here (English).

I wish to add info about the proposed new Festo buildings and a great picture of the area which I found here.

First the picture:
Picture by Wagahai

The picture is funny in that it makes the area appear flat, as the step down into the Neckar valley is not visible from this perspective. To the left is part of Nellingen, to the right part of Berkheim. Behind Festo is Zollberg, one of the new settlements created at a time of huge population growth. Esslingen had for example an influx of 15000 people from the former German territories after World War Second. I'm a descendent of these by the way.

Here is the new Festo proposal, the location is not wholly visible, would be more to the medium right in the above picture.:

Copyright: gmp Architects

The fact that Streuobstwiesen are "picturesquely" used here trying to ameliorate the impact of the proposal with its 10 storey tower does not achieve to hide it. The company finally aims to employ a further 2800 people there, and the proposal is hailed as a perfect solution. It is said that the foot and bycicle traffic, mainly by students, between Berkheim and Zollberg will not be affected. This sounds ironical to me. A solution for car access to the new complex seems still to be unclear. Whether the proposal will go ahead seems to depend on the new regional development plan, and probably also on the worldwide economic development? The regional plan as far as I understand intends to concentrate these kinds of developments near the airport, where it would seem more appropriate. It is said that Festo has threatened to move to China if it cannot build here.

IMHO this proposal will break the pattern.