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"Sometimes I wonder what I'm a-gonna do 

'Cause there ain't no cure for the summertime blues." 

Eddie Cochran

July {Wallpaper}

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“Let us dance in the sun, wearing wild flowers in our hair...”

(Susan Polis Schutz)

Have a wonderful summer!

Summer

Then followed that beautiful season... Summer....

Filled was the air with a dreamy and magical light; and the landscape

Lay as if new created in all the freshness of childhood.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

The Magic of a December's Night

A late evening walk.
Nobody else in the street. No sounds. Just the crunch of snow under our feet.

On our right side the illuminated windows. On our left the enchanted and mystic darkness of the garden realm that surrounds my little home town.

Have a wonderful, happy and enchanted 2013!

Once upon a time

... there was a prince. And this prince was curious. So he travelled as far as his coaches would take him to see the world and learn things he didn't know. To use them wisely for his little kingdom. So he brought home knowledge about things like embanking, gardening and agriculture. But he knew that most of his people would never be able to travel as he did and see the things he had seen. So he brought these things home and built himself and his people a garden. With vineyards and labyrinths and ancient temples. Where they could stroll and live and see how the world may look, far away. And he wanted them also to learn the things he had learnt in the far away countries, about nature, about its forces and its faces.

The prince often visited a friend who lived at the foot of the Vesuvius and he was deeply fascinated by this mountain. Not only because his kingdom was a lowland but also because he felt the power of nature there more deeply than he ever had. He decided to bring it to his people, too. So he built a miniature Vesuvius in his wide garden. A mountain in the lowland which was able to breathe fire. And every now and then he gathered his people and inflamed the brushwood at the top of his mountain.

Basically this is a true story.

If you want to know more about the prince and his garden, here is a more modern approach: click and click

Silence is golden

Behind the moon, beyond the rain

Dorothy: Now which way do we go?

Scarecrow: Pardon me, this way is a very nice way.

Dorothy: Who said that?

[Toto barks at scarecrow]

Dorothy: Don't be silly, Toto. Scarecrows don't talk.

A place where there isn't any trouble. Do you suppose there is such a place, Toto? There must be. It's not a place you can get to by a boat or a train. It's far, far away. Behind the moon, beyond the rain...

Somewhere over the rainbow
Skies are blue,
And the dreams that you dare to dream
Really do come true.

*Since I - unfortunately - don't know the Wizard of Oz by heart: Thank you, IMDB

Wörlitz

"Hier ists jetzt unendlich schön. Mich hats gestern Abend, wie wir durch die Seen, Kanäle und Wäldchen schlichen, sehr gerührt, wie die Götter dem Fürsten erlaubt haben, einen Traum um sich herum zu schaffen. Es ist, wenn man so durchzieht, wie ein Märchen, das einem vorgetragen wird, und hat ganz den Charakter der elysischen Felder; in der sachtesten Mannigfaltigkeit fließt eins in das andre; keine Höhe zieht das Auge und das Verlangen auf einen einzigen Punkt; man streicht herum ohne zu fragen, wo man ausgegangen ist und hinkommt."

    

 

Quote: Goethe, 1778 (source)

Recollecting Summer

Now that there is a whiff of spring I am aching even more for summer. When one is strolling empty-headed through the streets, not rushing to escape the cold...

Oh, it's near.