tomorrows excursion will make all the difference

 An email this morning with a sad personal content, this being the information of the demise of the old head of the section at work. The man who always encouraged the work of others without interference in the day to day management of the small unit. He retired years ago, his wife died, and then he saw how the work that he had done was undone and the promises made to him were broken. 

So it goes, may his soul rest in peace and the memories of him be held high.

It is a warmer day today, the rain has stopped. The weather forecast says that it will be back tomorrow.

Look forward to an excursion to another town tomorrow, a change will be as good as a rest from the bitter glances of the wife and the nervous behaviour of the son. Something is not in the open, something is hiding, now invisible, and the thought of its coming causes so much fear and trepidation.

Really, a most disquieting situation, and one not easily put out of mind.

The sadness at the parting of what was also a friend and supporter will remain for some time now.

Perhaps tomorrows excursion will make all the difference.

water

 Beyond the shelter of the verdant balcony, it has started to rain upon the tiled roofs of Landshut, the bells are issuing their Sunday clamour, and the small table baught for sixty Euros is doing its service supporting this computer.

The rain outside dies down, there is the sound of dripping and gurgling from the gutters

 The day was started with no trouble, then observe that the mop and bucket are no longer in their space in the bathroom. Wander around the flat in search of same, the flat that is now primarily used by the wife. It is in the living room, the bucket full of dirty water and the mop resting in the bucket. Assume that this is the place where the apparatus was last used. It is a twist mop, pick it up by the handle and place the fronds of the mop in the plastic wringer. Twist, the wringer wrings, and most of the water falls into the bucket below. The liquid is dark brown, like milky chocolate. Then place the mop on the wringer so that the remaining water may drip ......  Balance the mop against the wall so that it may not fall.

And leave it. There is no reason to clean up after the fellow inhabitants half hearted efforts at cleaning up.

The rain  started again in the mean time, and now it is very heavy. The trees on the bluffs by the valley are now hardly visible. The rain seems to be coming in waves of intensity, strengthening and then slackening a bit only to restart again with vigour.

Despite all of this water, it will be necessary to water the plants sheltered by the balcony, which are receiving none of the benefits of the downpour.

There is a break in the rain, and the bells start to ring out for some celebration of religion.

It is Sunday after all

own 4 walls

 Thunder rumbles and grumbles outside and the tiredness will not go away at all. The rich people's cultural gathering at the gallery today was strange, a crowd of egomaniacs, self centred more so than most.

Visit the Brazilian artist in her studio, it is her last day there, she has fallen out with her boyfriend and coexistence in that place has become intolerable for her. That is the way things go.

There is no wish to go to the birthday party in the pub this evening, why bother. A man turns fifty, what is there to celebrate? Nothing, other than that the place will be packed and stuffy, and therefore : Why bother?

Being alone at home is boring, but it is worth doing nothing when it may be so that doing anything may easily just be a waste of time and cause damage.

It is Saturday today, it is just not worth doing much, other than enjoying the peace and quiet of ones own four walls.

They ring for midnight too

 The morning was wasted and it will be over in a few minutes. Then it will be midday. The morning was spent doing small things and reading. This is all a waste of the time that is left.

Now it is midday. Think about going for a meal at the airport for light aircraft nearby. It is always quiet there, it is a quiet airport. It is pleasant to watch all the tiny private aircraft doing their rounds.

The bells ring for a longer time at midday. 

They ring for midnight too.

That will be something to look forward to, some balkan food at the airport. Then a visit to the hardware store to buy nails and then the work finishing the picture framing. And in the evening a visit to the art club, to collect the rain jacket that had been forgotten in Hörlkofen days ago. It is not  a valuable rain jacket, but the artists are very well organised and they are bringing it along on their visit to town.

Now there is the sound of an ambulance outside, going about its business.

nobody worth seeing any more

 Just before the onset of the rain the swallows fly low through the streets. Perhaps they are hunting insects, whatever they may be chasing is invisible. Stop and watch their flight, their aerobatics, and wonder if they experience an analog to joy in their flight. Perhaps the joy of a hunter perhaps they are showing off to their  mates.  One spreads its wings, climbs rapidly, stalls, folds its wings and, upon gaining speed during the ensuing fall, spreads its wings again and flaps a few times to gain height again. There are many other aerobatic actions like this, one dives with tucked in wings and then suddenly spreads them again to swoop upwards, suddenly changing direction during its climb. Start to consider the possibility that the birds bodies have major aerodynamic properties, not just the wings and the forked tails. As always, note that birds seem to fly better without any vertical fins, quite unlike aircraft. Surely birds would have evolved to have some form of fin if that system had anything going for it. Swallows have those long forked tails, how they work is a mystery to this aerodynamic dunce.

The flight of the birds is so much more beautiful than the mechanical steering of winged projectiles, that is what humans do.

The depression has returned, the day was started with so many small ailments that it was deemed sensible to go back to bed after having edited the pictures taken yesterday. And now the day is done, there is nothing worth doing and nobody worth seeing any more.

black and white

 A day spent taking pictures of sculptures for sculptors who cannot afford photographers.

They are nice sculptures, it is a pleasure to see them, and it is a pleasure to deal with the sculptors. A couple who live in a farmhouse.

The morning was spent trying to correct the colours in a photo of a discarded ice cream cone filled with blue Italian ice. It is a picture to enter for a competition, a competition where the prize is not more than to have it hanging in the gallery for a month.

It is good that the sculptors like black and white pictures, the colours are easier to correct!

the changes made are the changes required

 A pleasant cool day. There is an even coat of grey over the sky, all the garish light available during the bright sunlight of the past days has gone.

This mornings breakfast was fine, listen to the son take the bicycle and leave the house just in time to get to work. The bathroom now being most likely to be free, go down and take a shower.

Look around, it feels as if the depressions are under way again. There is the big clock with the wooden case in the corner, an electrically wound mechanical clock that is equipped with contact and a timing wheel to run other clocks synchronously and to give signals at regular intervals. All these extras are not required, but for some reason it stops every few hours. There is a coupling spring inside, joining the winding mechanism to the clocks works proper. This being bent, may be the cause of the problem. Take the works of the clock down, this is easy. Remove the pendulum from its suspension, this is easy too. Then  undo the winding mechanism, complete with its bakelite base. Undo the little screw holding the supporting wheel for the bent coupling spring, and realise that this has been mounted incorrectly. It will jam at regular intervals. Take note of this, and then remove the spring. It needs straightening anyway.

Then reassemble the clock, checking all the components. The mount for the works of the clock needs to be adjusted too. When all is done, the clock works.

Leave it alone, time will tell whether or not the changes made are the changes required.

sleep

 Just like that, slept on until nine, awake relaxed and well. And do not know why.

The weather has cooled today, and the sun is occluded. That makes for a pleasant change, and keeps the dust from the harvest out of the air just slightly. There is a thunderstorm coming.

Breakfast made and eaten, and there is still a sense of satisfaction in the air. And it starts to rain now. The birds are chirping outside, they are sparrows.

The rain turns into a downpour. Then it stops.

Last nights concert, this was a strange one. There you had two most proficient musicians playing their songs, songs with no rhythm in the lyrics and little melody to back that up. Difficult to listen to, and then there was the obligation to be seen to be listening seriously.

Something to do with a moan, that had  a tiring effect, the voice pedantically explaining relationships.

Open the eyes, there is a man looking closely.

"just fell asleep"

"yes, the same is happening here"

He might have been a heavy metal fan

 Since nine in the morning there has been the sound of a loud voice from the neighbours balcony. The man does not realise that he is drowning every other subtle sound in this sunny area between the streets, that has been all built up with mews and supplementary housing over the years. The sound of his magisterial pontificating is not as loud as clamour of the bells at a quarter past nine and again at half past.

Make breakfast, enjoy it, having closed  the window to dampen the neighbours yap. Then take the stuff down to the dishwasher and empty the clean crockery and cutlery into its respective spaces.

Then take a shower to wash away the night.

The blood pressure is higher than it should be, perhaps this is the annoyance at the neighbours loud talk. But it could be worse. 

He might have been a heavy metal fan, that neighbour.

This is a recipe for desaster.

The woman at the opticians was fast and practical today, the new sunglasses are very good, the eyes are much more relaxed now. The sunglasses look silly , but so what. They were cheap and they have dramatic black frames. 

Go to the apothecary and buy some headache pills, for personal use and also for the Brazilian artist, she has a headache after having another fight with her ex boyfriend. They are now arguing about money. 

But she keeps on working.

It was nice to talk to the young photographer showing her pictures and the gallery, and the cup of coffee at the italians was good as well.

It is a day that is not going anywhere, the photographs are now all edited. Things are moving, slowly and apparently in all directions at once.

This is a recipe for disaster. Somehow, the regular passage from home to work taken every day ten years ago is missed today.

It is that kind of town

 Single ding, a quarter past eight, the bells in the town sound o,nce for the first quarter of the hour. The pigeons continue their cooing, everyone has become used to that heavy metal clamour. Even though church bells probably have little to do with the music genre, they consist of nothing but bronze. And that is very heavy metal.

The neighbours hens are cackling as well, perhaps they have produced a fresh breakfast egg. And to break the sound further there is the distant sound of the Martins horn of an ambulance on its mission.

Friday has now gone quiet here in town. Most of the people who work have already left the town and the remainder are either in their jobs or sleeping. It is that kind of town.

it is just like work

This is the three thousand six hundred and fiftieth daily post in this blog, which means that this is all close to ten years long now. There have been almost eighty thousand visitors in that time. This must make it a very poor performer, but thank you all for your patience.

Warm summer nights are great for listening to neighbours having discussions on their balcony. The actual words are indistinct, but there is a male voice instructing and a female voice acquiescing.

Yesterday the woman threw a tantrum.

The day was spent printing pictures and buying apples. There was a quick visit to the gallery, the young woman with her Bachelor of Arts in photography is proud of her exhibits and less proud of the fact that people are not buying photography as an art work in this town.

In the evening the sculptors telephone, they need some pictures.

Send them over, glad to be of service. It is just like work.

coffee and cake and chat

A most pleasant day spent at the artist's place out in the country, coffee and cake and discussions all day. And as the light dimmed, a few pictures of the large rooms with the huge sculptures, you could hardly believe that they are all made of ceramics. There is plenty to talk about, but it is too hot and too bright to use the contrasty light for photos of these sculptures.

As the sky clouds over towards evening, it becomes possible to take pictures in the softer light. They are only black and white pictures, there is no point in wasting time trying to take colour pictures. The gaudy green of the grass and the foliage distracts from the subtle colouring of the sculptures.

That is one way to spend a day in the sunshine, with coffee and cake and chat.

Who knows what on earth is going on

 It is warm in the morning, and it is hot in the early afternoon. It is summer and this is what so many people had wanted. Some people, on the other hand, went directly from complaining about the cold to complaining about the heat.

Set up the printer in the morning, and the seventy prints are done by midday. Leave the house to get a form from the doctor, see the man skulking around in his consulting room. He still wears a mask, even though the pandemic is over.

His assistants supply the papers, thank them for their trouble and leave for the shopping mall. Do some shopping there and go back home. The weather is even warmer now, walking up the long street known as the New Town start to feel slightly dizzy. At home, pack away the groceries and examine the work that the printer has done. The pictures are all done but for one where the paper had been put into the printer the wrong way round. That one picture was all smudged.

When all the pictures numbered pack them into an envelope and leave the house to go to the post office.

Upon returning to the flat the dizziness is much worse. Lie down and fall into a deep sleep with strange dreams. The screams of the neighbour cause a return to consciousness, the young woman is having a tantrum. Then there is the sound of the retired teachers voice explaining something to somebody. He always speaks in an incredibly loud voice. Perhaps that came with the job that he had.

Go downstairs, make a sandwich and have a glass of water. Take a second glass of water upstairs.

Now there is the sound of police helicopters outside. 

Who knows what on earth is going on.

washing the car on a public street

A quiet Monday, it is hot beyond bearing, even the morning is warm. It is not as hot here as in other parts of the world, but it is certainly hot. 

The pictures taken yesterday are boring today, this will just not go on much longer. It will be necessary to find a place to hold onto in this project, a thing to aim for. It is a struggle with the sun, for the sun produces the only available light in the sombre attic were all of these pieces of African sculpture live. It will require further thought.

Breakfast of eggs and toast was quite insipid today, there is just no future in living this way. Things will come to an end soon, that is the feeling. They cannot slide on indefinitely in this way.

Cleaned the fascia of the car today, and the insides of the windows. It was all not as dirty as was expected, but still the water in the bucket turned a deep shade of grey. One of the weekend group passed, her only remark was in the form of a question asking whether washing the car on a public street was allowed or not.

It is good to have friends.

Today

 Today is the third Sunday in which the pageant celebrating a marriage in the middle ages takes place in Landshut. There are many carefully attired people wandering about the streets, all in the dress of the middle ages. Theyare dressed as soldiers, as businessmen or as craftspeople, and they all wear the attire much as it may have been worn during that November day in the fifteenth century. A political wedding that ended the war that had been taking place for thirty years then.

For the third time there will be a grand parade through the town, all vehicle traffic is forbidden and the streets have been cleared of parked vehicles. There is the sound of road cleaning machines making their ways through the roads of the old town.

It is seven in the morning, and the sounds that the neighbours produce upon awakening are to be heard between the buildings of the old town. It is the sounds of throats being cleared, of loud uninhibited farts. of noses being blown. There is a neighbour up watering her flowers to start the day.

The photographs taken the day before yesterday are causing ambiguous feelings. They were meant to show portraits of individual sculptures before the backdrop of many other similar figures and masks of a similar genre. It is unclear as to whether they are successful in this or not.

There will be another drive up the country to continue the work. 

Todayh

And now it is eleven at night, The day was a success, the pictures were all right.

And the breakfast in the café in Vilshofen was a good start to the day.

hot

 The pictures were made yesterday and they have been finished today despite the heat of the day. Now the evening is being spent listening to a Händel opera on the radio.

Waiting for the thunderstorm that had been announced. 

And the pictures are done and they are all very strange, all trimmed to a four by five format. There was a visit to the Brazilian artist today, she was looking very well. She is painting a lot and she is also selling a lot of pictures. That is nice for her.

Went to the gallery afterwards, the people all seem to be in some kind of pageant fever. It is the middle of the day and it is really warm. Order a bottle of water and manage to drink the whole thing. It is only afterwards that it turns out that this cost about eight Euros. 

Well, it was fizzy.

In the course of the afternoon take the car to a legal parking spot, to prevent the pageant people towing it away next day. The pageant is a nuisance.

And now the things are almost all done, it will only be necessary to print a few of the pictures. The artist from Brasil is a really a most attractive person.

Somebody is unwell.

 The decision to force movement fell last night, and a telephone call was made. The call was accepted, and the journey to the town at the river junction of the Danube and its tributary will be made today. Hopefully there will be pictures to show for it. The evening was spent in an Italian restaurant eating  bread and olives and drinking beer. Everyone else drank wine, but that is up to each individual person.

Awaken at six in the morning and have a shower, being all ready to go.

Perhaps this is the end of the depressed indolence of the last few days.

It is now seven in the morning, and there is the sound of coughing in the background, Somebody is unwell.

and then go to university.

 The cat outside the door of the room makes a quiet growling noise. She wants to be let in. Get up, still mostly asleep and open the door just wide enough to permit feline ingression. Sit down on the bed whilst the cat rubs her back on the legs. Reach down, scratch her poll, she gives a reward for this attention by butting her head against the pyjama cloth covering the human knees.

Then return to bed, it is still dark and the sound of the neighbours snores carries from his open window to the open windows of the flat. Fall asleep. There is a strange dream were a young person accuses the dreamer of having taken her small toilet brush and used it. This is a perplexing dream content, firstly it is hard to imagine why anybody should have a personal toilet brush and secondly these items only come in the one general size. There is no such thing as a small one.

There is a loud rasping regular noise which disturbs the dream, and, upon awakening realise that these are the own snores. Roll over onto the right hand side and listen to the sound of leaf blowers in the town somewhere. They are not blowing leaves, they are clearing the rubbish left behind by revellers under the grandstands that have been errected all over town so that people may watch the pageant at the weekend. During the week the locals sit on them to enjoy their beer and to eat various snacks that they have brought along in picnic baskets. The town employees are left with the job of clearing up any mess afterwards. On fine nights there are hundreds of people all perched on the grandstands like battery hens.

Get up, breakfast and shower.

The son is late again, he asks whether or not he can borrow the bicycle.

He may, he now has two weeks of work left, and then he may take his holidays and then go to university.

a disappointment

Take the bicycle, the one with the two flat tyres and the missing pedals and wheel it through the town. Take the back streets and the side streets to avoid the people bustling about in their holiday fever. Cross the river on the big bridge and wheel the bicycle on the fifty metres to the bicycle repair shop.

There is a notice there saying that due to illness, the shop will be closed for the next few weeks.

A small girl comes out of one of the neighbouring entrances and explains that the owner of the shop has fallen ill and that the shop will be closed for a month. This is sad. Wheel the bicycle all the way back home, and do not bother with any shopping or anything.

 Go back upstairs and continue to adjust the big camera. This is a lot of work, and in the end it is successful.  Every time this needs to be done realise how skimpy the own knowledge for colour management really is.

Not being able to get the bicycle repaired is a disappointment, but one that will have to be lived with

more than anybody could imaginably want to read

 The day started warm and now it is hot. The temperature in the flat is thirty degrees centigrade, and that is uncomfortable. The birds outside do not mind, chirping and squeaking the way sparrows do. There are thunderstorms due tonight, that will cool things down hopefully.

Time was spent buying a new pair of reading glasses today,  a pair to be able to work at the computer comfortably. The young woman testing the vision and measuring the relevant distances in the face are both very pleasant. And they are well trained sales people too, they will sell you more than what you had expected and wanted to buy.

Print up Sunday's pictures and take them to the post. Hopefully the artists will be happy with them.

But this business of the high temperatures is difficult to bear.

Looking at the statistics for this blog realise that it will be ten years old soon, with altogether three thousand six hundred and fifty posts.

That is a lot, more than anybody could imaginably want to read. 

yesterday's pictures

 it is evening, the light is fading. Now it is half past nine. The voices, the men guffawing the women cackling, it sounds like the description of a psychosis heard from a friend years ago. That friend takes pills to keep his head under control.

The car was fixed today, that went very quickly. Nowadays cars have four coils instead of one.. Abd they are all part of one unit. It was replaced in five minutes

It is hot and stuffy today..

And now, the beer garden, after having edited yesterday's pictures

later today and almost shouting

 It is half past six on this Sunday morning, and the temperatures are rising already. The walls of the building have not lost yesterday's heat overnight, and the sun is already strong despite having just risen. The birds are already outside, chirping loudly. Are they capable of chirping quietly? Probably they are unable to do so. The birds are sparrows, and not finches, a short research on the Internet showed this. Any earlier reference to finches was just a misidentification.

There is a distant pigeon cooing too.

Today is to be the last day at the sculptor's place near Geisenhausen.

It is also the second weekend during which the activities of the pageant will close down almost all of the old town. There is the distant sound of machinery cleaning the streets in preparation of this.

Breakfast has been made and eaten and a sort of postprandial tiredness sets in now, despite just having risen such a short while ago. The cat has been petted and fed, the first superficial things of the day have been done.

Against the usual practice: Perhaps content will be added to this post  later today.

Now it is evening, the day was very hot. It was uncomfortably so. It was uncomfortable because of the high humidity. And driving up to the sculptors place the car refused to drive on all four cylinders, preferring to stutter along on three.

At the beer garden in the country drink a glass of water and have a slice of bread with  sausage on it. All sort of tasty, but the other visitors to the place are noisy.

The day at the sculptors place was pleasant. They were both there, entertaining their customers and doing reasonably well out of it. The day is hotter than expected by one degree.

Take pictures of the bronze sculptures, and the ceramic ones and chat all day.

It is eight in the evening now, and the neighbours are out on their balcony talking loudly, almost shouting.

devoid of cars

 Awake to breakfast, the cat is asleep in the wife's bedroom. Make coffee and the eggs, much like every day. The kitchen has been tidied, that is in order. It has not been tidied much, but it is better than it was yesterday morning.

Upstairs, eat the breakfast and read the news. The United States are going to get rid of their stockpiles of cluster ammunition via the Ukraine, and justify this by saying that they are responsible for what they do in their own country. The news, as always, is frightening.

Finish the eggs and go back downstairs again, finish loading the dishwasher and start this machine. Clean up the kitchen another bit and make another pot of coffee.

Clean up the rooms upstairs, and then go out to buy a stitch ripper in the local haberdashery store. Remove the zip from the small leather bag that the camera store had given away. This was not so difficult.

Then go out, and go to the gallery again.

Look at the pictures.

And then go out and have a cup of coffee. Talk about artificial intelligence. And then go home.

The latest thing today is to take the car to a free parking spot. Tomorrow they are going to have their parade again, and the route of this parade goes right through the parking space, which therefore has to be devoid of cars.

forget forgotten

 The breeze lets the door slam shut, and then there is a whistle of the wind in the cracks in the same door. The birds outside seem to be gathering nest building material again, even though it is now July.

It is the sons birthday today, nineteen years ago he was born and now he is preparing to study seriously in the university. That is the way things go now.

There is the sound of children's voices outside, they are enjoying the warm weather  today. It is tenty eight degrees centigrade, the high due for next Sunday is thirty-five degrees. That will be the day of the second parade through the town, this is all part of the pageant that occupies the attentions of the locals every four years. The children are keeping to the shade today, and on Friday there will be sculptures to take pictures of.

And now is the time to look forward to the afternoon meal with the son.

Unless, of course, he forgets all about it.    

power tools

 The birds outside the window on the opposite roof have been keeping up their concert all day. It is irritating and nice at the same time. In the distance there are the sounds of police horns two toning it to some emergency or other. They are keeping the peace and maintaining law and order. Take the camera to the camera shop, and be greeted with disbelief, they do not understand that the camera is simply not focusing properly and the man informed me that there could simply be a defect in the human eye of the photographer. This would be a reason never to go here again in normal circumstances. It is the only good camera shop left in town though, so it will have to do . The camera will have to go all the way to Wetzlar most probably. Messy adjustments done by amateur mechanics are not on.

And later on, go shopping. There is nothing else to do, except listen to the sound of the man next door building his house. Bit by bit, and always accompanied by the sound of power tools.

squeak and cheep

 There is a bird outside, or a family of birds. These are nesting under the eaves of the house opposite, and they make a cheeping noise, just like a hinge that has not been oiled. It is likely the call of the young birds when they are hungry.

It is nice and it is also irritating.

The photographs of the sculpture received praise today, that was great. The photographer received money for the pictures, which was great too. This will make it possible to buy more paper and ink, this does not make it a profitable enterprise, but it is better than not recouping any of the costs of what has developed from a profession to a hobby.

The finches are beautiful, even if there calls and squeaking are irritating. The young birds squeak like hinges.

And after a day of sun with scattered showers the evening is settling down to be a quiet time.

half past midnight

 Time elapses slowly and then it shoots by in a rush. It is now twenty five past midnight, and too late fore yesterdays entry. Perhaps there is some solace in that this is written now before the nights sleep. Returning a debt at the garage took up most of the afternoon, and then time was spent repairing all of the photographs taken last week.

There is not much to write about now, and the mind is just too tired. The clock on the wall is ticking steadily and it will be ticking still in the morning. A last aircraft just roared past overhead, it is the end of a day and the beginning of a new one. 

The bells of Saint Martins church just rang twice it is now half past midnight.

recover

 It was such an easy day today, most of it was spent asleep. The man in the camera shop repaired the camera at no charge at all. That was very kind of him, it is not a thing to be taken lightly. Maybe being a good customer helps, but there are better ones.

The day is spent running about not doing much.

It is Monday, and the dizziness will not go away, the hissing in the head and the dizziness, suddenly it is necessary to just sit down, and wait until this old human system recovers.

mop up

 That is all there is to say about it - the peace in the country beer garden is bliss in comparison with the small town feverishly preparing for a big  Sunday parade of all of those taking part in the medieval pageant. This only happens every four years.

The beer garden, the wind in the chestnut trees, the quiet conversations of the few other guests, is much preferable to all the shouting, the heavy police prescence, and all the people feverishly searching for seating in the town.

Later, there will be a visit to the artist duo to mop up the loose ends of the job photographing their work.

every four years

 Why wake so early?

There is nothing else to do but to continue sleeping. But since the bathroom is one floor further down it will be necessary to go down there, and whilst down there the cat insists on being fed, and then why not make a cup of coffee?

Take the cup with the coffee back upstairs and start work on the pictures. It is irritating, but the sensor on the camera is proving impossible to clean just using a blower brush. The few small spots of dirt show on the pictures.

The pictures taken yesterday are partly quite good, that is a relief.

Then suddenly, an irresistible urge for sleep. Lie down and conk out.

Two hours later, get up again and start to work again,

And at eleven, leave the house and go and visit the group, they are all meeting in the gallery, chatting away happily. Then, outside at a specially reserved table have a cup of coffee whilst all the others are eating some kind of snack and drinking fancy drinks or beer.

The general feeling of unhappiness will not go away. There are people wandering around all over the place dressed in medieval costumes, this is part of the medieval pageant held in the town every four years.