Wednesday, May 10, 2006





Day 90: Official Birthday Portrait. Here I am beneath 'Germania', as the actress said to the Bishop (yes, there I am. Waving in the bottom right corner. Probably best to click on the photo for the larger version!) What a spectacular birthday I have had, the weather started out grey but rapidly turned into the most perfect spring day imaginable, very nice for my first springtime birthday. Although I must say, I wonder if my quality of life is on the up or the down. For birthday 37, I ate an amazing grilled swordfish dish at a very stylish restaurant on the beachfront at Noosa. For birthday 38, it was fish and chips (with my mother) on the beach at Forster. This year, fishpaste on toast, at home! Hopefully the trend is ready to reverse and next year will see an improvement rather than a deterioration... toast without fishpaste?

But seriously. We went to Rudesheim, a fantastic little touristy village on the Rhine, in the middle of the Reisling vineyard region. The village is situated the enormous Germania statue, commemorating victory against France in 1877 or thereabouts, and also the Abbey of St Hildegard, who's ideas have been very important and inspirational to me. I really wanted to sit in the abbey and be thankful for my life and all that I have now. There is so much to be thankful for, fishpaste aside, I could have prayed all day. As a special birthday coincidence, as we arrived there, the Sisters were starting their midday prayers so I sat for 15 minutes as they chanted, out of sight in their private choir to the left of the Alter. It was sublime.

Did enjoy my Freddos and Vanilla Diet coke immensely. What is both wonderful and terrifying about Cadbury Dairy Milk is that of all foods, flavours and memories of things I can't have here in Germany it is the only thing (except for Lizzie's corned beef) that lives up to the memory. I wish I could taste it one day and think, 'oh its not that great', but each time I get some after a few months its absolutely heaven! Oh well, I only have to be disciplined in bringing small amounts back and that's one problem solved.

2 Comments:

Blogger Elaine said...

Is that leg I can see? Bare leg?

11:47 am  
Blogger photo a day 15til40 said...

no, her robes come totally to the ground!
ha ha ha!
Meanwhile, it WAS around 28 degrees :-)

11:54 am  

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