Back To Shore

Some of the books I’ve read I’ve already sold on; some were e-books and all in all I just couldn’t be bothered to keep them in a collection for an end-of-the-month photo. Here is one of my shelves instead.

Reading-wise September was a mixed bag. I read a lot in the first half, while I was on vacation. Then almost nothing for the following week and a half, because I was busy with work and knackered from it. My opinion on all the books I’ve read are also a mixed bag. Some I loved, some I didn’t care much for in the end and there were a bunch of short stories from “The Chronicles of St. Mary’s” series, which officially count as “books”, but I won’t list or review here, because they were about 40-50 pages each. The mini plots of those also kind of melded together once read in quick succession (between the big books in the series).

Once again, not chronologically, but in order of favourite to least

Alone With You in the Ether, Olivie Blake, 2020
This was a fascinating – slightly different, more serious – romance between two very special people. I loved the writing here. It felt different and refreshing and less like following the trodden path of phrases and words and plots used by many others before. If that makes sense. I clearly lack the vocabulary to explain it any better.

My Mechanical Romance, Alexene Farol Follmuth, 2022
That was a really sweet story about young love. A bit of the enemy to lover trope, but that’s fine by me. I adored Bel and could well relate to her kind of scattered/messy character. Teo was a bit too good to be true and I’d have liked a bit more of a resolution about his own struggles by the end of school year. But all in all I just adored those two. I also very much enjoyed the “girl power” vibe of this story. It was realistic, without being too much. I still don’t understand anything about robots though.

The Chronicles of St Mary’s (Book 6-8), Jodi Taylor, 2019
06: What Could Possibly Go Wrong?
It was about time to get back to St. Mary’s. I admit I didn’t recall the details of what had happened in the previous book, which shows that I shouldn’t leave too much time between reading them. I liked Max’s new challenges as training officer and I was glad that they didn’t jump up and down the timeline as much as they did in previous stories. The whole Hoyles sub-plot didn’t really interest me all that much and it felt a bit like a filler to set up bigger plotlines / new ? adversaries for the following books, which was fine by me. All in all as always a entertaining read and I’m looking forward to more.

07: Lies, Damned Lies, and History
I mostly enjoyed this one. It seems to move the various plots (Max & Leon’s private lives, fight vs old enemies, future of St. Mary’s) forward in a good way and wasn’t too much all over the place (e.g. timeline). Unfortunately the bit at the end of the book about the following books in the series spoiled me quite a bit, which means I need to keep reading asap.

08: And the Rest is History
That was quite the ride. Heartbreaking for quite a long stretch. I sort of knew (had hoped) that those assumed dead wouldn’t/couldn’t be, but I still cried a few times. I thought the way they handled the Matthew plot was quite neat and grudgingly admit that it might be a good idea. As I’m not a native English reader, the focus on so much of one year of English history turned a bit boring in the end, but that’s ok.

What’s Next: A Backstage Pass to The West Wing, Its Cast and Crew, and Its Enduring Legacy of Service, Mary McCormack, Melissa Fitzgerald, 2024
I’m a hardcore “The West Wing” fan so of course I enjoyed this book immensely. It was so wonderful to get a behind the scene insight and also learn that the cast and crew really enjoyed working together and still are friends. It was heartwarming to read. The structure of the book felt a bit jumbled sometimes, but that’s my only complaint.

A Novel Love Story, Ashley Poston, 2024
I enjoyed previous novels from this author, but I was a bit sceptic when I read the idea of this one. And I have to admit that I didn’t really loose that. I don’t know what other solution I had hoped to read for the phantastic idea of ending up in a fictional village. I might have been more satisfied if there actually had been some kind of magic involved? I don’t know. I loved the slow-burn romance and Anders backstory was kind of heartbreaking and I liked the HEA and all. But still… something was off with this story for me. There also were WAY too many characters for me to keep track off, but that might have been due to my busy mind.

Songs in Ursa Major, Emma Brodie, 2021
I was afraid this one would be too much like “Daisy Jones & The Six”, which it wasn’t and I appreciated that. All in all I have mixed feelings about this story. I loved the independence of the Quinn family, I loved that Jane didn’t back down and I thought the insight into the 60/70s music industry was quite interesting. I also liked the variety of supporting characters. I wanted to root for Jane and Jesse, but Jesse made that difficult. The secret Jane and her family kept caught me by surprise to be honest and in a way it invalidated earlier parts of the story for me and thus by the end I lost a bit of interest in it all.

Only This Beautiful Moment, Abdi Nazemian, 2023
Another story, which didn’t fulfil the high hopes I had set in it, I’m afraid. To me the plot felt too far fetched, the characters and their motivations too vague and the writing felt bland. I’m sorry I don’t have anything more positive to say about this.

This was originally posted on my previous (now defunct) blog in August 2019.

Around the release of Frank’s new album, two wonderful fans – Sarah and Valerie – had the idea to honour the idea, the songs and the man behind it all, with a fan-project: find many more interesting, important, inspirational womxn or non-cis persons from history and share those stories. All essays can be found on the project’s website

Tales from Wo-Fan’s Land 

and you should definitely check them out, they are amazing. I contributed with an essay about Astrid Lindgren. I can’t really say what made me think of her, but it was such an interesting biography to delve into, so I thought I’d share what I wrote here as well and some of my German readers might learn something new about her too. There were so many more interesting details, but there also was a word limit for the essays 🙂

Astrid Lindgren (1907 – 2002)

Most people who have heard of ‘Pippi Longstocking’ – a red-haired, freckled, fiercely independent and anti-authoritarian girl – might also be familiar with the name of her creator: the children’s book author Astrid Lindgren. As long as I can remember I thought of Astrid Lindgren as a kind and gentle looking, elderly lady. I never really wondered what her life – which spanned almost the complete 20th century – might have been like until I recently read Jens Andersen’s biography „Astrid Lindgren – The Woman Behind Pippi Longstocking“. From which I learned that from an early age on Astrid had been a spirited, headstrong, fiercely independent woman. I learned that in the 1920s she became a young, unwed mother. During WWII she worked for the Swedish Secret Service. And in 1976 her satirical story „Pomperipossa in Monismania” brought down the long reigning Swedish government. For most of her long life Astrid Lindgren had been a female force to be reckoned with.

Astrid was born in November 1907 in the small town of Vimmerby in Southern Sweden.With 16 she started a small revolution, when – inspired by Margueritte’s revolutionary novel „La Garçonne“ – she was the first girl in town to cut her hair and to experiment with wearing men’s clothes. Already in school Astrid had shown a talent for writing and in 1924 she started as trainee with the local newspaper. She was on her way to a promising journalistic career when she got pregnant by her 50 year old, married boss Reinhold Blomberg in March 1926. To avoid harming Blomberg’s ongoing divorce case and to leave the small town gossip behind Astrid on her own accord moved to Stockholm to attend secretary school. When the divorce proceedings kept stalling, 19 year old Astrid had no other choice than to give birth abroad in Copenhagen (Denmark), which at that time was the only place she could do so anonymously. As long as her own future was uncertain she had to leave her son Lasse with a foster family in Copenhagen. By the time Blomberg’s divorce was finally settled Astrid had decided to end the relationship, because as she later in life stated „I knew what I wanted and didn’t want. I had wanted the child, but not the child’s father.“ For the next few years Astrid struggled to make ends meet as a young, single, working woman in Stockholm while also trying to save enough money to keep visiting her son in Copenhagen several times a year. Only after she married Sture Lindgren in 1931 she could finally bring Lasse back home with her, but the theme of abandonment and isolation can be found in many of the children’s stories she wrote throughout her career.

Astrid was a mostly stay-at-home mum until 1940, when she started working at the Swedish Secret Service. She couldn’t go into details about her „dirty job“ – as she called it – in the mail censorship department, but still included some information she gained in her diaries. Those were published under the title „A World Gone Mad“ for the first time in 2016 and are a fascinating account about the horrors of war as they could be experienced in neutral Sweden. It was around that time when Astrid started telling her daughter Karin (born in 1934) the story of Pippi Longstocking. In November 1945 the first Pippi Longstocking book was published and it was an instant success. Astrid quickly became one of the most successful Swedish authors, publishing several books and plays in quick succession and maintaining a strong media presence for decades. By the end of her career she had written 34 original books, which were translated in over 100 languages, had sold over 165 million copies and she was considered one of the most successful children book authors of all times.

Even in her late 60s, she kept writing children’s books, but then also became more outspoken about social or political issues. Due to some weird Swedish tax laws Astrid in 1976 incurred a marginal tax rate of 102% (!). She reacted by publishing the satirical story “Pomperipossa in Monismania” on the day of an important economics debate in parliament. The ensuing public uproar led to the Social-Democrats losing a crucial amount of votes in the general election later that year and thus ending their government after more than 40 years in power.

In 1978 Astrid Lindgren was awarded the German’s Booksellers Peace Price, where she held a wildly acclaimed speech – „Never Violence“ – condemning corporal punishment and any kind of oppressive method in child rearing. With this speech she once again influenced the public debate in her home country and in 1979 Sweden was the first state worldwide to prohibit any kind of violence towards children. Up until the 1990s, she kept making her voice heard for children, the environment and many more issues dear to her heart.

Astrid Lindgren died on 28th of January 2002. Her funeral on Women’s Day (8th March) was attended by the Royal Family, Government Officials and had hundred of thousands of people lining the Stockholm streets for her final journey and even more people watching on TV to say goodbye to the beloved author and one of the fiercest Swedish opinion-makers in the 20th century.

Sources:

„Astrid Lindgren – The Woman Behind Pippi Longstocking“ (Jens Andersen, published in English in 2018)
“A World Gone Mad – The Wartime Diaries of Astrid Lindgren“ (published in English in 2016) 
Astrid Lindgren Company Website 

Lyrics “One Foot Before the Other” – Frank Turner, 2011

While thinking about how to start this post I encountered a rare (for me) non-native English speaker dilemma. My first impulse is to call the activity I’m planning to write about “hiking”. That’s the verb I learned in school. When I started to travel to the UK for vacations as an adult I’ve realized in the UK they like to call the same activity “walking”. Which felt and to be honest still feels a bit weird. I walk to the bus stop. Or the shops. If I put on heavy boots, carry a backpack and take my trekking poles, I’m not going for a walk, am I? I’m going on a hike!

I got interested in hiking as activity a few years ago, when I started to be more mindful about being active, working out, fitness and such. I trekked up Ben Lomond in 2017 for crying out loud.

I’ve never been consistent with any fitness / being active routine though and I admit working out / running / hiking have been an on-off activity for me over the years. I’ve slowly come to just accept that and not beat myself up for every time I’ve fallen off the wagon. But instead applaud myself for every time I get back on.

Every once in a while, I have considered a proper hiking holiday on one of the many long-distance routes here or in the UK, even though I’m drawing the line at carrying my clothes and all my stuff in a backpack. I’m too high-maintenance for that and luggage transfer is expensive.

I did sort of start with the London Capital Ring Walk (126 km), because getting to the start and end point of a chosen stage is doable by public transport.

“Started” in the way that I did a first stage in June 2022. But even though I haven’t done another one the several times I have been to London since, I still haven’t given up on the idea of completing it. Bit by bit over the next few years.

A similar idea got stuck in my mind quite a while ago. I doubt I’d ever consider hiking the actual “Camino de Santiago” (Way of St. James) – the legendary hiking pilgrimage through northern Spain – to the tomb of St James in Cathedral in Santiago de Compostela. But over the last decades all over Europe historical pilgrimage routes which feed into the Camino have been re-established, with digital maps, proper way markers and all. One of them – the Westphalian route of “Jakobsweg” (Way of St. James in German) is passing through my federal state. 200 km from Osnabrück to Cologne. All these re-established pilgrim hiking routes come with recommended stages to do in one go. This one is supposed to take 11 days with an average daily hiking distance of ~ 18 km.

I won’t be doing that. I plan to do it bit by bit. Hopefully more consistently than the Capital Ring Walk in London. But in a similar way that I plan to mostly use public transport to get to a starting point and back home from an end point. Last weekend I’ve mapped out the first half of the stages: which train station to start and end by and how long it will take me to get there.

Even when I say public transport most of the first few trips will include a bit of a drive to a bigger train station. Because that means I’ll only have to switch trains once and not twice and thus lessen the risk of missing a train or a connection because the first train is late or cancelled or something.

Part 01: Osnabrück – Natrup-Hagen (~ 17 km)
Saturday, 14 September 2024

Time spent on the actual ‘Way’: ~ 6h 20 min
Complete distance walked that day: ~ 21 km

Even though I’m in well enough physical shape to walk 15 – 20 km a day, I had no idea how this first day would go. No idea how quick or slow I would be. Spoiler alert: I was / am slower than the “average” walking time I found on various website about this walk. Which was bothering me for a moment until I realized that I don’t have to give fuck about average. I will do this my way. And if that’s slower than others, so what? Others probably won’t take as many photos as me either.

In Osnabrück where this section of the “Way” stars it was a lovely walk (another 1.5 km to add to my tally) along the river and through mostly empty city centre streets – it was early Saturday morning!

Until I arrived at St. Peter’s Cathedral, which can be considered the official starting point of this pilgrimage route.

I guess back in the day, pilgrims started the walk / pilgrimage with attending mass inside. I did not. From now on I’d be looking for the sign of the yellow scallop shell on blue background. (There was one earlier, closer to the cathedral, but the marker didn’t look as nice).

All in all, the trail was well marked, even though I sometimes was overly cautious and impatient and instead of trusting that I was on the right way checked the digital track on my map way too often.

The path leads through the old city centre…

…and from then on for quite a bit through the city. Residential areas, the occasional park, but all in all not so photo-worthy to be honest. That only changed about half way through, when the suburbs finally turned into a more rural scenery.

I had started a bit too brisk in the city, but then managed to get into a good pace. Not too fast and the walk wasn’t too strenuous. Even after the half-way point I was still considering to walk further than originally planned and get to the next alternative train stop. Yes I had that alternative planned out as well. I’m a plan-for-all-contingencies kind of person. Especially when it became clear that I would reach the planned for train stop in the long afternoon lull between departures and might have to wait there for about an hour.

But between km 12 – 14 I realized pushing on would be a stupid idea, because my feet were getting tired. I also knew there’d be another 0.75 km back to my car at the end of the day and also some steeper sections after my originally planned final stop for the day. I did not trust my tired feet anymore to manage those without stumbling or worse.

At km 16 I was very glad that I had given up the plan to push on.

In the end I only spent about 30 minutes waiting for the next train and the rides home went mostly fine. The 2nd train managed to accumulate a delay of 17 minutes on a 53-minute ride though As if the German rail gods (demons? gnomes? Whoever is in charge of this mess these days) wanted to bring the day full circle.

---

I did not really set out to do this as some kind of spiritual experience, though I did set out trying to be more mindful about what I was doing and most of all what I was thinking while I was on my way. Which might be a first step to a spiritual experience? I don’t know. I caught my mind quite often not being in the present moment, but rather ruminating about things past or daydreaming about stuff in the future. We all do that, I know. I sometimes feel / am afraid I do that more than is good for me. I don’t know. I’m working on it.

At least I managed to stay off all the socials / mails / anything digitally distracting – except WhatsApp – the whole day and even till this morning, so that’s a step in the right direction. Turns out: I did not really miss a thing. Go figure!

Now let’s plan when to go out next and what to pack that I had forgotten this first time: sunglasses, gloves, something to sit on…, that kind of things.