Weihnachtsmarkt in Annaberg-Bucholz 2015

As I am writing this, the 1965 movie 'Born Free' is on television here in Annaberg. Since I wrote about it in a previous blog and constantly refer to the book in conversations about cats/animals,  I find it ironic to be watching it on Christmas Day here in Annaberg, albeit in German.

The scene had been set for me early in my childhood – it has been a dream for as long as I can remember to have a white Christmas just as I had read in my childhood books such as 'Rupert Bear' amongst others. I lived in England for nearly 7 years between 1984-1991 and only had one semi-white Christmas in that time being in the north of the country.

Now it is Christmas 2015, I am staying with German friends in Annaberg-Bucholz near the Czech Republic border, high in the mountains. I have known my friends for 40 years and they moved back to their 'homeland' from living near Cologne, where they managed to live after getting out of what was East Germany a few years before the wall came down.

The temperature here is currently around 10oC – still too warm for snow. It is cold, especially when the wind blows, but they normally have temperatures of 10-20oC below. I am hoping for a light dusting of snow but I did not think before I booked my flight here that, if it was excessively heavy I might not make it back to Dresden for my flight home to Sydney.

The drive from Dresden to Annaberg-Bucholz takes around 1 1/2 hours via Freiberg, where we stopped to see their Weihnachtsmarkts and have fantastic cake in a delightful place called Kaffee Hartmann, then through Chemnitz onto Annaberg.

With my friends either side of me, drinking my first Glühwein in the FreibergWeihnachtsmarkt

The Freiberg Weihnachtsmarkt

The wonderful Kaffee Hartmann

I arrived in time for the last 2 days of the Weihnachtsmarkt which are very famous here in Annaberg. They are not as touristy as the ones in the west of Germany, so the locals tell me. The atmosphere is just as I had dreamed as a child with the lovely lights and smell of Glühwein, which I must say is lethal. One must have a sausage and roll to go with it, definitely do not drink this wonderfully warm spiced drink on an empty stomach, your head will be separated from your body in no time! The white wine version with cinnamon (zimt) is much more palatable in my opinion and very popular.

The markets are held in the city centre where it is level, I say this because the rest of the place is a Grade 3 climb!! Or at least it will feel like that after 2 or 3 Glühweins! Sell your soul to get someone to carry you back up if you happen to be staying up the hill from the shops.

Overlooking Annaberg from my friends' apartment

One of the streets leading down to the Annaberg Weihnachtsmarkt

The streets start to get very crowded at dusk

Dusk arrives, the lights go on and the magical ambiance starts

A wonderful full moon  for Christmas Eve  2016.

This part of Germany is known as the Ore Mountains (Erzebirge) in Saxony, which forms part of a natural border between Germany and the Czech Republic. The history is in mining and when that finished, intricate lace work and wood carvings for toys took over as two of the dominant incomes for the region.

One of the smarter things I did before I left was buy beautiful soft, warm possum/merino clothing from The Wool Company in New Zealand, after all I am a Kiwi!! I really try to support something as beautifully produced as their products which are all made in NZ. Their fine merino singlet tops are just fantastic next to the skin and the fingerless mittens are perfect if, like me, you love your photography, to keep shooting without having to remove gloves all the time. Plus, they all pack down very flat in your suitcase without weighing too much. Two of the warmest fibres you can wear next to your skin apart from very soft merino wool are possum fur (possums being a major pest in NZ) and vicuńa from Peru.  Since I am not about rob a bank anytime soon to pay the prohibitive cost of that fibre, possum is the way to go. I knew from years of living in England that wearing layers is always the best in cold climates, especially when you are walking around.

It is also important to wear good walking boots, I bought a pair of fur-lined Ara ones which are serving me exceedingly well.

We visited Seiffen a couple of days after arriving, it is a delightful Christmas craft town which the children love immensely. It is about a 1/2 hour drive from Annaberg and quite out of the way with no train station, in fact this region really requires a car to get around and see the villages.

Intricate wood carvings in one of the many shops in Seiffen

Seiffen

Seiffen

Seiffen

Seiffen

Seiffen

This part of Germany has an extremely rich history with an equally proud population to support this. The landscape is strikingly beautiful albeit slightly austere, it is a very different beauty to the magical world of Bavaria with its rivers and idyllic castles floating high above near the clouds.

An Emotional Immersion In Art

My niece Lauren gave me a $100.00 Eckersleys voucher for Christmas and my nephew James gave me a bottle of Tanqueray, I feel these two will go hand in hand to help with my art work enormously!! I should say that at the time of writing this, it is not yet Christmas Day but as I will be in Germany and James in the UK, we had an early Christmas here in Sydney.

Okay, I have decided to be brave and post my first attempts at watercolour and Inktense pencils after doing a Pen & Wash course at Mosman Evening College with Susan Bernasconi.

I have enjoyed it immensely and am not sure how I want to use it all yet, but for the moment I am just enjoying learning a new found talent?!

These are the Christmas cards that I made for my sister Dee, Lauren, James and his Girlfriend Chrissy.

Card for my sister Dee

Card for my niece Lauren

Card for my nephew James, no it is not The Grinch, it is just a Christmas tree with a face!

Card for my nephew's girlfriend Chrissy

Apart from the Christmas tree, I took inspiration for these sketches from a childhood book.

I have enrolled in Susan's class for February coming, called 'Drawing on the Masters', so naturally a trip to the New South Wales Art Gallery is coming up to see the exhibition before the course starts.
Another course I am doing concurrently at MEC is 'Perspective and Urban Composition' with Ada Cosmovici.

When I was a young girl I had two very favourite books which I now realise have affected/controlled my life unconsciously for as long as I can remember. The first is 'Born Free' (and also 'Living Free') by Joy Adamson about the life of Elsa and her cubs. I can remember reading the Publisher's Note at the end of Living Free telling of Elsa's death a month after the book was finished in 1960. I sobbed and sobbed whilst trying to make my bed that morning. That scene and feeling is still so strong in my whole being and when I finally got to work with cheetahs and young lions in Africa in 2010 I felt my heart would burst. I hugged and hugged those beautiful cats every moment I could get to be with them.

My very precious copies of these beautiful books

The second book that has stayed with me physically and emotionally all through the years is "Caroline and Her Friends" written and illustrated by Pierre Probst. The beautiful art work just draws you in and the looks on all the animals' faces has me and my sister Dee in fits of laughter every single time we look at it. The expressions on the faces of all the characters comes from an amazing ability of observation I would have thought.

Aren't these just the most delightful drawings?

I recently started reading a blog called The Great Affair by a very talented young lady called Candace Rose Rardon. I actually saw her work first in the American National Geographic. She has a gorgeous little book called "Beneath the Lantern's Glow", the drawings and her words just make you want to be there. She has started my interest in watercolour, a medium I have previously tried and given up due to my inability to be patient and relax!! This is what I am now slowly starting to learn to control in Susan's classes.

Barrenjoey Lighthouse

4th October 2015

I had always wanted to go back up to Barrenjoey Lighthouse having gone there only once about 18 years before. I wanted to go up on a Sunday because that is the only day the lighthouse is open to the public, between 10am ~ 4pm.

The day started warm and got to around 35C by the time I started walking up the path at 10:30am. I had been sick for weeks with a horrid bug so it was not the best thing to do to my body but as I was due to go into hospital for a hernia op the following week, I knew it was my only chance because the recuperation period would inhibit any excursion back up there any time soon. I needed the photos for a calendar I was making for friends and family overseas and here.

The road up to the Northern Beaches and Palm Beach is frustrating at any time but especially when the sun shines, it is warm and in Summer. I managed to get one of about 4 car park places left when I arrived at nearly 10am also, it is all pay parking everywhere up there. 

I thought I would be able to park my car then walk up a gentle slope straight from the car park. Mmmmmmm........ When I saw the long walk across the sand and the bushy entrance to the path at the end, I felt the collywobbles in my already tender stomach. Being a Kiwi, I do not have an affinity with anything that does not have fur on it. Creepy crawlies and reptiles ie:snakes!!! send my blood cold, all of my Australian friends just laugh at me. 

It is close to an hour’s drive from my place on the Lower North Shore to Palm Beach so I was not going to turn around and go home. I reached the start of the walk and stood for a few moments, Grade 3 right side steps~10 mins  or Grade 2 left side pathway ~15mins.  

I decided it would be easier to take the steps back down so I made my decision and started walking. The 15 min walk up took me 25 mins and I arrived at the lighthouse dripping from the heat and the left over bug still in my system. There is not a lot of shade up there and the heat was relentless.

Looking back down the stairs from the top inside the lighthouse

Looking up at the huge light

I booked in for a tour at 12 noon which gave me a little time to look around the inside quarters at the base of the lighthouse. The history is amazing, it was finished in 1881 and became a national park in 1997. It is well worth the walk up there to learn about it but the views from the top of the lighthouse are just superb. The tours last approximately 30 mins although ours went closer to 45mins. You must allow plenty of time for the walk there and back plus the tour so keep this in mind when you put your money into the parking meters.The time limit is 5 hours but I only put enough in for 2 and should have put at least another 1/2 hr in just for comfort.

It is such a wonderful place to take anyone visiting this city, you just need to start off early especially during the summer, to avoid the inevitable carpark type traffic that always happens as you get closer to Palm Beach. The one road up there is totally, totally gridlocked for kilometres. That is not fun if you have a car full of young children just dying to get to the beach. 

There are also some fabulous restaurants up that way.

My 2016 calendar

Welcome to My Blog

Hi,

I wanted to start this blog because I am going to Germany at Christmas and would like to tell everyone about the Christmas Markets and the trips that my friends are taking me on, around this country's beautiful scenery.

I also want to share the trials and tribulations of my learning of a difficult language, the only saviour being, it is a phonetic language - of course I am talking about German here.

I have been passionate about photography as long as I can remember and have recently taken to heart my Dad's words about revisiting my art. I have just finished my first course on Pen & Wash and have thoroughly enjoyed the experience, albeit frustrating. I am not ready to share any of my art as yet, but watch  this space!!

It is time to release the passion I have for all art and go with my dreams, it will be constant learning process for the rest of my life which I intend to relish immensely.

Sign post in the Austrian Alps