Sometimes there is stuff happening in life - or not happening - that makes any activity in social media seem false or difficult, even dishonest (to myself, because what do you know about my true existence) and basically too exhausting to write about. Stuff is happening, big stuff, too big.
Anyway, moving on to the more mundane issue of shopping, real shopping, not the virtual online kind.
On Sundays, the majority of German households serves fresh bread rolls for breakfast. This is a ritual and the rolls must be fresh. Of course not every household partakes (ours does not, we are muesli people) but it's what happens for the majority. Now remember that in Germany, all shops are closed on Sundays (thanks to the labour unions and the churches). However, bakeries are allowed to open in the mornings, but only for rolls and there are always long queues of mostly yawning dads or kids with lists of how many and what kind for whom. Fresh bread rolls vary from region to region, have different names and shapes and flour mixes, are made with sourdough or yeast and are too numerous to list here. But this is a standard Sunday selection, the minimum variety any bakery will have on offer.
Some years ago, the parents of an Australian friend of our daughter were visiting Europe and as it happens with friends, siblings, cousins and parents of friends of our daughter, they accepted her invitation to come and stay with us (while daughter is in another far flung corner of the world issuing invitations). And obviously, we went into full hospitality mode incl. German Sunday morning breakfast rolls. For this purpose, I invited them to go to the bakery and join me in the queue.
We have three bakeries in easy walking distance and six more within a three kilometer radius from home. Our Australian visitors had been on a neighbourhood stroll with us the night before and expressed enthusiasm about a cycle trip along the river any day soon. But when we left the house to get the rolls, they walked straight to the car. Imagine their surprise when I suggested walking. They confessed that they always do all their food shopping by car, could not remember any other way, without driving and parking and getting a shopping trolley and filling and emptying and filling that trolley and so on, before driving it all back home.
Now, a bag full of bread rolls is nothing, real shopping is a bit more than that but I believe one of the greatest trick the car industry ever pulled was convincing the world they needed 1,500 kg of machinery to move 15 kg of stuff. Unfortunately, it seems people can only shop by car. That has always been the case. Shops apparently have only existed since there were cars. Haven't they just.
I could go on my high horse here and tell you that we use our bicycles and if need be our bike trailer to do our shopping but we are just two people who grow a lot of fruit and veg right here in our garden and our neighbourhood shopping is indeed in the neighbourhood, as are pharmacies, doctors, libraries, markets (super and farmers'). So, we are not average. Winters are not too hard, it doesn't rain too often, the winds are benign.
We still have a car. It sits there all shiny and heavy, I occasionally use it on dark days to get to work and back. I think it is lonely.
15 comments:
May you be okay, Sabine. May you be well.
I think you're right about the car industry, especially in this country, and probably in Australia and Canada too, countries into which Germany could fit multiple times. Ireland was the same for me growing up - you could walk or cycle to the local shop or even into town. I really miss that. I admire how Germany keeps their villages and towns compact while here, radiating out from each town we have endless sprawl. Those car manufacturers were probably in on the deal of building residential areas far enough from town that the only practical way to shop in town was to drive there.
However, I think there is a new trend (revival of an old one) to revitalize old town centers and bring back that walk-ability/bike-ability that is better for the planet and for our bodies.
I hope you stay as well as you can. And thank you for the insight into the German Sunday breakfast ritual. I love the image of the kids with lists, have to get the right rolls.
We used to walk to the local food co-op to do most of our shopping. Some health issues got in the way of that two years ago. Now we drive the one mile to the store, but we do a very BIG shop so we only have to typically go once a week. I wish we could still just walk there.
My little neighborhood is several miles from any shopping I might want to do and while I am retired so have all day to get any shopping done, the thought of walking or biking with a little trailer to carry the goods in our summers, which lasted nearly 6 months this year, beside the possibility of heat stroke anything frozen would be far from it by the time I got home. Not that this little town has much to offer, I can't even get the muesli cereal I like anymore as the store has stopped carrying it. And fresh baked rolls from a bakery? Well, I don't eat much bread anyway as it gives me gas. America was all I knew, sprawling and spread out, until I visited Scotland and Portugal. So different.
Oh, and I hope for the best possible outcome for whatever it is that is happening.
That is great, I love it As i live in the wild, trying to live very simple, the big controversy is that i live 70 km from the closest grocery store. This year the community organized a market, Yahoo! i was able to do shopping by bike, for this one day per year, just a mere 3 km one way.
How do i follow your blog?
Where I live, the closest shop is 2 km away which is not far but we pass by it on the way to work and home. Jack's daycare is right there to so we just stop and pick things up. The town I live in is so spread out, it's ridiculous.
I hope things gets sorted out. I don't talk about a lot of things either on my blog, if you can believe it:) It seems like I spill everything but I don't. The big guy is hard to live with sometimes and he's been a bear for the last six months. I understand why but I would prefer he just talk to me instead of snapping or pouting. It's stressful and I've noticed I don't want to get out of bed in the mornings anymore. Probably not a good sign.
I'm hoping for the best as regards your "Big Stuff." I am intrigued by the bread roll ritual. How are they eaten? Just plain, with butter, jam, cheese? Tom and I rarely use our car, but try to bike downtown for various routine things. Unfortunately, we must drive to the grocery store. I hate to go, and when I do I try to buy enough food to last for 2 weeks. But for veggies, we can ride our bikes down to the farmer's market on Saturday.
It's All Saints Day, one of several significant days in Louise Erdrich's The Sentence, and I am breaking my silence just for today to thank you, Sabine, for bringing that healing book to my attention. I'm returning it this afternoon because I borrowed it from the public library and seven people are waiting in line to read it, just as I had to wait in line. I'm moved by and grateful for Louise Erdrich and her writing. I see that you haven't posted in nearly a month. There's some synchronicity in that I finished reading The Sentence today and felt prompted to thank you. Sending love always.
Have a look here https://youtu.be/bRFUlHGKVDw.
The rolls are cut open horizontally and topped with whatever you fancy, if you come from Franconia it's curd cheese and home made jam. But anything goes.
I can't think of anything I'd like to do more on a Sunday than walk to a bakery for fresh rolls. Maybe eating those rolls with some French butter, too.
In order to get some exercise into my daily routine I cancelled delivery of The Guardian, initiated when I was recovering from the second and more radical op, and instituted a visit to the supermarket filling station, a mere 12 minute walk away. Fine. In the event that they'd sold out of Guardians I added a further five minutes and collected the paper from the supermarket. However knowing there was a possibility that I might end up at the supermarket encouraged me to check whether we were "short of" something in the grocery line. Fine. But often our needs were (are) contained in glass containers with no other choices. In my enfeebled state there is a limit to what I can carry and it's quickly arrived at with glass. No doubt I shouldn't be buying glass stuff. Oh, bugger it, let's open the garage. In many ways buying stuff becomes a burden
Your Australians may, however, have a point. I haven't visited Australia but I have passed three longish holidays in New Zealand and there distance defines the lifestyle. Very few quotidian movements are within walking distance unless one lives in a flat in Auckland. Often the destinations are not even faintly visible from the start point. Nevertheless most Antipodeans are pretty fit since most of them are committed to one form of sport or other.
I was unaware of the German bread tradition and am charmed by the idea of sleepy-eyed queues. But can muesli be a workable substitute for bread rolls? Difficult to spread organic honey on muesli. In France we become fresh baguette people; otherwise it wouldn't be France.
We have been car free for the last eleven years and I hope to stay that way! Sorry about the "big stuff."
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