Picture Gallery

 This is my present: January 2012 - my Border Collie Sweepiedo

I was born on 30.09.1938 in Hamburg. I should have been an angel of peace, but one year on Hitler marched into Poland and the 2nd worldwar began.

Families from big cities could have a relief stay in yet peaceful surroundings - so my mother could go with her children to Saxony. Here I am enjoying the sun in the countryside. I was just three years old.





 

Our house in Hamburg was bombed during the Operation Gomorrha (July 1943) and we were homeless. A few photos still exist - as this one from 1943. Everybody is looking uneasy and I imagine, that we had giggled and were told harshly to be earnest for the photographer....





School was behind me, apprentiship for being a publisher as well, I had already worked in 2 different publishing houses and a big Insurance Company (they paid the best wages!!!), I had met a handsome young man who wanted to marry me, but he firstly went to the U.S. to be trained on new jet planes, and I went on holidays to different places in Italy.........





Happiness in Hamburg (we still hadn't got a flat of our own), but I could stay with my parents at the end of my pregnancy. Before I had travelled in Germany and Austria, just where my husband was, or I stayed with friends - for me nothing was a problem. Daughter Carina was born 13th April 1963. Only mid June we got a flat in Memmingen. where my husband started his career - first as a lime pilot on Lockheed F 84.

Mum is back from a ski holiday, Carina stayed with uncle and auntie in Munich. Nobody knows that Sylvia is "on the way". But at the right time we rented a bigger flat in the country side with a huge garden, where I planted beside roses all vegetables you can think of.

Sylvia was born on 23rd of October 1966

Carina loves her baby sister. I gave her a big baby doll which she could feed and play with - so she never was jealous.

Married, mother of 2 daughters, moving house a lot, dancing on Airforce balls, enjoying life on winter- and summer holidays, having lots of friends, not always being pleased with my life, still quite naive, but not realizing it, because I was in my 30s and had to learn much much more!





It's 1968 and we live near the river Iller in Aitrach

1971: I am a glider-pilot pupil in Buechel / Eifel

1972: my very first car, secretly bought for only DM 250,oo from a car scrap site in Koblenz, driving home so proudly, singing "O I will beg and steal and borrow to make my garden grow" or rather "to make me happy"!

1975: 3 happy girls in the forest, collecting fungi for our supper

We've attended the Inlingua (School for languages) in Augsburg for one year and are now celebrating our certificates in an alpine logcabin near Isny/Allgaeu

Before the serious studies of English and French I had 6 weeks in the U.S., where I realized, that LEARNING LANGUAGES was the most important thing for me at the moment. I got a place at the Inlingua in a class with other young women - the course was a Government initiative. Not only the fees were paid by the Government, but we even got a salary - measured on the money we would earn when we got back to the work force later on.

 November 1973: 6 weeks America from New York via Texas to Phoenix, travelling in the Wild West, going home via Chicago and having a real adventure in New York and in Luxembourg in January 1974....

From the Wild West I sent this picture postcard to my two little girls, who stayed with auntie Helga in Hamburg:

How impressive the canyons are - here Bryce Canyon. Unfortunately I didn't take a camera with me to the US, because my travelling companion made slides which he kept for himself when I left him in 1979. Now I hope to get good photos of the Grand Canyon, Canyon de Chelly, Monument Valley, the Painted Desert, the Petrified Forest and other places we visited - like Las Vegas, Tucson, Nogales etc...

...as everybody knows: The Grand Canyon

Travelling a lot in Old Europe in the 70s and 80s from Denmark to Austria, Switzerland, France, Italy, Portugal, Spain, Monaco, Corsica - skiing in winter and (often wild) camping in summer...

Impressive rocks everywhere in the Algarve/Portugal

above: Harbour of Propriano, Corsica

below: wild camping in the middle of nowhere on Corsica.

above: leisure time at the Algarve

below: skiing as often as possible

Great places for downhill skiing in the alps.

...and always enough snow for the "Skihaserln"

...so many different paradises!

above: Les Calanches, Corsica.

below: Algarve, Portugal.

1976: It feels good to sit in the cockpit of a Starfighter F 104

1977/1978 trips to GB for learning more English at Berlitz, London

Above: 10 Downing street.

Summer 1977 and 1978: I had started teaching English at an evening school in Friesland and went to London to study more for my new job, which was in hind sight the best job I ever had. I did it for 13 semesters and I am still friends with some of my students - sadly, meanwhile some of them have died.

 

Below: La Tour Eiffel

1979: Summer course at the Sorbonne, Paris, for learning more French. The plan was to work as a tutor for languages at the Kreisvolkshochschule Friesland, but the German economy went downhill and many of my students tried to save money in giving up their courses. 

This is Joey, my comrade, who had been in Vietnam and was on the last helicopter to leave Saigon...

Au Marche de puce a Paris (summer of 1979)

Meanwhile we live in our own little house in Friesland, where the winter 1981 lets our world look like a winter fairy tale

We love our village....

....not far away from the Southern Northsea

Summer 1982: Teachertraining in Canterbury University, Rutherford College

...too quickly over and all the young teachers from various European countries are celebrating their certificates and sit down for the last photo....

20. July 1984: a wee puppy is born in Hamburg.......

...to become BUSTLE, the noble German Shepherd - Collie mix

After my complete breakdown on 28.2.1990 I started to make my own handy craft (glass and other various materials). Went with my stall to different markets. Hard work, but very rewarding - not financially though, but meeting people who were happy to get beautiful things to give them away as presents.

 

After hard work on the Christmas Market 1991 it's Australia that will be explored after our own ideas and plans, i.e. with a ride on the Indien-Pacific - here we are waiting at the Terminal in Sydney to enter the famous train...

After this trip I never again travelled with lots of luggage - one bag and a rucksack was all I needed...

After a lot of adventures I am happy now to be in my berth on the train, well looked after by the marvellous staff. They really spoilt us for many days - it was like a little holiday in a great holiday...

Until 1995 I lived in my log cabin in the forest of Natural Park Aukrug and earned my living as a market trader with self made and bought handi crafts

Sunset behind my log cabin in the forests of Schleswig Holstein

ChristmasMarket in Hamburg Eidelstedt

above: My market stall everywhere in the north of Germany

Essex G.B.: on 5.9.1991 my daughter Carina gave birth to Steven Alexander - my first grandchild:

...and over the years Carina was blessed with Jonathan Daniel (1994) and Michael Nicholas (1998) 

 After my Bustle died on old age in Majorca I didn't want to live without dogs anymore. My Good Lord gave me Lassie and the little black Bustle:

Lassie developped a huge tumor on her head. She was sweet and lovely until we had to put her to sleep on 5.12.2009

The little Bustle had a heart failure for 18 months. I could prolong his life with good medication, but he became very poorly and we had to put him to sleep on 16.1.2010

...and when they had died I found Ebony, whose right hindleg had to be amputated because the ligaments on her knee joint were ruptured - I wish no Greyhound and no horse has to run races anymore !!!

At last: AT HOME!

 ...and on 17.4.2011 they took her away from me - UNBELIEVABLE !

It was a real  tragedy for me, BUT... in the neighbourhood I had seen a BorderCollie pup, tied to a fence, barking and jumping about, when Ebony and I walked past. He had become quieter during the months, dug holes under the fence, but never could escape. After losing Ebony I went down to him, talking to him, stroking him, giving him treats and water - more courages I put a leash round his neck and walked him - calling him, training him - and at last asked his owners if I could have him. After quite a while they said that I could have Sweepie - and on 19. May 2011 I let him into my little house and he lives with me happily ever since. He very much loves his FREEDOM and escaped almost 20x, but he now knows that he has a good home with me and comes (after good runs!) back to me. Here we are:

THIS IS HAPPINESS!



 

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