Our year in Höfen is over, and we are back in Hackney - where we are happy locals, too. The rural drama novel hasn't been started yet, and in the meantime we import some of what we have learned in the village.

Grizedale Arts did a Harvest Eveny at Wysing Arts, in the Cambridgeshire countryside, and we went to make some Sauerkraut. The local farm only gows red cabbage, so we got some last minute green cabbage from our Turkish veg shop in Hackney - resulting in two containers with red and white yet to be fermented kraut. It travelled back to Lawson Park and will go even further North, for a festival of pickles in Scotland in November.

Posted October 8, 2011 13:40 by Kathrin Böhm

Frankonian opinion and taste buds say: fresh sausages are the best, and fresh means made and cooked on the day. Andi, with whom we butchered a pig in February, suggested that we should make another round of fresh sausages before we leave for London later this month. We made 122 pairs (some were frozen -  que faux-pas) and now we eat them all up, with family and friends.

Posted August 11, 2011 09:00 by Kathrin Böhm

Clay from the field.

Posted August 9, 2011 08:53 by Kathrin Böhm

I wasn't aware that traditional costumes are big in fashion in Frankonia now. Because locally there is no recent tradition of wearing costumes, and "Lederhosen" and "Dirndl" are imported from Bavaria, and come along with a  growing general appreciation of "Country Style" living in the countryside. Good to see that the brass band from Ebing sticks to the late 20th century tradition of wearing denim and T-Shirt. Levi Strauss is from Buttenheim in Frankonia, about 15 miles from here - on the local-global connection.

Posted August 5, 2011 20:54 by Kathrin Böhm

Gasbockrennen - loosely translated as the goat chase - is a village fete tradition for Monday afternoons.
Someone dresses up as a goat, someone as a farmer's wife, someone as a baby, to then run around the village and chase onlookers, paint black stripes in their faces, and gennerally create some fuss. It's obviously somewhere deep down a pagan ritual, and linked to bullfighting. With each cosmic age coming to an end, the associated star sign - like the Capricorn - is chased away, to make space for the next species. Taurus is followed by Capricorn, is followed by Piscine - the age we are just about to leave behind us.

Posted August 3, 2011 11:00 by Kathrin Böhm

Shortly after sunrise we had a tower rise in the village today. The refurbished top of the chapel tower was delivered on Andi's folklift, and then lifted back on top. The clock is to follow shortly.

Posted July 22, 2011 12:17 by Kathrin Böhm

The kids insist we should go shopping in the village once in a while, and their favourite place to spend money is the very ancient chewing gum dispenser on the road halfway down the hill. We spend about one Euro, have a break on the bench which never seems to be used, and go home again.

Posted July 18, 2011 21:11 by Kathrin Böhm

If one of the women in the village turns 70, 75, 80 , ... the rest joins up to collect money for a present and flowers, and meet at 3pm on the day to visit the birthday girl for cofee and cake. I could spot more than 200 euors in the present, and they reassured me that they always manage to get this amount easily.

Posted July 13, 2011 14:13 by Kathrin Böhm

To do with hot weather and low blood pressure. The many raspberries in her garden are more than ripe, and it seems such a waste not to pick them. There is surprisingly a lot of fruit in and around that doesn't get picked and processed. The picking is always the fun part, and the sticky juicing and jaming and freezing and drying always takes much longer than planned. But there is so many rasperies that it's almost worth considering some schnaps making ......

Posted July 12, 2011 07:55 by Kathrin Böhm

After a week of asking many in the village if they have a canning machine, or know someone with a canning machine, the very friendly publican from Goldener Stern in Rattelsdorf lets me use his. It's about 80 years old, and they use it for potted meat. This is also the pub where they make their own cottage cheese and once in a while fresh sausages to be fried on the day - something that Frankonians seem to appreciate very highly and the pub is packed on the day. Today was quiet and he didn't mind me canning clay.

Posted July 1, 2011 14:49 by Kathrin Böhm