"Musik, Maestro bitte!"

More on Frankfurt - Did you know that Frankfurt gave rise to a bustling techno scene?

No!   Then why not??!

It's a very cosmopolitan city, where lots of cultures and races come together and live in relative harmony, or so it seems to me.

It's also one of the most popular cities to work in in all of Europe, with the majority of people being very happy, thank you, with their quality of life!

What does it take, do you think, to be happy?  

Here are the stats for Frankfurt am Main - Frankfurt on the Main (the name of the city's river):

Quality of Life Theatres 46 - of which foreign 7 Museums 47 Art galleries 109 Cinemas 48 Film festivals 9 Foreign business + leisure clubs 180 Restaurants 2,300 Discotheques 38 Music pubs 29 Music bars 13 Sport clubs 424 Public swimming pools 13 Botanical gardens 2 Zoo 1 City forest area 4,500 hectars City parks 48
Forty-eight city parks - Wow! I can feel the Wanderlust now!     I shall also be attempting to get into at least two of those swimming pools - They even have open air ones around the city - Like to see them try that in north east England!
In the past, I must 'fess up, I've often got the work/life balance wrong.   Now, since being made unemployed, my cup of me-time almost runneth over...
Not sure how long I'll have this time for a stab at some leisure and pleasure, but I'm going to give it a go for a while.
Music often has the power to make me very happy, so I'm sharing with you today a little bit of Laith Al-Deen, who hails from Germany via the US, an Iraqi dad and a German mum.   He's singing "Pictures of You" - I'll bet you've never heard of him, but I picked up on his music while in Germany ten years ago, and I'm particularly fond of this song.
Hope you can sway a little to it today, mes bloggy Blackberries while you contemplate what gives you your qualité de vie ... And your joie de vivre, as the lovely Frogs say.

Luck and life...

Isn't it funny how we can be taken in and held by others in life?


Isn't it amazing, how if we put out those tender tendrils of love and care, sometimes they come back to us, manifest and fourfold...

I spent quality time with an elderly couple this week.   Inspirational, they are to me, the pair of them.

I was on the Leek Hunt again.

Yes, it's that time of year, when I get my Leeka Mundi out and travel the country roads in search of leeklets, baby leeks, I call them - I don't mind that others laugh when I say that - And, in September, all this hunting may mean I can join in our rural community's bit of jollity - The Annual Leek Show!

It's a bit of fun.

Some people take it very, very seriously...

I'm not kidding you.

People have been known to poison a rival's leeks, or to turf them from their beds as they grow at night.

In some parts of the country, men (for they're usually men who grow leeks with such fervour) used to sleep with their leeks, torches ready, to prevent any malfaisance. 

Revenge... a dish best served cold - Not like leeks, best in soups!

Anyhoo, mine get shoved out in large pots at the front of the house to 'let them hing as they grow', (make the 'ow' sound, as in now, and you have our accent!), as my old Mum used to say - Albeit they get watered and fed like kings.

So, I tootled off in my old jalopy to visit Elspeth and Joseph.   (Not their real names...)

Elspeth and Joseph are my Leek Dealers.  

Legends they are, hereabouts.   Sweet and decent folk, hard-working, wonderful.   Funny.   They laugh their way through life, and there's nothing you could tell them about plants, or this area, that they don't already know.

There is a magic about them.

So, I sat in their parlour with its old range of a fire, cordially invited in for strong coffee, while the wind whipped about the nineteenth century house that they've lived in for half a century or more, while Joe filled my car-boot with baby leeks, and afterwards they spun such stories that wove around me, cloaking me in love and light.

Life.

...And I am exactly the age their son would have lived to be, had he not fallen from his motorcycle at the tender age of seventeen.