sunday 1 – travelling back from haywards heath, took taxi from hotel, was raining and would have been quite a long walk, in the end only 7 quid.

got slightly earlier train which was handy, had breakfast at pret and by a miracle a table became free when we needed it – it was chokka block, just like the time at our last departure from gatwick in the morning.

noticed a few books in the smiths whilst waiting:
paul trynka – bowie biography
john bishop – how did all this happen
pimp nation – kat b.

monday 2 – offers itself as a bridge day due to the bank holiday tomorrow, working at home, but difficult to get going

tuesday 3 – get up early and get to work – one job was to fix the broken bowl, which is going to take some time, since the glue needs 24 hours to set and there are two parts to repair, get started on the first bit

tidying up a few things downstairs wrt. data backups and playing guitar (a bit), due to course re-starting tomorrow
rainy day, katie went for walk and generally quiet, although the last day of the wies’n; eve working most of the time on the dining table

wednesday 4 – finish the second bit of the bowl, another 24 hours and i can use it!

eve bangs on the window in a foul mood as she has forgotten her key and can’t attract katie’s attention, it’s about 7:50 when her and hannah finally setoff

out at gbr – full house in the office and take a tube home with greg

guitar was good, new teacher (bernd hagmeyer) is really focused on the fundamentals, position, fingering, rhythm, timing, bodes well

thursday 5 – used the bowl for breakfast, if it lasts a year, i’ll be amazed

a saying in the Jewish tradition: “Everything is foreseen and free-will is given”.
not feeling too good this week, been tired and have a cold, eve also smothered in it and had come home early, sabs had also taken early leave from school and katie was not too happy about it

friday 6 – after reasonable night’s kip managed to do my exercises, wasn’t up to going for a run

big scoop: sabs has cereal, not toast!

tried to get started early, but katie said eve’s bike needed fixing – have to get a replacement rear lamp since on wednesday morning in the rush to school a piece of the rear light had fallen off (and of course, in the rush eve had no time to stop and pick the bits up!) – the bits needed are the reflector cover and a bulb, but that will have to wait now

spend an hour in the end, trying to repair the spare rear light we had, then losing a screw on the floor, finding out the light didn’t work in any case and taking the rear light from my bike off as a temporary measure, which then started working, after i had assumed the batteries were flat

all in all messing around with batteries, tring to find the lost screw etc, had waster the nice early start i was all up and ready for

finally fettled the rear light and also tightened the front lamp – that bike needs some maintenance!

working till 2pm then have lunch and set off with sabs to the u-bahn, she takes the bus to homework club and i go on to get out to the airport

saturday 7 – listening to saturday live – gloria hunniford and a norwegian who travelled to the south pole, talking about silence – he has a book out:
Silence in the Age of Noise by Erling Kagge
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b096gk2f#play

tea and soup at craven bakery, with bakewell tart

visited mum with josh, had a game of chess and played edelweiss, then josh wanted to go

meal at brody’s with josh, saw helen, it was really good, should repeat as he seemed to really enjoy the attention and food – he had cheesy lasagne which he finished (bar the salad), i added said salad to my cesaer salad

sunday 8 – didn’t sleep so good

girls in full swing at tea about their plans and thinking it might be time to talk with the girls about their rose-tinted view of families and weddings:
https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2017/oct/07/the-con-behind-every-wedding

thursday 12 – trip to hamburg with tom, meal at dönerladen then meal at king of india in the evening near the hotel

friday 13 – worked from hotel, trip to airport, calm flight back

practice in the evening, in the small room

saturday 14 – going through some articles to scan, one of the few which is fully online:
http://chrismon.evangelisch.de/artikel/2017/33221/marina-weisband-und-edgar-reitz-ueber-digitale-medien

monday 16 – reading this article which i had scanned at the weekend:
http://chrismon.evangelisch.de/artikel/2017/33224/schauspielerin-anna-schudt-ueber-ihren-umgang-mit-krisen
“Liebe, … bedeutet für mich, den anderen so anzunehmen, wie er ist, und ihn weder zu bewerten noch zu kommentieren.”
über Schuldgefülen: wer es “nicht ausgesprochen hat, wird es nicht heilen.”
was hilft bei Krisen: “lernen, dass es mich stärker macht, andere um Rat zu fragen. ­Ohne Gegenüber ist der Weg immer mindestens doppelt so lang.“

wednesday 18 – guitar then racing to muffathalle for the concert:
http://heathernova.com/
http://www.heathernova.net/modules/news/
https://www.setlist.fm/setlist/heather-nova/2017/muffathalle-munich-germany-43e3cbc7.html

my notes from the gig:
intro songs:
dollar shop – tom waits
empire of dirt – johnny cash
echoes of my mind – glen campbell
instrumental version of model – kraftwerk
stage setup is
drum kit at back, cellist back right
lead guitarist right playing les paul gibson and stratocaster
bass guitarist left playing 4 and 5 string bass, also filling in on one song on cello
heather nova on (semi)acoustic guitar mostly

enjoyed the addition of 2 b sides, ‘home’ and ‘blind’
final song in memory of the recent victims in the caribean no st lucia where she sailed to when younger, was ‘hurricane’, just her and the cellist

thursday 19 – suggestion from tom to get reading terry pratchett
http://www.lspace.org/books/reading-order-guides/the-discworld-reading-order-guide-20.jpg

saturday 21 – article from interhyp about smart homes:
http://www.zuhause.focus.de

sunday 22 – article:
https://www.theguardian.com/money/2017/oct/21/every-year-continue-surprise-job-endangered-list

feedback from band plying today which didn’t go too well, leading with turn, turn, pete seeger:
1) smile and be good humored – need to have a patter/rapport, could be quite simple, eg. what the song is about, especially if starting service
2) have to have a sing thru beforehand to warm-up, try one or two songs
3) practice incessantly in the weeks beforehand
4) try and learn by heart, chords/words to be able to look forward, at least some if not most of the time – would actually have been possible with turn, turn, turn, esp chorus

patience bradley, where do you go to my lovely

via spotify listening to radio station from skott, swedish artist have fallen into liking
amanda bergman, album docks
anna ternheim – album for the young, for instance
frida hyvönen, album kvinnor och barn
tomas andersson wij – kind of german in the likes of westernhagen
daniel norgren, everything you know melts away like snow from album alabury

tuesday 24 – WEG meeting which dragged on as ever, was double-booked this evening and missed the lecture by silke steininger:
das leben in die eigene Hand nehmen – martin e seligman und das konzept der erlernte hilflosigkeit, checking some of his books:
what you can change .. and what you can’t (learning to accept who you are)

can:
panic can be easily unlearned but cannot be cured by medication
sexual dyfunctions are easily unlearned
moods can be readily controlled
depression can cured by conscious thinking or helped by medication, but cannot be changed by insight into childhood

cannot:
diets
kids and androgyny
no treatment is known which improves on the natural course of recovery from alcoholism
homosexuality does not become heterosexual
reliving childhood trauma does not undo adult personality problems

also a classic text:
helplessness: on depression, development and death from 1975

a newer more expensive book on this is:
Learned Helplessness: A Theory for the Age of Personal Control5 Oct 1995
by Christopher Peterson and Steven F. Maier

also:
Product Details
Learned Optimism (Reissue) [Paperback]16 Mar 1998 by Martin Seligman

Learned Optimism: How to Change Your Mind and Your Life1 Jan 2006
by Martin E. P Seligman

Flourish: A Visionary New Understanding of Happiness and Well-being5 Apr 2011
by Martin E. P. Seligman

Authentic Happiness: Using the New Positive Psychology to Realise your Potential for Lasting Fulfilment11 Jan 2011
by Martin Seligman

thursday 26 – go for jog

thought for the day by lucy winket rector of st james’ church picadilly and the albert einstein note to a courier in lieu of a tip in 1922 at a tokyo hotel about leading a simple, modest life than a life striving for success, filled with stress and turmoil:
“a quiet and modest life brings more joy than a pursuit of success bound with constant unrest”, written just after he’d been nominated for the nobel prize
she notes that it is about joy and in a world obsessed with success, is hard to put into practice.
he also write near the end of his life:
“if god has created the world, his primary worry was certainly not to make its understanding easy for us”
how when we search for knowledge, we realise how little we know, and the world becomes a more mysterious, wondrous place.
finally another hand-written note:
“where there is a will, there’s a way”

looking forward to next week’s public holidays, there are 2:
http://www.kalender-2017.net/reformationstag/

thinking about taking Monday off too, since there is an extra day off for the 500th anniversary of martin luther

friday 27 – talking with sabs at breakfast, about music she likes shape of my heart by sting at the moment and has the crowded house album as her favorite

saturday 30 – picking up a few things from bauhaus via brillux shop but failed to get some extra paint which would prove to slow us down later in the week

monday 30 – day off to get going on painting

preparing to start work on painting:
http://www.helpster.de/silikatfarben-fuer-den-wohnraum-verwenden-so-geht-s_63918
https://www.brillux.de/produkte/399622_silikat-innenfarbe-elf-1806/
Silikat- Grund ELF 1803 mixed 50:50 with water – for any areas where it’s back to the putz or you’ve used filler (silikat-based), ideally: Mineral-Handspachtel leicht 1886 glätten
for basic preparation:
Der Untergrund muss fest, trocken, sauber, tragfähig und frei von Ausblühungen, Sinterschichten, Trennmitteln, korrosionsfördernden Bestandteilen oder sonstigen Verbund störenden Zwischenschichten sein. Vorhandene Beschichtungen auf Eignung, Trag- und Haftfähigkeit prüfen. Nicht intakte und ungeeignete Beschichtungen gründlich entfernen und nach Vorschrift entsorgen. Leimfarbe gründlich abwaschen. Nachputzstellen fachgerecht fluatieren, bei farbiger Beschichtung ganzflächig. Den Untergrund je nach Erfordernis grundieren und/oder zwischenbeschichten.

eve comes back with lizzy and laugh at how we’re dressed for painting away, me with goggles and gloves like a chemist in a lab

they talk at tea about their group called SHELF after the members and I mention that a good blog name would be shelf-life

tuesday 31 – eve and sabs struggling to get something festive for halloween as they are going out and manage something in the end

eve goes out to practice basketball with hanna

we carry on with painting until we run out of paint, but we get to complete all the walls we are doing in white, so all in all it was a successful couple of days

finja and lizzy overnight after their party