What's New?
September 25, 2006
The grape harvest has started in our little, medieval, town. Already new wine – Neuer Wein – has begun to appear in the taverns; people sitting outside in the sun, drinking the delicious effervescent product of the harvest, and eating Zwiebelkuchen, the mouth-watering onion flan that traditionally accompanies the new wine.
Drinking the just-beginning-to-ferment liquid is rather like playing Russian Roulette because there is a fifty percent chance that a severe stomach upset can occur – but every September the hardy Schwabs quaff down gallons of the tongue-tingling stuff.
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I’ve lived all over the world, but our new home, Besigheim, nestled in the soft, rolling hills of south Germany, is hands-down my favourite.
When we told German friends that we had found a tumbledown old Fachwerk – half-timbered – house in Swabia and had decided to set up my research and development workshop there they, to a man, regaled us with horror stories: The Schwabs were all unfriendly. The Schwabs were all incredibly tight-fisted. The Schwabs all hated anyone who was not from Schwabenland…and so on.
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Well, I have to report that Linda and I have never known such open and friendly people.
I had been finding for some time that it was becoming very difficult for me to work uninterrupted in Pennsylvania as so many people would drop by to sit and talk strings and instruments, or to just visit. I am, by nature, easily distracted, so this was becoming a serious problem. The solution seemed to be to get a place, in another country, where no-one would know where I was.
I have always had a soft spot for the red wines of southern Germany, so I arranged a vacation there so Linda and I could look for a suitable house. We found Besigheim completely by accident.
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When the word went around town that this long-haired, crazy Englander and his American wife had decided to buy a house in the Old Town, people started knocking on our door to offer advice and assistance. They immediately searched their cellars and attics for furniture that we might like and soon the barn adjoining the house was bursting with old cupboards and other old farm furniture that folks had given us.
We went back to the States to arrange to ship over our stuff and my workshop materials and we received an email from Heidi, the waitress at the hotel at which we were staying whilst work was being carried out at the house, telling us that she’d bought us a complete old bedroom suite -and had her son take it over to the house because ‘you’ll need somewhere to sleep when you arrive!’
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Our old house now has a new roof, and new pine flooring to replace the rotted-out floors that had greeted us when first we saw it. The two bathrooms are now modern and efficient, and a new kitchen will be installed, hopefully, whilst we are away in China next month. The rest of the house, however, we are keeping ‘old’.
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My instruments – at long last - arrived from America last week. They are now safely ensconced on their serried racks in my music room, high up under the eaves.
It is great to be able to play my favourite old 'Froggy Bottom' again.
I already have a November concert in Pfaffenhofen – arranged by Colin Wilkie, my old picking partner from the first time I toured in Germany – and a December concert with my old friend from the ‘Five Guitarists’ tour days, Sammy Vomacka.
Now I’m itching to do more!
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