š Happyćå¹øć
- Nigel
- Jul 8
- 7 min read
9th July 2025
Although it has cooled down now in Germany I will not forget the recent heat in a hurry...
Day in the life of a Heatwaver š„µ
6am: It's 21Ā°c, just nice. Every single window of my appartment has been fully open all night. I place an electric fan in 2 windows and blast in the what is left of the cool night air.
7am : As the unforgiving sun reaches in I close all the windows and put up sun blinds. The appartment descends into a sort of Mediteranean gloom. I brave the stale air of the hallway and unlock my bike. Soon I am cycling up the road to my Steuerberater. The office is of course closed, but there is no way I am going outside later in the day. Anyway, they have a handy mega-letter box for depositing files.
I pass some early-birds sitting at a table outside a bakery sipping coffee. Very Provencal.
7.15am: Thank goodness the Express REWE supermarket is already open. Air-conditioned heaven for 10 mins. Stock up on orange juice.
8.00 am: Back home and pause in front of a fan. Aaah. 24Ā°c.
8.30 am: The phone rings in the workshop āļø Who could be ringing this early? Probaby advertising or some tedious customer who think violinmakers start work at the crack of dawn. I ignore it. It rings again. Ok, since it's high summer and the temperature is already starting it's ascent to 35Ā°c , I am awake. I answer the call. "Hello, can I borrow a violin for the day for a party ?" I hesitate. Prejudices are knocking on the back door of my brain. The man speaks with a strong eastern European accent. The east Europeans have a different way of doing things. Not Deutsch.
As it sounds urgent I tell him to come round. Come around he does - in the space of 20 minutes. He's a young chap and is most eager. I ask him what the party is and who is going to play the instrument. "A wedding" he says....and then adds...."mine...." . His face splits into an honest grin. And then the story tumbles out. He is Romanian, and his family have come all the way from Bucharest to attend. Amongst them is a cousin, who is actually studying violin. And Mama is berating her for not bringing it with her.
That clears the way. I make him pay a deposit of 100ā¬, add a small fee for the rental and make him promise to bring the violin back the next day. I wonder if I will ever see the violin again.
But Lo and behold! My trust is repaid. The next day man and wife (of 24hrs!) turn up. They are glowing. Out comes the video on the phone, and I see why. It's the wedding reception. A beautiful young women is putting her heart and soul into a Romanian folk song, playing the aforementioned violin. People are crying.
I have again learned the old lesson. Give people some happiness and it will come back to you. A "Buddha moment."
Unhappy. As it's high summer I need some of that gel that helps with mosquito bites. I pop into the Apotheke and ask politely for some....A rather dour, unsmiling man marches to the shelf and almost barks at me:
"...30g? 50g? 150g?..."
"30g please"
"...that will be 10,89ā¬...."
...I pay, and he stares at his monitor like a dog looking for a meal. Then comes....(rather aggresively)....
"...Name...?".
I recoil in surprise. I think: why do I have to give this man my name just for buying a little tube of gel ? I say as much and he looks offended.
"I just wanted to know if you have a Kundenkarte, that's all!"
Trying to keep the tone light, I explain that if I had a Kundenkarte for every shop I visited my wallet would get rather bulky. He doesn't see my humour.
I leave the shop angry. This man was officious, unsmiling, arrogant...and..well, I could use a few more choice adjectives. Does he know anything about customer service? no. Send him to Japan to learn something about respect and politeness.
When I get home I go straight to Google Maps to write a bad review of the shop. But an instinct stops me. This would be just spreading more bad vibes. Instead I have written it down and resolved simply to avoid this Apotheke in future. Case closed. š
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Don't we need some good news?....how about a happy summer beat? You need go no further than Koji-san and his shamisen. Yes, the Japanese shamisen has reached out far beyond the demure Geishas of Kyoto and found a voice in the Rock/Pop scene. It's only got three strings, so you have to be pretty quick off the mark to pluck those notes š¶ ......
....and it's surprisingly heavy when you hang it around your neck. Koji Yamaguchi, who played at the Japanese Main Matsuri festival a couple of years ago, recently sent me his latest song.......Parallel Sign .
Support him..... ( and spread some good vibes!).... by checking it out and playing it at your party!!!....(you'll need a streaming platform like Spotify) .......
Get moving!.......1, 2, 3, 4, Go for it Koji!!!ššŗ......https://linkco.re/SHdHC3qx?lang=ja
It's a very percussive instrument, and has that slightly wistful "twang" so characteristic of Japanese music. Here he is doing an (acoustic) jam before the opening of the Main Matsuri in 2022 when it was still in Frankfurt...with Sammi Satoshi Saito and Yoshihiko Fueki on percussion.....those guys really know how to get things moving....
If you are in the Frankfurt area in August....why not come to the festival? It's great fun...https://www.main-matsuri.com/en/
Time to calm down. Away from the plucked instrument department, the stringed instruments in my workshop sometimes need some TLC (Tender Loving Care)......
3pm: My Kawai piano only needs one thing at the moment, and that is a fan....This one I especially bought at a Muji store in Hoshikawa....Actually it's not quite as good as it looks, because it makes a quiet whirring noise (well it's a fan isn't it?). But very popular in Japan at the moment...
4pm: Is there any respite in store for us? it's 35Ā°c. outside. A friend in Edinburgh says it's a nice 21Ā°c there. Lucky him. As climate change gets worse they will have to restore Hadrian's Wall. To keep the heat refugees out of Scotland.
8.53 pm: I glance at my weather app. That was not a good idea....It's not 35Ā°c anymore, but still...........
10pm: Find a Magnum ice cream in the freezer. Happiness.
(p.s. for my Asian readers: You will probably hardly imagine it, but the majority of houses in Europe do not have air-conditioning). The aftermath......
Some friends I very rarely get to see, involved as they are in high-powered careers which seem to me on another planet. However we do know how to enjoy a good Kaffee. In this case it was the charming courtyard of the Liebighaus museum in Frankfurt. But before even leaving for Frankfurt, I had to laugh at this......a bike left to nature at Langen station....nature will always take over if given the chance.......
The Liebighaus is actually a villa built by a wealthy Frankfurt industrialist at the turn of the 19thc. It is a whimsical mixture of styles. Bombastic and unsubtle when it was built, time has turned it into a quaint curiosity.........
It is now a museum of Sculpture.......https://www.liebieghaus.de/de
The cafƩ is a charming retreat away from the city crowds.....
Where the sparrows feel safe enough to eat out of your hand....
...and the pistachio croissants disappear all too soon.....
š New Workshop website! In my last blog I mentioned that I was cancelling my subscription to the Web design firm WIX of Tel Aviv. I will be glad not to be paying this firm any more money........
It has proved complicated, but I now have a simple new workshop website at š
Check it out and tell me if there are any mistakes or omissions. Thanks. I tried to make it as simple as possible.
Whilst designing it, the emails I received from the IT firm showed me (yet again) how difficult they find it to speak to us human beings in normal everyday language. I am expected to know what CMS and an SEO is, and know that a Hosting service is the same as a Provider. But at least now I know know to launch a new website. Unfortunately this blog website has to run on WIX for the time being.
To end on a good note. Singing Rossini's Messe Solennelle with the International Choir Frankfurt was fun, if rather hot. It was nice to have some supporters in the audience.....š¶ Thank you all for coming!
As always,Ā thank you for reading, and if you know anyone who might be interested in this blog then do send it on. čŖćć§ććć¦ććććØć
See you....... matane!
Nigel šļø
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