Time Travel / Germany 1983 (Part 1)

25 March 2026: A grey, wet and windy day outdoors, and nothing special I "need to" do. So a good day to have a look at old slides I recently had digitised, compare them to printed photos and notes in my old album, and go time travelling...

In the summer of 1983, I had been studying German at university for a year (and before that, back in the mid 1970s, German "business language" at secretary school). But while I was good at the written language and grammar, I felt I had one huge disadvantage: I had never actually been to Germany, and had had very little practice in speaking German with Germans. 

So before I started on my third and final term of university German, I decided to do something about that - and arranged to spend one week at a German bible school / holiday centre (Klostermühle) in the small village of Obernhof an der Lahn in Germany; and after that also a few days touristing on my own (in Trier an der Mosel). 

Tag tåget = Take the train

 Mind you, this was in the days before the internet, so "arranging" meant writing letters and waiting for answers by post - and sometimes just hoping for the best...

I knew about Klostermühle as it belonged (and still belongs) to an international and interdenominational* Christian organisation called the Torchbearers ('Fackelträger' in German), first founded in England in 1947; which still has similar centres in 20+ countries around the world. I had attended and enjoyed holiday courses at their school in Sweden, so was familiar with the organisation and their general concept.
*(interdenominational = not connected to a specific church or denomination) 

 
I started my journey on August 19 - ten days before my 28th birthday - by taking a train from Karlstad (where I lived back then) to Göteborg (Gothenburg). There, I got aboard a night train, which took me to Hamburg. There I had a couple of hours for breakfast and a short walk before getting on the next train down to Koblenz; and from there yet another train to Obernhof-an-der-Lahn. (See the map.)

Obernhof, the railway station

 

Kloster Arnstein and Klostermühle

The photo above is not my own, but a postcard glued into my photo album. Up on the hill you see an old monastery, Kloster Arnstein. Its history dates back to the 11th century. In 1983, there were monks living there. Wikipedia now informs me that since 2019 it has been taken over by orthodox nuns (so I suppose should now be called a convent instead).

Down below is Klostermühle. From the name, I suppose once upon a time a working mill  run by the monks. In 1983 and still,  a Bible School and "Freizeitzentrum" (holiday centre). 

 

Alte Mühle

My room (shared with another girl or two) was in "Alte Mühle" - the Old Mill.

 

 To be continued (on some other rainy day)...

 

Slide Show from Yorkshire, 1972

Among the old slides that I recently let a photography shop digitise for me were a few from my stay with an English family in Yorkshire in 1972, from mid June and into July. 

These photos are not included in my photo album from that trip, and I don't think I took any slides myself back then. So I think these must have been sent to me afterwards, from the family I was staying with.

Back in my very first year of blogging (2009, my blog then entitled The Island of the Voices) I blogged more extensively about this trip in a post which you can read here. 

Starting with a quote from that old blog post as introduction:

After my first year in 'senior high school', 16 going on 17, my parents apparently thought me mature enough to go off out into the world alone. They sent me on a sort of educational holiday to England, to stay for four weeks with a family in a small village [Wadworth] near Doncaster in Yorkshire.  This was not a family we knew beforehand. It was organized rather like an exchange student program, except that there was no "exchange". The family I went to stay with had a girl about my age – she was in the 5th form in a Comprehensive School. I visited her school with her, but she did not go back to Sweden with me. 

Mr A., if I memory serves me right, worked in the coal mines, or at least in some way for the coal mining company. Mrs A. worked part time at the local pub.  

This photo of me I think must be from somehwere on the outskirts of the village. 

Me and Lynne, the daughter of around my own age in the family I was staying with. Most weekdays I also went to school with her (in Edlington). 

Her little brother, Lyndon, whose room became mine for a few weeks while he had to move in with his mum and dad.

Mrs A. and "auntie Lizzie" in the living room.

A first attempt to identify this image with help of Google Image search told me that it was from some place down in Kent. As we definitely did not go to Kent, I tried again, and was then told it's Bridlington, in Yorkshire. That suggestion I'll accept, as it's a Yorkshire seaside town that we did visit. I think this must have been on a day when Lynne had exams in school - which explains both why she was not with us, and why I was not in school... 

The photo below is also from Bridlington. The elderly couple are "Uncle Jack" and "Auntie Lizzie". I had to go back to an old letter to recall details, but they were relatives visiting from Canada and staying with Mrs A's parents; and they accompanied us on more outings.

On another day, we went to York. I did not have to ask Google to identify the chathedral! This was probably a weekend visit, as Lynne was with us.

 

Here were are at an old abbey ruin. As there are several of those in Yorkshire, I consulted Google Image search again - and got a prompt answer that it's St Mary's Abbey Ruins in the York Museum Gardens. As we did go to York, that makes sense - and also helped me identify the next photo as being taken at the entrance to the Yorkshire Museum.

 

 

On another occasion, we visited the seaside town of Cleethorpes, which must be where this photo was taken. 

 

Linking to Sepia Saturday 818 

Spring Equinox

Not only did my calendar say Spring Equinox today (vårdagjämning in Swedish) - the sun was shining, it felt like spring in the air, I found the first spring flowers at last - and even spotted the first butterfly! 

After lunch I went for my usual Friday "recycling walk" to bins located some 10 minutes walk from home; and after I was done with my sorting there, I went to check on a nearby flowerbed along a south-west facing facade - a place where I do often find the very first spring flowers in my neighbourhood... 

And when I got close, I was happy to find not only snowdrops, but also the first few crocuses - and one butterfly, probably still feeling dazed from winter hibernation... (And making me wonder if it, too, knew exactly where to look for the first flowers, because there are certainly not many of them to be seen yet!!)

 

 

"The small tortoiseshell (Aglais urticae) (Swedish: nässelfjäril) is a colourful Eurasian butterfly in the family Nymphalidae. Adults feed on nectar and may hibernate over winter; in warmer climates they may have two broods in a season.  --- Eggs are laid on the common nettle, on which the larvae feed." (Wikipedia)

Catching Up

 

I'm still waiting for proper outdoor Signs of Spring to tempt my camera. The streets nearby have been cleaned from winter sand and grit, and I think my itchy eyes are probably telling me that there's pollen in the air (alder, hazel) - but that's about it...

So instead I just give you some bananas resting on my old kitchen scales (inherited from my grandmother), symbolising that today was Delivery Day from the supermarket. A service I've been appreciating for over 11 years now; and I still feel grateful every time. Since a few weeks back, I'm also relieved that the 24/7 locked entrance door policy that was introduced here last summer has now been lifted. I no longer need to go down and open the entrance for the delivery guys, but only my own front door! (It has been a bit of a hassle over winter, as because of my bad knee I've not been able to use the stairs, but have had to use the lift/elevator. On the other hand, I am of course grateful to have access to a lift, or else I don't know how I'd have managed at all...) 

To turn time back to Tuesday, I then took a bus part of the way into town (and walked the rest), primarily to collect my digitized old slides from the photography shop: about 80 photos from a trip to Germany back in 1983; plus about a dozen from England in 1972 that I had even forgotten that I had. (I think they were given to me by the family I stayed with then.) I hadn't looked at any of them for over 20 years. 

I've now copied the digitised ones to my computer and had a look. Alas I found that they have not really kept the original colour much better than the printed colour photos in my old albums. While the paper photos have faded towards beige, the slides seem to have turned blueish, though... 

I may be able to improve some of them a bit by editing, but I'm not expecting miracles. (I've never bothered to learn to use any very "advanced" photo editors...) Anyway - so far, it makes me think it's probably not worth the money to also have the rest of my old slides digitised. But I'll see what I can do with the ones I got now; and hope to be able to use some of them in some future "time travelling" blogposts. 

On my way back home from the photography shop, I briefly visited a couple of clothes shops - simply because it's something I hadn't done in about six months! In the first shop, on a whim, I bought a long-sleeved t-shirt without trying it on - which proved a mistake. When I tried it on at home, the neckline turned out to be uncomfortable for me... But I knew I could take than one back and get a refund, so never mind... In the second shop, I found a zipper sweatshirt on 50% sale. That one I did try on before buying - and it fit. It's of the kind that I can use both indoors in winter, and outdoors on a chilly day in the warmer season.

Yesterday was another good day to be out for a while, so I went back into town again and returned the other top. Didn't go into any other shops. Better wait until a bit closer to summer to look at more clothes, I think... ;)

Today I got my grocery delivery around noon, and then in the afternoon (semi-sunny) went for a walk to the main post office down by the railway to post a couple of birthday cards to friends. (One of them will arrive late, the other early!) That's another way I haven't walked since back in the early autumn. Actually writing/posting snail mail at all is another thing I almost got out of the habit of doing this winter, as even the nearest postbox felt "out of the way" for me... 

Fauna

'Fauna' - sculpture by Swedish artist Tilda Lovell (2010)

This sculpture first appeared in Borås in connection with a sculpture festival in 2010, and  was then standing outside the Art Museum. Since then, it has been moved a couple times (at least), to suddenly appear in a different place - in my humble opinion, making it a bit extra spooky... 

I just encountered it again today, near the river - and couldn't recall if I've seen it in that exact spot before or not...

It's not one of my favourite sculptures, and I've never understood its context. But going back to the 2010 sculpture festival brochure now, I learned (or perhaps re-learned?) that it was inspired by a detail in the triptych The Garden of Earthly Delights by the Dutch painter Hieronymus Bosch, from way back around 1490-1510.

 I soon gave up on trying to locate it in the triptyk (I haven't got a screen large enough)* - but there is a detail picture included in Wikipedia where it is included, next to a giraffe:

I'm still not sure if I find that really helpful; but at least now I know that the creature didn't just appear from nowhere in the brain of a Swedish sculptor in 2010.

Whether back in 1490 it appeared from Nowhere for Hieronymus, I dare not say. 

Hieronymus Bosch
Jheronimus Bosch, c. 1450-1516

Jheronimus Bosch, c. 1450-1516

* PS - Just after I pressed PUBLISH, I suddenly recognised the white giraffe + the two-legged dog in the triptyk. They are in the upper third of the narrow triptyk panel to the left.