November

 

 

As November arrived the city was aflame with autumn colour and the weather was still warm enough for al fresco eating and drinking.  It ended with the festive flavours of the Christmas markets and bitingly cold temperatures.  November is probably my favourite month; the four o’clock twilights never fail to take me by surprise and I love the seasonal spectacle as the leaves turn.  I packed quite a lot into those thirty short days despite spending many of them tramping the streets taking photographs of the city’s changing face.  

My literary needs were fulfilled by a number of events of varying kinds.  One Tuesday evening, I headed down to the delightful Curious Fox bookshop in Neukölln for a reading that coincided with the shop’s first anniversary.  An impressive turnout meant that some had to sit on the floor and wine was served in coffee cups due to a shortage of glassware.  The event, which was being broadcast live on a local internet radio station, kicked off with two Berlin-based writers, Dusty-Anne Rhodes and Priscilla Bergey, sharing their autobiographical fiction.  After a short break, the poets took to the microphone.  Guest readers Alistair Noon and Bernadette Geyer each read a selection of their poetry, then the evening ended with an open mic session.   

A couple of evenings later, the Circus Hostel hosted the launch of Mauerweg: Stories from the Berlin Wall Trail by Paul Scraton and Paul Sullivan of Slow Travel Berlin.  The book’s release was timed to coincide with the Mauerfall anniversary and the evening began with an interview with the writers whose contributions to it were based on their experiences of (separately) walking the Mauerweg.  I would heartily recommend this book to anyone interested in the city, in the ways in which it negotiates its place in the post-Cold War landscape and the continued impact of the Wall on its psyche.

In the wintry dusk of the last Saturday of the month, I met up with a group of fellow scribblers at the Naturkunde museum for a writing workshop run by The Reader Berlin.  I’ve been to a couple of The Reader’s events and written about them in previous posts.  This one followed the established itinerary of one of Victoria’s ‘Get Inspired’ workshops – we meet at a given location, and draw inspiration from it to complete a series of writing activities then make our way to Another Country bookshop where we continue to work on the pieces we’ve begun before being served one of owner Sophie’s buffet dinners.  After a few glasses of wine, those who wish to can read out their work.  This time the workshop was attended by Anna Stothard whose current novel-in-progress is set over a twenty-four-hour period in the museum.  Anna explained why she found it to be such an inspirational place and introduced us to her favourite of its animal specimens, then after dinner she entertained us with a reading from her forthcoming novel. 

I also submitted an entry to The Reader’s short story competition, dropping it off at Another Country one Friday afternoon.  The short story is not my preferred form but I found the challenge of completing a piece of work to a deadline and with a set a word limit a beneficial exercise in discipline.  The theme of the competition is ‘Berlin’ so I culled an episode from a longer narrative that I’ve been working on and honed it into shape as a self-contained piece.

Undoubtedly the ‘event’ of the month was the Mauerfall 25^th anniversary weekend.  I’ve written a separate post all about this so I won’t repeat it here.  Over the course of the weekend I met a couple of Twitter pals who had come to visit especially for the occasion and kindly found time in their schedules to hook up for drinks, chats and photo opportunities at the ‘Lichtgrenze’.

Another UK visitor was my mum who arrived for a whistlestop two-night jaunt last Monday, in time for the opening of this year’s Christmas markets.  On Monday afternoon we kept things fairly low-key with a visit to the lovely Scandinavian-themed market in the Kulturbrauerei followed by some traditional German food at Zum Schusterjungen.  Then on Tuesday we began our onslaught of the markets in earnest.  From Alexanderplatz we walked a meandering route through the Nikolaiviertel and along Unter den Linden to the market at Gendarmenmarkt.  Our last stop before heading back to Prenzlauer Berg was the lively Potsdamer Platz with its toboggan run.  One final tour of the Kulturbrauerei market – this time by night – rounded off our day. 

Besides playing host to my mum, we also entertained our neighbours Tilo and Franziska one Saturday evening.  Earlier in the year we'd been to a barbecue in their datscha garden in Pankow so we wanted to return the hospitality.  Alarmingly, Franziska asked for English food so we had an evening of cottage pie, trifle and Marston’s beer.  I’m pleased to say that they are still friends with us.

As well as attending to the culinary whims of our fellow humans, we did a couple of stints of pet-sitting in November.  Friends of ours were spending the Mauerfall weekend in Leipzig so we took care of their pug, Norbert.  As we’re going to be looking after him over Christmas, the weekend afforded an ideal opportunity for a trial run which, luckily, proved successful.  Since last Wednesday we’ve been camping out in Weissensee looking after BunBun, the feline companion of a couple of friends who have been away celebrating Thanksgiving in the USA.

The month ended in a very agreeable fashion yesterday afternoon as we made our way to Restaurant Breslau to meet up with yet another Berlin-loving Twitter pal.  A bleak and bitter wind was howling along Prenzlauer Allee but this cosy Polish eatery provided the perfect place to hole up for a Sunday afternoon of dumplings and vodka.

So, to summarise the month: I prowled the streets taking photographs, I did some reading, writing and listening, met some new friends, did some pet-sitting, played tour guide to my mum and cooked English food for two Germans.  I also ate a phenomenal amount of pizza, watched the entire first series of 'Lilyhammer', went to a birthday party and a craft beer tasting, taught a session at the language exchange and had a couple of meetings with my tandem partner (accompanied by some serious cake).  And amongst all of that, I completed a short story, visited half a dozen Christmas markets and witnessed an historic event.  All told, a very busy November!