We are, as you might know, cyclists. Erlangen is a place where there's a lot of cycling going on, and in most cases, it's the quickest way to get from A to B within the city (just like in so, so many places). You can park right where you want to go and don't have to find a parking space, get the ticket, put it into the car, and then walk to wherever you planned to be.

Apart from that, it's healthy (at least healthier than sitting in a car), more quiet, and more sustainable. Also it's fun, especially with a nice bike that is easy to ride.

If we are going somewhere together, we're taking the tandem, if it's at all possible. We've also spent a few holidays on the bike... so it has seen a few replacements over the years, pieces that were worn out, pieces that got upgraded, pieces that broke.

The latest piece that broke? The flange on our rear wheel hub. On one trip, we heard a "ping" sound like when a spoke breaks - and yes, two spokes were loose. But not because they themselves had broken. A part of the flange had taken exception to staying with us and went its merry way somewhere into the bushes.

Fortunately, it was still possible to use the bike, though with a bit of caution. And last Friday, the replacement wheel arrived. We now have a shiny new wheel, and the Most Patient Husband of Them All also replaced the chains, and there's a new sprocket cassette, and now the whole thing is running like new again. Plus the freewheel of the new wheel is really, really quiet - in fact, you can only hear it in some instances, and the sounds of the chains running when we pedal are actually louder than the freewheel sound. 

The last hub lasted about 33.000 kilometers. So now we can work on wearing the new one out...

Sometimes you hear about an event just in time - that happened to me with a paper on a (hybrid) conference yesterday. I read about said conference about half an hour before the thing started, and an hour before the paper that was of special interest to me - and luckily, I got sent the link for the login really quickly, and was able to join in.

At said conference, there was mention of a TED talk about whether you should kiss with lipstick... or not.

Since it is, sort of, well, related to historical dyeing, here you go:

If you're on Facebook, and interested in distaff spinning, there's a lovely group there called Evangelical Church of Distaff Spinning. Not too much traffic, lovely people, and from time to time someone turns up a gem. So thanks to that group, I can now point you to the Évangiles de Quenouilles on the BnF site. If you click on the small image, you can read the original version - if you can read Old French, that is. (The script is, to my eyes, not too hard to read, which is nice - I find it superhard to try and read something in a hard-to-decipher script and in a language I do not know well.)

Apparently there's an English edition to these Évangiles, too (available as an ebook). Here's a review (mostly behind a paywall) of the book.* My quick search via google Scholar has not turned up much more - there's a Dutch version that you can access online, with the text from a 1910 edition/transcription. 

The contents are advice - the "gospels" that are passed on between women as they meet for spinning. A lot of them are medical or concerning health. You can read a bit more about the medical advice in this paper.

* I do wonder about this passage in the review: 

"The 'distaff' of the title is the rod – or 'staff' – from which yarn is wound onto a spindle. In figurative terms, it is the mechanism by which the thread of the oral narrative – a collection of folk wisdom (or 'gospels') told by a group of peasant women (the evangelists of the title) – is spun into a written text by the male narrator, an unidentified cleric." 

Weird mis-explanations of distaff function, or distaff use, or how spinning is done pop up again and again. This, to me, is really irksome and I do wonder - are other techniques and their tools mis-explained just as badly and frequently as spinning and its tools, and it's just an awareness bias that I have, or is spinning really more of a victim than other techniques?

Sometimes, you do things just because you can - and because it's (hopefully) fun. 

For two decades now, I've been part of a group of friends that meets once a year to do some book-binding, or related crafting. Each has their own stuff and tools and materials, and each has their own specialities and favourite tasks, and there's exchange of materials and ideas, and lending of tools (and sometimes hands), and a lot of friendly banter.

My typical agenda for each of these meetings is to make (at least) one document wallet, and (at least) one box. I like to make these, they are practical, and they also make very nice presents for deserving people. (There's quite a bit of work going into them, so they are not small presents, and I only give them to folks that I know will appreciate them.) 

One of the box types I like to make is a simple sort-of-brick-shaped one that can be scaled rather easily, and the cutting pattern I've worked out is handy to use up smaller bits of cardboard. You measure the width of your piece, divide that by 3 to get your magic number X, and if the length of the cardboard piece is 4X or more, you're good, and X will be your basis for cutting all the cardboard parts and all the cover papers.

Well. Sometimes the bits of cardboard that are left over are small. Quite small. So I made some tiny boxes the last years... and this time, I sort of wanted to know how low you can go, so to say.

The result? I've come to the conclusion that this is about it. My X, which equals the height of the pieces cut to form the box, and the width of the smaller side, was 7.7 mm. The cardboard was 1.5 mm in thickness - that's why the box looks higher in relation to its size than others made after the same pattern, but in a more sensible size.

I made it just like a proper large one, with outer covers, inner covers, and a nice lid with an inset so it will sit firmly on the box. It will accommodate a large grain of rice (several, in fact, if you stack them on top of each other) or a not-too-large dead fly (which was the running joke, as I called the larger version I made last time the fly sarcophagus).

I've had fun making this, and now I have a delightfully useless tiny little box. Ideas on what to do with it are very welcome!

I like birds of prey - all of them. Which means I was delighted to find out that there's a webcam installed in a place in Germany... inside a nesting box used by a pair of kestrels.

The NABU (a German organisation for the protection of nature) has the livestream on their site, and you can find it here.  Breeding already started on May 12, so the chicks are expected for mid-June... not very long now!

Stuff for the Germans - I hope you'll enjoy this!

If you're in the Munich area from tomorrow to the weekend, you might want to have a peek into the Eisernes Haus, where there's an exhibition of modern artisan wares, including textiles from Sylvia Wiechmann's Damasthandweberei. Vernissage is from 17:00 on Thursday, May 12.

 The Germanisches Nationalmuseum has a very nice article (in German) about pictures in museums, their use on social media, and other aspects of taking photos in museums. You find it here on their blog.

If you've come across the phenomenon of people feeling "triggered" by apparently small things, and have sometimes wondered if there's a general trend to being more sensitive, or complain more about things, you might be interested in this article from the Süddeutsche.

That's three tabs less that are open in my browser ;) 

By pure chance, I found out this weekend that there is something called "World Naked Gardening Day". There's really nothing that does not exist, right?

Apparently the aim of this day is to make people feel connected with nature, and get out (or do inside) gardening feeling the breeze on every spot of the body, and making the world a better and a bit greener place. It's always on the first Saturday in May, so it might still be rather cool outside... 

If you want to learn more, you can find out about it on the official website https://wngd.org/

For me, I can tell you that this is definitely not a World's X Day that I will participate in - I am quite fond of coverage by clothing, especially when outside in the sun, where sunburn at this time of year can also be an issue...