This day has been eaten, utterly, by two things taking way longer than they were supposed to take: Finishing the dye experiment colour cards for a travelling exhibition (more about that soon), and donating blood.

Not that the donating itself would have taken longer - they toss you off the couch after 15 minutes whether you've managed to get your half litre drained or not - but somehow, the long line of people was processed only rather slowly. We haven't figured out where the bottleneck was, but it's not relevant anyways, apart from the fact that we stayed much longer in the location than expected.

Now there's the cat expecting to be cuddled and fed, there's the urgent wish for some coffee for my own part, and some more finishing up of things to be done.

[caption id="attachment_5757" align="alignnone" width="260"] Picture proof of just how much Madame the Cat was expecting to be cuddled - she hopped onto the desk just a short while after I sat down to write this post.


Meanwhile, you might want to skip over to Alex Makin's blog and read her interview with Celia Elliott-Minty about tablet weaving!

Comments to yesterday's post (online and offline) made me realise that the German system of proof of identity is not familiar to everyone - especially, it seems, to those on the islands in the West of Europe.

So, just in case you find this as interesting as some others, here's the rundown.

In Germany, you have to own at least one proof of identity that is current and valid: Either a passport (Reisepaß, literally "travel pass(port)") or an ID card (Personalausweis, literally "personal pass" or "personal identification document", something like that). You are not obliged to always carry it with you, though it's recommended, but you have to own one and to show it upon request by a policeman. (Which, if you are not having it on you, means that you need to show up at a station and present it to them within a set amount of time.)

The Reisepaß has the size and format you're probably familiar with, while the Personalausweis is about the size of a credit card, which means it's much more handy to take along with you. I have mine in my wallet together with my driving license and the car paper proving that I'm the possessor of the car (not necessarily the owner, there's a second paper for that), and that has all my ID-ing needs covered.

The Personalausweis has a number similar to a passport number, so it can serve not only as a national ID, but works for travel across borders as well - most countries within the European continent are covered by this, and some outside of it (though having a passport is recommended for some of them). Because the proper passport is only necessary for travel outside Europe, and the ID card is cheaper to get (37 € instead of 60€), and more handy, a lot of Germans go for the ID card, getting a passport only if they need it. In 2007, close to 30 million Germans had a passport - that is significantly less than half of our population, which is currently about 84 million.

Since, as stated in the comments, I'm not a very adventurous traveller regarding the destinations, the Personalausweis has been enough for all my travelling needs, and hence no Reisepaß for me.

I have found my old passport again, by the way - it was in the box where the more orderly person in our household keeps such things, sitting right beside his (also expired) passport. Mine passed its expiry date back in 2005... and I think I got that one issued because I had applied for a summer excavation job in Turkey (which didn't happen) and would have needed it in that case.

Speaking of expiry dates - has any other country a driving licence that, like the German one, does not expire?

Happy New Year to you!

I hope you had a good transition into 2021, and that it may bring you joy and see you in good health throughout!

We've very much enjoyed our time off, even though things were much different from how we usually spend both the holidays around Christmas and New Year's eve plus the days afterwards. There was no larger family gathering at Christmas, but we did get to see both sets of parents, spaced apart to make sure there was no risk of carrying any bugs from here to there. There was also no hanging out with a bunch of friends like we usually do - so we ended up having a fondue with just the two of us (delicious, but a little weird, and not as much fun as having a whole group around the table), and having our traditionally "toasting mousse au chocolat", and chatting with friends via videochat instead of being together in real life. There were walks, and boardgames, and mini painting (more about that later), and generally we had a really nice time.

Now it's back to the usual work for both of us. One of the first tasks, of course, is catching up on emails and other things that came in, and sorting out those. For me, that also means doing all the start-of-year bureaucracy things, such as tax-related stuff (Germany is going back to 19% VAT rate), and this year, no hooray for that, also figuring out the impact of Brexit on my shop. Which has happened by now, but deserves its own post!

Like in the preceding years, I spent some of the time painting miniatures. The last batch that was finished has long since gone off to its new home together with the game, because one of our friends definitely needed their own copy of Flashpoint... and we'd actually run out of minis in our own games.

[caption id="attachment_5741" align="alignnone" width="300"] The finished Flashpoint minis.


Originally, the Flashpoint guys are all solid colour in the player colours, and there's six of them. I've painted only the figures themselves, leaving the bases in the player colour base, and adding the corresponding colour stripe as a detail to the oxygen tank they all carry on their back.

The minis are not very detailed, but there's enough of it to serve as a guideline when painting, and I had a lot of fun trying to do the day-glo and reflection stripes on the jackets and trousers as close to US firefighter reality as possible. I've also tried to hint at fire reflecting in the face shields, more or less successfully. Most importantly, though, I did have fun.

Also, comparing them to the minis in our own FP game, it was very obvious that I've gotten some more practise! Flashpoint were the very first ones that I ever painted, and the colour range was more limited back then, plus I didn't look up the actual real-life uniforms. They do look quite, quite different as a result (though I'm not unhappy with ours at all).



Plus there were two last unpainted special minis for our own game, so I did get to add some of the newer style, and painted with a somewhat defter hand, to our collection.

And then... there were no more minis left. Which started to feel a bit sad with the end of year approaching, because it's been a favourite pastime during that time for the last years. Fortunately, another friend of ours has plenty of games with plenty of miniatures, and not the time and ambition to paint them all himself. So he was able to come to my rescue, and I'm now good for another while painting the fancy cubes from Quodd Heroes...

How was your transition into 2021? Did you do things "as typical as possible", or something completely different?

It's time for the winter break!

Like every year, I'm taking a bit of time off. Even though this year, I won't be able to spend it with the group of friends, playing board games, cooking, and having fun (and way too much coffee), we're both taking the time off work to chill and relax. Boardgames may be on the list of things we'll do as well, and some long walks or short hikes, even if it would be more fun to do that together with the others instead of just the two of us.

I'll be back on the blog and shop on January 10 - until then, I wish you good times during the holidays, and a good start into 2021. Thank you for reading here, and commenting, and visiting the shop, and I'm looking forward to seeing you again on the flip side.



P.S.: The little cat wishes to remind you that this year, images of festive hats placed on slightly irritated felines might be even more important than in other years. We can probably all use a bit of extra silliness these days, after all.

Here's the current state of things:

I have a newsletter to write (the English version, the German one went out yesterday); the weather outside is mostly grey and hardly pleasing; there's a chunk of yeast in my fridge that waits for inspired baking (suggestions welcome!); I have a video for an exhibition to cut and edit; the cat is lying on my right forearm, and since that moves when I type, she wobbles along on it.

I'm also feeling fairly rant-y about the German politicians draaaaaaaaaaaagging their feet when it comes to decisions. They took a sweet long time to decide that something should be done back in October, when they might have acted in September; they waited for six weeks now, probably hoping that a cluster of half-hearted restrictions that clearly revealed that they were not enough after two weeks would miraculously be plenty with even higher numbers (and so worse circumstances) after three, four, five, or six weeks. Now there's a new all-time high of infections within 24 hours, we're nearing 600 dead per day, clinics are on the brink of overload, and there's still a debate about whether one should maybe think about closing schools and shops a bit before Christmas, or, as has been planned in the last week or so, after Christmas only. I just don't get it.

It's not that the second wave came unexpected. Or that one could not know the numbers would rise more if things were not taken more seriously. There was lots of downplaying in September, when numbers started to rise - which is not the smart thing to do when you want the public to take stuff seriously and see the danger. And yes, a lot of shops and a lot of restaurants and a lot of schools and a lot of sports places are not the super-spready places. But they can all play a part (and will!) in spreading the virus once numbers are over a certain threshold, as the probability to have infectuous people there will be high. How can that be so difficult to see?

As for us, we'll be going into (even more) of social seclusion for a bit now, in order to be able to safely see my parents at Christmas. Not that there's very much real-life social stuff to cut, mind you; we've had real-life contacts of more than a few minutes at a time with just a handful of people for the last few months anyways.

It's not nice, folks. So - sorry for the rant, and for bringing up that unpleasant topic again, but it's unfortunately quite at the top of my mind right now. I do hope things are better where you are - and if they are not, that you can cope.

Stay safe, and sane, and keep your distance. We'll make it out of all this somehow.

The weekend is coming (how nice!), after winter has already come here; we've had first snow this week, and most of it, to my surprise and delight, has actually not molten away yet, but stayed.

Otherwise, this week has been one of those where you do lots of small things and afterwards have the impression of having achieved nothing at all, which makes for an annoying feeling... and a non-shrunken to-do-list, of course!

So I'm feeling half exasperated that the weekend is almost here already and half delighted that it is. And while I'm trying to decide what feeling will win, here's a link for you: Go check out historicaltextiles.org as there is, like every year, a wonderful textile advent calendar with a photo of a historical textile every day!

 

I have a number of Instagram feeds that I follow, among them several to help me in my language learning. The by far squee-worthiest of them is learnfinnishwithmoomin (which is exactly what you'd expect from that name: Muumi doing things in Finnish).

Two days ago, it was announced that Muumi will write some Christmas cards and send them off to people not in Finland, which is an utterly wonderful idea. I will shamelessly steal it, even though I don't have a cute Muumi plush figure to present the cards, or write them (I'm pretty sure that even though Madame the Cat has graciously allowed me to place some cards with her during her nap, she'll not be any help whatsoever in writing them).



Anyways. If you'd like to get a Christmas (or Season's Greetings, if you prefer it non-religiously branded) card from me: I will send out up to ten cards to anywhere in the world. Let me know by email or in the comments if you're interested!

(If there's more than ten requests, I will do a raffle on Friday and then contact the people who'll get a card for their address.)