Year of the Spark

The Schwümmlis – Episode 14 – Beachrace

| Petra Ja

Beach race

Schwümmlis –Episode 14– Beach race
Before I went to Alkmaar I made a little detour. The sea is not far away from Amsterdam. So I got a train ticket to Zandvoort aan Zee. The station there is only a stone’s throw away from the beach. It was pretty breezy out there. But the sun was up and the sky was blue. A great day out.
On my way back a special event caught my eye, no first my ear. I could hear those whooping screams from quite far, because the wind carried the voices to me. When I closed up on the scene, I couldn’t believe, what I saw. There were quite a few Schwümmli families standing in the sand, all Mums and Dads pulling for their toddlers, the babys crawling through the sand like little crabs at tremendous speed. Most of them knew, where to crawl to, only one or two had other ideas about the toddler race.
I had to run for my train. So I can’t tell, who settled the race.

The Schwümmlis – Episode 13- Chinatown

| Petra Ja

image

Rambling about the city suddenly I found myself in Amsterdams Chinatown. You find lots of Chinese restaurants and Take aways there. You can get nearly everything to eat in this quarter. Poor Peking ducks were hanging prepared in the shopwindows waiting for hungry tourists, who were not into kroketten and brodjes.
You can also find Europes oldest Chinese temple here. Nearby I discovered this interesting Goddess statue. I am not sure, who put it up there. What a pity, that I could get only this snap of the head for you. The statue was very impressive with all those legs.
I couldn’t find any information on my Amsterdam travel app. But it resembles one of the statues, I saw in the cabinet at Schwümmlis home. So probably they can tell more about it and show me more pictures.

The making of….

The making of

Cindy and the Schwümmlis – Episode 2 –

| Petra Ja

Cindy and the solar eclipse fever

Cindy is more than pleased. After spending the whole day out in the city on the big goggle hunt, she got hold of the last six solar eclipse goggle exemplars in town.
While I will be out working on Fridaymorning, she is going to have a solar eclipse party on the Schwümmlis balcony (our balcony is packed with horsepoo, we are still waiting for the gardening season to start)
I asked her to take some pictures. Lets keep our fingers crossed for her, the Schwümmlis and the sun.

The Schwümmlis -Episode 12 –

| Petra Ja

Amsterdam cyclists 2

I went out strolling through the streets of Amsterdam, always attentive of the cyclists, scooters, tram, buses and cars. The cyclists even have their own clearly marked lane here. Many of them are quite fast as you could see yesterday. It’s like paradise, when you own a bike.
Today I saw this mum, pedalling her Baby to the Kindergarten at adequate speed.
Look, also Mum was on guard, there was a stupid tourist coming from the left. Phew, all went well this time.

The Schwümmlis -Episode 11- The surprise

| Petra Ja

Amstdam cylcist 1

I didn’t know, that there were Schwümmlis living in Amsterdam until the moment, when one of them nearly ran me over at the red traffic lights.
The cyclists are very fast on their bikes here. We both were quite shocked, so I couldn’t ask, if he knew my Schwümmli family back home.

Cindy and The Schwümmlis -Episode 1-

| Petra Ja

The WundertüteI am so sorry for this long story, but Cindy forced me to write everything down, she is soo proud of it.

So let’s go back quickly to last weeks events to understand the rest of the story.
Last week while I was so busy with making ink monsters and nights lamps, Cindy went next door to see the Schwümmlis. She gets along pretty well with them and on Wednesday allSchwümmlis but Baby Schwümmli

and Granddad went off to see a befriended family. So they asked Cindy to look after Baby and Granddad, who is already quite old and prefers staying at home.

Next morning Cindy and I had breakfast together and she told me about her first evening as a babysitter. Cindy had had a lovely evening with them, Baby Schwümmli sleeping soundly while Granddad and her had flipped through the famous photo album, he had aready shared with me.
„And look, what I have got here“, Cindy suddenly got exited and dangled a tiny box in front of me.
„He gave it to me instead of paying me money.“ Cindy looked at it enchantedly. „Instead of money??“, I asked her bewildered. „You think, our landlord will take it as the rent, Cindy?.“ She got quiet and fiddled with the box. „But it is a special Kitschbox made in Düsseldorf, Granddad told me“, she tried to get out of the affair, „and you have to look inside. It’s filled to the brim with special Schwümmli stamps. She poured them onto the kitchen table. Loads and loads of teeny-weeny stamps!!!
„I could have a try at selling some of them “, she proposed. „Have you got any idea, how to sell those, Cindy?“ I was stumped and felt helpless, sharing my flat with someone naive like her. But she really meant, what she said. She wanted to pay the rent with selling tiny stamps.
„I have an idea“, she smiled a secret smile. „You always get these „Wundertüten“, the tiny goody bags from your friend in Düsseldorf. I think, we have to meet her and talk to her.“
And off we went to see Eva, the „wundertüten“ expert.
Last weekend we three sat together in Evas „big room studio“ , discussed many options, ate loads of monsterapple cake and created a prototype of the „Wundertüte“. Eva contributed some giraffes and birdy creatures. And the three of us liked it so much, that we made a real job of it and produced a first batch of them.
Cindy even got the brilliant idea to give a tiny album with the stamps, in case somebody wants to start collecting them.
And now we proudly present the first product of our collaborative project in our new etsy shop „CindyAndFriends“ .
https://www.etsy.com/shop/CindyAndFriends

if you want to purchase a Wundertüte, you have to be quick. There are only three left.(18.03.2015)

The Schwümmlis – Episode 10 – Howl owls

| Petra Ja

Howl OwlsIt seems, that Granny Schwümmli has built up quite a clientele in the neigborhood. When I looked out of the window, I saw these two little guys sitting there in my backyard and wondering, who would be the first in the pond. They didn’t appear to be of the adventurous kind.

When I came back five minutes later, they had taken safety precautions. Do you think, they will make it?

Safety precautions

 

 

The Schwümmlis – Episode 9 – In honour of a hero

| Petra Ja

Brunos heroI met Bruno a second time. What an emotional week for Schwümmlis youngster. First his hero Bruno Mars won a Brit Award for the best single and today he got the news, that his hero number one passed away.

He was short in words and greeted with the Vulcan Salute. Bruno honored him with wearing his ears in a very unschwümmly way.  I didn’t try to explain, that the actor and not his hero himself had died.

May he rest in peace.

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/27/arts/television/leonard-nimoy-spock-of-star-trek-dies-at-83.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&module=photo-spot-region&region=top-news&WT.nav=top-news&_r=0k