I went to bed early last night and fell asleep very quickly. Suddenly in the middle of the night a roaring voice woke me up. I could hear Dad Schwümmli bawling at somebody to turn the music down. Then it got silent again and I went back to sleep.

Today when I turned the keys, one of the Schwümmli youngsters stepped out of the door.

Wow, he had a funky look. We had never met before. I tried talking to him, but he didn’t hear me at first. But then he saw me and turned down the music, he was listening to. I introduced myself and he hissed: „Just call me Bruno.“ When I asked him about the noise during the night, he just snapped: „That wasn’t noise, that was MUSIC! My Dad doesn’t have taste! Hey, he won a Brit Award, I had to turn it up a little bit.“ Then he jumped down the stairs.

I had to google the Brit awards and found a doppelgänger of my Schwümmli neighbor there performing „Uptown Funk“. He had won the Award for the best single. I wonder, if somebody had already explained our funky man, what a single is. He won’t have seen one yet , I presume.

 

When I came back home from work, I couldn’t help making a little detour. I was too curious not to take a peek  at our local statue around the corner. Seems that Granny Schwümmli gave the statue the finishing touches. I didn’t know yet, that she is part of the guerilla knitters movement around town. But these kneesocks definitely carry her thumbprint.

I met Granny Schwümmli on my way back from our local market. We chatted for a while about this and that. Granny is an ambitious listener of our Radio programme „Deutschland Radio Kultur“, which means, that she is always well informed about the news from around the world.

She told me about the handbag statue struggle in Sweden. Her voice grew louder and louder, trying to explain me, that she would have acted in the very same way. Granny  flew into fury about this topic and was waving her handbag around our heads, as if she had been that lady back in 1985. She was on her way to our nearby statue to leave her delicate handbag there.

Quite a couragious old lady she is, not only good at knitting kneesocks.

 

Did you hear about the statue handbag protest in Sweden? You find the story in the link.

http://www.thelocal.se/20150219/swedes-rally-in-bizarre-handbag-protest

 

I sat down in my kitchen after returning from the Schwümmlis and wondered why this Kneesockgeep had looked so familiar to me. I tried  to recall my last year’s holiday in Ladakh. And then suddenly the scales fell from my eyes. I flipped through my pic files on my I Pad and there it was. Slightly different to the one, Granny had shown me, but there was a Kneesockgeep next to me on lake Tsomoriri. In the backround you see Karzok, a tiny village in the middle of nowhere nearby the tibetan border.

Gosh, I had met them up there, how could I have forgotten about this funny guy escorting me on my morning walk.

Als ich wieder zuhause am Küchentisch saß, überlegte ich, warum mir dieses Tier bei den Schwümmlis so bekannt vorkommen war. Ich grübelte ein wenig nach und erinnerte mich an meinen letzten Sommerurlaub in Ladahk. Und dann fiel es mir wie Schuppen von den Augen. Rasch blätterte ich auf meinem I Pad durch meine Fotodateien und ja da war sie. Sie sah ein wenig anders aus als das Exemplar, das mir Oma Schwümmli gezeigt hatte. Aber doch, da stand eine Kniestrumpfschiege neben mir am Tsomoriri See. Im Hintergrund sieht man Karzok, ein winziges Dörfchen, das mitten im Nichts liegt, hinter dem nächsten Berg schon zum Greifen nah die tibetische Grenze.

Wow, ich hatte sie selbst dort oben getroffen. Wie hatte ich dieses charmante Exemplar vergessen können, das mich da bei meinem Morgenspaziergang begleitet hatte.

 

Today I was asked to tea by the Schwümmlis. It gets more and more comfy in their apartment. We should sit down in the state parlour. Granny Schwümmli  already sat in her massive armchair knitting, when we entered the room. Granddad was deep in his crosswords.

The clicking of her needles never stopped, while we had a chat about the famous Schwümmli Knee Sock tradition. They wear their knee socks already for generations. The colorful socks of the Schwümmli family are all handknitted by herself, Granny proudly told me. Now Granddad joined in our conversation. It seemed, that he was the expert on the wool. „We get the wool from an animal, you only fi
nd in the backwoods of the Indian part of the Himalayas. The so called kneesockgeep is a very rare breed and gives the finest thread ever“, he let us know. Granny put down her knitting to show me a picture of a kneesockgeep in an old photoalbum, Granddad had produced from a moving box..

What lovely creatures!!

There’s so much to learn from my new neighbors. I have to ask them to dinner some day.

Heute war ich bei den Schwümmlis zum Tee eingeladen. Ihre Wohnung wird immer gemütlicher. Wir sollten uns ins Wohnzimmer setzen. Dort saß bereits Oma Schwümmli in ihrem massiven Ohrensessel und strickte. Opa Schwümmli war tief versunken in seinem Kreuzworträtsel. Das leise Klicken ihrer Stricknadeln verstummte nicht ein einziges Mal, während wir über die berühmte Schwümmlistrumpftradition sprachen. Sie tragen sie bereits seit Generationen. Die farbenfrohen Strümpfe seien alle von ihr selbst handgestrickt, erzählte Oma nicht ohne Stolz. Nun brachte sich auch Opa Schwümmli ein. Es schien, dass er der Wollexperte war. „Wir beziehen die Wolle von einem äußerst seltenen Tier, das in den Bergen des indischen Himalayas zu Hause ist. Die sogenannte Kniestrumpfschiege ist eine sehr seltene Rasse und gibt den feinsten Faden überhaupt“, ließ er uns wissen.  Opa fischte ein altes Album aus einem Umzugkarton  und Oma Schwümmli legte für einen Moment das Strickzeug nieder, um mir ein Foto einer Kniestrumpfschiege zu zeigen.

Herrliche Kreaturen!

Es gibt so vieles zu lernen von meinen neuen Nachbarn. Ich muss sie dringend zum Abendessen einladen.

The kneesock eating monster sucks.
Mum Schwümmli told me today, when we met at the laundry line, that the Schwümmlis again and again had problems with it. They were hoping, that the problem might have been solved by moving home. But yesterday they had the washing machine repairman at home to see, if there’s a new one living in their drum. But he couldn’t help.
Poor Schwümmlis.

15.02.2015

Yesterday the Schwümmlis moved in. I am not sure yet, how many Schwümmlis will stay next door. There were so many helping hands, that it was impossible to find out, who was a Helpingschwümmli and who a future neighbor. It seems to me, that they are a friendly crowd, even when it costs them a fortune to get a smile on their face.

Dad Schwümmli said happily „Hello“, when we met on the stairs today.

He already offered his apologies for all that noise and asked me in for a drink. So I could take a quick  look at Babyschwümmli, who was standing in her bed, not willing to go to sleep. She was complaining about a ghost. He was spooking around her bed, she said. I couldn’t see, what she was talking about. But little kids are well known for their vivid imagination.

There was still some flat cleaning activity waiting for me. So I departed. Lovely people!

I am looking forward to meeting the rest of them soon.

We have new neighbors in the flat next door. The Schwümmlis are very nice people. You will find out more about them here soon.