Easter and an Unexpected Sighting

It's been an enjoyable Easter Sunday.

I woke up before 11 a.m., and joined the family for an Easter breakfast of raisin buns, regular bread buns, coffee, freshly boiled eggs as well as the dyed ones that I'd prepared while assisting the Easter bunny, and a ton of candy.

Then I had a long nap.

Afterward we strolled off to the park, which was quite beautiful with sunshine, Oregon grape blossoms, hyacinths, blue squills, and tulip leaf stands that were not yet blossoming. In the lawn, a few daisies were speckled like a star constellation. And the undergrowth is so sparse that I wandered around the foot of a massive tree looking at all the rabbit warrens that had been burrowed into the ground. Even in the lawn, thinner holes had I think been dug by voles instead. Many bushes and a few trees already have green leaves, the first 'fingertips' already opening in a horse chestnut tree. But as far as I recall, the splashes of colour from shrubs are still mostly the golden forsythia blossoms.

While Ge. and J. played badminton, I was conducting my explorations and taking photographs. Then, as we were going to leave, they pointed out that Mama had also wandered to the park and was sitting on the steps leading up to a building. So we joined her, then went around two corners to a nearby ice cream shop, to buy waffle cones with two scoops for each of us. It was pleasantly warm but not too hot, so only one family was in the queue besides us and we were in and out more quickly than in the past.

We drank more coffee at home, and chatted a little, but then I cycled to the allotment gardens for the first time in months. Aside from forsythias and squills and hyacinths, I saw late purple crocuses, yellow and yellow-red cowslips, blue grape hyacinths, blossoming fruit trees, tall daffodils, and a lot of people: families and groups of friends who were partly sitting at tables outdoors.

Emboldened by the pleasant experience to stay outdoors longer, I also cycled to Kreuzberg and waved hi to an uncle who was cycling, by chance, in the opposite direction.

Since then, I've played the piano a bit, read a New York Times article about the life of Benjamin Ferencz (last living prosecutor of the Nuremberg trials until he died on Friday, over 100 years old), and cogitated further about amateur journalism.

I believe it makes sense to learn shorthand, but the course that I found in Berlin (aimed at personal assistants rather than journalists) would cost over 900€ and be online-only. So I'd like to return to learning from a late 19th-century online copy of Gregg's Shorthand. Besides I read journalism manuals yesterday about how to handle press conferences, interviews with famous people, interviews with 'regular' people, and vox pop ('man on the street') interviews.

The next story I'd like to write will require vox pop interviews, I think, so there will be opportunity to practice... (Although a German manual was very sniffy about the genre.)

In general I've googled 'feelings that are normal to have after quitting a job,' have given myself a pep talk, stayed up happily late immersed in a Netflix mini-series that took my mind off of things, and have enjoyed the company of relatives to the full. Yesterday I had a long walk around Tempelhofer Feld with the two youngest brothers, talking out the remaining worries I have about my work team, which was quite therapeutic especially as they are engaged listeners. And now I feel better.

During the walks/cycling today I reflected that I want to follow an idea in one of Maria Edgeworth's books: one way to approach gambling is to just decide on a certain sum of money that one feels comfortable losing, and then to keep playing until one has lost that amount. To apply it to my case, I will keep looking for a part-time job, but try not to panic about finances until my bank balance has shrunk by (almost) a third. Until then, I can register as unemployed and invest my past earnings in training and equipment.

In any case, the family leaves for France on Tuesday, except Gi. who prefers to stay home, and although the prospect of continual rain is a little daunting, it at least means that I'll be thinking of other matters!