oloriel | Tolkien Day, and A Dream of A House

Today it was Tolkien Day in Cologne, and I finally managed to go there again. They haven't changed much since my last time (except that there were less books and more computers this time, as the usual book-bringer had just moved, and so many of the more obscure things (such as the HoME beyond book 2) were missing. But it was really nice. I took part in the quiz as always and was among the first prize winners as always (I'm among the people who are somewhat notorious for always knowing everything. That's not actually true, I usually only know where to look things up) and got the German Silmarillion audiobook. Now I'm not too fond of audiobooks, or of the German translation of the Silm, but you take what they throw at you. And I listened into the Ainulindalë on my drive home, which were nicely done ~~once the speaker had decided which syllable of Ilúvatar to put the stress on~~. It's read by the guy who dubbed Gandalf for the German edition of the LotR movies.
Tehto was there, too, who is now living in Karlsruhe instead of Hannover; I hung out with the embroidery group; but most of the usual suspects (like Néniel or Aditu) sadly weren't there. Ah well. It was nice anyway.

Meanwhile, Jörg took a look at a house. Ever since we saw a house for sale when we went on a walk with

ladyelleth last weekend, he's been obsessed with the idea of houses. Now the house that we saw was almost our dream house; fairly old, but newly renovated, fireplace, wild wine etc; but above all, it was in Bellinghausen. Now Bellinghausen is a village that I like to call our Lower Tadfield - not because the Anti-Christ is living there (I don't yet have children, after all!) - but because it's been relatively unchanged for the last decades, and it's a "Boy's Own" (or Girl's Own, too!) dream. It's just this beautiful rural village with lots of adventures around the corner. At any rate, that house would have cost about twice as much as Jörg could possibly afford, so sadly, that'll hardly work.
Now there was another house. The house itself is actually somewhat disadvantageous - in fact, very, now that Jörg has seen it - but the premises are a dream. 3000 m² of garden. There are concrete building to the South, higher than the trees, but to the North, East and West - only landscape. (Actually, the North, East and West are a landscape conservation area, so it'll remain this way, too!) Rolling hills, meadows and patches of trees. All this only five minutes by car from where we are living now, which is the city center. Only five minutes from the highway that takes us to work. The same twenty minutes to the train station as our current flat. It's perfectly central - but nonetheless rural. The cats would have endless room for running and playing. The apple trees on the grounds bear more apples than two people can eat. Jörg would have all the room he could ever need for all crafty projects.

If we had ~~world~~ money enough, and time - this would be it. With time and money, we could either knock the horrid old house down and re-build it, or at least re-design it. But as it is now... tiny, low rooms, the bathroom outside of the actual house because it was added way later, and the entire house is divida in partes duae. Practically everything would have to be changed. It could be changed - but one would need a lot of time. Which we don't have. Or money to have other people do it - but we don't have that either. Moving in first and changing things bit by bit is impossible because the rooms are too small even to hold our furniture, as it is.

A dream, then. But wouldn't it be nice if it could actually be done.

[Speaking of dreams: I've been having insanely mad dreams this week. First I wanted to go to the Middle-earth Festival by train and pick up

ladyelleth in Schaberg (for those who know Solingen, and I know you don't, Schaberg is even more ass-of-the-known-world than the rest of Solingen. You only get off at Schaberg if you want to walk to the Bridge at Müngsten, which looks a bit like someone took the parts of the Eiffel Tower and built a bridge from it [actually, the bridge is older, though] and is therefore a tourist attraction, but still.). Then, I was an optician-in-training at Hogwarts and had to console ickle kids terrorized by Umbridge (which didn't have anything to do with my optician-in-training job). Finally, I dreamt of Firefly, except that they had Nerdanel on board instead of Kaylee. Can my brain please stop with the "random fandom" mode now?]