The lyf so short

... right. Now that's out of the system, let's go on to different things.

Today was one of those rare beasts: A day when neither Jörg nor I had any late-afternoon appointments or duties. A day, therefore, that could be used for a nice walk (as it's beautifully sunny at the moment - well, not at this moment, as the sun has set by now, but generally speaking).
We went to Müngsten to take a look at the new bridge-park - during the Regionale 2006, they changed a lot there, and neither of us had been there for some time: My last visit there was in 1999 with my scout troup when we were showing our Swedish and French guests around the region, and Jörg's was even further back.

And now I have to spam you all with photos of the beautiful Bergisches Land where I live and grew up and which, apparently, unintentionally, I love.

I thought about giving you teasery thumbnails first, but it's over 50 photos, so that'd take ages to load. So you'll just get the usual more or less snarky linklist.

( Local Patriotism under the cut )

And this, in the end, taught me three things: I) actually, I do love the place where I live; II) much as I love the sea, I couldn't live there forever; not, at any rate, when "sea" comes with "flat land", where I feel all paranoid like the sky's too close and I can see three days ahead who's coming to visit, because I need mountains! Mountains, Gandalf!; III) we should take such walks much more often.

Also, walks are good against headaches.

Off to bed now.

Let's start with the good stuff:
I got a package today from leany75! Leany, you are an amazing insanely generous person! I thought it was or, not and!
The package, for the curious, contained my very own Ravenclaw (book!Ravenclaw, not movie!Ravenclaw, whee!) tie, and a beautiful notebook from Paperblanks. And a lovely letter. And Tolkien stamps. And an Aragorn postcard from the Isle of Man with a matching stamp.
Leany. OME Leany. It's not even Christmas! I have no idea how to make up for it!

In less delightful news, my costume's still not ready, the Silmarils look craptacularly ridiculous, and the attempt to dye my hair black wasn't succesful either. It might be just a tad darker than it was before, but not by much. Also, I still don't know nearly enough Kanji, I still have to tidy up, and did I mention that my costume is still not ready?
I love Ring*con, and I'm looking forward to it a lot, but if it were next weekend instead of this, I'd be just as happy.