As I was looking out into the garden around noon, there was an unexpected guest: A small hedgehog was rustling around in the leaves, obviously looking for food.

Now... it's still very early spring, and not very warm outside, so the proper place for a hedgehog is somewhere cozy, resting and waiting for it to be warmer. Also, the proper time for a hedgehog to forage for food is dusk and dawn, but not the bright noon sun.

So I went off to raid the emergency cat food stash (which is two cans of cat food, as she can't eat the canned food without getting digestive trouble anymore) and offered the small guy some of it. That was promptly followed by something that looked suspiciously like food coma (as in sitting down after two steps and not moving anymore), so I went to secure it.

The little guy has now been weighed (a meagre 328 g) and is sleeping in a box in our living room, where it's nice and temperate and it can relax and regain some strength. More cat food to be served soon...

Monday. Up to now spent by catching up on emails, doing some writing, finishing the current round of book-keeping, and preparing a 15-minute presentation for a conference. Also thinking about learning, and teaching, and all the many things involved in this.

I have also found a favourite new way of explaining why trying things out/archaeotechnic/experimental archaeology are important. One of the reasons is that it seems easy to reconstruct a process on paper, but once you get your stuff out and try to do it, there's usually information missing. Why? Because it's surprisingly easy to forget essential steps - sometimes because you are not familiar enough with something, sometimes because they are so normal you don't think about them. 

Like drawing a bicycle. Most people, given pen and paper, will draw something that others will, no problem at all, recognise as the drawing of a bicycle. But if you were to transform it into an actual object, chances are very high that it won't work. Or you could try and write down every step necessary for you to go out and buy a box of eggs (or of cereal, for the American peers who have utterly pricey eggs at the moment). Chances are quite high you might forget something... 

If you do try, do let me know how it came out!

Today was spent in catching up on book-keeping and bills, and now I'm happy that the weekend is drawing near. It looks like there's quite a few interesting exhibitions going on in Nuremberg at the moment, and of course in early spring there's always something that can be done in the garden. The willow fence is cut already, but experience has shown that clearing out and weeding the flower(ish) beds now is a smart move. Especially if experience also points out that the probability of much less weeding happening during full summer is rather low, due to different circumstances.

And also, apart from all that: Happy Pi Day!

If you feel like you know what's going on worldwide, or, even better, if you have an idea on how to solve the kerfuffle we're all in - please let the rest of us know.

While keeping half an eye on what the news tells me is happening in the US, Germany is having its own kind of fun. As you know, elections have been held a while ago, but technically the old government is still active. So now the party who "won" (as in had more votes than the others, though they came in under 30% total) wants to quickly do some changes to the constitution because they think it might be easier in the old government than it will be in the new one.

Which... might be correct. However, the Green party, who they'd bashed and proclaimed basically incompetent idiots for three years, are not toppling over and saying "yes" to their (quite vague and in some cases not very sensible) proposal. While some other parties are appealing to the Verfassungsgericht (constitutional government) that this quick action to get something very big and important through with the old group while there's already been new elections and thus technically a new mix who the people want to reign is not fair and/or not constitutional.

And regarding the proposal itself: Basically it's yes, we do need more money to run this country efficiently, especially since the CxU (the same guys who now want to have a metric shitton of money to spend however they'd like) has blocked investments into infrastructure and education for a few years... while other parties were supposed to run the country. They blocked basically everything they could.

It stays interesting. In today's meeting of the Bundestag, there seems to have been no big progress made. Because - oh surprise! - the Greens don't trust the CxU any further than they could throw them anymore. Or so.

We'll see how it goes - and if the CxU has to debate and find an agreement in the new Bundestag, it means they don't only have to find a compromise with the (still utterly pissed-off) Greens, but also with the leftist fraction of Die Linke. Who are more or less so anathema to the CxU that they don't even talk about them. 

What do you think - should we get a popcorn maker while all this goes off?

Just  in case you have ever wondered how I look when I'm heddling... this is how.

I should probably pracise more so I don't look as, hm... concentrated? Stressed? Anyway, as you can tell, heddling is still very, um, interesting for me. (I also get extra practise usually, because I make at least one mistake and have to do it over. Still hasn't helped too much...)

Fortunately it's not as enormously interesting in Germany as in the US, but I'd prefer it to be more boring, actually.

We're still in the stage where the new government tries to get its bearings, and the plan of CxU and SPD was to get a huge amount of money for the next years - which all their current plans are more or less based on getting, and which requires the agreement of the Green party.

The Green party, whose joint government with SPD and FDP partly broke because the CxU refused to let them have some money necessary for investments. The Green party, who was blamed for everything while they ruled, and blamed for everything during the campaigns, and told they're just too stupid to set up a good budget. The Green party, who one of the bigheads in German politics still felt like insulting even after the elections... even after it had become clear that they'd need to agree on the new government's budget. 

So as you can imagine... it looks like the Green party will say no. And actually not because they think it's a shitty decision to change some of the Grundgesetz and allow a little more debt; also not because they want to just be contrary. It's because the plans of the prospective next government include spending all that money on stuff that benefits the wealthy, and looks good to some of their influential clientèle, but actually not in things needed to make us ready for the future. Renewable energy sources. Good affordable and functional public transport. Reducing our CO2 emissions. Getting the infrastructure back into shape - and I'm not talking about building more Autobahnen, but renovating schools and preschools. Actually investing in education again.

The list goes on. So we will wait and see what happens now... once it really sinks in for the CxU, who were so utterly cocksure that they'd of course get their "yes" and their money to play with, that they are not getting their way all the way just because they think they should.

And hopefully the end result will actually be something that helps our society to knit back together.

I had a lovely time in Göttingen at the workshop - meeting some new people included, which is always very nice. There was also a lot of laughter, and in the end, three of us had a little time left before our trains were going, so we went to a nice café and had a lovely piece of cake to round things off.

The way back on the train I finally managed to work on a bit of headwear reconstruction for another ongoing project, so now I can concentrate on that a little more - and hopefully get the reconstruction sorted out this week.

It always stays interesting...