On the journey back home from Uppsala, I stumbled across a nice and helpful website if you're planning to travel by train: zugfinder.net. It lets you search for a specific train (like, say, the EN 346) and shows how much and how often that train was delayed in the past 30 days. That could have been very helpful indeed for my plans!
You can also see what train is where just now, in case you are looking for a specific one.
I've had a wonderful, if quite short, time in Uppsala at the Material Literacy workshop. It was planned as a rather short stint, but ended up being even shorter due to a massive train delay. Fortunately I could follow the part I'd have missed otherwise on Zoom!
It was wonderful to meet some old friends and colleagues again, and meet new people. There were fruitful discussions and lots of looks in detail at wonderful textiles. Hopefully there will be more on the topic of material literacy - I think it's a very helpful term for being able to read objects, and having some properly structured, thought-out lessons or schooling on that will surely be very useful for many people.
We finished with a little excursion into the church museum, and I was very happy to see the Golden Gown again.. It's been so many years since I was there last.
On the way back, there was time for a short stroll through Stockholm (well, some of it!) and a bit of food shopping before going back in the night train. I managed to find a nice small Christmas market there, so back at home, we were able to enjoy some freshly imported ostkaka:
I had not heard of that before coming across it on the Christmas market, but I got to try it there, and it was very nice. It's served warm, with the option of adding whipped cream and jam or something fruity, which we did when we had it here. Definitely recommend it!
The way back had just a little delay overall, so I was home in the afternoon, one hour later than planned originally. Now there's no travel until the end of the work year... which is also nice. There's a stack of things waiting to go to the post tomorrow morning, and I'm looking forward to doing some maintenance work during the winter break. The cat also approves to have her cuddle spot on the desk appropriately staffed again!
Have I blogged about this before? If so, please forgive me. If not, enjoy the fun that Chronotrains brings you - a website where you can state a place of start and a time and then see how far you can get by train, in that time.
I can get, for instance, to the very south of Denmark in just under 8 hours. Or to Den Haag. It's quite fun to play around with, and sometimes very sobering how much possible distances depend on the network you have access to. (And for really long trips, I usually prefer a night train, even if that takes longer - because I never count the time that I'm sleeping as full travel time...
The thing about a medieval-style Great Wheel? It's really Great, as in Large. Looking at images, the wheel appears to be really huge, compared to the spinners. And when one thinks about it, that is sort of understandable - after all, the aim is to get a lot of twist quickly, and there are no gears involved. So the size difference between the wheel and the disc on the spindle (often called whorl, but I find that confusing) has to be as large as possible.
When I built my reconstruction, I was thus looking for a size that would compare to the illustrations we have, and of course with a look at its intended use - demonstrations. Which meant it also had to come apart easily, and the single pieces had to fit into the car.
Which they do. The wheel itself has its own special spot right under the roof, where it's built to fit perfectly:
The board end in the foreground belongs to the bottom (main) board. The rest is one box with the small pieces (like the wedges, drive band, and spindles) and one pack with legs and the holders for spindle and wheel.
So now I just have to add the rest of the equipment, and we're ready to roll!
(Ingelheim. Sunday. See me there if you can, and say hello!)
Because it's a good way up from here down south in Franconia to Syke, where I'll be demonstrating this weekend, I'm travelling today (and then will go check out my place for the weekend and ponder the best setup...
My bags are packed, coffee for the trip is in the best of all travel mugs, and I'm looking forward to a fun weekend!
If you're following me on Instagram, you might have seen photos of my Trusty Red Suitcase - one of my premium travel companions. (Technically, it's probably an item, but it is a) so important and b) so large that it counts as a companion. At least I think so.)
We bought this suitcase about 6 years ago, and it has been my go-to luggage hauler for a good number of work trips by train and, occasionally, even by plane. It is large, and lightweight, and it came with four little wheels and when you gave it a push, it went "wheeeee" all through the room until it hit some wall somewhere.
That went for a while, and then somehow, it didn't go "wheeeeee" anymore. Quite to the contrary - it became rather hard to push or pull. Some closer examination quickly showed the reason: The plain bearings of the wheels had given up. They'd been made from plastic, and three of them had worn out, and the fourth had, at some place, gotten so warm through friction that it had half molten (so the wheel still hung in there, but quite lopsidedly).
Quite clearly, the makers of these wheels had not intended them to run for several kilometers through city streets and train stations, bearing a suitcase with a weight of about 30 kg (which is the maximum of what I can still handle, and which also ends up being the total weight more often than not). Probably most buyers of that kind of suitcase don't go "oh, well, I have time enough, the weather is nice, I've just spent 5 hours sitting on a train, and it's just three kilometers to the hotel, I think I'll walk." (Which is how the little suitcase has racked up the kilometers.)
So... also quite clearly, something needed to be done. Wheels made for heavy duty were bought, with proper ball bearings, and got installed by the Most Patient Husband of All Time (whose patience did get tested, as the modifications necessary were quite a few). And then, lo and behold! the suitcase went "wheeeeeeee!" again when pushed. (So much that at some point it got little stopper wedges to secure it on the train.)
But now, on the way back home from the trip to Berlin... it lost one of its wheels.
Apparently, not only the wheels in their original version were not intended to go for long rolls... there's also a limit to what the anchoring of said wheels would take. And, quite clearly now, that limit did not include hopping the suitcase up and down curbs while weighing, ah well, you know. (There's a technique to really easily get the suitcase to hop on a curb, provided that is not too high, but it's probably not the most, erm, gentle on the wheels. As you approach the curb, you give the suitcase an impulse by pulling on the handle so that the front wheels come up into the air, and then once they come down again and hit the ground on top of the curb, you do the same in reverse to lift up the back wheels. Works fabulously.)
I went back to search for the wheel that had gone AWOL, but couldn't find it again, and did not want to cut it too close with my train, so with a heavy heart, I abandoned it in Berlin Main Train station, somewhere on the way to platform 1 in the basement.
Its companion on the same side of the suitcase also wobbles a little... which means there will be some more Frankensteining of my little-not-so-little red travel companion soon. We're considering the installation of some metal plates to make it a bit more sturdy. And then I'll be looking forward to many more years strolling through train stations, and faraway cities, with it!
I'm off travelling to Lübeck, this time with a little more free time to spend in that lovely little city. With me, of course, the big red suitcase (as usual when travelling for workshop purposes) and the indispensable travel companions.
Those are, in the back: a stainless steel water bottle and my battered trusty coffee travel mug. They serve, obviously, to hydrate me during any gallivantings through the countryside.
The jungle flowery thing in front is my travel cutlery in its little bag (and yes, that is a re-purposed folding umbrella cover that I found on the street - a souvenir from one of my England travels before Brexit happened). It holds a small and large spoon (both from wood) and a fork and knife (titanium, because it's cool and lightweight, and that set of cutlery is also my cutlery when we go biking or hiking.) The bag also contains a mini-salt shaker.
Then there's a silicone pouch - packs small, is completely watertight and thus can carry soup if necessary. Usually it carries the leftovers from restaurant meals that I get, because these days I rarely finish a full portion. A lot of places offer a "small" option these days, but I prefer getting the regular-sized one and having two meals for the price of one. With the pouch, I can be sure that my food is packed up safely, nothing will spill out, I'll enjoy the rest of it the next day and it's not making extra waste because I do not need to ask for a to-go box or other packing material in the restaurant.
And finally, hiding out in the back... that is a travel-sized immersion heater (hence the pouch, which is the original probably vinyl one). I got that on a flea market, they've gotten out of style here. Water kettles have taken over here in Germany as the standard for boiling water many, many years ago already, but I remember that an immersion heater was what we used at home when I was a child.
This one is actually a larger travel-sized one, and I have an even smaller one for when space is tight, sized to hang on the rim of a regular-sized mug. The heater, accompanied by a few bags of herbal tea, is my guarantee that if I need a cuppa in the evening to wind down, I can. Here in Germany, some rooms in hotels or other accommodations will have the complimentary tea-making facilities, but many don't. Some days I don't need the wind-down tea, but sometimes I do, and then it's just nice to know that I can, whatever happens. (Going into the restaurant or guest room or bar would be a possibility to get a cup of tea, but when I need the tea to wind down, I want to have a closed door between me and other people and no human interaction whatsoever. Which would not be the case in a restaurant, obviously.)
The second, just as important potential use of the water heater? Sometimes I have the cold feet problem. The literal one - my feet, before or when going into bed, are so cold that they will not warm up on their own. That means I'll have trouble falling asleep, will not sleep well, and will wake up in the morning with feet that are just as cold as when I got into bed, and it's not fun and no good thing.
Entering the scene to rescue the night: the water heater (because tap water might be hot enough, but then it might not) and the steel water bottle. Tada - instant hot water bottle for bed. In theory, I could wrap the hot bottle in a towel to avoid burns on the feet, but I just keep my distance and pay attention.
Added benefit: If there was sliced ginger in the water bottle before for a bit of flavour, you have nice tangy cold ginger tea in the morning. (I do not recommend leaving lemon slices in, as the rinds will make it bitter.)
