Challenge accepted

I love challenges! I'm going to start tomorrow!

+ 10 pushups a day!

Agatha Christie - The Pale Horse (English)

Due to my language study plans, I've decided to read more, starting with an English book I bought on a flea market more than three years ago.

I wasn't quite convinced at first, because for me, it's always hard to keep reading at the beginning of the book. Until the tension rises, which it did in this case.

Of course, the tension came together with a murder and - even more importantly - a mystery.
The dying Mrs Davis leaves tells Father Gorman about some names which are important to remember, and then dies. Straight after, Father Gorman is killed on the streets. The detectives didn't really understand why he was killed, but it must have had to do with the names on the list he hid in his shoe. What were those names about? It was certain though, that some of those names were surnames of people who had just died, and people with the remaining surnames kept dying, from natural causes, apparantly. As Mark Easterbrook, our protagonist, hears about this place called the Pale Horse where there were supposed to be witches, he tried to find out more about it. Soon enough, he learns that there is a whole business behind it, and it had to do with the people dying. According to his theory, this guy in Birmingham, Bradley, bet on the lives of people with relatives who wanted them to die, which seems completely legal. Thyrza Grey and the other women of the Pale Horse then put a curse on them to make them become ill. Also, there must be a brain behind it, and since the old pharmasist Osborne had seen someone following Father Gorman right before he was killed who looked like Mr Venables, he was the main suspect - although he had atrophied limbs.
To find out more, Mark and his friend Ginger decided to trick them and look behind what was happening. Mark told Thyrza Grey he wanted Ginger, who played his wife who had disappeared years ago and now suddenly was back, dead and so they have a séance at the Pale Horse, a black magic ceremony. And a while later, Ginger actually becomes ill.
As Mark found out that she was losing hair, his friend Mrs Oliver told him that the previous victims also were losing hair - it wasn't a curse, but a thallium poisoning. D.I. Lejeune, his sergeant and Mark go to Mr Venables house, witness Osborne coming with them. They explain the whole business to Venables just to then turn to Osborne and state that he was the brain behind it, that he was just suspecting Venables to hide that he actually killed Father Gorman and had people go to the victims' houses and place thallium there.

What. a. plot twist. Wow.
I have to admit, I'm a really bad reader so this book actually took me some weeks, although it's not really long. But, despite the fact I'm not really into detective novels, this one was really interesting and provided surprises for the reader. Ginger and Mark decide to marry at the end, but I'm glad it wasn't utterly romantic, because that wouldn't have matched with the rest of the story. I hardly could identify with Mark, to be honest, but I guess most readers just want to get behind what's happening at the Pale Horse if they're reading this book. I might read more novels by Agatha Christie, I actually have another one here!


Now I need to start reading a French book though, ugh. English was so easy, it was wonderful! But I'd like to get to this point with all my languages. So be sure that more reviews will be coming!

How to become Turkish overnight

I remember that, at the beginning of this year, I told myself that I wanted to finally meet my grandpa, because it might be too late if I wait longer.

A lot of things happened and I kind of forgot about this plan.
But I think while studying Turkish with my friend from Istanbul, I remembered about it. And he encouraged me to find my grandfather.

I asked my mum if she had his number or address, she had nothing like that, she didn't even have her half-siblings' contact details. I even asked my dad and he didn't have anything.

So the last thing I thought I could do was to publish a post on the "Spotted" Facebook page of the shopping centre of the town my grandfather used to live in. I knew he wasn't there anymore, though. The page only had 500 likes, I just asked people if they knew him or his children and I didn't expect anything to happen. I almost decided to forget about it.

Then, the admin of the page messaged me, someone knew my grandfather and wanted to help me. He told me her name and I messaged her.
So apparantly, the friend of sister-in-law of my grandfather's ex daughter-in-law had liked my post, so it kind of came through to her (my grandfather's ex daughter-in-law) and she told me that my grandfather was ill and lived in Istanbul, but came to Germany every now and then to get treatment.

She gave me my aunts' number.

My aunt, who had banned her father out of her life, just like my mum did. My aunt who had married a Turkish man and was going to go to Istanbul with the whole family. She sent me photos, told me about herself and said that I was always welcome at hers and in Istanbul.

I feel so loved. And one more thing:

All these years, I knew that I was partially Turkish and I used to tell that to people. They didn't quite accept it and I always looked at my Turkish friends and their families, knowing I had something like that, but I had nothing to do with it and therefore couldn't even call myself Turkish. At all.
I remember this fight with my ex when he stated that if you don't have a citizenship from a certain country, you're not of the nationality of this country. And I felt offended because I always wanted to be with my Turkish family, I wanted to learn about the culture which was there, somewhere in my roots.

This is my family. And this has just become a big part of me.

52 Week Photography Challenge

I want to improve. I want to challenge myself, which I'm constantly doing, but I'm talking about photography here. I don't have a photogenic pet, but there are other things one can take photos of.
Here are the tasks, interpretation is everything.

1. something old (1 August - 7 August)
2. feet (8 August - 14 August)
3. lips (15 August - 21 August)
4. a baby (22 August - 28 August)
5. night (29 August - 4 September)
6. lifestyle (5 September - 11 September)
7. lyrics (12 September - 18 September)
8. breakfast (19 September - 25 September)
9. black and white (26 September - 2 October)
10. a collection (3 October - 9 October)
11. sadness (10 October - 16 October)
12. shades of white (17 October - 23 October)
13. low angle (24 October - 30 October)
14. tiny (31 October - 6 November)
15. something yellow (7 November - 13 November)
16. bokeh (14 November - 20 November)
17. music (21 November - 27 November)
18. water (28 November - 4 December)
19. your shoes (5 December - 11 December)
20. sunset (12 December - 18 December)
21. holding an object (19 December - 25 December)
22. faceless portrait (26 December - 1 January)
23. jumping (2 January - 8 January)
24. high angle (9 January - 15 January)
25. handwriting (16 January - 22 January)
26. in motion (23 January - 29 January)
27. something red (30 January - 5 February)
28. stone (6 February - 12 February)
29. sweet (13 February - 19 February)
30. a child (20 February - 26 February)
31. a kiss (27 February - 5 March)
32. self-portrait (6 March - 12 March)
33. insects (13 March - 19 March)
34. dress (20 March - 26 March)
35. opposites (27 March - 2 April)
36. macro (3 April - 9 April)
37. long exposure (10 April - 16 April)
38. something blue (17 April - 23 April)
39. travel (24 April - 30 April)
40. flowers (1 May - 7 May)
41. shiny (8 May - 14 May)
42. cold (15 May - 21 May)
43. fruit (22 May - 28 May)
44. something green (29 May - 4 June)
45. silhouette (5 June - 11 June)
46. something pink (12 June - 18 June)
47. from a distance (19 June - 25 June)
48. eyes (26 June - 2 July)
49. landscape (3 July - 9 July)
50. light and dark (10 July - 16 July)
51. mother nature (17 July - 24 July)
52. pets (25 July - 11 July)

Merryweather

Insects are super scary! And that's exactly what I thought when this beast suddenly appeared in my room. I saw it sitting there, and before it could jump at me and eat my face, I quickly placed a glass on it and closed it. There it was, this grasshopper-thing. I googled a bit and found out that it was a female Tettigonia viridissima, a great green bush cricket. But on the website, it said that the females, who are bigger than the males, grow up to 42mm. After I had measured, I knew that my new friend, and I named her Merryweather, was quite a lot bigger with 60mm. So maybe she's some kind of mutant.
So about an hour ago, I released her into our garden. She stayed for a moment, probably so I could take a last photo, then she jumped off and disappeared into the green.
What a majestic creature!

Quietdrive - Time After Time

Lying in my bed I hear the clock tick,
And think of you
Caught up in circles
Confusion is nothing new
You say, go slow
I fall behind
The second hand unwinds

If you're lost you can look and you will find me
Time after time
If you fall I will catch you, I will be waiting
Time after time
Time after time
Time after time

Sometimes you picture me
I'm walking too far ahead
You're calling to me, I can't hear
Just what you've said
You say, go slow
I fall behind
The second hand unwinds

If you're lost you can look and you will find me
Time after time
If you fall I will catch you, I will be waiting
Time after time

After my picture fades and darkness has
Turned to grey
Watching through windows
You're wondering if I'm okay
You say, go slow
I fall behind
The drum beats out of time

If you're lost you can look and you will find me
Time after time
If you fall I will catch you, I'll be waiting
Time after time

If you're lost you can look and you will find me
Time after time
If you fall I will catch you, I'll be waiting

Time after time
Time after time
Time after time

Fur and feathers

What a great feeling it can be to just commit a bit more time to your pets. Since it seemed almost possible that Nahla wouldn't cause a mess in my room in its current state, I decided to tidy it. Completely.

Which I haven't done for three years.

I have to admit, I didn't find the time or energy to get rid of all those plastic bottles, but they're standing here in their bags, just waiting for me to take them to Lidl. Naturally, before cleaning everything, it seemed that I should fully clean the birds' cage and even rearrange their branches, actually, collect some new branches as well! While Saphira is panicking as always, Lilla kind of seems to love it when I clean the cage. She flies around in my room, which she doesn't do often, and watches me, she even landed on my head several times. I also got them some dandlelion from the garden, but they never seem to eat it. Isn't that weird?

I also found some time to talk to them and make another attempt of taming them - I don't even think about starting with Phira, naturally. While with Lilla, it only took me one day until she would come to my hand even without me feeding her, and when I was feeding her, I could even touch her beak. Such an amazing feeling!

I put so much effort into rearranging the cage and it looks great now!

So yesterday, Nahla arrived and she was so happy to see me! She didn't even cry like last time, but she was a bit too excited, resulting in her peeing on my staircase. Good thing my dad didn't notice, he would have freaked out, haha! So when we went on a walk, she had to learn karma is a bitch, since she was bullied by a pug and his friend. Well, of course they do when they see what a wimp you are! But of course, I saved her. So later in the night she just wouldn't sleep and started to cry, I don't know if she wanted to go home or if she just had to pee, but I thought if she did have to pee, it would be better to go outside, and after another walk maybe she would be tired enough to sleep. It worked, although I couldn't sleep at first. But after I spent two more hours surfing the internet, I went back to bed and fell asleep spooning her. Well, this never happened with Sammy!
We both got up at 6 am to go for a morning walk around the lake - it's a pity I didn't take my camera since there was so much fog. But madam is really tired now and while she's sleeping on my sofa (of course she didn't ask me if she could use it, but that's okay), I used my time designing a new watermark. It's probably not the final one, but I kind of like it and it looks better than the old one, so I'll be using it until I come up with a better idea.