This year, the long Easter holiday weekend began with my birthday on Good Friday.
The fact that there are so many birthdays and wedding anniversaries in March and April in my family is also why Easter was never that big of a deal for us. It was simply one more holiday in a time already full of holidays – but one that you had to navigate around, because the shops are closed on Good Friday, Easter Sunday and Easter Monday and super crowded on Holy Thursday and Easter Saturday.
Easter Saturday is also the day of the traditional Easter bonfire. These Easter fires are most likely a pre-Christian tradition adoptedby Christianity. They’re also a handy way of getting rid of unwanted garden waste.
Easter fires have come under fire in recent times, because animals would nest in the pile of garden waste and get burned to death. Plus, some people threw what was very definitely not garden waste into the fires. So nowadays, the waste is collected by the fire brigade and the pile is only set up on the day of the Easter fire itself to prevent unauthorised waste disposal and animals from nesting in the pile.
In past few years, you also started getting vaguely Green folks who have a nigh pathological hatred for burning wood. They even have their own hashtag #holzofengate. Their main target are wood-fired furnaces and fireplaces (even though wood-fired furnaces were still publicly supported as an alternative to oil and gas until fairly recently and pretty much everybody in rural areas has a back-up fireplace or wood or coal-fired oven somewhere to keep warm and cook when the power goes out), but they also hate outdoor barbecues, fireworks and Easter fires. They do have a point, because air pollution is a genuine problem, but their behaviour – such as posting photos of smoke rising from random chimneys – is completely unhinged. People like these are the reason why the Green Party is widely hated.
But people won’t give up traditions so easily and so the Easter Fires continue to burn. And because Saturday was clear and slightly windy, the smoke was also blown away and didn’t harass the entire neighbourhood, even though the Easter fire was pretty close by. Though I kept the windows closed, while the Easter fire was burning.
Because Easter was fairly late this year, the sun set around half past eight PM, whereas the Easter fire was lit at half past six PM – in beautiful bright sunshine, which somewhat spoils the effect.
The 2025 Seckenhausen Easter fire seen from a distance. Note the crowd gathered around the fire and the many bikes left by the roadside.
Of course, I went to see the Easter fire. Pretty much the entire village gathers to see a pile of garden waste burn, while eating sausages and drinking beer, and you always meet someone you know. This year, I met my former neighbour Eike and his six-year-old son Linus who like six-year-olds everywhere was very fascinated by the many vehicles of the local volunteer fire brigade that had turned out for the Easter fire. The volunteer fire brigade organises the fire and also makes sure everything is safe.
A closer look at the 2025 Seckenhausen Easter fire. Note the two members of the local volunteer fire brigade. The one on the left is the local fire chief.
I also met an elderly couple I did not recognise, though they clearly recognised me. The husband’s name was Erwin. I did not catch her name. The lady told me that she read about my Hugo nominations in the local paper, whereupon I told her that there would be another interview with me in the paper soon, because I’m nominated again. Cue congratulations.
The lady also noted that she never sees parents out and about anymore, whereupon I replied, “Well, that’s difficult because they’re both dead.” – “Oh no”, the lady replied, “We thought they might have moved away – to a care home or something like that.”
The crows gathered around the 2025 Seckenhausen Easter fire. Note the goth girl,
A closer look at the 2025 Seckenhausen Easter fire. Note the couple with their kid (and drinks) in a handcart.
This is as close as I went to the Easter fire. At this distance, you start to feel the heat.
Since an Easter fire is a social occasion, there’s always a drinks stall and a sausage stall as well as a truck to supply music.
The grounds around the Easter fire with drinks stall, sausage stall and music truck as well as poles and string lights.
This is what it looks like from the rear. Note the young people of the fire brigade grilling sausages and makeing fries for the crowd.
The “Roter Hahn” (Red Rooster) drinks stall is operated by the fire brigade (note the logo on top) to help finance the fun and is a big draw for the crowd.
All that drinking leads to pressure on the bladder, so of course there is a toilet cart as well. And for once, the line on the male side is longer than on the female side.
After doing my round at the Easter fire, I walked home and since it was still fairly early, I grabbed my shopping basket and drove to the nearest grocery store for some last minute shopping. On my way, I saw the smoke from another Easter fire rising into the clear sky. From the direction where I saw the smoke, I suspect it might have been Silbersee (silver lake), a popular bathing spot.
I didn’t really need to go grocery shopping, since I was well supplied with groceries to last me the rest of the Easter weekend. However, my Aunt Marlene invited me over for coffee on Easter Sunday and I didn’t yet have a gift for her.
In the end, I did not buy a gift for Aunt Marlene at the grocery store after all, because it turned out that they had jacked up the prices for the seasonal sweets and chocolate to ridiculous amounts. No, a small box of Lindt Easter Eggs is not worth eight Euros, no matter how good they taste. Instead, I decided I’d buy some cake before heading to Aunt Marlene’s.
On the parking lot of the grocery store, I saw a couple eating ice cream, so I asked them if the ice cream parlour across the road was still open and they said yes. So I thought, “Screw it, I really want an ice cream now. And besides, yesterday was my birthday, so I damn well deserve one.”
So I walked over to the ice cream parlour, which indeed was still open and busy, and ordered a Martini sundae.
Martini sundae, i.e. lemon ice cream, blueberries, cream and a shot of vermouth.
On Easter Sunday, I made egg vindaloo for lunch, because it’s just the perfect Easter lunch. It also looks amazing and tastes just as good.
Egg vindaloo
After lunch, I took a nap and then I set out to visit Aunt Marlene. On the way, I stopped at Bakery Helmers to buy some cake. Helmers is one of the few remaining independent bakeries (most bakeries these days are regional chains) and they have amazing cake, which is safe for me to eat without triggering allergies. I got three slices of cherry crumble cake for my Aunt Marlene, my cousin Ulrike and myself. I also got a marzipan chocolate bunny as a gift for Aunt Marlene.
This is an older photo of cherry crumble cake by Bakery Helmers, but it’s the same cake.
Getting to Aunt Marlene’s was a bit of a challenge, because they are laying tram tracks in her neighbourhood, so the main road is closed and all traffic passes through the narrow residential street where Aunt Marlene lives. A lot of the traffic was speeding to – in a narrow 30 km/h speed limit residential street. I finally found a parking place, grabbed my cake and went to Aunt Marlene’s.
Aunt Marlene was the wife of my Dad’s older brother. She’s 93 and the only surviving member of that generation on my Dad’s side – Dad was considerably younger than everybody else on that side of the family – though some of my Mom’s cousins are still alive as well. Aunt Marlene is still sharp and active for her age and still lives in the same semi-detached house where she’s lived for the past sixty years or so.
My cousin Ulrike was also supposed to visit for Easter, which is why Aunt Marlene had invited me. Ulrike was supposed to come around four, but she hadn’t yet arrived. So Aunt Marlene and I settled down on her balcony overlooking her garden and enjoyed the sunshine. When Ulrike still hadn’t arrived by five o’clock, Aunt Marlene put the coffee on and we enjoyed the cherry cake.
In the end, it was past six when Ulrike finally showed. Turned out she had messaged her Mom that she would be late, but Aunt Marlene hadn’t yet seen the message. Ulrike had just returned from a bike trip along the river Aller, so she had stories to tell and photos to show. At one point, she said, “And then I came to this strange place near the Autobahn.” I look at the photo: “That’s Autohof Schwarmstedt. I occasionally stop there, because they’ve got a very good bakery.”
In return, I also told Aunt Marlene and Ulrike about my side trip to Offensen to visit our relatives and that they apparently no longer live there.
At around half past seven, I left to go home. Aunt Marlene also gave me two photos that belonged to my grandmother. One shows my grandfather, the other my great-grandmother:
Historical photos of my grandfather and great-grandmother.
My grandfather Adolf Buhlert (my Dad was named after him) was born in 1901 and died in 1967, well before I was born. I’m not entirely sure what killed him. What I heard is that he had heart problems and that what really killed him was being forced to retire from his job as a gas station operator, when his gas station was closed and torn down to built a supermarket. The photo isn’t dated, but I suspect that it was taken a few years before his death. In his face, I can see the resemblance to my Dad and my Uncle.
My great-grandmother Magdalene Freese né Schier was born in 1871 and died in 1940. She was married to a sea captain with the North German Lloyd shipping company, lived in Bangkok for a few years with her husband and had three kids. Nikolaus a.k.a. my Uncle Nick was the oldest. He was born on Christmas Eve 1897 and was a sailor like his father. He took part in the Kiel sailors mutiny at the end of WWI and the Bremen Soviet Republic and ran off to America to avoid arrest where he lived in Miami until he died sometime in the early 1980s. I actually met him once, when I was five and he was seventy-one. There was an older daughter named Josefine a.k.a. Aunt Josie, of whom I have very faint memories. She died when I was three or four years old. My grandmother, finally, was the youngest, born April 18, 1903. Yes, I share a birthday with my grandma.
As for my great-grandmother, I have obviously never met her and even my Dad had no memory of her, since she died when he was two. Until today, I don’t think I ever saw a photo of her. I have vague memories of seeing a photo of my great-grandfather Reinhard Freese. At any rate, I think I know what he looked like, but then I might also just imagine what he looked like based on what sea captains looked like in the early twentieth century.
I got a family rumour about his death yesterday BTW, namely that he came home late and couldn’t get into the sailors housing community where he lived, because the gate was already locked. So he tried to climb over the fence and died from exhaustion. It’s suitably weird story, but I’m pretty sure it’s not true, because the details don’t add up. I know that my great-parents lived at the sailors housing of Haus Seefahrt in the Walle neighbourhood of Bremen. However, this housing community was destroyed along with most of the neighbourhood in an air raid on August 18/19, 1944. The neighbourhood was bombed so thoroughly that the street where my great-grandparents lived no longer exists – yes, I tried to find it. My Dad actually remembers sifting through the rubble of the burned out house with my grandmother from where she rescued two bronze buddha statues which my great-grandfather had brought back from his travels. These buddha statues now stand in my living room. The Haus Seefahrt and its sailors housing was eventually rebuilt elsewhere, but not until the early 1950s. Meanwhile, my great-grandfather died in 1946. So whatever happened to him, he clearly couldn’t have died trying to climb a fence at Haus Seefahrt.
Now I have a photo of my paternal great-grandmother as well (I have a few photos of one of my maternal great-grandmothers – the other died in childbirth while having my grandpa). Again the photo is not dated, though she’s clearly not young. I suspect it might have been taken in the 1910s or even 1920s. If you look closely at the photo, it is actually retouched. The eyebrows, hair and details on the dress were added by hand. It’s notable that one of her eyes is drooping and her face is uneven. Evidence of a stroke or did she just look like that?
I will put the photo up on the wall, probably next to a photo of my two uncles as little boys that my Dad put up in his office/the basement bar. Because it is a lovely vintage photo and besides, she is my great-grandmother. I’m considering putting up some other old family photos as well. My parents’ wedding photo, since it’s really lovely. Maybe some childhood pictures of my parents, my grandparents’ wedding picture and the few photos I have of my maternal great-grandparents.
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