hummel, hummel!

Following the example of bears in Berlin and cows in Zurich, there were 100 life-size figures of Hamburg’s most famous water carrier, Hans Hummel, in the city centre for about 3 years. Their time is up and they were auctioned on 6/23 , they are displayed all together downtown for a few more days. Lucky me, I got to see them all under sunshine:

Hans Hummel‘s real name was actually Johann Wilhelm Bentz (1787-1854) an original Hamburger who worked as a water carrier and was considered to be an ill-tempered type, which gave the children of the new town all the more reason to tease him by calling him by the derisive nickname "Hummel, Hummel!" (English: bumble bee). Because the tormented water carrier was seldom able to catch the little rogues - he was always carrying great quantities of water for many kilometres into the town - he could only react with coarse replies of "Mors, Mors!", a Low German (Plattdeutsch) expression to be translated as “arses, arses!”



And now comes the fun part of this post: a birthday! Not just a birthday, but a very special one:

Happy birthday to our dear, charming Lady of the Hills !

I think I found the right champagne glass ( had to go all the way to Hamburg to get this pic!) to celebrate a blog party, it fits a whole bottle and more, lol!

All the best to you birthday lady! and many, many more blogging years. Cheers!!

There is a birthday gathering today at her blog, don't miss it! Expect a fine party, birthday fun, many bloggers and great virtual goodies which won't unbalance your bikini diet (!)

And one update: Got pictures of your laundry? Vickie has a whole collection and published mine today on her blog, thanks Vickie!