My June books

This is an overview of the books I have finished in a month (not necessarily started in the same month) and those I have read to Gundel (marked with 😸).
I will be adding a short explanation why I chose a book or how I found it and possibly if it's a re-read candidate, but I'm usually not going to add real reviews or ratings (Gundel also refuses to give ratings). Should you want a little more information on a book you're interested in, though, just let me know.

A very weird reading month with several DNF. What was interesting to me was that for a moment I even hesitated to add the third one to the list, almost if I was trying to hide my "failure". Then I noticed myself how ridiculous that was. Reading shouldn't feel guilty, no matter if you liked something or not. So I had the bad luck to pick books that I didn't want to finish. Now what? Will my library throw me out in shame? Well, they didn't, all that happened was that I wish I had used the time for other books instead.
When I had to add a fourth one toward the end of the month, I blamed that on the heat at first, but if it was the heat, why was I happy enough with the two other books I read at the time (albeit slowly)?

"Peter Ustinov: The Gift of Laughter" by John Miller, first published in 2002

Peter Ustinov - theater and film actor, playwright and novelist, director, producer, humanitarian, university chancellor, interviewer, entertainer - was an amazing man.
This is his biography.

When I mentioned Ustinov the other day, I noticed that I had never read his full biography (I read his mother's book ages ago). He had always been wildly popular in Germany, so it was really time I did, and I enjoyed reading it.

"Das Dorf in den roten Wäldern" = "Still Life" by Louise Penny, first published in 2005
(Chief Inspector Armand Gamache 1)

When one of the residents of the small village Three Pines is found dead, Armand Gamache and his team are called in. Has it been a hunting accident or something more sinister?

I had only known the second adaptation of "Three Pines" with Alfred Molina - which didn't include this book - and thought I'd give the books a try. I think I enjoyed the idea of Three Pines and Gamache more than the actual mystery and the end was a bit weak and obvious, but it was a quick read and the series will stay on my list for now.

"The Three Investigators in The Mystery of the Coughing Dragon" by Nick West (the books were published attributed to Alfred Hitchcock), first published in 1970 😸
(The Three Investigators 14)

When the Three Investigators are asked to find the missing dog of Alfred Hitchcock's friend Mr. Allen, they don't expect being confronted with a dragon in a cave!

I read this series a long time ago and am going through it again bit by bit after writing a blog post about it. This book is the thirteenth in the series.

"The Correspondent" by Virginia Evans, first published in 2025

Sybil is 73 and an avid letter writer.
She writes to family, friends, authors, neighbors - and in these letters she's telling us about her life now and then and about her greatest regret.

I had seen the book mentioned on blogs, but didn't read any reviews. When it popped up in the new entries on OverDrive, I placed a hold, and it was worth waiting all those months.
I've noticed before that the letter form appeals to me (that started with "Daddy Long Legs"). This is actually a book I'm going to buy to keep.

"High Wages" by Dorothy Whipple, first published in 1930

Set in the 1910s, this is the story of Jane who starts as a salesgirl at a draper's shop and eventually goes on to open her own shop after World War I.

I happened to catch the title on a blog I don't usually follow and got intrigued by the salesgirl to business owner story.
After reading the non-fiction book "The Bookshop, The Draper, The Candlestick Maker" by Annie Gray, I really enjoyed this book not just for the story itself, though, but also for the descriptions of the shops.

"Peter Pan: The Story of Peter and Wendy" by J. M. Barrie, first published as a novel in 1911 under the title "Peter and Wendy"

Peter Pan, the captain of the Lost Boys, is a mischievous boy living on the island of Neverland. He wants to stay a little boy and have adventures forever.
One night, he's taking the children Wendy, John, and Michael Darling to the island, so Wendy, the eldest and only girl, can become their mother.

From the digitized book I read

I had seen Peter Pan as a play and wanted to read the book as well before watching the first movie adaptation.

"Peter Pan in Kensington Gardens" by J. M. Barrie, first published in 1906 (most of it had already been part of the 1902 novel "The Little White Bird")

You might call this Peter Pan's origin story - how he flew out of the nursery window as he heard plans about his adult life being made and went to live in Kensington Gardens with the birds.

I hadn't heard about this at all before I started reading up on Peter Pan for a silent movie review.
The illustrations by Arthur Rackham are beautiful.

"Agnes Aubert's Mystical Cat Shelter" by Heather Fawcett, first published in 2026

Agnes's cat shelter needs a new home after a duel between magicians destroyed several buildings. Is it coincidence that she ends up in a building where one of those magician's runs his illegal shop from the basement?

Cats! That looked like enough for me to read this book.
I think after this one I'll be giving up on Fawcett's books, though. It reminded me way too much of a movie I have seen (I don't know the book it's based on yet) and love, but I didn't feel the same enthusiasm about this book.

"Miss Buncle's Book" by D. E. Stevenson, first published in 1934

Miss Buncle needs money, so she writes a book, and as she has no imagination, she writes about her own village.
The book becomes a best seller and Miss Buncle's neighbors are not amused to learn about themselves being seen through someone else's eyes.

After reading "Celia's House" last month and liking it a lot, I continued with this book and had a lot of fun with it.

"Hildur - Die Spur im Fjord" = "The Clues in the Fjord" by Satu Rämö, first published in 2022
(Hildur 1)

Hildur Rúnarsdóttir is a police officer on the west coast of Iceland. Still haunted by her two sisters disappearing 25 years before, she specializes in missed children cases.
This time, however, a pedophile is found with his throat cut, and he isn't the last body. Together with her Finnish colleague Jakob, she's trying to connect the dots.

Gail from Is This Mutton recommended the fourth book in the series, so I gave this a try.
I could have done with less repetitions and detailed descriptions of workouts, but the next book is on my list, anyway.

"Cinder House" by Freya Marske, first published in 2025

This is a retelling of Cinderella, but with a interesting twist.

The book was a random OverDrive find.

"Return to Foreverware" by Mike Ford, first published in 1997
(Eerie, Indiana 1)

The friends Marshall and Simon take a weekend job with the Stewarts (James and Martha who used to have a son called Rod(ney)) decluttering their attic. Something is weird about the couple, though, who seems to be stuck in the 70s.

The book is first one of the series based on the TV kids' show "Eerie, Indiana".
I re-read it for a blog post.

"Der Steppenwolf" = "Steppenwolf" by Hermann Hesse, first published in 1927 😸

Harry Haller sees himself as two souls, the human and the steppe wolf. Torn between both, he tries to make sense of the world and his life.

Since school I hadn't read any German "classics" and decided to try and read one a month now. No idea how this project is going to go.
This probably wasn't the best book to start with.
If I hadn't read it loud, I'm quite sure it would have become a DNF, it's definitely not going to go on the re-read list.

"Classic Movie Comedians" by Neil Sinyard, first published in 1992

This volume introduces us to some of the big comedians of the screen. There's a chapter on Charlie Chaplin, Buster Keaton, Harold Lloyd and Harry Langdon, Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy, W. C. Fields, and the Marx Brothers.

Sinyard is a British film critic and obviously a big fan of Chaplin as he didn't just get a chapter more than ten pages longer than all the others (Lloyd and Langdon even had to share one), but is also constantly mentioned in the other chapters. As a short introduction it was okay and a quick read with a lot of pictures. 

"Coming Up for Air" by George Orwell, first published in 1939

George Bowling is sure there will be war again soon. He begins to remember his life as a child and young man in Lower Binfield before World War I, and having won some money at a race, he decides to go back there for a few days trying to find the idyll of those times. He quickly finds out, however, that you can't go back.

This was one of my ex's favorite books. I stumbled upon it by accident the other day and thought I'd finally give it a go.


DNF:

"Theo of Golden" by Allen Levi, first published in 2025

An old man turns up in the town of Golden and makes friends with the residents there by buying the pencil portraits hanging on the walls of the coffee shop, giving them to the people in the portraits, and listening to their stories.

I kept seeing the book on blogs and thought the idea with the portraits was quite interesting. Then I kept struggling through half the book merely because I thought I must have been missing something. I wish I had listened to my gut earlier. Definitely not for me.

"Something Wicked This Way Comes" by Ray Bradbury, first published in 1962

Two 13 year old friends, Jim and William, have to deal with the nightmares of a traveling carnival and its leader Mr. Dark who holds strange powers.

I managed a little more than a third of the book, but while the idea was interesting, I didn't like the style at all. It felt as if the author enjoyed more playing with language than telling the story and in this case that just didn't work for me.

"The Female Detective" by Andrew Forrester, first published in 1864

The book tells us about several cases of Mrs Gladden, the first professional female detective in British fiction.

That was right up my alley, I thought, but after a third I gave up because I found the writing terribly dry and boring. I couldn't help thinking that a woman would have written this differently (and made it more interesting).

"The Librarianist" by Patrick deWitt, first published in 2023

This is "the story of Bob Comet, a man who has lived his life through and for literature, unaware that his own experience is a poignant and affecting narrative in itself."

I admit that the title and cover drew me in, but there wasn't enough book talk and too much dull flashback. I had really enjoyed the first part when Bob spontaneously volunteers at a senior center, but the longer the flashback, the more the narrative affected me in the wrong way. I made it through half the book and wasn't even interested in the ending.


By the way, if you write book reviews or blog posts about other book-related matters - even movies based on books - please check out "A Good Book and a Cup of Tea", a monthly bookish blog link party that I host together with Erin from Still Life, With Cracker Crumbs and Lisa from Boondock Ramblings. You can find out more about it here.

Random Saturday - Postcards

Do you remember this post about a postcard which came back to the house where it came from? After almost 50 years?

Now you may think that is just another example of nostalgia, and part of it probably is, but to me it actually means learning more about our hometown and its history. Sometimes it takes a while to find info online, sometimes there's nothing to find.
And the backs of the cards - as in the above mentioned case - can be really interesting as well, but that may be a story for another time.

The other day, it came to me that I knew absolutely nothing about the history of the postcard itself. Another rabbit hole? Actually more of a whole burrow. There are so many pages out there, and while they agree on some things, they don't on others - doesn't that sound familiar ... Who was the first one to invent the "real" postcard? Which country was the first? What even is a "real" postcard? There are postcards and picture postcards. To be honest, my brain was overwhelmed trying to make sense of it all and especially to put it in a post shorter than a thesis and I failed miserably.
So let's just say that it really seems to have started in the 19th century (staying on the safe side here) and that most sources seem to agree on these Austrian "correspondence cards" to be the first "real" postcards even though there had been cards before.
Here's the history on the "World Postcard Day" page.

Correspondence card from 1869
Public domain via Wikipedia

When Heinrich von Stephan who reorganized the German postal service suggested something similar in 1865, the "open post sheet" which was meant to avoid an envelope by having pre-printed postage if you just wanted to send a short message, the idea wasn't well received.
What if servants read their employers' mail, for example? What about preserving public morals? Human sacrifice, dogs and cats living together, mass hysteria! Sorry, that's a quote from "Ghostbusters".
Anyhow, after the Austrian card was such a huge success, postcards caught on in other countries as well, even in Germany. I couldn't find any information on the servant-employer crisis related to that 😉
Towards the end of the century, there were more and more picture postcards. Pictures could be lithographies, sometimes colorized, or photos. They showed individual buildings, streets, parks, but also persons.
For example, monarchy used postcards for propaganda, showing off their families as role models for their subjects and to shape a positive image of themselves - which may have worked for some people, but not others. Examples that come to mind are the Romanovs, Queen Victoria, Emperor Wilhelm II.

Early cards still looked different. Unlike the cards you probably know, one side was meant only for the address and the message was written above, below or around the picture, like in this panorama of Göppingen from 1903 made up of three postcards.
If it was just one card, the sender didn't manage to put much text on it.

Maybe that's why postcards changed later. The images took up one side completely and the back was divided in a space for the address and one for the message.
The address on this card from 1919 simply says "Umbrella shop" and the town.
Isn't the penmanship beautiful? As much as I like to look at writings in Sütterlin, it's not always easy for us today to decipher it, though.

I'm often surprised at what the senders have shared on postcards. Sometimes it's just a greeting from a short trip, a visit, a longer vacation, on occasion of a holiday, a thank you, but we have seen more than one that has been sent from a hospital and the news haven't always been very good.

Greetings for New Year's Eve. You might think the word and flowers are
drawn by hand, but they are printed on, probably after a hand drawn design.

I'm not very interested in cars in general, but look at these beauties!
I just love an nice old VW Bug. That restaurant is outside town, near an artificial lake. You just don't see VW Bugs there anymore now.
The other card shows our renaissance castle. If you look closely, you don't just see the old cars, but also - unfortunately blurry - a horse carriage in the background.

The following pictures are not postcards, but file copies which served as masters. They are actually just half the size of a card.
They were taken by a local photographer. Many of my cards were manufactured by local photographers, bookstores or stationery shops.

This is the square in front of the old train station with the post office on the right.

More old cars, but to me it was interesting to learn about the so-called "Kraftpost" (literally power post). These successors of stagecoaches were postbuses used in Germany (other countries had them as well) both for mail delivery and passenger transport. You can see a sign on the post office building. It's illegible here, but I also know a picture with a later sign that could be read easily.

Let's stop here or I might never stop again.
I hope I didn't bore you too much, but maybe you could get a idea of how postcards have illustrated history over years, no matter if you are just interested in that of your town or area or global history.
When was the last time you sent a card?

Weekend Traffic Jam - Week 162

Welcome to the Weekend Traffic Jam Reboot!
My posts for the link up will go live on Thursdays at 9:30 p.m. EDT or, if you live in the future like I do, on Fridays at 3:30 a.m. CE(S)T.

Gundel isn't sure what has got into me after I let her know that we'll try to read one German classic each month (which may be more or less realistic, less if you think of the really fat ones).
What really confused her was that I insisted on starting with Hesse's "Steppenwolf" and reading it to her. If it had been about a cat, okay, but a wolf inside you?
Funny, you would think she'd be used to my crazy ideas after nine years, but this look says otherwise.

Are you ready for the weekend?

As part of the reboot, we will be featuring a different blog every week.
How about stopping by and saying hello? Let them know we sent you.

This week our spotlight is on Moore or Less Cooking.

Nettie from Moore or Less Cooking says: "Nettie is the cook, baker, photographer, and designer behind the Moore or Less Cooking Food Blog. When she’s not busy creating, adapting, and testing recipes, she enjoys reading, traveling, and outdoor activities. Her true passions are food and design. Have a seat, take a look around, and savor the flavor!"

Marsha from Marsha in the Middle started blogging in 2021 as an exercise in increasing her neuroplasticity. Oh, who are we kidding? Marsha started blogging because she loves clothes, and she loves to talk or, in this case, write!

Melynda from Scratch Made Food! & DIY Homemade Household - The name says it all, we homestead in East Texas, with three generations sharing this land. I cook and bake from scratch, between gardening and running after the chickens, and knitting!

Lisa from Boondock Ramblings shares about the fiction she writes and reads, her faith, homeschooling, photography and more.

Cat from Cat's Wire has what she calls a jumping spider brain. She has many interests and will blog about whatever catches her attention - crafts, books, old movies, collectibles or random things.

Rena from Fine Whatever Blog writes about style, midlife, and the "fine whatever" moments that make life both meaningful and fun. Since 2015, she's been celebrating creativity, confidence, and finding joy in the everyday.


Here are some of my picks from last week's link up.

Lisa writes about the beauty of names.

Sally tells us which animals are dear to her heart.

Debbie shows us her kitchen decoration with "hens & roos and bees".

Paula talks about "Her Royal Highness" called Little Girl and what she is to her.

Shelbee is obsessed with flowy garments.


Let's link up!

Guidelines:
This link party is for blog posts only. All other links will be deleted.
Please link only blog posts you created yourself. Please link directly to the URL of your blog post and not the main address of your blog.
Please do not link to videos, sales ads, or social media links such as YouTube videos/shorts, Instagram or Facebook reels, TikTok videos, or any other social media based content.
Please do visit other blogs and give the gift of a comment. 

Notice:
By linking with Weekend Traffic Jam Reboot, you assert that the content is your own property and give us permission to share said content if your post or blog is showcased.
We welcome unlimited, family friendly content. This can include opinion pieces, recipes, travel recaps, fashion ideas, crafts, thrifting, lifestyle, book reviews or discussions, photography, art, and so much more!
Thank you for linking up with us! 

 

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter

Silent movies - Snow White

Did you know that Walt Disney's "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs" was inspired by his seeing a silent movie at the age of 15?
Let's have a look at that movie - "Snow White" from 1916.

Here's the plot (spoiler alert, let's see if everything is as you expect it!).

The movie starts with Santa Claus. I was surprised, too.
Santa Claus puts some dolls on a table which then turn into our cast. Charming.

"Once upon a time, a beautiful queen named Imogene, embroidering at an ebony frame, pricked her finger and shook the drop of blood on the snow outside the window. It looked so beautiful she said: 'I wish I had a little daughter with skin white as snow, lips red as blood, and hair black as my ebony frame.'"
Of course we know her wish was granted, but an evil lady of the court, Brangomar, conspired with the witch Hex to become more beautiful than the girl. That's right, we get two villains for the price of one.
For her help and the magic mirror, the witch demands Snow White's heart.

As predicted by Hex, Queen Imogene dies and Snow White's father marries Brangomar who treats her stepdaughter not better than a kitchen maid, so she has to meet the new Maids of Honour in the kitchen.
 

That's the Court Chamberlain Dandiprat Bombas on
the right, by the way, what a great name.

Sent out to the house of Berthold the huntsman to fetch ducks for the luncheon, Snow White sees a conure in a cage and tells Bertholds's children they should never cage a bird. They set it free and just make it outside in time to stop Prince Florimond of Calydon, who went a-hunting, from killing it. Of course he's smitten with her right away.

They meet again when he attends court. The Maids of Honour all lend Snow White something to wear (I'm not sure how they are still fully dressed except for their shoes afterwards) and all are veiled to hide her in their midst, but Florimond makes a beeline for her.
Brangomar is quite shocked about the message the Prince brings from his father who wishes for his son to marry his cousin, Snow White. After a short confusion (there is footage missing, this might be one of those moments), Brangomar decides that they have to wait for one year and one day during which she'll send Snow White to a "Boarding School for Backward Princesses". Wow, that's mean.

Poor Brangomar, not only did the Prince not come for her, but now the mirror tells her she's not the fairest anymore AND Hex pops up in a cloud of smoke to claim the promised heart. The things an evil Queen has to deal with!
So she summons Berthold and gives him the order to bring her Snow White's heart or she'll have his children locked up and starved.
He takes the Princess to the woods, but decides to kill a wild pig instead and leave her behind.
That's when the lion turns up.

And the conure is back to make her follow him to a little house.
The dwarfs who work in a mine with direct access from their house find the sleeping Snow White and hope she'll stay just so they can look at her (!). They give her little gifts and she's happy to stay as she has nowhere else to go.

The dwarfs are called Blick, Flick, Glick, Snick, Plick,
Whick ... and Quee (not in the pic).

Meanwhile, Berthold has taken the heart to Brangomar who has him put in the dungeon where his children already are, anyway (don't forget she's evil, so they are even in different cells).
The conure brings him a rope, though, which allows him to pull his children up and also to get the keys from the keeper.

Brangomar takes the heart to Hex who wanted it to fight her baldness, but since it's a pig's heart, she grows pig tails instead of hair!
The Queen questions the mirror where Snow White is and Hex transform her into a peddler which allows her to visit Snow White without being recognized as she obviously can't trust anyone else doing the job.

The first attempt with the poisoned comb fails because the bird tells a rabbit and the rabbit tells the dwarfs which save Snow White in time before the "peddler" can count to 100.
In the next attempt Brangomar becomes a pieman and Snow White eats the poisoned apple.
In the meantime, Berthold and his children have made it to the court of Calydon, and Florimond leaves immediately to look for Snow White only to find her dead.

They take her to Brangomar to avenge her, but what's that ... Snow White lives! The trip has loosened the bit of poisoned apple in her throat.
The Queen breaks her mirror and is ugly again while Hex finally gets the hair she always wanted.

For Snow White and Florimond it's happily living ever after, no doubt - dwarfs included whom Snow White asks to stay with her.

I don't know which versions of the fairy tale you know, so let's go into a few details.

This movie is based on a play from 1912 starring Marguerite Clark. Despite already being 29 at the time of the play, Clark, who was only 4 ft 10, was well suited for the role which she also played in the movie which was released on Christmas Day 1916 (which also explains Santa Claus).
Unfortunately, Clark is practically forgotten despite once being almost as popular as Mary Pickford. Most of her films were destroyed in a fire and "Snow White" had also been thought to be lost until a print was found in Amsterdam. It is missing parts, though, for example the delivery of Snow White to her parents by a stork.

Basically, the fairy tale is covered in the film, but there are obviously differences and I do have a few questions.

Most important, what's with the lion? You see him twice and he doesn't do anything. Is he supposed to stand for danger? Is there footage missing at that point?
What about Snow White being treated like a kitchen maid and what happened to her father? That's Cinderella, not Snow White, just like the Princess and Prince meeting before the ball and then get to share a dance.
We have two villains (one of them for comic relief?), but how does Hex get to celebrate with the court at the end? I mean she was ready to dine on Snow White's heart after all. And anyhow, why could she give Brangomar nice hair and not herself?
What happens to Brangomar? Was the ugliness her only punishment? That would be a lot nicer than the original ending in the fairy tale where she danced to her death in glowing hot shoes.
Where's the conure at the end? There's no doubt that he's the true hero of the movie.

It's nice, though, that Snow White and Florimond knew each other before she died. The idea of a Prince casually coming by to kiss a dead girl is a bit creepy if we're honest. A cousin taking home his fiancée - even if cousins marrying is weird to us today - makes much more sense and the bit with the apple is true to the original fairy tale.

The costumes are lovely (if you ignore them being a wild mix of styles) and there are some cute effects, such as the crown materializing on Snow White's head at the end.
I have seen a lot of fairy tale adaptations over the years and this one is sweet and gentle and not too gruesome for children.
And now you know to be careful about what not to use for hair growth!


Sources and further reading:

1. Scott Simmon and Martin Marks: Snow White (1916). On: National Film Preservation Foundation. Preserved Films. Film Notes
2. J. B. Kaufman: Snow White. On: San Francisco Silent Film Festival. Essay 2013
3. Fritzi Kramer: Snow White (1916) - A Silent Film Review. On: Movies Silently, March 2, 2014
4. Lea Stans: Fairytales Before Disney: Thoughts On "Snow White" (1916). On: Silent-ology, April 5, 2025

Nostalgia - Traveling Treff

This post is inspired by two topics.
The first one is my love to Steiff's Treff dog, the second one is the fascinating (and frustrating) world of parcel delivery, hence the title.

Let me tell you about Treff first.
From the very start of our Steiff collecting on, this bloodhound has had my heart. Although there are a lot of Steiff dogs I love, Treff has always been my favorite.
I couldn't even tell you why exactly. Is it the long ears, is it the cute nose? The color, the airbrushed details in the face, the eyes? I guess it's the whole package.

Over many years, a few of them made it into the collection, all of them sitting in different sizes from 4 to almost 20 inch (not in all nine sizes, though), in mohair and velvet. These are smaller ones, the big ones sit in the back of the cabinet and I'll admit I didn't want to move the animals in front of them.

Treff was a popular dog not just with me and therefore stayed in the Steiff lineup from 1928 to 1938, also standing up, as a ride animal, with a music box inside, on a pincushion -  and as a puppet on which I had had my eager eye on from the beginning.

I don't know if you have noticed it in the group photo, but their eyes don't all look the same.
The design was patented, the eyes are not just sewn on, but embedded and part of them is covered by the fabric for the distinctive bloodhound look.
As quoted by Steiff Gal, Steiff's US distributor Borgfeldt once wrote "the slanting, half-covered eyeball, which gives this dog’s face a particularly thoughtful, intelligent expression."
In fact, however, you see Treffs where the eyes don't look like that because the fabric has slipped behind the eye. I usually leave them like that because I don't want to mess with the eye and fabric to avoid tearing.

Can you see how the look changes?

I'm in love with the Steiff animal hand puppets and especially with the pre-war ones, and when a Treff finally turned up for sale after years, the ex got it for my birthday.
Probably only a collector will be able to imagine my excitement waiting for the parcel.

And that brings us to the wonders of postal services ...
Back then you didn't get emails and you didn't have live tracking. Delivery notices were still on cards being thrown in your mailbox telling you to pick the parcel up elsewhere although you had been home all day.
What was really disturbing in this case, though, was not getting a notice or a parcel, but then being told that the parcel had been delivered ...
What had they done to my Treff??

So I called the hotline. At least I didn't have to deal with a chatbot back then, but of course I still had to "number press" my way through to a human who then explained to me that I would have to call a sorting center in Munich.
I live 200 km from Munich. The parcel didn't go via Munich. "Doesn't matter, you have to call Munich". Once I finally had a person on the phone there ... you may have already guessed it ... "Why are you calling us?" "Heck if I know, the hotline said ..." "Yeah, you are wrong here, try the hotline again." With the help of a little whimpering and begging from me not to send me back there, they gave me at least the direct number to the right sorting center near us.

There I got to talk to a very nice man who had strange news for me. Yes, the parcel had been delivered today, yes, they had a signature from my husband. Stop, stop ... we always had both names on parcels because of our different names, but I had been home, not he.
I asked him what the name was and he didn't hesitate to tell me, so my next question was if it was difficult to read and he said not at all. I explained to him that it couldn't be my husband's signature for two reasons - he wasn't home and his signature was absolutely not readable because it didn't even have individual letters. He said he'd fax it to me (yes, it was that long ago) which only confirmed what I knew already.
WHO had MY Treff?

I was worried and angry because after all we are not only talking a certain financial but also emotional value. This isn't something easily available for replacing.
He promised to send the parcel guy by our house to see if it helped him remember the parcel and where he had taken it to.
When he called me back, he let me know that my parcel had been delivered to a town three miles from here. To a different person in a street with a different name who had seen - of course because the address had been correct and readable - that it wasn't for him, but decided to keep the parcel "just in case". What case? That the actual owner wouldn't investigate?
Of course, they didn't tell me the name of the person, but does it sound to you as if that was an honest mistake? I didn't even believe that person had the same last name as my husband.
At any rate, the next day Treff traveled to the right house and here he has been ever since.