For days I have been bei Barbel, at a grand old estate in Freinsheim. Freinsheim is a walled town (there even used to be a moat around it). Barbel’s house lies, as they say, “outside” the wall, but still in the Altstadt (old town). My sleeping 
quarters are on the main floor, my “writing room” on the top (where you see those two little windows.) When my eyes tire of gazing at the screen, I peek out at the rooftop view.
Sunday, I did a lot of talking at Barbel’s — in German. Her daughter Angela and I put together a presentation on our research of the family letters. Barbel held a gathering for us, a kind of salon, where relatives and friends gathered to hear our Vortrag (lecture). I read my part from the page, and stumbled over words like “vorgetaeuschtes” and “geschichtlichen” and “Mässigkeit Kreuzzuge.”
Afterwards, we discussed, laughed, ate treats and toasted the Harm family lineage. 
