The first settlement, known as Hammaburg, dates back to the 8th century AD. What developed over the following 1,200 years is what we know today as Germany’s second-largest city: Hamburg.

My partner and I go there for two or three days every year because we simply love the city, the harbor, the nearby sea, and the city’s vibe, as well as the Miniatur Wunderland located there, which is a once-a-year fixture on our travel calendar.

There’s never enough time to wander around the city and take photos, but I snapped a few this time as well…

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It’s been 25 years since I first heard Chester Bennington growling into a microphone, and ever since then I’ve been a fan of both hard rock and crossover. My goodness, what gems these guys from Linkin Park delivered in the 2000s. “Crawling” isn’t just on my all-time best playlist, but I can sing along to it at any time (or so I like to think ;)

Of course, I too was saddened in 2017 when the news of Chester’s tragic death broke, knowing for certain that there would never be any new music from this extraordinary group, because their music was – and still is – defined by his incredible voice.

When Mike Shinoda announced in 2024 that Emily Armstrong would be taking Chester’s place in the band and that new material was on the way, I was sceptical at first… but the guys – and now the lady too – have proven me wrong. The NEW Linkin Park are brilliant, and Emily brings a fresh, positive touch to the mix.

So I just had to get tickets for myself and my girl for one of the concerts on their tour in Germany, and we chose Hamburg… at the stadium with around 50,000 other fans. If we’re going to do it, we’re going to do it right … … and it was just awesome!

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The mother of my sunshine has a beautiful garden behind her house, right by the river Ruhr, which her son tends with great passion. There are quite a few gorgeous flowers in bloom at the moment and it’s simply lovely. I had to made some photos, even with my crappy smartphone. Here are a few shots. Enjoy.

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Over the past month of May, I’ve collected 17 links for my link journal.

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To me, my sweetheart is a phenomenon. With two needles and an indefinite amount of wool in various colours, she whips up all sorts of little marvels at a speed that would take me just to get my fingers back in order.

Most of the things she crochets are made for her children, or for the fund-raising efforts of the kindergarten where she works, as every now and then the parents’ support group organises a children’s bazaar and all the earnings go to the little ones. And soon these little monsters will disappear into the pocket of another little monster in exchange for a fiver from their parents.

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This year, I was late getting started with taking photos in Thomas’ garden. Whereas I’m usually out and about as early as March, I only managed to take the first pictures of his extraordinary plants this weekend, and I’ve probably missed the early bloomers this year.

There were plenty of reasons: holidays, bad weather, lack of time and so on, but now the season has kicked off and you can look forward to new photos from the Thomas Garden series every month.

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