When autumn turns into winter, you may be lucky enough to catch one of those early clear cold days when you leave for your usual Sunday walk after breakfast. This favor of a friendly day before winter was granted to us and so we set off. With this walk I hoped to have a photo of me standing in front of a fir tree taken, which I would then be able to send with Christmas greetings, placed on the photo with my mobile phone. We went on our round, which led us each time over one hour by a wonderful forest area. But this forest, although characterized by different vegetation, did not seem to offer any fir a home. I had soon reduced my demands towards conifers, but the numerous pines carried their matte needle splendour far above our heads. Shortly before we came to the last part of the route, a pure beech forest, our way led past a small pine forest. The young pines reached only just the height of a garage roof before the times of the SUVs and were everything else, only not green. They stood in their dust-grey needle keid seemingly listlessly in dull rows. Since this was the last chance, I let myself be photographed despite all obvious conceptual weaknesses, I did not have a plan B, against this background. The picture was a catastrophe, but had its moments as a laughing stock. When I gave the slightly rounded man in his winter coat the grace of becoming a snowman, the tide turned. This snowman hadn’t become a cheerful contemporary, but one who had the blues, but with grace and dignity. That’s the way I liked it, so he obviously deserved the big candle.
