Sheep And Wolves In The Dark Silent Night…

I spent almost a week at the Atelierhof Werenzhaim in the town of Doberlug-Kirchhain in the former German Democratic Republic, between Berlin and Dresden and not far from the Polish border. The Atelierhof was out in the countryside, near forest and lakes in quite a Gothic setting. My accommodation was in an ancient stable block, across the courtyard from the modernised main house, which had the toilets and a shower. On my first night, being “of a certain age” I needed to cross the grassy courtyard in the early hours to use the facilities. It was so dark the Milky Way sparkled above. I hurried to the toilets and back in the absolute silence, wondering nervously how far we were from Transylvania, and as my hand touched the bolt of my stable door to get back inside to safety, a sudden ear-splitting noise came from the sheep in the stable next door! I nearly had a heart attack!!!! They kept up their raucous baah-ing for several minutes, I had obviously spooked them and it took me ages to calm down and get to sleep.

The following morning, my host asked if I had slept well. “Not really. I disturbed the sheep and they made a lot of noise.” She thought for a moment and said, matter-of-factly, “No, it was not you, it would have been the wolves. They like to eat sheep.”

I SCREAMED SILENTLY INSIDE MY HEAD!!!!!

(to be continued…)

I went to the artist residency with four other Welsh women artists, Chris Bird-Jones, Sarah Hopkins , Rhiannon Rees  and Rhian Haf. We have been supported by Wales Arts International. We are all members of AGOR Abertawe, set up to facilitate creative activity between women artists in Swansea / South Wales, and the Brandenburg area. We were mostly at the Atelierhof Werenzhaim, an artist community founded in 1996 by artists from East and West Germany in a 14th century former feudal tavern estate.