On Thursday, Richard had a 2pm appointment to meet Stephan Blezinger, an excellent recorder maker in Eisenach, to arrange for some repairs. Richard is the lucky owner of one of his intruments. We took the opportunity to revisit Haus Hainstein for coffee AND lunch on the terrace below our former room, also with the amazing views of the fairytale Wartburg castle. On this clear sunny day we saw it with no mist in the valleys, with water trickling beside us in the garden fountain, the place to ourselves. Heaven! The food was outstanding - I had a delectable cold melon soup with kiwi fruit and cream, Richard had local Thuringian sausages and sauerkraut.
In the afternoon as we entered the workshop we were greeted with a wonderfully pervasive aroma of natural wood. After Stephan had dealt with a couple of unexpected visitors from afar while we looked around, he kindly showed us all around his little workshops. Richard tried lots of his beautiful recorders of all types and sizes. Standing up against the wall he had a large solid branch of untreated English boxwood, but he showed us how, because of the small cracks and knots in it, he would collect enough wood for only two descant recorders from it. Such is the lot of a recorder maker. We left two David Coomber recorders with him, one to have a crack repaired, and both for revoicing/cleaning. He promised to do this then send them back to London in time for our return to Oz next week.
