This anthology offers an alphabetical collection of 26 word portraits uncovering the failings, exploits, and dreams of everyday hopeful, murderous, glamorous, desperate, real women-next-door.

Timeframe: May 1964 - May 2018

Setting: from Cape Town, South Africa over Taipei, Taiwan & passing through Basel, Switzerland.

The authoress, as seen by a tactful colleague

Ansi Verwey - von Fleckenstein

BOUNCE BACK BABES

26 word portraits of real women

Motivating guardian angels, without whom this book would not have been possible:

Anonymous Bosh, Sofia Pavone, Michael Rath, Matthias & Peter Wegele, Emiro von Berejesa †2019, Katja & Hannah Beer, Bianca Gierok, Ralf H. Dorweiler, Elena Filipova, Michael Leibundgut, Phoebe Lin, Eva Buffoni, Gerda Pretorius, Helga Karen, Hinako Yoshikawa, Iryna Krasnovska, Lussys von Scajuka †2018, Ivan Konsulov, Raquel Rey Ramos, Shalini Treffer, Yuval Zorn, Armando Braswell.

INDEX

1. Aurora und Arnauld in the KUMQUAT Store

2. Brigitte Brandt: No Black Eye in the Brocki

3. Cordelia and the charming chandelier

4. Donna researches job alternatives

5. Eva’s ghosts at the watering hole

6. Frene: in search of yogurt

7. GIULIA’S SUMMER COLLECTION: a pocket True Crime Story

8. Excerpt from the chronicles of Hilda

9. Isolde and the quest for the ideal man

10. Red Juliane’s Unified Theory of Colour

11. Kerstin’s Cat: A Song of Lamentation with a Funeral attachment

12. Literary Leonie’s Silverfish

13. Martine researches men

14. Grouchy Nora

15. Olivia at the opera

16. Petra pulverises the Monday blues

17. Visiting quirky Queenie

18. Regina's racehorse

19. Sleepless on Sophia’s sofa

20. Tina at the Tinguely Fountain

21. Uschi at the dentist

22. Veronika; life in bite-sized portions

23. Wilhelmine wanders the woods

24. XANTHIPPE

25. Yolinda’s Yodelling Horn

26. Zippy Zoë

PROLOGUE

This collection of portraits of REAL WOMEN is my homage and thanksgiving to all the PROUD BROADS* who have inspired me through the last five decades and helped me keep my focus firmly on the silver lining - NO MATTER how many dark clouds threaten to suck the joy out of life. From Day One my grandmother determined: every cloud has its silver lining.

These short life sketches are Portraits of Events covering ground from Cape Town (South Africa) to Basel ( Switzerland) between May1964 and May 2018 that PROUD BROADS*, experienced, wished, dreamed, grew out of the habit of and brought to the table.

*PROUD BROAD (German: VOLLWEIB) is a positive expression, in this context: a female being who daily discovers her femininity, expresses and defines it anew - with her iPhone in her bra and emancipation in the air.

HARD WON INSOUCIANCE
a self-portrait

Recently a cheery lady in her seventies served me up a double-edged compliment when she asked, with all the earnestness of a wartime presidential interviewer: ”How do you manage to waltz through life in such carefree fashion?”

Twelve years ago such a question would have had me on the floor quietly giggling and drooling until the nice men in white coats gently took me to a padded pink rubber room.

As we now live in 2019, any potential jaw-dropping on my part was arrested well short of the floor by my spontaneously rising interrogatory eyebrow.

Had I just been attacked by a compliment? Or was this another sign from the Universe not to take on too much at once?

After more than five decades of life spent collecting experiences, both desired and despised, inner reflection has developed an answer that saves me time and nerves, “How? Honestly - with ritual self-forgiveness the occasional small luxury, and regular amusement."