Look Back in Anger?

So 2011 is done and dusted and what did I achieve (different to any other year that is?)?

Zip.

I'm not cross about this lack, merely commenting on it. Every day when Si either calls from some far flung part of the world or arrives home just in time for dinner, he asks, with the regularity of a German's bowel movements;
"how was your day?"
To which I invariably reply; (unless I'm suffering from PMT that is, or have had to help with homework)

"Fine"

To which he responds;

"Anything to report?"

"Nuh."

When questioned about my daily activities I usually find that I have done nothing worth expending breath on. And so when you add 365 days of nothing of note together you get the grand sum of zero to report - funny how I manage to blog about nothing, and quite regularly too.

But I must have done something this last year? Surely...let's think*

January - Simon went to China, we had stupid amounts of snow hanging around until forever following the almighty dumping on Christmas Eve (it snowed all night and all day) we went to see Wicked (in German) shame I'd never seen The Wizard of Oz - that might have made up for what was lost in translation.

February - Simon went to Korea, I trekked over to Bochum to a lovely independent cinema to watch Colin Firth in The King's Speech (this was the only place showing it in NRW in original language)

March - Karneval in all its grimness was celebrated (or not as the case may be, I think we still had snow and so I refused to go and stand in the street to try and catch sweets being thrown from the floats) Julie had a great birthday party which involved large quantities of champagne, my brother flew in so that we could go and watch Kylie (who was amazing) my parents came for a visit and I joined the gym.

April - Simon's birthday, Ben and Simon went to England for the weekend to eat curry and go to the Gadget Show, Easter hols and we went to Center Parcs in France and it was unseasonably warm, we had a Royal Wedding party here which people still mention (that'll teach us to get ourselves in the press)

May - helped at the Music for Japan benefit by making mojitos for 5 hours, went to the Giacomo Variations in Recklinghausen starring John Malkovich (bonkers doesn't even start to cover it) there was the 1st 'formal' German party of the year which was surprisingly chilled and not at all what we'd expected, Jas had her 10th birthday and we took 10 little girls to Build a Bear (possibly the most successful children's birthday party we've ever hosted) the outlaws came for a visit, Ben had his 14th birthday, Jas had a vegetable festival at school (it was as dull as it sounds) had our 2nd formal German birthday party which was also quite chilled**, went to Solingen*** with Jas's choir to help with their competition entry.

June - 3 bank holidays, Ben went away with his class for 3 days, helped with Jas's choir production of the Pied Piper (little children, en masse, shudder)

July - Princie had an Independence Day party, Ben's class held an Abschlussfest (to mark the moving from the unterstufe to the mittelstufe) it was at a canoe club with the idea that they could play canoe polo or something, great idea for July, except the weather had other ideas, I went to Jas's class to show them a heart experiment (mental note to self - NEVER AGAIN), we celebrated Princie's 30th birthday, Simon went to Japan, Jas's class had their Abschlussfest to say goodbye to the year 4's, went to Spain for 10 days of proper summer.

August - returned from Spain on the 4th (in the very early hours of the am) and flew out to England on the 5th, celebrated sister in law's 40th birthday with a (not) surprise birthday lunch, visited my parents and my bf Alison, rioters were in all the news headlines****, Simon went to Australia, Jas started to do HipHop.

September - my parents came, our 3rd formal German party and again just food and drink and chatter - perfect, school started back, yet another party and still no presentation, went to see Cirque de Soleil with my parents, spent a Saturday morning going round a chemical plant.

October - my birthday, went to the Rocky Horror Show, Jas went to Langeoog for 6 days with her class, Si went away somewhere, halfterm holidays and we went to Rome for 5 days.

November - went to the Ideal Home Show with Emma and drank rather a lot of wine rather early in the morning, test drove the Mini Countryman, ordered a Mini Countryman, Logan developed a limp, the inlaws came to do the Christmas markets.

December - Jas's laternefest was survived without frostbite unlike the previous year, we had our Christmas Cocktail party, we went to the Corks for carols (another December tradition) went out for dinner to celebrate Rebecca's birthday, Emma had an open house, Si went to Japan, my parents came for Christmas, I collected my new, sparkly Mini, we went to see FlicFlac in Dortmund, the inlaws came for Sylester, Karen hosted a hot glühwein party and we saw in the New Year at the Warburton's along with 20 or so other adults and about the same number of children.

And that was my uneventful year.

Here's to 2012, I've made one resolution, to get the manuscript I've written fit for sending to literary agents...I shall have to do it now that I've put it into black and white.


* run to diary and flick through pages.
** no Powerpoint presentation or slide show or games or skits, in fact no formal entertainment at all, just good food, an open bar, great music to dance and people to chat to.
*** had to sit on a damp, sweaty coach next to a snotty kid for an hour there and an hour back - grim.
**** I swear it was just coincidence that we went back to Enlgand and that very weekend the riots kicked off.