kettwigefrau

Sunday Snaps 100

2012-02-12T07:00:00.000+01:00

As this is my 100th Sunday Snap post I thought I'd give you the best 10 of the pics (as I see it) from the last 2(ish) years...

the pic that started it all, the Fuckers coaches.

my brother's bike, now AWOL in Libya.

football fever.

summer holidays, the view from the balcony.

when the blue sheep come out, you know winter's over.

Libya gets freedom.

Jasmine's mended broken arm.

a 'policeman' on a balcony near us.

me on the stupidly high wire last Easter.


Royal Wedding party.

hope you enjoyed that!

You must be joking...

2012-02-09T15:43:00.000+01:00

I (sorry Sven, we) won the Joker again at the Expats Quiz Night.

The question was "how many passengers were officially registered on the Costa Concordia"?
Answer, 3229. It's all down to Sven that we were the closest, I'd originally wanted to put 7000 and Sven said it should be at least halved.

The evening didn't start well. People are reluctant to go out when faced with sub zero temperatures in the evening and so the expats turned up in dribs and drabs, a couple didn't make it at all, due to tardy husbands. Their loss was our gain though as one of those forced to stay home was E, whose aim in life is to get every question right in the quiz* and I hate to say it (but I will, because it will annoy her) but last night could have been her night, Sven (who agreed to partner me) happily told me that his wife was much better at quiz's than him and I (general knowledge is not my strong point, nor is history, geography, sport...shall I go on?) managed a whopping 22/25 - not enough to clinch the grand prize, but due to possession of the joker we were first to get a line of questions right - tee hee.

We were treated to a music round last night, five clips of music were played and the challenge was not in naming the song but in not continuing to sing along and so accidentally revealing the title. They were all very popular 80's hits like Dollie Parton's "9-5", Tina Turner's "What's love got to do with it?" and even Wham's "Wake me up before you go go". A very popular round.

Other questions were:

What's the name of the Disney Corporation Theme song? We hadn't a clue and this despite Sven having lived in the U.S. for 20 years and having visited Disney numerous times - I wasn't amused.
What is an epicure? A mud/skin treatment, a person of refined taste, a tool for removing nose hair or the side chapel of a cathedral? We used a process of elimination here.
What Olympic sport is won backwards? Piece. Of. Cake.
What is the point score from the word "QUIZ" in the game of scrabble? Guessed 25, then amended through logic (!) to the right answer, which caused some debate because the Americans seem to score it differently.
What side of the road do they drive on in India? Apparently putting "the correct one" isn't the right answer.
Who is Mario Monte? The Italian PM or the captain of the Costa Concordia? We argued about this and foolishly I gave in.
What are Puma, Polo and Punto?
This is the first line of which book - "Far out in the uncharted backwaters of the unfashionable end of the western spiral arm of the Galaxy lies a small, unregarded yellow sun."

Easy huh? But still no team (and we were only allowed teams of two this time, which makes choosing who you're going to partner up with a crucial decision) got a full house, the best score was 23/25. Never mind, maybe next time - as long as E's other half can be bribed in staying late at work again!

Here are the answers just in case you didn't know:
1. When you wish upion a star.
2. A person of refined taste.
3. Rowing or back stroke.
4. 22.
5. Left.
6. The Italian PM.
7. Cars.
8. The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy.

I'm ready for next months quiz now**, will probably do really badly and not make it to double figures let alone into the 20's.

* now I know that this should be everyone's goal, but E is almost German in her quest to be the best of the best!
** have only just realised why Chris asked how many points in Scrabble come from the word QUIZ, oh dear!

School Daze

2012-02-07T16:43:00.002+01:00

Say what you like about the schooling system in the UK, and people will always find something to complain about, but here in Germany I am constantly surprised (and that's not in agood way)...

- a physics 'test', not a formal exam but an oral questioning, the results of which will be the basis for the forthcoming end of half year reports, Ben got 2/10 questions wrong and the teacher has decided this shows a lack of understanding of the subject and will it result in a grade 4 (where 1 is the highest grade). He's not amused. Nor am I.

- a parallel class to Ben's has a French teacher who has been off sick on and off since September. The schooling system here doesn't have a pool of qualified, temporary teachers to draw on, therefore the class has had no formal, consistent French tuition for the first six months of this school year, I wonder what grade will represent that on their reports?

- Ben's class of 13/14 year olds have lessons just in the mornings on 3 days of the week, they're home by lunchtime and on two of these days they don't even have a first lesson. On the days that they have 'fullday' school they get a free lesson in the middle of the day 'to relax' in the specially created 'chillout room' and the teachers aren't allowed to give them any homework.

- positive feedback only seems to occur when you comment on its lack and on the negative impact of purely critical feedback. A friend's son got every question right in a recent maths test and yet rather than praising the child the teacher chose instead to remark that the child needed to do their homework and pay attention in class.

- creative writing doesn't happen here. I discussed this serious lack with (expat) friends who told me that no, I wasn't imagining it and that the German system allows creativity at Uni level and therefore all the repressed passion comes spewing forth then...fine, this hopefully means that the Goethes and Kafkas of the future will eventually emerge, but rather a shame for the kids stuck in German grammar classes copying laboriously how the verb schreiben* conjugates.

- Jas's maths teacher has just left and yesterday she had a stand in (I hope, I hope this teacher isn't going to be the permanent replacement...) the children were packing up at the end of the lesson, Jas was finishing writing a sum down, the girl next to her also. Jas pointed out to the girl that she'd put the decimal point** in the wrong place, teacher saw Jas looking at her friend's work and told Jas that if she paid attnetion in class then she wouldn't be so stupid - I don't think the phrase "politically correct" has any meaning here.

On Friday the children will come home (at lunchtime, obviously) with their half year reports, it will be interesting to see how much positive and constructive criticism there is.

* schreiben - to write. ich schreibe, du schreibst, er schreibt. ich schrieb. ich habe geschrieben.
** technically speaking I should say 'comma', because the Germans for some crazy reason use a point/full stop as the thousand marker and a comma where you or I would put a decimal point...I wont start on the symbols for multiply and divide...needless to say my maths ability has deteriorated since trying to help Jas.

the fish jumped out of the water

2012-02-06T10:15:00.000+01:00

Friday, being the first Friday of the month was bookgroup and with temperatures falling below -10 people baled - we were left with those who weren't necessarily reliant on the public transport system (which even here in ever so puntual und ordentlich Deutchland doesn't seem to tolerate extremes) that meant the group was the die hards, the alkies and those who could blag a lift...all girls, needless to say.

Due to the demographics of the group (all female, one usual male attendee being 'on holiday', one 'working' and another otherwise AWOL) the conversation took a very female turn, it's bound to happen, in the same way that men will resort to football so women will choose to discuss men, shopping and sex.

Yes, we talked about the book, 'More than you can say', 4 of us (9) had even read it. I didn't like the author's style but can appreciate J's opinion that the book discusses the matter of post traumatic stress disorder following war and the fact that it's a subject possibly passed over as not a 'serious medical condition', and in my defence, I did finish the book, if I REALLY don't like a book then I toss it, life is too short to waste on drivel.

Amongst other things we also discussed;

- Arranging a girlie spa day - a no naked sauna/spa day. Harder to do than you'd think, the locals lurrrrrrrrrrrrve their naked sauna (one friend recounted a tale of being at a spa and being chased to the edge of the pool by an attendant because the swimming was also naked) - it's not a choice, it's a prerequisite, shudder. A possible spa has been found but we've been cautioned to check that they're not naked at the weekend as some spas change their policy on Saturday and Sunday.

- We tried googling T's boss because apparently he's way too sexy for her office and as an ex-pro swimmer still has a cute bod. Despite knowing his name we failed, maybe I'll try again now, seeing as I'm on a proper computer rather than just an iphone...nope, still nothing.

- I had an app "film on" recommended to me by my hairdresser, sorry, make that haircutter (as Justin and Jason like to call themselves) a free app that allows you to watch TV, British, Italian, German, French, Arabic...the list of channels is almost endless. I've now recommended this onto my book group friends - made some of them very happy.

- We have sub zero temperatures here at the moment and this is leading to all manner of wardrobe faux pas. Multiple layers are essential for being out and about, which then means that when you get to your destination you have to strip, we thought R would never stop, layer after layer was discarded. Then there's the problem of timing the washing of your fave jeans, when only one pair fits perfectly in your non slip snuggly warm boots just when do you choose to wash them, and is it possible to get them washed and dried overnight - tricky. One friend has succumbed to the local habit of wearing a coat that looks like a sleeping bag, she was very sheepish as she turned up to bookgroup, sheepish but with a warm ass. The only thing in her favour is that the coat is very dark brown rather than the shiny black that seems to be the in colour for duvet coats.

- We should clearly have talked about Coldplay because K was wearing her hoodie from the Mylo Xyloto tour that she went to last month/month before, sorry K, bet you're gutted we didn't mention it, and I know it must have been a fab concert...sorry.

- A went to the loo (as you do) leaving her chair draped in her coat and various other bits of clothing, she'd been gone no more than a minute when the waitress (a moody creature, who, given the opportunity, would rather serve Satan's spawn than us group of foreigners) appeared and asked if she could seat two people in this gap (note, not the end of the table, but rather the corner, slap bang in the middle of a fair sized English group who can get so voluble that other tables turn and tsk ...hey, we're regular, we buy lots, we tip well - and we're the novelty act for the evening, no one has complained - yet) I pointed out that one of the seats she wanted to give away was still in theory occupied by the girl who was in the loo...she wasn't amused.

And Anika confessed (for some reason) that the first sentence she ever learnt to speak in German (which she'd decided to learn whilst living and working in Chicago because she'd met a cute German guy) was "der Fisch springt aus dem Wasser".

Sunday Snaps 99

2012-02-05T09:08:00.005+01:00

Here's a series of photos I took this week as I walked the dog along the banks of the Ruhr as the freezing temperatures took hold:

Thursday, this was the ice starting to form, it looked like balls of aluminium foil in the water with the sun shining on it, quite bizarre.

Friday, sheets of ice floating down the river, over and under one another, making the most amazing sound.

Saturday, oddly the river seemed less frozen and yet the temperature was no warmer.

Knock knock

2012-02-01T06:33:00.000+01:00

Saturday evening we were invited to friends for chilli to "celebrate" her birthday, a low key event due to the fact that they'd buried his mother just two days previously.

We spent the evening in the kitchen (where all the best parties end up anyway, so why not cut out the middle man and start where you mean to finish?) which was very cosy, I'm glad we were the second couple to arrive because at least that ensured we bagged seats around the table and didn't have to spend the evening propping up the worktops, although it also meant that we couldn't pick and choose who we got to chat with.

The chilli was delicious, Michael is a good cook (bearing in mind that for a day job he's a surgeon, replacing shoulder, knee and hip joints) but as anticipated the chilli was so mild that I could barely tell that it was chilli (the give away was the kidney beans) but many of the other guests found it still too spicy, ladling on the crème fraiche that was there for just such people.

I felt quite sorry for the chef, due to the funeral earlier in the week, there were still relatives hanging about that needed to be entertained. Fine, except that Michael had clearly been the baby in the family and the rellies were....older, and had come armed with baby photos. Poor Michael, a grown man with a successful surgical career and two children in high school and yet still the photos circulated, he was very good about it though, as the photos to continued while he took refuge in the male, football corner - despite the fact that he isn't a football fan.

Why is it that whenever two or more men are gathered together the talk turns to football (unless of course they both work for the same company, in which case they talk work) It did on Saturday, naturally, and I can't for the life of me remember how we, at the predominantly girlie table got involved, leading me to prove that women (or me at least) do understand "the offside rule", and what's more I then went onto to prove my understanding - in German...I'm so much more fluent after a glass or three of wine.

I learnt something new about Germans on Saturday night. They always greet everyone, handshake if you're not close, kiss on the cheek if you're more friendly/female and so on, it's not just polite it's expected of you, and woe betide you should you enter a room/restaurant/bar/cafe and accidentally (because you're not German and therefore not aware of the slight that is occuring*) not greet someone - social suicide. But when you walk into a room already full of people it is a bit of a pain to have to go around shaking hands and saying hello, so the crafty Germans have come up with a way round this, they knock on the table. Quite how this introduces you to everyone I don't know, but at least you can't be accused of deliberately ignoring someone. They also use the knocking on the table as a means of applauding and to back someone up in a discussion (the way the English say "hear hear")

Everytime I think to myself, "we're not that different, afterall" I discover something new (even after four years) which makes me go "huh?" all over again, but I guess it'd be a boring world if we were all the same.

* I am guilty of this, I have been told by a friend that she's been asked why I've ignored such and such a person...I swear that half the time I wander around in my own little bubble, oblivious to the faces on the people around me - although since the complaints I'm trying hard to look at people** in order to decide whether I need to smile and say hi.
** maybe that's why I think that Germans stare, maybe they're not just staring to be nosy, maybe they're staring and wondering to themselves, "do I know you? Do I need to say hello in order not to accidentally offend you?"

It's a pain

2012-01-31T07:56:00.002+01:00

It's quite clear that people have different pain thresholds. I'm a complete girlie wuss, my birth plan* was succint and to the point and went something along the lines of "leave the drugs trolley with me". Simon (being male) claims to have a much higher tolerance to pain (of course) and was saying just at the weekend that Jas (who is, it has to be said, only 10) isn't very good with pain***.

At the moment Jas is the snot queen, and this particular beasty of a cold took an evil turn yesterday giving Jas earache. Wicked English mother that I am sent Jas in to school complete with swimming kit (I had suggested that she didn't need to do swimming, but she wanted to, and in my defence she hadn't told me she had earache) I then got a call from Herr B part way through the morning asking me to come and collect Jas because she had earache****.

I collected Jas as requested and immediately rang the children's doctor for an appointment, not wanting the possible ear infection to get too good a grip. This was 11am. The earliest appointment they could give me was 11.45am - I love the German health care system, the Germans whine about it, but if I were in England I'd have been lucky to get an appointment for the following day. What's more, we turned up at the doc's to an empty waiting room and were shown straight in. Prescription followed examination and then home via the chemist - which took two trips as the 1st was out of the antibiotics, although Jas didn't complain because they still gave her a packet of Gummibears despite not being able to serve us!

The doc has given Jas amoxicillin (lemon flavoured) a nasal spray for the snot and ibuprofen tablets that melt on the tongue (for the pain). Jas is not and never has been any good with medicine, fortunately (touch wood) she has always been a very healthy child, when she gets ill she does it in style - a broken arm that needed two operations, a stomach bug that required an intravenous fluid drip and the only other time she's had an ear infection she vomited every time she stood up. When she was tiny and had a cough it was impossibleto get her to take cough medicine because she would vomit it up. And now she has three lots of meds, three times a day...the nose spray she's fine with, not overly impressed, but fine. The antibiotics have to be decanted into an espresso cup and set alongside a glass of water and a glass of something "nice". She take a sip of each, complaining all the time, but at least it's going down, even if it does take 5 minutes for the swallowing of 5ml. The ibuprofen tablets are a different matter. She took one yesterday, the idea is that it melts on the tongue and then you can swallow it, Jas very nearly gagged on the first one and since then has denied having any pain whatsoever. I'm not sure which is greater her new tolerance to pain or her stubborn determination. The hard part is going to be making her take the antiobiotics to the end of the course when she's no longer got any symptoms.

* I don't know if it's still THE thing to do prior to giving birth, but back in the day (damals**) it was what you did to prepare for the upcoming 18+ years of parenting.
** in joke (just between me 'n Muna) sorry.
*** the filing of feet and the application of anti verruca medicine were involved and reduced poor J to a blubbering heap (I hid in the cellar).
**** Herr B then went on to add that if I wanted to keep Jas at home today so that she'd be fit for the evening, when the class are doing their performance of "the Emperor's New Clothes", then that would be fine...well yeah, maybe, but surely maths and grammar are a bit more important?

Sunday Snaps 98

2012-01-29T04:31:00.000+01:00

This is courtesy of the BBC Radio Times magazine and my dad. I read about the picture online (the BBC have had to publish an apology for printing the photo without first checking to make sure that it wasn't X rated - their excuse was that they thought "it" was the man's hand...) and as the only picture I could see online had a great big red cross through the man's nether regions I asked my dad if he could find it for me. I thought I'd share it with you as I found it highly amusing, as I'm sure all the commandos do.

On the Pier

2012-01-25T14:01:00.003+01:00

I've posted before about Hollister* and the hype surrounding it. Well today I went to Gilly Hicks Sydney because I was curious to see what they have to offer. Gilly is promoted as the "cheeky cousin" of Abercrombie and Fitch and as such sell cheeky underwear and beach gear.

I thought for a moment that the shop wasn't yet open (although a friend had spoken of being there last week and so I knew it was open) the double frontage of the shop appeared from a distance to be blue/grey and I thought it was boarded up, but no, the windows are made up of row upon row of TV screens with a sea scene playing, or at least I think that's what it was, I didn't want to appear a complete idiot and stand outside and gawp at the front of the shop.

Walking into the shop there's no difference from Hollister or Abercrombie & Fitch, wooden flooring, wooden shelving, the shop is sub-divided into smaller rooms (to ensure that you get throughly disoriented and go round and round the shop trying to either find what you want or the way out) the music is so loud that is is almost impossible to hear yourself think, let alone what the staff are saying to you (that is when they deem to notice you**) the perfume that is pumped into the air is cloying and a tad on the vomit-inducing side, but what really gets me is the lack of light. It must be like working down in a mine, I guess that explains why the colours of the clothing are so strong, there isn't a pastel shade in sight, in the gloomy, perfumed darkness it would be quite hard to tell pale pink from pale peach but burgundy from turquoise or navy blue? Easy(ish).

My friend who was there last week complained that she couldn't find anything because of the lighting (or rather, the lack of) I replied that I found it easier to look on their website first so that I knew what was on offer, a crazy but workable idea, if they kept the same stock online as instore...they don't. The nice cropped yoga pants haven't hit Deutschland yet, I wonder if they'll make it this season? Germany does have a tendency to be years behind...*** And it is crazy to think that the shop is so badly lit (on purpose) that you need to look at pictures online first to get a true idea of their colour.

I queued for ages at the chechout**** as four little (size 4 or something) girlies faffed about, trying to serve the American lady at the head of the queue. The language wasn't a problem, because she spoke German and they (all four of them) spoke perfect English (it was quite bizarre) the problem was that after scanning all the codes and then swiping the bank card the girlie wanted to input the card number into the till computer (goodness only knows why, they were doing it for every transaction) and not only did the lady's card not have such a number (or maybe it was in the wrong place - I was trying not to be too nosey*****) but the lighting was too dim for the girlies to read the numbers on the cards.

All in all a not too unpleasant shopping experience, Jas is very pleased with her green and white striped top and I have some new knickers to try out. The staff do amuse me though, from the girl who greeted me on entry with "welcome to the pier" (huh? I thought I was in a knicker shop?) through to the (possibly same) one who said "thanks for shopping with us, goodbye", I swear they're clones, all impossibly slim, all young (not a wrinkle or grey hair in sight) long, straight hair and all wearing identical clothing - teeny weeny tops, bottom hugging leggings and flipflops (in January?!) I guess when they come into work as well as punching the time clock they have to leave their personalities at the door - along with their heavy winter coats and themal boots.

I wonder how long I need to leave it before they'll have those cropped yoga pants in store? A couple of weeks? A couple of months or a couple of years?

* American fashion/lifestyle store that is the part of the Abercrombie and Fitch chain.
** The staff in this chain are all chosen for their beauty (whether male or female) and youth, and are clearly expected to display this in the wrapping of the store's merchandise, and as such they clearly think themselves too cool to notice the people that pay their wages.
*** Cashback at the supermarket checkout? I've seen it once. Supermarket online ordering and then home delivery? In our dreams. Fresh deli humous? Have to make it yourself (if you can find the raw ingredients) New bands with CDs in the charts in the UK? Months later they appear here...shall I go on?
**** But I'm used to that here, Germany can never be described as a world of customer service (I do so pity all the poor Americans that wind up here, it must be a nasty shock) and I'm sure Germans are more used to queueing than the Brits.
***** I haven't gone that native, yet.

Quiz

2012-01-23T07:13:00.000+01:00

Saturday night was another quiz night, a friend who's a member of the American Women's Dusseldorf Club (I think that's what they're called) had organised for their group to have an 'International Couples Quiz Night' and as all we had to do was wander down the hill to Lulu's we thought we'd go.

Kick off was slightly delayed due to the quiz master getting lost, in Kettwig (which isn't huge) He rang the bar to say he was outside St Josefhaus and how should he get to us, intructions were given and we waited, and waited. He rang again, still lost, so we sent two husbands out to find him, they headed off up hill from the bar, and then 5 minutes later went past the window in the opposite direction.

The format of the quiz was the same as the one that Ian uses, the bingo style, so the expat regulars (me and Emma) didn't need the explanation of how the quiz worked given by Ve, everyone else looked quite bemused. As usual there were five round of questions, we had wine, holiday destinations, a picture round, trivia and nursery rhymes, here are a few of the questions;

1. which is the largest of the Canary Islands?
2. what colour is the majority of English wine?
3. what substance weighs less as a solid than as a liquid?
4. you're buying tickets for the cinema, is it cheaper to take one friend twice or to take two friends once?
5. along which river are the majority of Germany's vineyards?

I missed the picture round because I had to take an emergency phone call from a 10 year old girl who was reluctant to go to bed without me being there (goodnees knows why, she usually manages it without having her hand held*) I sorted the problem out by having a chat with the babysitter (elder brother) and promised him that I wouldn't make him get out of bed until 11am as long as he put his sister to bed patiently, the way he would with other people's children when he's being paid to do it. My fellow team mates managed the picture round without me, all apart from one question, which I didn't know either - the pictures were all of different board games and merely had to be named, I'd have been able to contribute to that round as well if I hadn't had to stand outside negotiating a peace treaty**.

I had high hopes at the beginning of the evening, managing to get onto Emma's**** team, I should have paid heed to her when her husband defected to the team of two on the next table, claiming they needed him more, Emma said then that he was better than her, and he was - by two whole points. Good job he can't usually make it to quiz nights, truly a force to be reckoned with. We ended up with 20/25, not enough and we weren't first to get either 4 corners or a row, that'll be the last time I get to be on Emma's team I bet, truly ending her winning streak!

1. we put Tenerife (which is correct) and then changed our minds to Gran Canaria, which is clearly a misleading name.
2. white.
3. Simon didn't like the wording of this question, saying it should be about density and not weight, we evenutally put water, which is correct.
4. two friends once of course.
5. Rhine.

* please note that she's not home alone, but in the care of her elder brother.
** when I'm finished with this parenting lark*** the U.N. will be able to make use of my negotiation skills.
*** although I get the impression that parenting is one job with no end date and no 'get out of jail free' card either, just golden handcuffs!
**** at expat quiz nights Emma usually wins, if not a row then the overall quiz, her goal (when Ian was quizmaster) was always to get 25/25, while the rest of us just tried not to get too embarassingly a low number!

Sunday Snaps 97

2012-01-22T13:48:00.004+01:00

Courtesy of Jasmine, this is the toilet roll dispenser in the ladies' loos in a local restaurant, Jas and I think it's very funny.

Villa Landleben

2012-01-18T11:48:00.002+01:00

I'm just back from a relaxing breakfast, and I know it may be almost time now for lunch but as I've not long ago finished breakfast (and it is definitely more breakfast than brunch - seeing as we started at 9am) I don't think I'll be needing any midday sustenance.

Villa Landleben has become our* favourite breakfast haunt, we're not there every week but maybe every month (our last visit was at the end of November, just before everything went Christmas crazy) and we've been so often (this is not necessarily a good thing, I know) that one of the staff came over and asked if we'd translate something for her the next time we're there - shame then that next month we've decided to try somewhere else, just for a change - more of that later, but we'll be back to Villa Landleben, if not in February then in March, the food is too good and the extra shopping afterwards (think quirky clothing, English tea room china and bits of sparkly jewelry) is just the cherry on the top of particularly scrummy cake.

This morning's chat seemed to be even more school focused than normal (apologies to the 1 girlie who is the only one who doesn't even have children, let alone children in the German school system!) Something to do with the fact that 1 mom has a son whose doctor is recommending Ritalin (NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO, we all screamed) another is trying to find a different high school (for her newly transplanted into Germany, son) preferably one that doesn't have too strong a focus on Latin and 2 moms with children making the decision about which high school to go to after primary school. I think the 2+ hours spent over coffee and croissants and smoked salmon and fresh fruit was great therapy for all of us!

We enjoy our morning breakfast chats, just as decadent as martini nights in their way, and just as much fun (and no hangover the day after - just lots of guilt about the number of calories consumed). We usually arrange the next one whilst we're still finishing off our last coffees and this time was no exception, four weeks takes us Wednesday February 15th, so I suggested we meet on the 14th, that way we can all be each other's Valentines because none of us is fortunate enough to have married a romantic man who would think of doing something sweet and surprising (without being cattle prodded into it first) Rachael even had the perfect venue for it, "The Chocolate Room", a coffee shop that specialises in hot chocolate** (as well as pralines and truffles) but that also does breakfast, sounds ideal for 5 girlies, I'm looking forward to it already.

* local expat girlies (me, Rebecca, Rachael, Princie and Karen + whoever else has time and desire to come along too)
** you can choose the strength of your hot chocolate, anything and everything from 50/60% cocoa up to 80/85% - delicious.

Where the wild things are*

2012-01-17T14:15:00.005+01:00

Before living in Germany we lived in England. Most recently in a small village in Staffordshire with fields just a stones throw away, and before that on the edge of a small town very close to Cannock Chase. We lived closer to the countryside than we do now, here in Kettwig, which although very quaint and just on the river is still more a town with bits of the countryside encroaching. Which makes it odd that there's more wildlife here in the middle of the residential area where we live than ever we encountered back in England. Maybe it's because the density of inhabitants is greater in Blighty, maybe there's more wild stuff here on the continent, I'm quite sure it's nothing to do with me becoming more observant!

In Abbots Bromley the wildest creatures we had to put up with were the squirrels that liked to bury acorns in our lawn or the odd deer risking life and limb trying to cross a country lane. But here? Here there's way more.

We have squirrels, of course, but these are the cute red ones, because the big grey American fiends haven't made it onto the continent yet, although it's possible that they have but it's just that there's something bigger than them here that likes a bit of grey squirrel for dinner. There are deer too, I've seen them while I've been out with the dog, now that's a thing of beauty (seeing a deer in the early morning mist, not the dog, clearly). Herons and woodpeckers along by the river are fun to watch/listen to. But it's the rodenty** creatures we seem to have in adundance.

It started with cute little field mice, running along the outside of the house, driving the dog scatty as he tried to find where they'd disappeared to.
It's cold outside now, far too cold for the field mice to play outside so they've relocated and Simon isn't happy. They're in the garage, don't know how they got in, just know that we need to get rid of them. Si bought a plug in electronic noise thingy that is supposed to emit a sound they don't like (and no, it doesn't miaow) but as I've seen the cheeky chaps since it was installed it clearly doesn't work. Yesterday the antimouse action stepped up a gear and I bought two mouse traps and got the tame teenager to earn his keep by setting them up and giving him responsibility for checking and emptying them.

We've had rats too (dog not so keen to chase them) I saw them the other side of the garden fence, running under the neighbours' laurel bushes, then the cheeky buggers climbed up our fence and jumped onto the bird table and ate the bird food. After consultation with the neighbours the ratman was called in and poison traps put down, haven't seen the buggers since.

We also have Martens along our road. I knew about them, having read scare stories online about what they can do to your car, and a friend who has moved to a house with lots of mature trees overlooking the road has been informed by her neighbour that the martens living in the trees have got into her engine and chewed through various cables rendering the car undriveable***. My neighbour spotted martens hanging about in front of our houses and we have certainly witnessed one vanishing up into the engine compartment of a car further along the road (they curl up on the cooling engine) - I'm so glad my car can go in the garage, I don't think field mice are as reknowned for damaging car cables as martens are!

* great book to read to children but the most rubbish film ever apart from ''No Country for Old Men", which was another film that left me feeling I'd lost valuable time from my life.
** have just googled one of said critters and discovered that despite it's love of nibbling it isn't a rodent - apparently to be a rodent you have to have specialised teeth that grow continuously (there's more to the definition obviously, but I wont bore you)
*** I have a feeling that the neighbour was trying hard to apportion blame for insurance claim purposes.

Sunday Snaps 96

2012-01-15T11:47:00.003+01:00

January 15th and the snowdrops are out, and the bulbs are pushing through and the birds are singing for mates...nature is screwed.

The Wizard of Oz

2012-01-12T11:29:00.000+01:00

It's never easy having to step into someone shoes is it? No matter how big or trivial the situation, you are always conscious that someone has set the bench mark that you will be measured against and there is damn all you can do about it apart from trying your best.

As I blogged last month, Ian, our expat quiz master, abandoned us and returned to England (or at least Yorkshire) leaving in his stead, Chris to take on the challenge of concocting a perfect quota of quiz questions once a month. 25 questions that should be the right combination of huh? and ah! and uh? and YES! They can't be too hard (because we'd get too demoralised and not want to play again - yes, we are that fickle) and yet can't be too easy (because Lesley doesn't want to have to give everyone a prize) but also the demographic of the group is so varied and so variable, one month there might be 8 people, another 28, aged from 28 to 58 and coming from pretty much every continent in the world - the only common determinator is the language and even the English spoken is diverse, at times American English can be as different from British English as Dutch is from German and let's not get started on those for whom English is a second language despite the fact that they speak it fluently.

There was a faint whiff of grease paint in the air at Lulus last night and Chris was very keen to get the show on the road, I doubt it was first night nerves or stage fright seeing as his day job is being tenor opera singer, I think he just wanted to get going and put his mark on the quiz.

The quiz was the same 'bingo' format as usual but Chris had added a special Antipodean twist, a joker, whichever team got closest to the right answer for the joker question would win the right to play the joker during the answers and request the question number that they wanted next, so allowing them to complete a row and possibly win (the answers are read out in a random order, you see*). The joker question was;
- how many churches were burnt down during the Great Fire of London?
We** had no idea, I stopped doing history at school as soon as possible, Jason wanted to go low, I wanted to go high so we compromised with the number he plucked out of thin air, 111. And we won the joker because we were closest to the answer of 87 (which is the random number that Sing wanted us to put...)

And onto the quiz itself, here are a few of the questions that we had to puzzle over;

1. What is the oldest alcolholic drink?
2. What is a chukka?
3. Rose Tyler and Sara Jane Smith wer companions to whom?
4. On which continent are there the fewest inhabitants?
5. Which came first the photograph or the bicycle?
6. What do the letters 'C+M+B' represent when written above a doorway in chalk?
7. In which civilization is L greater than XL?

A great mix of questions, made even better by the fact that we were the first team to get a row (thanks to having a Joker to play) and we were one of the four teams to get the top score of 19/25 - failed the tie break question though;

What year was the founding of the Spanish Inquisition?

We plucked a number out of the air, none of us having a clue and 1623 was way out of the ballpark, the actual answer is 1480.

I think Chris can be quite satisfied with last night, the quiz was a great succes, with at least seven teams playing (some of whom were Germans, who hadn't got a clue what they were agreeing to at the beginning) and I for one will definitely be back for more next month, although I shall have to find a new team as my co-conspirators are taking off for a month on Friday. Maybe I can play with Emma***?

Answers:
1. Beer, which we put and then crossed out as Jason deemed brewing too complex a process to have been the first, we went with cider.
2. This was a multiple choice question and we had a,b,c & d to choose from, I didn't hear the other options, because having read Jilly Cooper's 'Polo' and being a keen reader of OK & Hello**** (when I can get my hands on them) I wrote down 'polo' before he'd got as far as 'c) a period of play in the game of polo.
3. The whole bar collectively went "huh?" and we all stared about vacantly, Chris read the question again and I had a lightbulb moment. Doctor Who of course! Smug doesn't even come close to describing that feeling!
4. In this particular round everything began with 'A', Antartica.
5. Jason wanted to put bicycle, but I can smell a trick question a mile off (or at least last night I could) so I wrote down photogrpah, a good job I had control of the pen.
6. After living in Germany for four years I know this because I've asked about it, it's the three kings - Caspar, Melchior and Balthasar.
7. I recognised this as Latin numerals but it was Jason who pointed out that in Latin L is greater than XL, I can just about remember that X=10 & C=100...

* it makes sense when you're there and playing along, honest.
** our team last night was me, Jason & Sing.
*** Emma always wins, but was unable to attend last night - shall have to remember to thank her husband for arranging to be away so that she couldn't come out to play!
**** all my guilty secrets are coming out.

And the Winner is....

2012-01-09T16:49:00.003+01:00

drum roll please....

The Word of the Year 2011* is

after much debate and deliberation***

Stresstest.

Please note, this is 'Stresstest' - all one word, not 'stress test' the way the rest of the world would have it, and the stress (ho ho) will be on the second syllable, not the first where one would think it should be - these Germans are quite, quite bonkers sometimes.

So who else was in the running for first place? There was 'hebeln', which is a new verb that seems to mean to crank or lever something - a word much used over the last 12 months due to the ongoing crisis in the financial sector and the rescue of the euro countries, and there was 'Arabellion' which only made it to 3rd place, and reflected the need for a generic term for the numerous revolutions and political upheavals in the Arab and North African countries, the Germans do love to adopt new words, just because there are fewer words in the German language than in the English, they cannot be beaten by the English.

Stresstest was chosen because not only were banks tested for their resilience, the railway station project Stuttgart 21 came under pressure as did the green-red state government of Baden-Württemberg and German nuclear power plants were also subjected to stress tests.

The top 10 looks like this (if you're interested):
1. Stresstest
2. hebeln
3. Arabellion
4. Merkozy
5. Fukushima
6. Burnout
7. guttenbergen
8. Killersprossen
9. Ab jetzt wird geliefert
10. Wir sind die 99%

We have to wait another week or so before the 'unwort' of the year is revealed, I can't wait, the anticipation might be too much, if you're lucky I'll forget all about it, the killersprossen**** might get me before then or maybe I'll get burnout, though as always I will try my hardest not to guttenbergen*****!

* according to the jury of the GfdS**
** Gesellschaft für deutsche Sprache (society for German language)
*** I'm assuming the jury took a long time to make a decision, afterall it is a very serious decision, not to be taken lightly and as Germans take everything seriously this would have been a doubley serious decision making process surely.
**** back in the 'summer' we never had there were too many cases of people ending up in hospital seriously ill after possibly having eaten beansprouts, I don't think it was the beansprouts that did for them but I'm blowed if I can remember now what it was actually traced back to. I think at one point all fruit and veg was suspect so we ate cake.
***** Guttenberg was the very silly German politician who got caught copy and pasting in his doctoral thesis, oops, hence the new verb, to guttenberg = to plagiarise.

Sunday Snaps 95

2012-01-08T11:22:00.003+01:00

The anount of rain we've had this last two/three weeks it's no wonder the river's flooded, swimming cossie rather than trainers and running gear would have been more use!

The calm after the storm

2012-01-07T14:50:00.002+01:00

Today my house is guest-less for the second time in three weeks, but this time the calm is here to stay, no guests on the foreseeable horizon and we even wave Simon off for almost two weeks later today. So within 24 hours we'll have gone from six (+1*) to four (+1) to three (+1). The house will positively echo.

This Christmas break has been our most sociable since we moved here almost five years ago (June 7, 1997) we started on Christmas Eve meeting up at Lulus (where else?) with expat friends and their children for hot chocolate (laced with rum) and donuts. Christmas day and Boxing day were very English in that they were quiet family affairs, which confuses the Germans, who do their family Christmas bit on Christmas Eve evening and then seem to be out and about on the 25th, I had a friend last year (or rather the year before last, Christmas 2010) who turned up around 2pm to ask if she could take Logan for a walk, I think she was quite surprised not to be asked in but 2pm on the 25th? Peak panic chef time.

On the 27th we had an invitation to a friend's for afternoon cake which was lovely and could easily have become an alcoholic session but we had an evening appointment in Dortmund with the circus "FlicFlac". I don't think these guys tour outside of Germany (unlike Cirque de Soleil) but if you ever get the opportunity to see them then go and get the best seats you can, they are jaw droppingly amazing and have a great attitude, the whole thing is accompanied by a rock band and you're told at the beginning that you can take photos (but please no flash) and video as long as you then upload to YouTube/facebook etc.- got to admire that bit of shameless self promotion! The last but one act had seven motorbikes roaring around inside a metal sphere***, I had thought that this was the finale but as these guys exited the sphere and the ring we could hear and feel motorbikes beneath our seats and then suddenly a bike shot out of the exit/entrance stairwell just meters from our our seats, it soared into the air, over the top of the sphere and landed on a ramp at the far side of the ring almost behind the curtains, the roaring of bike continued as another one appeared and another but they didn't just ride their bikes through the air, oh no, that would have been too easy, the majority flew only holding onto the handlebars but the very last one? He and his bike somersaulted as they crossed the arena.

The next two days were quiet as we changed guests, swapping one lot of grandparents for another, then on Friday evening we were invited to a hot glühwein party at an American friend's. They (she's married to a German) called it "Feuerzangenbowle" and it starts off as glühwein in a bowl over a burner, to which a specially designed metal spoon is added across the bowl with a pyramid of sugar on it, this is doused thoroughly in rocket fuel/schnapps/xx% proof alcohol which is then lit, the molten sugar drips down through the holes in the spoon and whenever the flames seem to be dying down more alcohol is poured over until all of the sugar is gone.

Saturday evening was of course New Year's Eve, and we and 20 or so other adults (plus children) had dinner and drinks and the obligatory fireworks at Rebecca's. I think my mother in law was almost disappointed on New Year's day when I didn't have a hangover, shall have to try harder next year!

And that was our social festive season, my calendar is disturbingly barren with the exception of quiz night this coming week and then girlie breakfast the week after, January stretches emptily ahead, why do the 31 days of the first month always seem more like five weeks? Maybe it's the lateness of the sunrise and the earliness of the sunset or the dankness of the weather, either way January hasnot and never will be my favourite, I love February partly because it's so short but also because it's not January.

* the +1 being Logan, who although not strictly human** creates enough mess and demands that he has to be counted, and you certainly notice when he isn't in the house!
** the way he plays with the various children that come here I am never sure whether the children regress to animal or he advances to human.
*** it's usually eight, but the previous week one of them had got his timing slightly wrong and ended up in hospital, nothing broken, but clearly unfit to take part.

Look Back in Anger?

2012-01-04T15:38:00.002+01:00

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.

Sunday Snaps 94

2012-01-01T16:04:00.001+01:00

Jas's very late breakfast on New Year's day (after a very late night), ketchup with scrambled eggs on the side.

Crackers

2011-12-28T17:00:00.002+01:00

Christmas has many rituals associated with it, and I'm not talking about the god bothery stuff here either.

Christmas to me is always turkey, Christmas pudding and Christmas crackers. Without those three ingredients it just isn't right*. So far we've been lucky. This was our fifth Christmas here in Germany and we've managed to get crackers and pud every year, they get smuggled in as contraband by friends and family.

The quality of Christmas crackers is hugely variable and it can be tricky to get 'nice' ones when relying on friends to bring them over for you, but we've been OK this year, the Hotel Chocolat crackers while expensive do provide delicious chocolate, gorgeous gold crowns and dubious jokes, while the M&S or Sainsbury ones also went down well with the children**. Jas took great delight in reading out all the "jokes", but neither she nor Ben could understand why the jokes were so...so...unfunny, so we had to explain. That cracker jokes are expected to make people groan, it simply wont do for a cracker joke to be too funny, that said, here's a sample of this year's:

- what happened to the hyena who swallowed a stock cube?
- he made a laughing stock of himself.

- what do you call a boomerang that doesn't come back?
- a stick.

- how do you make an apple puff?
- chase it round the garden.

- how do you make a jacket last?
- make the trousers first.

A funnier joke concerns two friends of mine. Friend W was in England and had promised to bring me supplies back including amongst other things some water biscuits for cheese, some Golden Syrup and my Christmas crackers. Talking to her before she left I mentioned that I didn't need the syrup any more as another friend, R, had given me a jar, but maybe instead she could bring R some crackers. This was all forgotten about until yesterday, when the three of us met for drinks and cake.
W: "I've got your crackers in a cupboard at home, I keep forgetting them"
R: "Crackers?"
W: "Yeah some Jacobs crackers, for cheese."
At which point I piped up that it was Christmas crackers she was supposed to have brought back...

* the presents are of course a huge part of Christmas but I'm not counting them as one of the rituals because the giving and receiving of presents is integral to Christmas in so many countries, it isn't what makes an English Christmas to me.
** actually that should be "child", as Ben at the grand old age of 14 seems to be finding everything we adults do "unamusing", it must take a huge amount of effort to tune us out so effectively.

Sunday Snaps 93

2011-12-25T10:35:00.000+01:00

Me and my Christmas present, love you Simey!

Sign my life away

2011-12-20T20:58:00.002+01:00

At this time of year there are delivery men (& women) scurrying everywhere, taking parcels and packages of all shapes and sizes all over the place.

The DHL van stops so often outside our house that Logan (who is not blessed with the greatest of intelligence) can recognize the yellow van at 100 paces and expects food from whoever should have the misfortune to step out of the van and into Logan's path. The delivery men know that the only way to a dog's heart is through the stomach and therefore always* have a dog treat to pay for admittance into the dog's garden. And so Logan now equates the colour yellow with food - another reason not to get the new car in yellow, Logan would be like Pavlov's dog, and constantly salivating.

All the delivery people want 1 thing, a signature, or so I had thought. For surely a signature is proof of who I am, I'm quite certain no-one else can scrawl my signature quite the way I do, although those damn little electric reader things don't make it easy. Without a signature, anyone could be taking receipt of your ordered goodies and making off with them, which is actually what happened to Simon's fancy TV. The delivery note said it had been delivered here and at a time when I was in, but that certainly wasn't my signature they had. Someone got an early present and it wasn't us.

Some of the deliveries require proper id, which is a pain in the bum, because they expect to see a German 'Ausweis'** and they get a British passport, which has the wrong number of digits...they're never happy.

But recently a delivery guy thrust his electronic reader thingy at me for a signature and after I'd done my scrawl he stared down at it and asked my name. So I confirmed that yes, I was the person to whom the parcel should be delivered, and he stared down at my mark on his screen and then he got the stylus out and wrote over the top of my signature in block capitals "EVANS".
Now if he'd wanted me to write my name in the manner of a kindergarten kid then I'd have happily obliged, I can do capitals, I'm so advanced I can even do joined up capitals, but I always thought that by signing your name you were committing to something, I thought the signature had value? I guess not.

* unless we're the very last house on the run, in which case Logan is a very sad and dejected pupppy.
** Ausweis = identity card

Sunday Snaps 92

2011-12-18T10:12:00.000+01:00

Saw this on a friend's FB page and thought it was perfect for the 4th Sunday in Advent.

So long & thanks for all the fish*

2011-12-15T08:13:00.003+01:00

Last night was expats quiz night at Lulu, but it wasn't just any old, run of the mill quiz night,oh no, this was Ian's swan song, he's moving back to the cold, cold north of Yorkshire and foresaking the balmy** beauty of the Ruhrgebiet*** and abandoning expats forever.

Due to the proximity of Christmas Ian decided to theme last night's quiz, and so all but one round was tinsel clad, apparently he ran out of Christmas questions and so we had one round on news from the last year. Here are some of the questions, see if you know the answers.

- by what other name is the plant Viscum Album known?
- which country changed to Euro this year (bet they sooooo regret that decision now)
- in which year was the Christmas number one by Band Aid?
- what Christmas invention was made by Thomas J. Smith?
- which silent movie star died on Christmas day in 1977?

All good, topical questions, although the non Brits didn't seem to know what a Christmas cracker was and they were even more confused when we got to the panto round..."what's a pantomime?" was the chorus from all the non Brits, they looked even more confused when we tried to explain that it's a Christmas tradition in the theatre where the leading man is usually a voluptuous, leggy young woman, there is always at least one man dressed up as either an ugly sister or an old woman, there are frequently people dressed as animals, a baddie to be booed at is essential as is audience participation along the lines of shouting "he's behind you" and "oh no, it isn't".
Do you know the answers to these panto questions?

- in which panto does the character Baron Hardup appear?
- Widow Twanky is in which pantomime?
- in which panto is Buttons?

Emma wasn't amused by last night's questions (although I think the non Brits were even more unamused due to the panto round) all season the full house has eluded her, but often by only 1 point, she had pinned her hopes on Ian's last quiz only to fail with style. She still managed to win, getting 20/25 but this was apparently her worst score ever.

I think we gave Ian a good send off, he certainly provided a great final quiz, as at least one person wrote in his goodbye card "his boots will be hard to fill", and although I'm sure Chris will give it a damn good try I somehow doubt the quiz will be as English in the future seeing as Chris is very proudly Australian, I have the feeling that Emma's English joker has been played for the last time.

Thank you Ian, Quizie Rascal, for the great quiz nights you've provided us with, it was good while it lasted!

* spurious Hitchhikers Guide reference because it was felt last night that the quiz was rather lacking in Hitchhiker questions.
** actually tending more towards barmy.
*** tongue firmly in cheek here, the Ruhrgebiet, as this local area is known, is famed for its heavy industrialisation, Germans are never impressed and never get the urge to visit when they hear you live near the Ruhr.

When is a word not a word?

2011-12-13T13:38:00.004+01:00

When it's an 'unwort' of course. Duuuuh.

Every year, around this time, Germany publishes its "Wort des Jahres" (word of the year*) I've blogged about it before and will possibly do so again, when they tell us what the word is. Yesterday I googled "wort des jahres" (using google.de clearly as google.co.uk would probably get a little confused) and stumbled across "Unwort des Jahres". My interest was piqued so I googled further.

It turns out that the same society that organises voting for the (probably slightly more prestigious) "Wort des Jahres" is also responsible for organising the voting for "Unwort des Jahres" (this must surely be the wooden spoon prize in dictionary admission applications) because surely if "Wort des Jahres" translates to "word of the year" then unwort must be unword**.

The idea of there being a "word of the year" that people actually vote for (oh, yes, things like this are taken very seriously here, of course) boggles me but that there should also be an unword of the year...double boggled.

I wondered, would the unword be a word that had fallen out of favour and risked deletion from the next year's dictionaries, or was it a piece of gobble-de-gook nonsense?

Neither it would seem. Where word of the year is a word, possibly new to the German language (such as vuvuzela last year) that has been popular in the year, and quite possibly over-used in the press and on TV, the winner last year was a new word "wutbürger" whose birth was apparently caused by the angry feelings (wut) of the common man (the bürger) due to politicians making decisions above their heads. The unword of the year is a word that is considered to have an "inhumane" or inadequate formulation - so a word that is ugly or clunky I guess, previous winners have been 2010 "alternativlos" (= alternativeless) 2009 "betriebsratverseucht" (= contaminated work council) and in 2008 "notleidende Banken" (= defaulting banks)

The unword of the year isn't settled until the end of the year, naturally, so you have until December 31 to get your entries in, you (yes, you) can email them into: vorschlaege(at)unwortdesjahres.net) then in January we can find out what won, the suspense and excitement are almost too much too bear!

* personally I think this is their cunning plan to try to catch up on the number of words in the German language, no-one likes being beaten by the English (least of all the Germans) and as English has around 600,000 words and German a mere 185,000, we're winning by a long way.** which I personally don't believe to be a word, at least not in English, which is where it counts.

Sunday Snaps 91

2011-12-11T10:14:00.005+01:00

Last night was Carols at the Corks, an expat tradition that helps make Christmas Christmas. We sang our hearts out.

Hot Glue

2011-12-08T15:04:00.003+01:00

Last night I went to the Essen Weihnachtsmarkt (Christmas market for the uninitiated) with a couple of friends (Rebecca and Julie - both expats) with the express purpose of sampling a little glühwein, there was no intent to shop, merely a desire to immerse ourselves in the festive spirit(s).

We made a beeline for the stand we hear about every year from those that have both time and opportunity to make multiple visits to the markt and therefore get to sample everything that's on offer. This is my fifth Christmas here and therefore my fifth chance to explore the yearly market and this is the first time I've been to this particular stand*. This is glühwein, but not just any old glühwein, oh no, this is flaming glüh!

The owner of the stall loads up mugs with glühwein and places them in a row on the counter, then he lays a funny triangular spoon (with holes in it) over the top of each cup and puts a sugar cube on each spoon. Spirits of some kind is then poured liberally over the row of loaded mugs and this is then lit. The flames die down and more spirits get poured over the mugs and the flames go higher. When the flames die down again they are extinguished, the spoons removed and the drinks distributed to the waiting patrons. The resulting beverage is very warm and tasty although the cups are rather sticky.

After finishing our first glühs we took the mugs back to the stall intending to claim our pfand** back and sample another stall. The stall holder had just done a round of drinks and had three cups over, cooling on his counter. Wouldn't we like another one he asked, no, we told him, we were off to try somewhere new. Then he started bargaining, three flaming glühwein should be 10.5oE and Julie bartered him down to 6E.

When we'd finished our second glühs we were hungry and definitely only wanted our pfand back from the stall, definitely no more glüh.

But again he had just dispatched a round of flaming glühs and had three left over***. This time Julie was wiser and started lower, we paid 2E for three.

Clearly years of being married to a money market dealer have paid off, all in all we got nine glühs at 3.50E each for a total of 18.50E a saving of 13E, if certainly helped that Julie is French and can make German sound sexy with her accent.

It has to be said that we are all little on the sluggish side today, it's probably a very good job that the market shuts down at 9.30 on a weekday evening otherwise we'd have never made it out of bed, let alone the house!

* the same stands come to the exact same spots year after year.
** pfand is the term used here to refer to the deposit paid for the item.
*** and it's not like he could see us from where we were standing to the side of the stall while we drank, he had no way of knowing we were about to come back.

Google It!

2011-12-07T05:31:00.000+01:00

Have you ever been asked "how did you find that out?"
Only to answer "I googled it"?

The adoption of Google as a verb is even more noticeable in German, especially when used in the past tense - when a 'ge' prefix is generally added to a verb, leading to the word "gegooglet"*.

But the predominance of Google over the world wide web is incredible - can you remember which search engine you used before you started googling?

What is maybe even more bizarre are the subjects that people type into Google, the following is a list of the odder ways that people have ended up on my blog, goodness only knows what they were trying to find the answer to when they input:

- long weekend all roads lead to roam
- hollister hype
- crunchy nut lady
- notingale
- vomitorium germany
- german father sex
- guy fawkes eat yer heart out
- lulu the hoover teletubbies
- german suburb
- schnapsgurtel
- lobbylitiker
- logos of posche cars with names
- sept father sex
- kettwigfrau verene
- lulu bar germany
- quizy ie
- stammtisch canterbury uk
- hunter boots
- ian hookham voicetalk
- geschmucked
- filling in every tooth
- back of me hand
- advents kaffee, english
- gummiman - holland
- people who suck the joy out of life

Aren't people peculiar?

* the 'e' is probably not pronounced.

Teaching Germans...

2011-12-05T03:46:00.000+01:00

...to party like a Brit.

On Saturday we had our (what will now become) annual Christmas Cocktail shindig.

We invited even more people than last year (good job it's a big enough house with a large enough cellar for the kids to take over while the adults hog the kitchen) started an hour later and finished about about 3 hours later, we drank all the mulled wine, the cranberry punch and the bellinis, almost ran out of fizz - as it is my stock for Christmas are seriously depleted, I shall have to do something about that.

We were a fairly mixed group with Germans predominating, although there were more English speakers than native German speakers, and the Germans seem to be getting the hang of partying with the Brits. Drinking more than just two glasses of punch for example, the bellinis were a huge hit, maybe seeing the peaches made people forget about the alcoholic prosecco being added to the carafe. They weren't even the first to leave, this (dubious) honour went to Anne and Chris who had been back in Blighty the previous week and brought some hideous lurgy back with them - too much kissing according to Anne. All in all there were seven nationalities represented, with most people able to speak at least two languages.

But some people are never happy, one friend, upon being told that Ben was out (ice skating with a group of kids from school) was most put out, because it meant that her son (from Ben's class, and a friend of Ben's, although clearly not part of the ice skating/cinema going mixed* crowd) had no company. How stupid she declared. Sorry, but I didn't think to call her and tell her (I was a little bit busy) and anyway these teenage plans have a nasty tendency to fall apart at last moment and you can guarantee I'd be the last to know. As it was Ben turned up not long after, so harmony was restored.

Logan had a great time at the party, hoovering around the table as crumbs fell, he completely wore himself out and towards the end was asleep in the middle of the rug, ensuring that children had to walk around him.

Simon became a 3D TV salesman, showing pretty much everyone his and Ben's new toy, he should be on commission, I get the feeling that quite a few people now want one!

The only downside to hosting a great party is the clearing up afterwards. All those glasses and plates to wash and empties to cart down to the cellar. And my feet are still sore from wearing silly heels for too many hours (I did take them off eventually, but by then the damage was done) however my head wasn't sore - mental note to self; drink champagne/sekt/prosecco get squiffy but get no hangover.

So we're one step closer to Christmas, party's done, need the tree now, that's next weekend's job.

* when asked "who else is going?" you get a muttered list of some 4/5 boys names followed by the admission that such and such a girl is going and her friend and so and so as well...

Sunday Snaps 90

2011-12-04T09:42:00.002+01:00

Clearing up after the party, fun.

What's yours called?

2011-12-03T00:10:00.003+01:00

Bookgroup never fails to disappoint.

As it was Christmas (December, ergo Christmas markets and glühwein in full swing) we met at the best (IOHO) glü stand (at tad earlier than normal to be confessed) but at least we weren't a foot deep in snow like last year.

We made it to the Black Cat (only losing 1 member - who is 'in lurve', i.e. had a hot date) for 8 and settled down for the night.

The waitress there must hate us. Yes; we pay well and tip well, but you can tell that it galls her, a table of foreigners, who dominate the room (not the whole bar, we're loud- but not that loud) once a month and happily speak English to each other and a bastarised German to her.

We didn't talk about the book at all. Or rather, we didn't talk about last months book, we talked about Kevin (the book from October) lots, an amazing book - read it. I think we all found it impacted on our lives in some way.

For some reasoin (I blame alcohol consuption) next month's book is A Year of Living Biblically - that's just going to be a bundle of laughs for a self confessed aetheist...ho hum...

It never ceases to amaze me, the the topics of conversation that get covered at book group;

- "do you have a name for your bits" asked F...and then went on, " boys have a penis, so what does a girl have?" We were, surprisingly, for a book group, lost for words. And could not come up with a satisfactory answer.

- "what's a vajazzle?" Asked T. We tried to explain. Maybe the link will enlighten where we didn't...I'll ask!

- there was much fun made of Johhhnie's** shirt, which O thought had come straight from an A&F ad** and S thought made him look Canadian.

I happily admit to not using public transport, I have a car, so why should I have to learn how to? But this evening it made more sense to go the carbon friendly way. F and I waited at the bus stop for twenty minutes for a bus that runs every ten (having had three (we counted them) go past in the opposite direction) before finally giving up and catching a bus down to the train station - where we discovered what had happened to the bus we were waiting for - at a T junction in the centre of town it had turned right and found the angle little too tight, due a Porsche being parked right on the corner. The bus was perfectly jammed between a wall and the car, we look forward to seeing the photos in next weeks local rag.

* sic
** I'm sure he doesn't have the matching six pack

Car Conundrum

2011-11-28T17:58:00.003+01:00

Here in good ole Deutschland we have to have winter tyres usually from October until Easter (O to O* as the saying goes) which is great, the winter tyres are much grippier and therefore safer, if you have an accident when you should have winter tyres on and you've still got your summer tyres on you will have a hell of a job getting your insurance company to pay up (so we're warned).

So every October the tyre garages are all crazy busy changing everyone's wheels and storing them away somewhere ready for spring when they'll be mad busy again. Sometimes they sell out of winter tyres (so I've been told) although once you have a set, unless you're doing huge mileage (or donuts in the local carpark on a Sunday) the 2 sets of tyres should last a fair while.

We've just decided to buy a new car, a Mini Countryman will be mine just before Christmas (hopefully), we've spent time choosing the colour (NOT black or silver (Simon's 2nd choice) and he wont let me have the yellow ("think of the resale value Verena") but I am allowed "Surf Blue"**) and various other twiddly bits and also some nice wheels - no point having a sexy paint job if you're going to stick a set of rims on that look like dustbin lids, trust me, I'm a part-time petrol head. The sexy wheels the car comes with are its summer wheels and so we have to arrange winter wheels either through the dealer or through the tyre garage that normally stores my wheels...so this means that if we don't get the dealer to change the wheels for us prior to driving away the sheeny shiney new car we'll be taking it home (30 minutes from one side of the city to the other) on winter roads*** with summer tyres and therefore dubious insurance. We discussed this at the dealership with the salesman, angling for him to offer to come and drop off the new car and take away the old, but no, I guess we didn't have a particularly strong bargaining position seeing as it was +10C outside, maybe closer to the date, when I ring and tell him that no, I'm not going to drive over and collect my new car and pay him for it because the roads are too dicey, maybe then he'll reconsider.

Of course the other problem is that we have to change the winter wheels on the old car back to summer wheels before taking it to the dealer in part ex, because they only buy/sell cars in summer condition. Great, so I have to get the tyre garage to change the wheels on the car we're part ex-ing, put the old winter wheels in my garage to try to flog them on ebay**** and then drive said car across the city before driving the new car home and taking it straight to the tyre garage for its winter make under.

So, winter wheels, great in theory and in practice, but (mental note to self) try to only buy/sell a car in the summer, it's so much less hassle.

Anyone need any slightly worn winter wheels? Collection only.

* Easter = Ostern.
** the majority of cars here are black, those that aren't black are silver, other colours can be seen but if you're having a car colour counting competition with a small child, then black wins.
*** at that time last year we had 30 cms of snow, at least, everywhere, with sub zero temperatures and no respite in sight.
**** have no idea how strong the demand is for 2nd hand winter wheels, let alone in mid Dec when everyone sensible/law abiding is already sitting smug.

Sunday Snaps 89

2011-11-27T08:21:00.001+01:00

The Christmas markets have started here - this is the view from the top of the Riesenrad (big & flipping freezing wheel). No snow as yet so only just cold enough for glühwein.

Shocking Germans

2011-11-23T14:13:00.003+01:00

I had a lovely morning today, frühstücking* with a couple of German friends. They're both mothers whose sons are friends with my son and so be default they've become my friends too. They're both lovely ladies, who both have a good understanding of English (although not necessarily of the English, which is a different matter altogether) and tolerate my wholesale massacring of their mother tongue.

We had a good, long, leisurely breakfast, starting at 8.30 and leaving around 11 - we made sure to get our money's worth out of Enzo's (the café) and we were maybe a little too loud for some of the (older) clientele - two ladies on an adjacent table pointedly moved to the other side of the room, while muttering under their breath, which just led Bettina to comment that she wasn't aware we were still in school. To be honest, the ladies got off lightly, if I'd been there with my usual frühstück crew (Brits and Yanks) the noise level would have been far greater amd the subject matter far seedier.

It's amazing what three women can find to chat about over breakfast (especially one that lasts 2.5 hours) we covered everything from sex starved OAPs (and how to deal with then) to teenage boys starting to get interested in girls, touching on organic ways of getting rid of moths, what we provide (or not) our families with for food whilst they're at work/school**, whether a child should choose Latin or French as their second subject at the age of 11 (oddly enough I was advocating Latin, mainly because the child is struggling with English and at least with Latin you don't (in theory) have to speak it) and what our variously aged children are asking for for Christmas (everything from "whatever", to a list that would keep Saint Nick and his elves busy for more than one night).

At one point my German was in free flow and Bettina paused to exclaim that I'd just used the "plus quam perfect tense" (or as the English know it, the pluperfect or past perfect) - I'm not sure who was more shocked, Bettina, clearly thinking that such advanced grammar should be beyond me (I must have got all the verbs in the right order for once!) or Ingrid and I for realising that Bettina can hear a tense and label it, just like that (I don't think she was a grammar teacher BC, maybe she's just naturally swotty?) This led us onto a loud and amusing discussion about German tenses, with a debate about the Konjunktive II - I declared it to be all but dead (I remember reading and translating an article all about it, where the author referred to this particularly nasty piece of grammar as an almost extinct animal in the zoo) so I happily likened the Konjunctive II to the black rhino. They were not convinced however which led us onto forms of the K II, how can you possibly take a tense seriously that turns the verb to eat (essen) into "äßen"?

Breakfast with a grammar lesson, how very Deutsch!

* breakfasting - teaching you Denglish now.
** the German way seems to be "butterbrot", sandwiches with cheese, ham, nutella or chocolate***
*** by chocolate I literally mean chocolate, in the supermarkets you can buy packets of chocolate which is in thin sheets, designed specifically for going between two pieces of bread - mad.

Rendered Speechless

2011-11-21T19:29:00.000+01:00

Sometimes, just sometimes, I'm rendered speechless.

This happens frequently when I'm trying to make a point in German, I know exactly the point I want to make but my brain realises that I don't know a particular word halfway through the phrase, there then follows a pause while my brain frantically recalculates another way of saying the same thing - it's amazing that I can still manage to crack jokes in German.

Last week I was speechless in my own language and that takes some doing, vast quantities of alcohol or sleep will do the trick but shock? Rarely.

We were at a school do (just Jas's class, so 23 kids plus assorted siblings and parents) to hear all about the fun that they'd had on their weeklong school trip a month ago. They had all had an amazing time and were keen to share it with us, I don't quite fully understand why the sharing had to be so wholesale, a little careful editing would have worked wonders, but hey, I didn't have anything else planned for those four hours...

During the break before the finale (video of the week's activities) we had supper* and so had to make small talk with other parents, fun. Both Rebecca and I managed to avoid sitting at any tables (not too hard to achieve as there were more people than seats) until the class teacher pointed out some free seats and we were forced to pull them over and occupy them or look very anti-social. Rebecca's younger daughter was sitting with us wearing her lovely new bright purple Boden duffle coat, over an equally loud Boden skirt. The teacher turned to Elsa and commented on her pretty coat. The remark was then made that it was from the English company Boden (which is available here either through the UK website or the German one). Which set the mother next to me on her high horse. She declared that that brand was expensive, to which we retaliated that quality comes at a cost, if the conversation had been in English she'd have got a whole lot more than that simple answer because I feel quite strongly about the fact that not only do cheaper goods not last but frequently the people involved in the manufacture are often underage and underpaid. She, being better at German (although not native) than either Rebecca or I, then continued her rant about expensive clothing before changing tack and exclaiming over the paucity of clothing being worn by Elsa in the depths (ha!) of winter - tights and a skirt and no vest and the tights weren't even thermal ones. No wonder the child is so thin she declared, using all her energy to maintain her body temperature (this in full hearing of said child) does she never get stomach ache, she asked, seeing as how her stomach isn't properly insulated with the necessary 3 layers of clothing**?

This rant (I'd say conversation, but it was so one sided that rant is more appropriate) annoyed me so much that I tuned out and turned away, eventually getting up and therefore missing the comment from the teacher, who maybe thought to diffuse the atmosphere. He turned to Rebecca and referring to Elsa's chic coat and skirt combo commented that he hadn't realised the English could be so stylish...

We're still (five days later) trying to work out if he was trying to make a joke or whether it was a back handed compliment, whilst the comment from my husband was "doesn't say much for what you and Rebecca wear, does it?" Grrrrrrr.

* or rather "Abendbröt" (literally "evening bread" because that's what the evening meal is traditionally, bread and ham/cheese)
** us English mothers are considered pretty lax parents by our German counterparts I think - our children never have vests on, rarely wear hats and don't possess thermal long johns, I keep trying to explain that the English are clearly much hardier than the Germans!

Sunday Snaps 88

2011-11-20T04:28:00.001+01:00

Christmas is coming* and the cake (or at least the fruit for the cake - which is the main constituent of said cake afterall) is getting fed (brandy). In a week's time it should have absorbed enough to be combined into its final form...

* which, according an app on my phone, is today just 34 days away - cue screaming and mad panic!

Swiftlet saliva and other trivia

2011-11-17T13:31:00.003+01:00

We had another Expats Pub Quiz last night courtesy of our soon to be ex expat Ian, we have just one Ian penned quiz left (the Christmas Special - I wonder if it will be a special along the lines of British soap Christmas specials where there's always high drama involving births/deaths/fires/ambulances and the like or whether it will be a special along the lines of those dodgy flavours that make an appearance only in the festive season - chestnut & prune soup anyone?) However all is not lost, we have people fighting over the quiz rights it would seem, there is an Australian faction and an American faction, both vying for the mentoring facilities of Mr Hookham...we'll have to wait and see.

It was another well attended evening, nine teams in all, with people from Mexico, Singapore, Australia, America, England and even the odd (well they'd have to be, wouldn't they, to want to attend an expats English pub quiz evening which is geared towards native English speakers) German. We're a diverse crowd, with even more diverse bakcgrounds which makes it impressive that every month Ian comes up with a quiz that frustrates all of us to the right degree, no-one gets a full house (a fact that torments a certain person* every month) and at the same no-one gets too frustrated with the questions - although there is a lot lost in translation, even when we all speak English perfectly some countries just don't play the same games and have the same rules.

Last night we had a food round, and I think this caused the most upset;
Q: What is added to yorkshire pudding to make toad in the hole?
The Mexican/Venezualan team were dumbfounded, they had no idea what yorkshire pudding was and certainly not a clue about toad in the hole. Their answer was "pastry"...having refused to follow our suggestion of "frogs".

Q: Name the soup traditionally made from the saliva of a swiftlet.
A swiftlet? As in a baby swift? We couldn't begin to imagine how you would even get saliva out of a baby bird, let alone how many you would need to "milk" in order to make a bowl of soup...

Q: What's the word beginning with P given to thin lentil crackers?
We had no clue, as a fully fledged non veggie I never knowingly eat lentils and so have no idea what they can be used for...Kamesh or Rebecca would have been useful at this point but neither was at Lulu's last night, one was babysitting and one sun bathing (Hawaii, no less, not jealous honest, he'll so suffer when he returns to the minus temperatures that have developed here in his absence!)

Other perplexing (for some) questions last night were;

Q: Name a playing token in Monopoly that you can wear.
Of course, nowadays there are versions of Monopoly to cover every eventuality but Ian was quick to qualify that he meant the "traditional" edition, so discounting Disney tutus (I'm sure that doesn't exist) and also Rachael's roller skate.

Q: Which city is closer to the equator, New York or Istanbul?
My geography is rubbish, but I had my secret weapon with me (Simon, whose brain is like a sponge for useless facts) and still failed to get it right.

Q: What does LBW in cricket stand for?
The Brits (and the Aussie) all knew this, unsurprisingly the Mex/Ven team hadn't a clue and only got the "wicket" part - which amused me no end.

Q: Captain Flint was whose pet?
I didn't know this, although my non reader of a secret weapon did, I guess Treasure Island got read to him during his childhood, although as there are also various film versions maybe that's how he knew, because I'd bet my boots on him never actually having read the book.

Q: How many points are there on the star of a Chinese Checker board?
Huh? We didn't even know what Chinese Checkers was (sorry Dad)...which feels really silly now that I've googled it and seen it...ho hum, another point lost.

Q: If in Poker you have 3 cards of one and 2 of another, what is this known as?
Ian is a "keen" poker player, so it was only a matter of time before we were tormented by some poker jargon. We went through all the poker terms we knew, discounting them until we ended up with the right answer, although it's a good job we didn't realise there were so many different poker hands or we'd still be debating!

It was a fun night, as ever.

We'll miss our Quizie Rascal when he's gone. The successor will have a lot to live up to!

* lives in Isenbügel, has 3 kids - you know who you are!

Home or away?

2011-11-14T14:13:00.003+01:00

We've got to the point in Germany where we've been here long enough that stuff is breaking/wearing out/being out grown and needing to be replaced.

There are two options - replace like with like by sourcing from England or go local.

There are issues with both of these options...

- One of my Jamie Oliver stainless steel saucepans has decided to start leaking, you wouldn't think it possible would you, but the way the handle is fixed on means that it can and does leak through the fixing points (it's part of a set of three, so I'm guessing the others are going to have to be replaced sooner or later). Clearly this could easily be sourced locally and needed to be seeing as I need the pan NOW and the weight and feel of the pan is important and you can't get that impression over the internet. I interrogated one shop assistant about their pans and was told that they only offered pans of that size (I'm talking small/medium pan, 1-1.5 litre, the size that is useful for everything) with two little handles rather than one long sticky out one. But I wanted what I'd had, and what I'd had was one long sticky out handle. So I gave up on that store and decided to go somewhere else with more choice.
Same answer.
Apparently in Germany they only come with two handles over a certain size, so I had to bite the bullet and go native.

- I recently had to buy Ben a new duvet. We're having to accept the fact that at 14 he's growing up and therefore he has a new (slightly bigger) bed and new paint job on the walls and new duvet cover - the old UK ones were thought to be too juvenile (he had a point, planets and graffiti are aimed more at the younger boy and therefore childish and 'not cool'). I tried to get a duvet from M&S - they are quite happy to deliver abroad, but duvets are clearly the exception (of course you only find this out after spending some time choosing what you want, adding to the order and then getting to the checkout point. Grrrrrr). So I had to get the duvet and cover here. Not such a problem, although the duvet cover choice can be a little dull, then I had to get the duvet to fit in the cover and discovered that it was a good job that M&S didn't deliver duvets abroad as it wouldn't have fitted into the cover. I was informed that in Germany there are three duvet sizes; small (single/1 person) medium (almost a double/1-2 people or 1 very wriggly teen) and large. So I have the correct sized duvet for the cover but what I don't understand is why it doesn't look as if it fits, maybe I need to rotate the duvet through 90 degrees?

- The pillows in our house were getting old and decrepit and had to be replaced. Another tricky thing to source over the internet as again you need to test them, so we have to go local. The problem here is that the continentals have weird ideas when it comes to head/neck support in bed. You either go for something that is almost a metre square (which most people apparently double over) or you go for something that is a little longer than the standard UK rectangular pillow and also a little narrower. Fortunately this narrower pillow still fits in our existing English pillow cases, although they don't look as athetically pleasing, but as I'm not planning on entering a Good Homes competition they'll do, just.

- Wellies were one of the first things I had a problem with here. As a dog owner and walker (the two go hand in hand) wellies are an integral part of my autumn/winter/spring attire. I had a lovely pair of red wellies from England that expired after one year of German mud - which I think must be excessively corrosive (certainly wouldn't want to use it for a face pack), so I replaced them with a locally sourced pair (afterall when your boots start to leak they have to be replaced pretty damn fast) but these also lasted only one winter, fortunately then we were in late spring and had a week in England planned for the summer. My lilac Hunter wellies were collected on the trip and are still going strong, clearly impervious to German mud.

Of course the dilemma of buying locally or sourcing from the UK is only possible due to the ever spreading internet, it does make the transition smoother and less arduous. I just wish it was as worldwide as it's supposed to be - but that's a whole other story!

Sunday Snaps 87

2011-11-13T07:57:00.000+01:00

Remembrance

2011-11-11T11:00:00.000+01:00

At eleven o'clock on the eleventh day of the eleventh month the Commonwealth* pauses.

I don't have a poppy to wear this year and it seems rather tawdry to recycle last years, but I have made a point of making a donation online.

As I get older the significance of this particular day seems to increase to me, and I don't know why, unless it's the growing awareness of my own humanity and the fragility of life. It's not even as if my family were hugely impacted by the first or second World Wars. My father was just old enough to have to do National Service, but fortunately** just young enough that he missed any action (his photos of the time show him against a backdrop of pyramids) and the only tales I ever heard whilst growing up were rather scurrilous ones from my Uncle Harry who'd been in the Navy and served on the same warship as Prince Philip (Uncle H didn't have a good word to say).

If I were in England this week and this coming weekend I would be wearing my poppy with pride, observing the silence at 11 am and quite probably watching with pride as my children marched to the local cenotaph alongside the other guides/scouts/cubs/brownies and local servicemen. It's at that point I would struggle to keep emotions in check as the lone trumpeter played the Last Post.

Lest we forget.

* as well as other countries who got tied up with trying to keep the world free.
** choosing to be a rear gunner was probably not the wisest move he ever had, as they apparently had the shortest life span in the War.

Wine o'clock

2011-11-10T14:42:00.002+01:00

This morning I spent a very pleasant few hours at the local Essen exhibition hall. This week is the "Mode, Heim und Handwerk*" exhibition and Emma had free tickets courtesy of her wine supplier (who had a stand there). Emma and Laura (at 20 months old she gets no say in where she goes and what she does, she justs gets to sit in her buggy) picked me up just before ten and we were at the messe** shortly after the doors opened.

We started off in Hall 1, "fashion, beauty and wellness***", there was a reasonable amount of grey/brown/sludge coloured ruffled fashion (steered a wide birth there) alternative (i.e. brands I didn't recognise) make up stands, hair accessories (both Emma and I have hair that is too short for such things) scarves (the Germans are OBSESSED with scarves and I have to report that it is contagious, I now have two drawers full of different coloured scarves, before moving to Germany I had maybe two scarves. But scattered amongst all this health 'n beauty were many wine tasting stands as well as many food stands (dried fruit, würst, cheese, bread, chocolate, more würst) and the very first wine stand we came across was the company that had sent Emma the free tickets and so we felt honour bound to take a seat and sample a few (is eight/ten a few? Or is that a couple more than a few?) bottles of wine. The poor guy who got stuck with us must have cursed his luck, first there was the small child in the buggy who insisted on tipping her (non alcoholic) grape juice over herself, her buggy, the floor around us and quite probably passers by, but she did keep quiet (as long as we kept her occupied with pretzels) and then there was the fact that Emma and I are both English. Fortunately for him we both liked the Columbard white wine and two of the reds so we left the stand on the hunt for coffee with an Auftrag in hand that says we'll be receiving 30 bottles of wine shortly for us to divide between us.

After the wine we meandered our way through Hall 2, "living & free-time" which didn't seem to be that much different to Hall 1, less 'fashion' maybe but the same amount of food and drink stands, through to Hall 5, which was "Africa". Probably the most bizarre part of the exhibition, the stands were full of displays of the kind of stuff you might think it amusing to buy on holiday - eight foot tall wooden giraffe (although tricky to bring back on a plane) dresses and skirts in the colours of the South African flag, stuff (baskets and possibly mats - I didn't look too closely) made from coke bottle tops welded together, weird. Onto Halls 10&11 which were deadly dull, "building and technical" - garage doors, marble steps, fire places and then we were through to Hall 12 and Christmas.

All in all it was a pleasant way to spend a morning, although I don't think either of us would have paid the 7euro for the experience but as a freebie, why not?!

* Mode = fashion, Heim = home, Handwerk = handicraft
** messe = exhibition hall
*** wellness is one of those dinglish words that really grates on me, what they mean is not beauty or cosmetics but rather things that make you feel...'well', a massage chair or aromatherapy for example...

Pizza for Tea

2011-11-07T07:25:00.000+01:00

I think Rome could well be my favourite city. Paris is romantic, New York is cool but Rome, Rome is something else. Beautiful buildings - everywhere, narrow streets - everywhere, gorgeous shops and little cafés - everywhere. The food is incredible, the wine even more so and even the men are pretty to look at! And don't get me started on the depth of history! I need to return, soon.

Some things that struck me last weekend:

Rome must surely be considered to be the heart of the Catholic faith and yet pretty much all the shops were open on Sunday, and the city was heaving that day, more so than on the other days we were there.
the Spanish Steps seem to be treated not just as THE place to see and be seen and pose for photos but also as an open bin/toilet - judging by the amount of litter needing to be cleared away in the morning and by the stench.
there were possibly more smokers there than in Germany - although at least in Rome there's no smoking in the restaurants.
American tourists could be recognised by their shorts and trainers combos and the Germans by their functional Jack Wolfskin apparel.
an afternoon can easily be whiled away sitting in a café watching the guys selling knock off designer bags trying to keep one step ahead of the cops, with a secret signal they suddenly all scoop up their goods and run off, one after the other, often hiding behind the stalls of legitimate market holders, emerging only when the police have walked by.
on the Friday bike ride I had possibly the most fun when I came up behind groups of German tourists, I loved the fact that I could ring my bell to make them scatter and then whizz past yelling "danke" over my shoulder. Sweet revenge for all the times Logan and I have had our walks ruined by German cyclists who misunderstand the word "footpath".
Leonardo da Vinci airport has to be the most disorganised in the world - ironic really when it's namesake was such a forward thinking brainiac, maybe that's why it also goes by name 'Fiuminco'.

A final note, I asked Ben what he thought of Rome...I got a one word answer:

"Good".

Sunday Snaps 86

2011-11-06T07:07:00.000+01:00

Possibly the most bizarre of the street entertainers we saw in Rome.

Pizza for Lunch

2011-11-04T15:45:00.005+01:00

Day 2 of our Rome trip:
Saturday after breakfast (the kids were delighted to find that Italian breakfast includes lemon cake, blackcurrant tart, croissants and nutella as well as the healthier options of fruit salad, yoghurt and cereal) we grabbed a taxi from the square behind the hotel and nipped over to Vatican City. Not to go in of course (one day I'll do the Vatican museums and the Sistene Chapel, but it'll be without the children in tow, so that I can take my time, and appreciate the art, rather than having to repeatedly tell them to shhhh and racing through before they get too bored) merely to say "been there, got that photo," after continuing our competition to see who could the most nuns/priests or Minis* we meandered our way down to the banks of the Tiber and strolled along in the sunshine past the various street entertainers and market stalls before crossing back and along to Piazza Navona for lunch.

2:15 was our meeting time for a tour of the catacombs and crypts (chosen to keep a ghoulish 14 yr old entertained). Mike was our guide from Walks of Italy and there were only 6 of us on the tour. We started off at the nunnery of St Priscilla where, beneath the buildings are catacombs - 100's of meters of tunnels underground where 1000's of Christians were once buried back in the 2nd century, these particular catacombs are famous for containing the first documented image of the Virgin Mary which apparently the Vatican are keen to remove it to the safety and sterility of their museum.
From the catacombs, where there are no longer any bodies (removed years ago for a proper burial by the Vatican, to prevent tourists wandering home with a tourist trinket that's more than just a pope on a rope) we headed back into the city of Rome to the Capuchin Crypt. This is a series of six rooms decorated with the bones of 4,000 Capuchin monks. You hear that and you think that the bones are just lying about maybe or piled up against the walls but no. Each of the rooms had a theme and each had at least five whole monk 'corpses' posed, most of these corpses were purely skeletal but some still had skin and hair, one in particular really didn't look like it had been dead 250 years (gossip has it that he's thought to have been especially holy which is why his body isn't decaying). In the last room there were three complete skeletons that were smaller than the others, one was the 'Princess of Rome' depicted on the ceiling as death and the other two were cousins of hers, all three little girls (none older than 9) had died around the same time and the Capuchin monks were asked by the Pope at the time to 'take care of his 3 nieces'.
Apparently a few years ago health and safety visited and decreed that although what was pinned to the walls could stay, they couldn't put any more bones up. It was the kind of place that had we visited it with no guide we'd have wandered in and been done with it in a matters of minutes, but with a guide we had the symbolism of every room explained to us (and many other tourists hanging off Mike's every word.)
Our last stop of the tour was the Basilica of St Clemente, this is somewhere else we'd never have stepped into without a guide let alone learnt so much. The current building that is visible above ground dates back to the 12th century, but it's built upon the remains of a 4th century church, which is in turn built over the remains of ancient Roman buildings, including the apartment where St Clemente (before his sainthood) back in the days of Emporer Trajan used to hold illegal Christian meetings, but there was also a temple to Mithras which was a new cult back in Clemente's day. This building was amazing, we were walking on original Roman flooring from the second century and even weirder, they think that beneath St Clemente's old floor is possibly another layer of ruins to be discovered, probably from Nero's time (apparently they kept finding burnt wood before they had to close down excavations last year due to funding issues) wow!
As you can see, Saturday was a pretty historical day, we still managed to fit in a pizza or two though!

* At the beginning of the trip I bet Jas that I could count more nuns/priests in Rome than she could Minis. We clearly didn't hang about the Vatican area (or 'Pope City' as I like to call it) long enough as Jas saw twice as many cars as I did people in black!

Pizza for Breakfast

2011-11-01T15:59:00.005+01:00

We've just spent 4 days in Rome, flew out Thursday lunchtime and got back in time for Jas to go trick 'n treating yesterday.

Si and I were in Rome together (without the children) a few years ago and I remember enjoying it then. Second time round didn't disappoint, I think it could be one of my favourite cities. The architecture there is stunning, the golden light (we were so lucky with the weather, blue skies every day and only in the evening walking to and from the restaurants did we need coats) is every photographer's dream, I love the narrow, winding streets with the tiny little shops and cafés and as for the food and the wine - I love going to a restaurant where the wine list is more comprehensive than the menu!

We spent our first afternoon (after dumping the bags in the hotel) meandering our way from the Spanish Steps (brilliant, central hotel location - La Perla on the corner and Prada at the end of the street, guess who chose the hotel?) through various streets until we ended up in Piazza Navona, a handy place for the first pizza (Ben) and first beer (me). Piazza Navona might be full of tourists and therefore subject to over inflated prices but it is a great place to watch the world - the variety of street entertainers in Rome has to be seen to be believed, from the bizarre - a person in a full length black cloak topped with a goat's head to the creative - a guy dressed as a cowboy statue (all his clothing and skin was the deep grey colour of metal, who, when you put money in his bowl, pulled you (Jas, not me) up onto his little podium and posed with you (lasso around neck and pistol aimed at head) then there were the two drummers who would suddenly freeze, only starting up again when they heard the tinkle of coins, a trio of street/hip hop dancers and numerous golden sarcophagus (sarcophagi?).

Dinner was in a restaurant recommended by a friend, her children had eaten chocolate pizza there and that was enough of a recommendation for our two. Il Brillo is down a tiny side street and looks nothing from the outside (but that's true of so many restaurants in Rome) then you go inside and down into the cellars where there is a warren of interconnecting rooms. I had handmade pasta with ragu and barolo and something else but I forget what the other ingredient was, it was sublime. Jas had her fave pasta carbonara and I don't think she'll be impressed ever again by the version she gets back home! Ben had his second pizza of the trip.
Often we don't bother with pudding but this was the chocolate pizza place so that had to be tried, I opted for the strawberry millefieulle, something I have never tried before, will definitely have that again.

Friday was another lovely sunny day, I had a bike tour booked and we had to be over in the area of the Coloseum for 9.15. Looking at the map there seemed to be a straightish route, unfortunately Simon was in charge of leading the Evans crew...we got there eventually (and were on time) is all that I will say. We were a group of 10, with Jas being the youngest but not necessarily the least competant rider, Bruno was our guide.
The cycling tour around inner rome was fun, although I think for Jas it was maybe at its worst scary (Rome inner city traffic) and at at its best dull (she struggled to understand the tour leader because his perfect english was marred by his perfect italian accent and I don't think she got how old bits of Rome are for that matter, but then since when did kids ever get 'age', how can someone who thinks 20 is old understand how amazing the Coloseum at 1,940 years old is?)
Personally, I had a great morning (when I wasn't worrying about whether the children were ok that is) we cycled for four hours around inner Rome, the Coloseum, Trajan's Column, Piazza Navona, the Panthenon, the Jewish ghetto, over the river into Trastevere and then back via the Roman Forum. Bruno had lots of history to tell us although a coffee/ice cream stop would have been nice.
We were supposed to make a stop in the Piazza del Popolo but the pensioners had decided to gather to complain about something and the square (and many of the streets) were full of blue rinses waving blue flags. It was quite bizarre, because come the evening the students had taken over and as we walked along Via del Corso to our restaurant there was a flood of cyclists heading down towards us, the majority riding normal bikes but the odd one or two on crazy contraptions, stretched high like for a circus, stretched long like for an easy rider style, even a tandem but no penny farthings.

After the bike ride we grabbed lunch (pizza no. 4 for Ben) and then wandered our way down to Giolitti's, an ice cream palace (they have chandeliers inside you know) we were in the middle of eating our mountains of ice cream (champagne & nougat flavours for me, baileys for Simon and double strawberry for Ben) when it became apparent that there was 'someone' at the table next but one to us, we'd never have realised (he's an Italian musician, Antonello Venditti) but for the numbers of women almost throwing themselves into his lap in order for them to have their photo taken with him, poor guy.

On our way back from our evening meal at another little backstreet restaurant (not quite as good as Il Brillo) we detoured through Piazza del Popolo (all cleaned up after the rioting pensioners) and outside the hotel at the top of Via del Babuino we came across another guy suffering the fate of fame, Franco Baldini (some football boss or so I'm told) having to have his photo taken whether he wanted it or not.

The price of fame, to be unable to go for an ice cream or even an evening stroll without being hounded by wannabe paparazzi!

Sunday Snaps 85

2011-10-30T09:13:00.000+01:00

Today I am spending the afternoon here:

Book Reviews #26

2011-10-26T19:37:00.000+02:00

Prep - Curtis Sittenfeld.

A book group choice, and not a bad read but at 478 pages, in my opinion at least 150 too long.

The story is written in the first person, that of Lee Fiori who is 14 at the beginning, and covers the four years (I think) of American high school, although this isn't just any old high school.

Lee, back in 'small town' Indiana decided at the tender age of 13 that she'd quite like to go to boarding school. Her parents weren't poor, but neither could they afford boarding school fees, so Lee did her research and applied to those prep schools that offered scholarships. But life as a student on a scholarship, as opposed to one as a student who has always had and probably will always have money is very different. Lee goes from being the clever student at her local school who was popular with the staff because she was keen, to being average and at one point so far behind in her understanding of maths that she risks being "spring cleaned" (the pupils' term for those who aren't making the grade and are asked to find another school).

From the very beginning Lee is shy, self conscious and naive, an outsider whose only wish is to observe others, making no attempt to try to conform or even fit in. This is fine, and quite understandable at the beginning, afterall she is only 14. But to not develop at all during the four teenage years as she starts to mature into an adult is weird and also irritating to me as a reader, I felt that I really wanted to slap the girl or at the very least shake her and tell her to try, just try to enjoy herself and the opportunities she'd put within her own grasp. Afterall it was her decision and no-one else's for her to go to boarding school.

This is a well written book, critics have been comparing her to Salinger and Path and according to the Observer it's "The OC meets Donna Tartt's The Secret History". I think The Times review says it all with "it feels like adolescence", there's way too much angst, self doubt, self loathing, self analysis and insecurity in this book for my tastes, maybe my adolescent days are just too far behind me for to want to be reminded of them?

I've been revisiting Enid Blyton's Mallory Towers with my daughter for a while now and I much prefer her take on boarding school with the midnight feasts and jolly hockey sticks approach to life despite the stiff upper (British) lip to this angst ridden American dream.

All Roads Lead to Rome

2011-10-24T19:59:00.002+02:00

We're at the start of our Herbstferien* here, we have two weeks ahead of us with no having to get up at stupid o'clock in the pitch black in order to get to school. Bliss, and better yet on Thursday we (the four of us) are off to Rome for a long weekend.

I've been organised this time (the last city herbst trip we did was to Berlin and the children got so fed up and antsy that at one point I refused to go on holiday as a family again) so we have free time to wander about on Thursday afternoon then bright and early on Friday we have a bike tour which should show us bits of Rome that we might not otherwise (by ourselves) find and also give us an idea about bits that we want to go back to. Saturday afternoon we have a tour of the Catacombs (nice and ghoulish for Ben) and Sunday afternoon an Ancient Rome Discovery tour that is targeted at families. Hopefully this itinerary will keep the family entertained so that then they wont whine when I want to peek in some gorgeous Roman boutiques (I have a list, complete with addresses).

I think/ I hope that the weekend will be a success, the weather forecast is good (20+ degrees, that's got to be better than the miserly 14 here) the food is a guaranteed cert - pasta, pizza, gelato and limoncello, a bit of culture and a spot of shopping - what could possibly go wrong...oh yeah, we're taking a 10 and a 14 year old with us, should have thought up a plan B and packed them off to the grandparents...

* Autumn half term (herbst = autumn, ferien = holidays)

Sunday Snaps 84

2011-10-23T17:23:00.003+02:00

My pet grammar hate is incorrect apostrophe use-age.
This menu at our favourite American style diner gets it sooooooo wrong with item no. 283. How could tuna ever need an apostrophe?
Shudder.

Book Reviews #25

2011-10-21T04:57:00.000+02:00

Snuff - Terry Pratchett

I love TP. I'm fairly confident that I've read every one of his Discworld series, some of them twice, but none of them as many times as my dad, who is a bigger fan of the mighty TP than I am.

This book revolves around Sam Vines who is head of the police force in the capital Ankh Morpork*. His beloved wife, Sybil, insists he take a holiday and packs them off (him, her and their young poo** obsessed son) into the country to her family estate (she was born into nobility, while Sam was dragged up through the streets). Of course from the moment they arrive it is clear that there is something not quite right in the village and Sam can't help himself, he's a copper through and through and will not let injustice go unpunished.

There are fights to the death, plain out and out murder, smuggling, kidnap and slavery, flooding, interspecies love and at the end of the day justice triumphs.

TP hasn't lost his touch, this addition to the Discworld series is as good as any of it's predecessors, only the mighty Terry could get away with naming a river going paddle steamer (driven by oxen rather than steam...) the "Wonderful Fanny" (on account, supposedly of the owner's wife possibly being named Francesca) and then compose the line:
"The deck creaked under his feet as he crept inside the Wonderful Fanny"
And then there's Terry's description of yoghurt, which is so attune with my own thoughts on yoghurt that it was as if TP had been inside my head, for he says that yoghurt is apparently just a type of cheese that doesn't try hard enough.

I love Terry, the world will be a very sorry place when Alzheimers finally claims him.

Long live Sir Terry!

* for those of you who have never read a Discworld book (why?) here are some facts you should know:

the Discworld is flat
there's magic (proper magic - wizards, witches, spells and all that kind of stuff, we're not talking Paul Daniels here, although knowing Terry there is doutless some cabaret act somewhere on the Discworld where ladies are being sawn in half and then magically put back together)
there are trolls, dwarves, werewolves and now goblins living side by side with humans.
it's a world out of the 1900's, but with interesting modern technological devolopments happening, so you have horse powered travel, a form of telegraph machine, printing presses...
humour is ever present, I doubt TP is capable of writing a single sentence without a trace of humour.

** faeces and not Winnie the.

America Invades Germany

2011-10-19T22:45:00.002+02:00

So I walked into Lulu Bar for the local expats/English quiz night and there were already 9-10 people there - it's a tiny bar (but small is beautiful, right - and Lulu is GORGEOUS) it was early, just after 8pm, so I hadn't expected so many people to be there already (or maybe we expats are just desperate for similar minds) but what was really freaky was that I only recognised one person (and that vaguely) and...they were all...American.

So they were all high 5-ing each other and talking about the latest baseball scores (or whatever it is Americans make small talk about in a country far, far from home) and I sat myself down across/far from the madding crowd* and waited for some people I knew (properly, i.e. English - or at the very least Princie**) to turn up.

In the end, I think Quizie Rascal's Quiz Night was by far, the best attended, although the irony of it is that over half of those there were American and wouldn't recognise an English Pub Quiz if it came up behind them and goosed them. There ended up being three wholly American teams (under strict I.H.*** regulations we were only allowed two or three people per team) but none of them won any of the three prizes up for grabs (hmmmm, maybe next time we should share out the handicap...)

Here are some of the questions Ian amused us with:

1. - in what country is the airport Marco Polo? (we were helped by the fact that Rachael had recently just booked her & Wolfwang's flights there)
2. - in what sport do you play for the Ryder Cup?
3. - between which two countries is the Simplon Tunnel? (we struggled to work out which continent we should be thinking about)
4. - what is the name of the cocktail containing vodka, tomato juice and lemon juice? (the team with Leslie, the bar owner were whooping with glee)
5. - what is the name of the author of "Pride and Predjudice"? (with five members of bookgroup there, that question was a given - or would have been were the five spread evenly throughout the teams)

Our team, Rachael, Wolfgang**** and I, got a whopping 20/25, failed to get the most scored (23, swotty Emma's (of the gold sequined pants) team) and also beaten to 1st line and 1st to get 4 corners...ho hum. We were at least able to walk out with our heads held high, hopeful that we can do better next month - if we join Emma's team!

Answers, apropo the quiz, i.e. in a wonderfully random order:
4. - bloody mary
5.- Jane Austen
1. - Venice
3. - Switzerland & Italy
2. - Golf

* old English, trust me, Thackeray
** expat from Alabama, but we (me, Rebecca & Rachael) are working on her English.
*** Ian Hookham
**** haven't yet tried to get him to answer to "Wolfie"***** but maybe I haven't met him under the influence of sufficient alcohol, yet...watch this space.
***** Citizen Smith

Gained in translation

2011-10-18T19:29:00.003+02:00

I spent this afternoon translating a letter from Jasmine's class teacher, Herr B.

I wouldn't normally go to the effort of sitting down with a pad of paper and a dictionary (OK, electronic translating device) for a note from school but this was a side and a half of densely printed matter (Germans don't believe in short and snappy unless it's made of leather) and it was all about the six days the class spent in Langeoog last week, so I thought that if I just skim read it I'd miss stuff or misunderstand stuff, far better to read it properly and thoroughly and inwardly digest it...an hour or so and four sides of scribbled A4 later I am in full possession of the facts about last week, embellished with Jasmine's personal anecdotes.

I'll give you the leather* version as I see it:

- not a single child was homesick - I'm sure this will have been a HUGE disappointment to some mothers who were wiping away tears as the children left on the Monday and then again when they returned on Saturday.
- there was no mention of any bodyboarding being done, despite a certain child managing to pack both a bodyboard and wet suit, according to my reliable source (that'll be Jas and not Herr B) the child in question "didn't want to".
- the bumper cake harvest** was enjoyed right up until the last day, they never knew what kind of cake they were going to find inside the tin foil, which in retrospect surprises me, I'd have thought the German moms would have labelled their products with ingredients, use by date and place of manufacture at the very least.
- we parents got a stern telling off for allowing some children (no names, no pack drill - although I interrogated my suspect and received a very honest denial, although she did give up a name during questioning) to take with them more than the 5 euro we'd been forced to agree to as pocket money. The comment went "how can children learn that it is important to keep to an agreement, if their parents don't set the example" - ouch!
- the children appear to hae spent the whole of one afternoon packing their suitcases in readiness for the trip home. Really? It certainly didn't look like it, everything was returned, albeit in a much grubbier and crumpled state than it went, but that's to be expected. Maybe the afternoon was spent trying to locate everyone's belongings, maybe that's what he meant?
- there was the essential misuse of deodorant by boys, a couple of whom sprayed one poor child's cuddly toy and bedding - I'm surprised that 10 year old boys had deodorant with them, maybe the mothers thought that it'd hide the lack of washing?
- Herr B took advantage of having two native English speakers on the trip (Jasmine and Jack) and tried to polish up his English, I shall have to ask him next time (in English) how that went!
- things that received criticism from the children were apparently; the local island swimming pool was salt water (and yet they'd have happily swum in the sea, were it not for the fact that it would have been toe numbingly cold) the man who led the island walk talked over their heads meaning that unfortunately the children are still completely in the dark about the influence on the tide of the moon and lastly, they didn't have enough time on the beach - what did they think it was? A holiday?!

In the middle of November we get to spend an evening at school, watching a video of what the class got up to, reading the diaries they were forced to write every day and I guess looking at the photo-montage and all the related debris they brought back with them. The session is scheduled to be at least two hours long, but hey, at least it includes supper!

Word of the day; die Wasserlinse - waterweed

* i.e short and snappy
** every child was asked to bring along a tin foil wrapped loaf sized cake (the Germans are nothing if not specific)

Sunday Snaps 83

2011-10-16T11:41:00.002+02:00

A clear sign that summer is over. This is area of the river here in Kettwig is where you can rent pedaloes and motor boats, they've all been packed away for winter, to re-emerge around Easter next year. Time to get the thermals out.

This mouse is partying*

2011-10-14T17:34:00.003+02:00

This week is quiet in the Evans' household. Two of my cats are away leaving just me and Ben (+ dog and hamster) rattling around a 4 bed house.
Jas is away on a school trip to Langeoog** for six days and Simon is away doing China/Singapore/Jakarta/Thailand***. My days are usually filled by me doing my own thing until lunchtime and then when Jas gets home between 12.30 & 2 (depending on the timetable/whim of the teachers) running around after her, making sure homework is done, overseeing maths/german tutors, ferrying her to friends/hiphop...so although when asked "what did you do today?" I usually answer "not much". It's not because I didn't do much, it's just that what my time is filled with is 'not much'.
But this week has been different, Ben comes home, between 1.30 and 4pm (timetable dependant - gymnasium level teachers seem to take things a bit more seriously and so even if a teacher is 'sick' there will be a replacement) he demands food and then disappears until tea time when he reappears demanding food again. I literally have to tie him down or stand in his room next to him in order to have anything approaching a conversation. So this week has been almost like a holiday for me!

Monday - took it easy, had no special plans, mainly because Jas wasn't leaving until 8am and last time the actual departure was delayed by almost an hour due to the police check of the coach failing. I really didn't want to have made special plans that I'd then have to cancel so I kept my normal schedule - German lesson, dog walking & food shopping, which left me with time in hand and I'm embarrassed to confess that I did an hour or so of German grammar! Shocking I know.

Tuesday - I took myself off to Roermond a designer discount mall an hour away, just over the border. I got there just after opening and had too much fun. Simon later asked whether I'd looked for summerweight shirts for him...errr, no. Why on earth would I do that? I had one goal in mind and one alone - self gratification. FUN!

Wednesday - met Rebecca and Oscar for a walk in the most hideous weather of the week, before going to the gym for a torture session with my trainer. I'm still trying to work out which particular exercises would have caused such agony in my thighs that although I can walk (haven't tried running) the getting vertical from a seated position is pure pain. Again in the afternoon I had time on my hands so I did some more swotty German grammar.

Thursday - part usual routine (dog walk then yoga) but then lunch with a friend. Bliss. I so rarely have the time to do lunch here in Germany (have to do breakfast instead & they tend to frown at people who order a glass of Pinot Grigio with breakfast) and the weather was so lovely yesterday that we sat outside to eat and chat. Double bliss! Evening was an impromptu expats gathering at Lulu's, leaving Ben home alone and trusting him to go to bed at a sensible time (I haven't asked, on the principle that ignorance is bliss).

Friday - my morning was spent at the hairdressers (sorry, I should say 'haircutters' as Justin likes to call his shop) and then back home to work on the synopsis for a book. Pizza has been ordered for tea and then Ben (once he comes out of his pit for food) and I will watch a film together - one that doesn't have to entertain a 10 year old.

Tomorrow afternoon my life will return to its usual format as Jasmine comes back from Langeoog, so I shal have to cram as much playing into the next 20 or so hours as possible...anyone for a game of Twister?

* while the cat's away, the mouse will play - English idiom.
** of the North Sea German islands that the locals love - just the words "North Sea" are enough to put me off spending valuable holiday time there, I was brought up to associate the North Sea with oil wells and freezing temperatures, not the place I want to go and sit on the beach, add to this the fact that a German friend jokes that every year when they go she comes back with tanned feet and hands because she keeps everything else wrapped up against the chilling wind.
*** although the Thailand leg is currently doubtful due to flooding.

Book Reviews #24

2011-10-12T12:27:00.000+02:00

We need to talk about Kevin - Lionel Shriver

This is a book I'd 'wanted' to read for some time, but could never summon up the courage needed and trust me it needs bucket loads of courage, especially for a parent. All I knew about the plot was that a problem child was involved, otherwise why the need to talk about him? But still I shied away.

Sing at bookgroup suggested it as she loves Lionel Shriver's style of writing, although she did warn us that parents might find the subject matter tricky - that's putting it mildly!

I was so relieved to finally finish this book, I'm really looking forward to reading something light weight and frothy, I have been page counting for the last week as the book got heavier and heavier. Part way through a new character entered the plot line and I blanched, leaving the book alone for a day or so, for fear of what was to come and then in the dying pages of the book there was yet another hideous twist to choke down, a truly tough read.

So here's the plot: set in America in the late 90's, Eva is the mother of Kevin, wife of Franklin, she is reminiscing about their life to date together in a series of letters to her estranged husband. Eva and Franklin were besotted with each other, then they have a baby, Kevin. From the very beginning Kevin is not a 'normal' child, seemingly full of anger with the world, no nanny or babysitter could tolerate him and as time went on his behaviour to others worsened, nothing obvious and nothing proven, his father always believing the good in his son, but Eva felt differently, she could see no goodness in Kevin. It becomess apparent very early on that Kevin at the time of the letters is in prison/young offenders institute due to going on a bit of a killing spree at school and his mother is visiting him every two weeks despite neither of them seeming to want or enjoy the contact.

As a parent of growing children this book made me pause in my life and consider the whole 'nature/nurture' debate, and also the impact that violent video games and films have on growing minds.

It is brilliantly written and Sing promises me that Shriver's other books are nothing like as chilling as this one, so I may go on to read more of hers. I can only recommend this book but be warned, it's tough.

Germans can't party...discuss

2011-10-09T17:37:00.003+02:00

As you can see from yesterday's Sunday Snap we went to the Rocky Horror Show this weekend.

For those of you who've never been to the show/heard about it look here for more info. Back in England B.C.* I saw the show at least twice and it is a blast. All of the audience dress up, and we're not talking smart 'theatre' clothes, think trashy/slutty/transvestite and you're halfway there. Part of the fun of the show is dressing up and then going along with everyone else and joining in with the show - the audience is expected to know to shout 'boring' everytime the narrator appears, 'asshole' to Brad and so on. Then there are the supplies that are needed - confetti for the two wedding scenes, water pistols and newspapers for the rain storm, torches, party blowers and hats...this is not just a musical, this is audience participation taken to the max, you do everything but climb on stage and join in - needless to say singing along is de rigueur!

I had booked the tickets months and months ago thinking it would be a great way to celebrate my birthday. There were seven of us all fully primed (having watched the dvd prior to the actual show - afterall not everyone had seen the show before) ready for our second row seats, ready to get down and party.

We anticipated that a larger percentage of the audience than back in England wouldn't be dressed appropriately, I don't think we had thought just how large a percentage it would be. At the shows in England I would say that if you went to see Rocky out of costume you would feel the odd one out, 90-98% of the audience will dress up - and I don't mean wearing a party hat and a feather boa. Most of the men will take full advantage of the opportunity to wear stockings, high heels and a corset plus a full face of slap (I think they all like the chance to embrace their inner trannie!) Saturday night in Essen the percentages were the other way around, we didn't feel out of place because there is, afterall, safety in numbers, and what's more - we knew we were right and they were just BORING! The Friday night before had been sponsored by the local WAZ newspaper, I just looked through their pictures online and it's depressing, the people wearing red shiny party hats only have them on because they were supplied in the 'party participation' bags provided by the paper, some of the audience even made their newspapers into hats - really, no. Yes it would keep the rain off better but that's not how Janet does it and therefore not how the audience should do it.

My friend Rachael who has lived here in Germany for 10 years said afterwards that she finally realised how boring the Germans could be. But what is surprising is that come Karneval (February - yeah, can't wait - not) they're the first to don a silly wig and a corset, so you would think that going along to a show where dressing like a member of the cast is positively endorsed would be a dream come true.

The Rocky Horror official Facebook page has loads of comments from people who've seen the show here in Germany, every night there are people raving about it, saying how it was super sexy and how much 'fun' they had...but the people I feel most for are the cast, who almost every night are singing and acting and dancing their hearts out in front of an audience that sits back, legs crossed, arms folded, pretty much demanding 'entertain me'.

It's a good job we didn't go on the WAZ sponsored night, Rebecca and I seem to get in the paper enough as it is (without trying, honest) and we had enough people coming up to us on Saturday asking for photos, can't imagine why!

* before children

Sunday Snaps 82

2011-10-09T10:36:00.002+02:00

How the expats do Rocky Horror, surrounded by lots of locals who don't know how to participate to the max.
Photo was taken by our 'Janet' (aka Muna) whose Brad is begging for mercy.

Till death do us part.

2011-10-05T11:35:00.004+02:00

I always struggle to buy presents for Simon. Back in the days when we had no cash it was a struggle to match the gift to the available funds, now the problem is that if Si desperately wants something he is unlikely to wait for his birthday or Christmas but will go out* and buy it - around the beginning of December we have to declare a moratorium on DVD and CD purchases, just in case.

Last year I had a great idea for Simon's birthday present and then we booked to go to New York at Easter and that idea got shelved in favour of something in New York (Easter was late and we were acutally in New York for Simon's birthday) - I sent him and Ben** up in a helicopter on a tour of New York. They had a great time, Ben even got to sit up front next to the pilot because he was the lightest. When I'd been booking the flight I read a lot of reviews online of the different helicopter companies and then chose the one that had the lowest accident rate (I know Simon's well insured, but better safe than sorry eh?) It was quite unpleasant to read the news today about a helicopter crashing into the river at New York, I'm glad that trip's behind us now rather than ahead - I think I'd be far more hesitant about risking the lives of two of my favourite men with any helicopter company!

This year's present was another flight, but this time in a Zeppelin - there's a little airport ten minutes away from us that sends a Zeppelin up over the area all through the summer, the tickets aren't cheap but it looks like such fun. Simon went on his birthday flight a couple of weekends ago and so I can now mention the fact that there was a Zeppelin accident earlier this year, June to be precise, and although the passengers escaped the airship itself and the pilot went up in flames. This happened after the planning and giving of the gift, but before the taking of it. I don't know if Si knew about the accident, I certainly didn't tell him, it would have kind of ruined the event don't you think? It's not like I was trying to get rid of him, it's just that the gifts I buy him seem to have a certain element of danger attached to them...the year before last I sent him to the Nürburgring for a ride in a BMW driven by one of the pro drivers there, another adrenaline fuelled gift - maybe I should consider a nice pair of argyle socks for next year?

* more likely to Google it and get it shipped straight from the internet actually.
** I'd have loved to have gone too, but someone had to stay on the ground with Jasmine.

Word of the day; um die Ecke bringen - to bump somebody off.

Two Left Feet

2011-10-03T16:41:00.002+02:00

The latest fitness trend has arrived in Germany, well, when I say the 'latest' it's probably quite old hat in America & Britain, you've probably moved onto something newer by now, but here, in slow 'n steady Deutschland, Zumba is the new big thing in calorie burning.

At my local gym, where I go to earn my cake and wine, we currently have a week dedicated to Zumba, lots of extra classes laid on for us all to try out before they slot them into the normal timetable. We've had to sign up for the sessions which gave the impression that numbers would be limited - except that when the numbered slots were all filled in people continued to add their names to the bottom, consequently the class I went to today was jam packed, fling your arm accidentally in the wrong direction, meet someone coming the other way and you could take that person's eye out.

Zumba is like a dance aerobics class with salsa type moves, lots of ass wiggling, tummy gyrating and toe tapping, you certainly work up a sweat - supposedly an hour long class can burn up to 1000 calories, although this would require you to put the effort in, unlike the girl (she was definitely a girl, she was there with her mom & had chosen to wear her badminton skirt - to a gym class? Clearly not her usual habitat) in front of me who barely broke into a sweat, but then she wasn't working at it, the rest of us were dripping with exertion after 60 minutes, the instructor managed to make his stage area resemble a pool, seriously sweaty!

My natural location at a class is at the back, I like to hide out and be inconspicuous, this works fine in yoga as the class is rarely too full and so the instructor can be seen up on his stage even from the back. In a packed Zumba class it was a different matter though. Everyone was shuffling around trying to see what our feet were suppossed to be doing and of course the people at the front are the people who least need to have a perfect view as they're the ones who've done it before, know all the moves and want to show off their proficiency to the teacher, good luck to them, I think he was more interested in the two men who had the nerve to try out the class.

Despite the overcrowding the class was great fun, kind of like going to a disco and dancing your feet off solidly for an hour - while wearing sensible shoes.

I shall have to hope that when they timetabe Zumba it fits in with my (everso hectic) schedule, it'll make a fun change from the treadmill and the cross trainer!

Sunday Snaps 81

2011-10-02T12:19:00.001+02:00

Saw this on a friend's facebook page and thought of you!

Rising Star

2011-09-30T08:59:00.002+02:00

Facebook is often accused of being nothing more than great way to fritter away time but it is also a great way to keep in touch with people, who you may not know well enough any longer to spend 30/60 minutes chatting on the phone to.

One of my FB friends is an ex neighbour from when we lived in England. We were next door neighbours for 4/5 years before they moved up to the St. Andrews area of Scotland and then a couple of years later we left for Germany.

Our friendship back then was helped by the fact that we were 'next door neighbours' and our sons, Ben and Ally, were the same age and therefore in the same class at the local village school.

After they relocated to Scotland we visited them once and after we moved to Germany, Kecia (mom & FB friend) visited us with a group of girlfriends. But other than that the only contact we have now is via FB. Seeing pictures of each other's holidays and so on. Then yesterday in my FB news feed there was a post from Kecia about Ally. It turns out that since moving north Ally has taken up golf, and is rather good at it, two years ago he had a handicap of 13, this year he's playing off 3! Earlier this year Ally won the St Andrews Links Junior Golf Association Order of Merit and thereby earnt a spot on the standby list for the European Tour pro-am event. Then this week a South African player withdraw from this weekend's event leading to the drafting in of Alasdair McDougall aged 14.

It was amazing to read this yesterday morning and then even better in the evening to read the news reports about how Ally's day on the Old Course had gone; he and his professional playing partner finished the day with a team score of five-under-par.

Simon and I are wondering if reading about an old friend's success will inspire Ben further with his golf (although I doubt it) but am I looking forward to following Ally's progress over this weekend and in the years to come, a rising star indeed.

I know this ship like the back o' me hand.

2011-09-26T13:58:00.004+02:00

Saturday morning was spent at a chemical plant - as you do.

An expat (bookgroup & quiz nite) friend of ours works for Evonik and he let us know about an open day that was taking place, lots of tours around bits of a huge chemical plant near here. I can think of better things to do on a Saturday (lie in, brunch, shopping, walk the dog...) but I did think that it might be something interesting for Ben to see, even if only to rule it out as a possible future career.

We were warned that the last open house Evonik hosted had been crazy busy, with 10,000 people turning up, consequently we were there before the first tours kicked off, ready to book ourselves onto my friend's tour, wanting to get that one done first of all before thinking about what other (of the 24 available) tours to go on.

Tour 15 was a control room and then the highest distillation columns in the plant. Our tour leaders were a Herr J Chan and a Herr Doktor Scotti. I didn't think twice about the J preceding the Chan, I know it stands for Jason. Others on our tour were childishly delighted about 'Jackie' Chan and Scotty - you'd have thought James Doohan himself had been there (although he's been dead a while) I think this was the highlight for them, forget seeing the highest distillation column (tall and industrial grey) no, the Evonik tour for them was all about Scotty and Jackie!

We were bussed to tour 15 and then bussed back to the registration tent. When we'd left, 45 minutes earlier, the tent was calm, we'd walked straight up to the relevant desk and booked ourselves onto the tour. We returned to find the tent heaving, queues at every desk stretching across the width of the tent. Fortunately I'd had the forethought to ask Jackie and Scotty what other parts of the plant might be interesting (pointless to ask two teens what they'd like to see as they can no more express a preference for something than they can talk to girls without being rude or sarcastic) and so we ended up on the logistics centre tour - robotic packaging, and a chance to play 'spot the orange ifm electronic sensor' - a game we play whenever we're out and about (that's what happens when your husband appears to be married to his job) Si hadn't been amused up to this point as he'd seen lots of competitor switches (blue and not orange) complaining at one point it was like a showcase of 'whatever' firm's sensor range. But in the logistics centre there was a shiny orange robot lifting and stacking and it had ifm sensors (probably just chosen by the robot manufacturer because they matched the colour of the automaton!) Simon was a happy boy.

Security was supposed to be tight, as you'd expect at a huge chemical plant, we had to take i.d. - but although it was asked for, no-one actually looked to check, we couldn't take photographs and had to turn off phones, consequently the only reminder I have from Saturday is a photo of the restaurant menu, where our attention was caught by the possibility of Bum Bum flavoured ice cream.
We had thought to get lunch there before heading home but the chemical smell in the air was so all pervasive and so evocative of 6th form chemistry that I said we should eat where the air tasted cleaner! Imagine having to work there every day and breath in that chemical smell, can't be good for you!

Sunday Snaps 80

2011-09-25T16:00:00.002+02:00

What I'm doing this afternoon and why this post is later than usual - gardening the Verena way, slash 'n burn, although this being eco Deutschland it's just slashing, burning ist verboten.

A Question too Far

2011-09-22T16:08:00.004+02:00

There were some stupid questions asked the other night at the elternabend*.

This was the first meeting of the year, the year 4 moms (because it is pretty much only moms that go to these terminally dull events) setting eyes on the year 3 moms after a year apart**. I'd never met the year 3 moms before, whereas Rebecca had, she warned me before that they were a 'tricky lot' and afterwards she turned to me gleefully, pleased not to have been let down by the performance we'd witnessed.

The first issue was the election of the parent/teacher representative, the year 4's were sitting smug as our previous rep was 'happy' to continue. That left the year 3's. I have never seen a group of adults act in such a manner, they did everything but sit on their hands and stare at the ceiling, Herr B (teacher) sat back and prepared to wait it out, he wasn't moving on until this had been settled, we could have been there all night (it almost felt like we were) eventually one mom was talked into it, despite her protests about lack of time because her husband was changing jobs or something...Rebecca and I laughed later that one of us should have volunteered (except for the fact that we're not year 3 moms) it would have been worth it to see them trying to talk us out of it, there's no way they'd trust our German to be up to representing them with the teachers and taking down the minutes of every elternabend.

We moved onto discuss the upcoming trip to Langeoog and things started to get silly.
Question: what size suitcase can my child take? Clearly whatever is big enough to hold all their stuff.Question: how much pocket money should each child have? 5 euro was agreed upon (afterall the more they have, the more tat they will return with) but 1 mother wanted to send more because her darling would want to write at least 10 (ten!) postcards to family and not just the one that was planned. This was shot down and the mother was told that if the child was to write that many then she should take them with her, the mother didn't like that AT ALL.
Question: will there be anything for the children to drink between meals? Duh!
Question: can my child (be the only one to) take his bodyboard and wetsuit to use on the beach? Expected this to be shot down in flames also but this mother's stock is clearly much higher with Herr B as this is being permitted, a decision I can see being regretted.
Question: my child doesn't like fizzy water (which the Germans choose to drink) can there be a jug of tap water available for him or shall I send a six pack of Evian?
Question: how high (up the leg) should the wellies be?
Question: what is in the bedrooms besides the beds?

After the almost endless mithering about the 6 day trip we moved onto the subject of Klassenkasse. The first year we were here I remember being shocked at being asked to pay for stuff for the children to use in lessons. In English schools you send your child to school with a pretty much empty bag (certainly in primary school, where even pencils and crayons are provided) so to get a list (a complete side of A4) telling you all the things your child must have in their school bag and then be asked for cash for photocopying and such like - it was a shock. One I'm over now, Klassenkasse is a necessary evil so I listen to what I need to pay and pay up. But one of the year 3 moms (who is German and so doesn't even have the excuse of being foreign ) was shocked and complained that they'd only just last term paid 20 euro.

We escaped only after 2 and a quarter painful hours, the seats in year 3/4 might not be as diminutive as those in year 1/2 but they have they same numbing effect!

* see last weeks 'London is not Essen' for a definition of elternabend.
** our school mixes year groups so that 1&2 share a teacher for a year, then the year 2's go up into year 3 to a new teacher and a new mixed class with year 4's. There's open debate here as to whether this mixed year group thing works, but in comparison to the other system here, where a class stays with a teacher for their whole 4 years of primary school, I prefer the mixed years and 2 teachers option.

Father Sex

2011-09-20T15:34:00.002+02:00

I'm struggling.

Every day I work on expanding my German vocab.
Every day, except for when I'm on holiday, am too ill (which rarely happens due to growing up in a household where to merit a call to the docs you had to be at death's door - you think I'm kidding? Ask my brother, he'll verify it) or am too busy with guests (which does happen due to living so far away from family that when they come to visit they come with at least one suitcase each and settle in for the duration*)
Anyway I have this great computer programme called "Phase 6", and every day I log in and it tests me on the words for that day, usually just 20 words, any less, then I input some new words that I've picked up and need to know**, anymore then I scowl, sigh mightily and knuckle down to it.

Phase 6 works on the principle of repetition.
Day 1 I put in a new word, 3 days later it asks me to remember the word, if I remember it then the word moves up a stage and will next be asked for it in 10 days, if I get it right that time then the word goes into the next stage, 30 days later the word is asked for again and after that 90 days. If I get the word right that time I'm never asked it again as it is deemed to be in my long term memory and the word sits in phase 6 for evermore...by the way, every time you get a word wrong it goes straight back to phase 1 ready to start again, I must have masochistic tendencies.

I do this every day because if I don't and I've forgotten to tell the programme that I'm bunking off then it stacks up the words, and while 20 words a go is OK, 40+ is too many, especially seeing as my success rate tends to be about 50% - had a good day yesterday and steamed straight through, all ladders and no snakes, I think that's the first time in 4 years though!

There are some words that I just have a complete and utter mental block over, one of a trio popped up today, leading me to write them down in an attempt to remember which one is which, here they are;

apparently - anscheinend
actually - eigentlich
possibly/perhaps - eventuell

I keep getting the buggers mixed up, although one of them has made it to phase 3, goodness only knows how, it's only a matter of time before it's sent back to phases 1!

* not complaining, just commenting.
** whenever I read something in German I make a note of words that are new, this week so far I've jotted down the German for 'sneaky' (heimtückisch), 'to creep' (schleichen) and 'to walk the dog' (Gassi gehen) - I can't believe it's taken 4 years for me to hear this phrase, seeing as I geh Gassi every flippin day.

Sunday Snaps 79

2011-09-18T15:22:00.001+02:00

If you look really closely you can see Simon in the cabin under the airship!

London is not Essen

2011-09-15T17:04:00.000+02:00

That was the news flash I came away with the other night...

I had to go to the 'Elternabend'* for Ben's class. We have two children and therefore two Elternabends per term (joy) I usually send Si to Ben's and go to Jasmine's myself.
I asked Si if he was going to go, he thought for a moment and then said,
"this is where they talk all evening about nothing?"
I confirmed that this was indeed what usually happened (or didn't) to which Si declared that he wouldn't go. Fair enough, I'm not overly keen myself. And I would have left it at that but then I had a thought, Ben has changed teachers, so I really should show willing and I was trying to decide whether to go myself or not when I bumped into the mum who'd drawn up the agenda, which had as the penultimate point 'England Fahrt Juni 2012'**. I commented that it was rather forward planning (even for the hyper organised Germans) to be discussing the possibility of a trip by the bilingual class to England some 10 months hence. Her answer made me determined to attend the Elternabend no matter how dull and boring it would be. Apparently some parents were concerned about the safety of their children because of the riots that took place in parts of England in August.

The meeting kicked off at 7.30 and I think I made it home by 9.30, we got side tracked by discussions about toilets (really), the unfairness of having vocab tests for two different subjects scheduled for the same day (sob, sob) and whether the children would enjoy reading Oliver Twist in English (probably not). But the discussion that took up the most time was of course the prospect of the trip to England. The teacher, Herr J, tried to joke they could always go to New York to which I called out that the kids are learning English English and not American English which is a completely different language (in my opinion) and then down to his overheads showing whereabouts they proposed to go (Hastings or Herne Bay) and the timetable of events as used in previous years.

Herr J talked a good talk and kept going without interruption for some time, but eventually a parent could take the suspense no longer and asked the question that they were probably all desperate to ask, "will my little Josef be safe?"

I'm so glad I'd been forewarned and had spent enough time on the internet, swotting, because Herr J turned to me and pretty much asked me to allay their fears. I had felt like telling them that there was more danger from the weather (especially seeing as the UK was at the time being side swiped by hurricane Katja) and what about the risks of B.S.E***, Bird Flu or Swine Flu? But as the Germans probably wouldn't recognize my feeble attempt at humour unless I smacked them in the face with a wet fish, I thought I'd better stick to the truth, the truth and nothing but the truth.
So I asked, are you planning to take the kids to Croydon, Clapham, Greater Manchester etc? No? Then I think you'll find that England is as safe as Essen. I was backed up by another mother who'd been in the UK shortly before the rioting, I forebore to mention that I was there when it all kicked off...there's a time and a place to be a drama queen!
Safety dealt with Herr J moved onto the fact that England has been hit harder than Germany with the economic downturn over the last few years and that it could be that students stay with host families who maybe can't afford to offer three types of muesli for breakfast, it was possible that the kids might have to make do with bread and cheese for their packed lunch. I was so embarassed, the way he was talking was as if England was a third world country. Yes, breakfast does seem to be a big deal to Germans, whilst for the English it is often merely a breaking of the night's fast - a quick bowl of cereal or a piece of toast, but Kettwig is an affluent area, most of these kids will have visited foreign countries before, and hopefully they are intelligent enough (gymnasium afterall, should be top of the food chain) to expect things to be a little different from home (although for my son a basic English style breakfast is what he's always been used to).
The itinerary was also thoroughly examined, the pros and cons of visiting Madame Tussauds discussed and then we came to Dover Castle. Apparently it has 'secret wartime tunnels' but Herr J said "kein Angst" (= don't worry) and started on about the tunnels dating from WW II and how the kids enjoy it. I sat there thoroughly bemused. What's to worry about? It's a tourist attraction, it's going to be 100% safe, clean and thoroughly sanitised, there wont even be a cobweb out of place, let alone an unexploded bomb or a loaded pistol.

I came back from this two hour interlude chuntering under my breath about how Enlgand was now apparently a third world country and unsafe for German tourists and had to suffer Simon taking me to task for 'making a drama out of things'...next time he can damn well go, see if he can hold his tongue longer than I did!

* Literal translation of Elternabend is 'parents evening', but this is not where you get a one to one session with the various teachers in the school who have the (mis)fortune to (try to) teach your little darling (that's the Elternsprachtag) This is the session where all the parents gather and discuss (argue) with the main class teacher whatever has been put on the agenda.
** England trip, June 2012.
*** In Germany I'm not allowed to give blood, because I lived in England during the B.S.E years and presumably am highly contagious.

Borrowed Time

2011-09-13T12:31:00.000+02:00

I've blogged before I'm sure about German parties, and the 'programme' of entertainment that is usually involved. I can only recount what I've heard from my friends, who've had the misfortune to have to sit through powerpoint displays, teenage son's guitar recitals, family games etc. at various weddings, anniversary and birthday parties.

Each time we get invited to a party I gird myself in preparation for the possibility of an interminably dull evening, but have so far escaped, scot free.

At the beginning of this summer we had a 100th birthday party invite (a couple both turned 50) and I was fully expecting entertainment. But no, cocktails & canapés, then dinner and then a disco - perfect, I danced till my feet hurt (and then had to walk home.) Apparently Ludger (the male half who'd turned 50) detests the formality of a programme and refused to countenance one.

The next party was my neighbour (a mere 40 this one) and I was positive there would be at the very least games or a show or something because this is a couple, who although 'young', love everything that is German Karneval, every year their group of friends (who they will have known since forever) gather in autumn to organise what their costume theme for the upcoming February should be and then they get on with the making of said costumes*. We turned up at the venue, the vaulted, whitewashed cellars under the old station and I thought we were going to get a full on presentation, there was a laptop computer on a table at one end of the room, but no projection screen. It turned out that the laptop belonged to the DJ, so we had another party with canapés and prosecco and then a buffet and dancing. Excellent. When later quizzed as to why there had been no 'entertainment' Katja confessed that although they enjoy the whole Karneval thing, they do it for the social aspect and not for the tradition.

Two weeks ago we had a retirement party (I must be getting old!) and again I expected full on entertainment as the guy is traditional Deutsch, does Karneval every year and is a season ticket holder for his local Schalke football team, plus he's retiring and therefore of an older generation. It was a blisteringly hot day and evening, we stood outside on the terrace/balcony of one of the local upmarket restaurants here, drinking prosecco** eating weird*** canapés before being ushered inside for a 3 course dinner and wine, wine and more wine but not the hint of a presentation.

Last weekend was another 50th, this one was in the "Unperfekthouse" in the centre of town. A more bonkers building you couldn't dream of. It's a 3 or 4 storey building opposite the main shopping mall that seems to have a student bar/diner on the ground floor, an auditorium, and then rooms everywhere for painting/skulpting/potting/dancing/music/yoga...you can even rent rooms in order to stay over so you don't have to drive home. It's kind of commune meets art college, bizarre. Our friend Thomas had taken over a bar area and large room at the top with access to the roof terrace which would have been fantastic if the weather hadn't turned against him, there were palm trees (ok, so they weren't real and yes they did light up, or at least 2 out of 3 did) shaded seating, beach style showers and a paddling pool. The music had been put into the hands of the 14 year old son, which could have been distasterous as Thomas likes jazz but Timo likes reggae and alternative metal, but I think Thomas had had the forethought to lockdown the system so that Timo had little to do other than look cool with his mates behind the music desk. And yet again no programme, we had a short and to the point speech thanking us for being there and then it was a rush to the heaving buffet tables.

So I'm feeling pretty smug, four parties out of four and at every one the emphasis was on eating, drinking and having fun, my only complaint would be that Germans just don't know how to dress up for a party, to most English girls a party invite is an excuse to go shopping for something pretty and sparkly****, but here they sling on some ratty jeans with a black shirt and butt ugly shoes and think they're dressed.

* I'm not talking pirates and princesses here, we're talking serious costumes, so far I've seen them leaving the house dressed as toadstools, bumble bees and bears.
** Funny isn't it, that although the Germans produce some very fine sparkling wine of their own (Sekt) they mostly choose to drink Italian.
*** Isn't that odd? I always though "I before E, except after C" was an unbreakable grammar rule, loving the fact that it's weird!
**** OK, so maybe the sparkly is just me, I will admit to magpie-like tendencies, I am drawn like a magnet to anything with sequins.

Sunday Snaps 78

2011-09-11T10:15:00.003+02:00

It's a palm tree, what's more it's an illuminated palm tree, and it blinked too. We were on the roof of an arty type building in the centre of Essen for a 50th birthday party - more of that later in the week!

quizie rascal strikes again

2011-09-09T09:02:00.002+02:00

My grey matter was left well and truly wanting last night at our expats quiz night.

We had a full house, everyone who said they would make it, did, and I think we had 20 people - 1 solitary Australian ( but in my experience they are so competitive that a quiz only needs one) 4 Yanks, a Mexican (minus the sombrero) a Venezualan (who I had always assumed was Argentinian but as one of the questions was "in which country is the world's highest waterfall" and he crowed "I was born there" - not that at that point I knew he hadn't been born in Argentina...) 2 Singaporeans, 1 German and the rest Brits.

Here's a sample of the questions;

1. in Medieval times what did a fletcher make (taking my parents along paid off 'cos dad knew that one)
2. how many countries border Germany, 7,8 or 9 (Simon wanted to answer 10, I thought we should try to remember who they'd invaded in WW II)
3. what film is this the strap line for "be afraid, be very afraid"
4. who is the famous partner of Chris Martin (to which dad asked "who's Chris Martin?")
5. if 2 philatelists are talking together, what subject are they talking about (dads rule!)
6. this is the first line from what song? "she packed my bags last night, pre-flight"
7. German golfer Martin Kaymer is from which city? (Simon turned up too late (delayed flight from Majorca, not impressed) to be of any use)

And then there was the picture round, 5 bottles of beer with the name on the label photoshopped out, I (dad isn't a beer drinker and so was no use whatsoever, I really needed my brother for this round) got 3, not bad for a martini girl!

Our team didn't win a single prize (sob sob) we weren't the first to get a line of answers correct nor the team with the most answers right, we did get into a tie break with 4 corner questions correct though, three teams had to guess the percentage of men that admitted answering their mobile phone whilst on the toilet...the correct answer was 50% and with an answer of 45% we were close but not the closest!

Unfortunately for us expats, Ian is due to leave Germany in December and so we can only take advantage of his sadistic questioning technique for a couple more months, time enough for me to swot up on pub quiz trivia perhaps, not that I'm at all competitive!

and the answers (in case you didn't know)

1. arrows
2. 9
3. The Fly
4. Gwyneth Paltrow
5. stamps
6. Rocketman
7. Mettman (very, very local to here)

Word of the day; plusterig - fluffy.

Book Reviews #23

2011-09-07T06:46:00.000+02:00

One Day - David Nicholls.

Thought I should read this before the film came out...managed to be halfway through when the reviewers starting taking pot shots at the lead actress's mangling of a Yorkshire accent so I don't know if I shall get to see the film or not, maybe now that I've finished the book I should read the film reviews and see if it's actually worth seeing.

Anyway, on to the book...it's good but I don't get it.

The actual story for one thing and then all the gushing about it.

There are other authors out there, writing in this genre, who are just as good, if not better and the review listing on Amazon is full of effusive praise for this book from said authors.

As I said, it's good, the characters are well written, the history gels - the story spans 20 years or so & it's the 20 years that pretty much match up to my own history, so it rings eerily to me, there's good humour...but I still don't get it.

The story starts as Emma and Dexter are finishing university, it's St. Swithin's Day and after that first chapter we meet them on the same day year after year, which could give quite a skewed view of their lives but doesn't seem to.

I think what bugged me about the actual story was that from the details in the first chapter I couldn't understand how there was such a deep relationship between Emma and Dex. It didn't add up. It was only in the last few chapters when more was explained about the period betwwen the first St. Swithin's day and the second, that the storyline made sense.

So to pararphrase a couple of the reviews from Amazon, it is "a moving and feel good read" (News of the World) but I don't agree with the idea that it's "destined to become a modern classic" (Daily Mirror).

Try it and see what you think, it's not ground breaking but neither is it rubbish.

Hollister Hype

2011-09-05T09:47:00.000+02:00

Have you ever seen sharks in a feeding frenzy? I'm talking on TV, clearly.

I was in a shoppig mall nearby this week and witnessed similar behaviour in a shop, it was quite bizarre, I've never seen Germans in a shopping frenzy before.

The shop is "Hollister", which is the younger sibling to "Abercrombie & Fitch" (an American 'lifestyle' clothing brand aimed at 18-22 year olds, where Hollister is aimed at the 14-18 market).

I first noticed A&F last year when we went to New York, it was one of THE trendy labels to bring back. The store on 5th Avenue had queues of people waiting to get in (no seasonal sale involved, just casual shoppers) but the South Street Seaport despite having the same stock was less popular.

The first thing you notice about these shops is the smell; every worthwhile clothing brand has its own perfume to sell and in A&F it must be pumped out through the air conditioning units so pervasive is the stench. Then you notice the lighting, or rather the lack of lighting, it's dark like a sultry wine bar, the darkness enhanced by the heavy wooden shelving along the walls and the solid tables displaying folded clothes. The third thing you notice is the staff, young, cute (not an ugly mug amongst them) and generally skimpily clad (although I have yet to visit in the depths of winter, maybe they'll abandon their flipflops and cami tops for Uggs and appropriately branded hoodies?) Then there's the muzak, a pounding thumping beat at probably a scientifically proven tempo to induce shopping lust. Finally, there's the clothes themselves. You wont know what colour you're buying until you've bought it and if you need to try anything on you will have to queue for the pleasure and then have to queue to pay (this is after you've queued to get in and made full use of your elbows to get to the shelves.

A friend commented recently that she likes the Hollister shopping experience because all other shops in Germany render the process sterile, at Hollister it's anything but! Personally I found it bizarre, it was early morning and the shop was crowded, no queue to get in but elbows were needed to get to the shelves, and a long line stretched out of the changing rooms and away from the tills. The funny thing is that in Germany the lighting is brighter, it's by no means the 100 watt starkness of all other German shops but also it's not the coal mine darkness of England's Hollister either, I could actually make out the different colours of the clothes - that has to be a good thing!

I'm sure there will come a time, very soon, when Jas becomes more label conscious than she is already and wants to wear Hollister branded clothes, but until that moment I think I shall keep away, I'm clearly way outside of their target clientele!

Sunday Snaps 77

2011-09-04T04:46:00.000+02:00

I have shamelessly pinched this picture from Ian's FB page, he spent last weekend in 'the Dales' & I thought this was very amusing.

Lies, damn lies and...

2011-08-30T12:25:00.003+02:00

...no, not statistics, but rather the internet.

Last week Jas went to a friend's to play*, stayed for lunch and I eventually prised her out of Elena's house just in time to feed her tea.

They'd had a great time (of course) and had had lasagne for lunch**. They'd had to go shopping for the cream (or something) to make the lasagne I was told. But Jas then happily went on to explain that:
"lasagne comes from England you know."

I laughed loudly at that, loving the irony that we're going to Rome in two months time...I put her straight, and explained that lasagne was Italian. But she refused to believe me, they'd looked it up on the internet she said, and lasagne definitely comes from England...
But she wasn't finished. Oh no. They'd also looked up the origins of pasta on the same damned internet and guess where that comes from? Not Italy clearly. But China!

Now I can understand how they managed to Google*** pasta and declare that it originates in China because Germans call all pasta, no matter what shape or colour, noodles. Bonkers I know. So of course if you Google noodles on the German websites you find out that the oldest reference to this important foodstuff is 4,000 years ago in China. Google pasta on the other hand (the proper, Italian name for the stuff that goes into (English) lasagne) and you find that it comes from...Italy...of course.

But how they managed to Google 'lasagne' and decide that it comes from England confused me, until that is I checked the German Wikipedia entry for lasagne. There they mention that there is a theory about lasagne originating from the time of Richard II but that this is one of the less plausible theories - which is a line that the girls clearly decided to 'ignore'. On the English Wiki site they talk of three different theories for lasagne's origins, consigning the English story to third place and giving it little credence, phew!

The moral of that story is always double or triple check your sauces...****

* the school summer holidays have become a six week child swap. Jas is as bored playing with me as I am when forced to play Barbies with her and most days manages to arrange for some little girl to come here or she gets herself invited around there. Fine by me, as long as I have a happy house and I don't have to dress up the pneumatic boobed blonde bombshell, I don't mind playing child swapsies.
** the Germans will, more often than not have a cooked lunch, which tends to mean that Jas will get two cooked meals in a day if out at a friends (because I refuse to bow to the German practise) but a friend coming to us for lunch will quite possibly not get a cooked meal that day, as they'll go home in time for 'Abendbrot' (literally 'evening bread', tea to me).
*** other search engines are available, but let's be honest, don't we all use Google? And I just love the fact that it's both a noun and a verb.
****deliberate typo.

Who's been sleeping in my bed?

2011-08-29T05:32:00.000+02:00

Ben needs a new bed.

The 'high bed'* that we bought four years ago thinking it would see him through to adulthood is not long enough for his increasingly lanky frame, we think he's almost 6 foot but this cannot be independantly verified because he has that teenage ability to be as unaccomadating as humanly possible, bless him.

So the challenge in the remainder of the school holidays has been to take a reluctant shopper to furniture shops to find something new for him to lay his head on at night.

Buying a bed here is a serious business (if you're surprised by this fact then you're clearly new to this blog). The first shop Ben and I went to we were pounced on by a little old man (it was like being served by a grandpa who was on day release from the local Altenheim), he showed us the appropriate beds and told us what it would cost either with or without the head board, then we talked mattresses and were reliably informed that anything under 400 Euro was 'schrott'** - but then he would say that wouldn't he?
So far, so logical.
But the little grandpa wasn't done. We would also have to buy the slats for the bed ('cos otherwise the mattress doesn't stay in the frame very well) It was at this point Ben and I both went "huh?" I'm used to buying a bed complete with slats, but this being Germany not only are there about a billion types of mattress but there are many, many different types of slats, some that will withstand more bouncing than others, some with specially shaped shoulder slats***, some that are motorised so that you can elevate the head and shoulders or feet...you get the picture? We walked away from the first shop with our heads reeling, and it gave me a masochistic thrill to text Si to inform him that yes, we'd been to check out a furniture shop for beds for no. 1 son and that he wouldn't see much change from a grand.

The bed has now been ordered, although not from the first shop (that'd be far too easy.)
First we got the frame and headboard and slats sorted out. That trip took over an hour, due to the inability for the two males involved (1 who had to choose and 1 who had to pay) being unable to agree on something they both liked and we kind of ran out of time.

Friday we got the mattress sorted out and were served by another Altenheim escapee, a lady called Frau Lichtblau - now what kind of a surname is that? Mrs Lightblue? How can that be a surname? A colour choice for a carpet maybe but as a surname? We were meant to go to one of the many mattress shops that people German towns in the way that charity shops do in England (although clearly mattress shops are a little larger, seeing as you need a fair bit of floor space if you want to have matresses out for people to bounce on) but Ben and I were left to our own devices (seeing as he who must be obeyed (tongue firmly in cheek here) is out of the country) and we both thought that they (mattress shops) all exude a sleaziness, something not helped by the rumours that are spread about money laundering and anyway, I just don't understand why there are so many mattress shops around, it seems weird.

Mrs Lightblue very patiently explained the different mattresses to me and Ben, suggested that I try them as well (yes I might be the one paying, but Ben and I have very different tastes when it comes to a mattress, he declared my choice to be too firm and I thought his was like lying on marshmallows - although not as sticky or sweet) and then tried to convince me that a memory foam topping was ideal...didn't get that at all, why would I want my mattress to retain my shape, isn't that like sleeping on some dodgy old hotel bed where it dips in the middle? Not convinced, although I'm sure there's some clever German logic to it.

Now all we have to do is wait for the phone call to say it's all in stock and then worry about finding a home for the old bed...any takers?

* a single bed on very tall legs that could have a second bunk beneath it or a desk, but actually has just a pile of junk/Simpsons comics beneath.
** schrott translates literally as 'scrap iron' but is used colloquially to mean rubbish or junk.
*** which just seems wrong to me, surely a mattress needs to be on a flat surface so that it doesn't get disformed and result in a shorter life expectancy - maybe that's their cunning plan?

Sunday Snaps 76

2011-08-28T06:11:00.000+02:00

How do you dispose of a corpse or two or in this case five?

My sunflowers are well and truly dead and have been removed from the garden (not without a great deal of effort, it has to be said) but now I have the problem of how to dispose of them. They're all well over 6 foot tall and some of the stems are as thick as my wrist, they wont fit in the wheelie bin - even if it was empty!

Book Reviews #22

2011-08-25T08:00:00.000+02:00

The Help - Kathryn Stockett

I've had this book stored on my eReader for maybe a year, I downloaded it after reading a review and then went onto to read other stuff and forgot all about it.

Wow. What a read. I read it in three days, thanks to being on the kind of holiday where lying in the sun and reading is obligatory while the kids refuss to do anything other than jump in and out of the pool.

The book is set in Jackson, Mississippi in the 1960's around the tine of Kennedy's assassination. The rest of the world was starting to take heed of racial relations whilst the state of Mississippi decided that it alone was right and the rest of the world should align itself with them.

The story is told through different voices, there is the voice of Aibileen, a maid in her 50s whose only son died a few years back. Then there is the voice of Minny, a younger maid who has four or five chldren (and by the end of the book is pregnant again) with a husband who drinks and beats her, Minny is forever getting the sack from her white employers because she talks back.
Miss Skeeter is the lone white storytelling vooice, the only one of her group still unmarried and living at home at the ripe old age of 23. An oddity who they try to matchmake for. She wants to be a writer but is told by an editor in New York that she needs to get as much writing experience as she can before she'll be taken seriously. Skeeter gets a job at the local paper writing the 'Miss Myrna' column of household tips, the irony being that she has to ask her friend's maid (Aibileen) for these tips as she hasn't got a clue how to answer the problems like how to stop a rubbish bin from smelling or how to remove a limescale ring from a bath tub.

Skeeter then has an idea for a book which the New York editor likes the sound of. A collection of first hand accounts from coloured maids working for white families. The editor likes the idea because it is the year of the Martin Luther King march and there is a real sense of history about to be made, unfortumately for Skeeter Aibileen says no, it's too dangerous for her to help, when the son of a friend has just been blinded after a beating becausd he accidentally used the whites only toilet. Fortunately for Skeeter, Aibileen has a change of heart and so the book project gets started under the greatest of secrecy, everyone adopting psuedonyms, all identities changed, and more than that I shant tell.

It's a great book, I thoroughly recommend it, get it, I don't think you'll be disappointed.

I hear thunder

2011-08-23T15:13:00.000+02:00

The concensus is that this summer has been rubbish (weatherwise, that is) back in April (and that was early April) we saw crazy temperatures of 30 degrees C, but since those heady days it's all gone downhill (at least here in Germany anyway) This last week we've had the odd day of proper summer, where it's too hot to be outside and all Jas wants is to play with water and all I want to do is sit and hide in the cellar, where it's blissfully cool and where the dog retreats as well, but these occasional days of summer have to be paid for with either thunderstorms or days of rain, or both. Fun.

Last Thursday the sky went black shortly after 6pm, the day had been scorching so of course there was a fee due. By 7pm the storm was in full flow. There was thunder and lightning and rain and winds that threatened to overturn the useless* sun umbrellas. Over the noise of the storm we could only just hear the fire engine sirens as they were kept busy removing fallen trees and pumping out flooded cellars. The damage was all too evident the following morning, paths covered with gravel washed from the flowerbeds, branches littering the roads and my poor sunflowers now mere bald heads, their petals strewn throughout the garden.

Sunday was another decent day (at least where I live, my German teacher who is 30-40 minutes away** reported a day of such crap weather that the only activity that made sense was to decamp to the cinema) hot enough for me to suggest going down into the tourist hotbed that Kettwig becomes on a sunny weekend and getting an eiscafé (me) and an erdbeerbecher*** (him). The charge for such a lovely day was a thunderstorm that raged for over an hour in the evening. Sheet lightning this time, not fork and at one point pretty much constant thunder. I love a good thunderstorm (I blame my mom) but part of the fun is counting the gap between the lightning and the thunder to find out how close the storm is, this is kind of ruined when the thunder is continuous! Logan however, was not amused. He struggles with his immediate reaction which is to flee to his place of safety (under the stairs in the cellar) or staying next to me****, during a long storm he will do both, probably hoping that I'll follow him down to the cellar.

Yesterday was a pretty typical (for this year) summer day, grey to start with and coolish, the odd rain shower and then as the afternoon progressed the heat increased. There was nothing to suggest that payback would be required. So I was quite surprised to wake up in the middle of the night, and on a trip to the loo feel I was going to be hit by lightning - we have a velux window in the roof of the bathroom and the storm (or at least the lightning) was clearly right overhead. I didn't linger. Of course neither child was awoken by the following storm, it was just me that was kept awake for an hour while the thunder rattled the roof above my head.

A final thought; I do find it funny that two of Rudolph's reindeer mates are named Donner (thunder) and Blitzen (lightning) especially when the others are called such normal 'horsey' names - Dasher, Dancer, Prancer, Vixen, Comet and Cupid, maybe that was what fitted the rhyme, unless of course the names preceeded the song...

* useless only in the sense that there has been too little strong sun to warrant their use, they do actually function perfectly, when there is sun that one needs to be shaded from.
** traffic and weather dependant.
*** strawberries and icecream in a bowl topped with cream, almonds and strawberry juice (it's big)
**** and I mean next to, I might have been standing in the kitchen doorway, watching the arial action but he was trying to get under my skirt.

Word for the day; das Gewitter - thunderstorm

Sunday Snaps 75

2011-08-21T09:37:00.004+02:00

Spot the difference? The first pic is from last year, pretty sunflowers but not quite as tall as I'd hoped for. So this year I made a point of reading the different seed packets at the garden centre. Consequently this year's display is a little more impressive.

Notes from abroad part deux

2011-08-18T16:26:00.000+02:00

We chose a great time to go to England (although to be fair the timing was not our choosing, it's all Tim's fault) we flew in on the Friday and the rioting started on the Saturday - was it something we said?

Our arrival at Birmingham airport was not the most pleasant, we were late because we'd been delayed leaving Germany (some faulty seat belt or something necessitated the complete change of a seat - goodness knows why because I'm quite sure that if a plane crashes the seat belt does little other than keep the bodies in the seats to which they were assigned so facilitating identification) and then because the United Kingdom isn't part of the Schengen agreement we had to queue up to get through border control, there were at least three plane loads of passengers and two immigration officers and lots of empty desks, it was like trying to get into the U.S. except we didn't get finger printed.

First meal out was chinese (of course) a weird little place in a back street of Stratford (upon Avon, not a suburb of London) with paper table cloths (and no hot towels to cleanse greasy fingers - which didn't go down well with MIL, just as the paper table cloths woudn't have been in favour with FIL) but the food was great, even salmon in a black bean sauce which I've never had before, I commented to the chef about it and apparently they get lots of chinese coach tours in who like to have fish.

Saturday was the surprise birthday lunch for my sister in law Rachel, it turned out that the only surprise was that none of us knew that she knew...some people are better are keeping secrets than others I guess*. It was a lovely lunch despite it not being oriental (it was my mission, whilst outside of Germany to eat as much oriental food as possible) in any way, shape or form - can't have everything I guess!

Sunday was English eccentricity at its best. The guys went golfing, Jas and I snook off for a bit of crafty retail therapy and MIL stayed home preparing the bbq food** for the late afternoon's bbq feast. We returned in time for the wine opening, helped set the table (that could well be an over exaggeration, I remember standing next to the table and pointing out where place settings were missing...) and then prayed for the rain to stay away while Si & FIL hovered over the bbq to stop the outside of the huge fillets of pork overcooking (being burnt to a cinder) before the inside was done. The end result was perfect, a lovely meal with great company, but looking at the photos now, it all looks so quintessentially "English".

Monday, and I moved on to my parents for one night with the children, while Si flew home (someone has to work after all, in order to keep me (and the children) in the manner to which we are accustomed!) so whilst Si was eating cheese on toast at home we were taken out for a delicious thai meal.

Tuesday afternoon and to Ben's relief we drove on to our last stop - my friend Alison's. Ben, up to this point had alternated between "bored" and "very bored" but was coping with such dire straits because he knew he had 48 hours at the end of the week to spend with Alison's son, Christopher. The two boys are both 14, have known each since forever and are both equally computer literate. They game together over the internet, talking via headsets about everything and nothing, we were no sooner through the front door than Ben had disappeared into the black hole of Chris's pit, emerging only when summoned for food.
It was Monday and Tuesday nights that the rioting spread to other English cities outside of London and it seemed as if Al's and my carefully planned shopping trip to the Bullring in Birmingham might be under threat.

We needn't have worried, if anything the rioters made our shopping trip easier by keeping everyone (with more sense) away. The car park was deserted, the shops quiet, we didn't even have to queue at the noodle bar in Selfridges (unheard of) we got everything we'd planned to but maybe left earlier than we would have under normal circumstances, it just felt a bit freaky. Around 3pm a couple of the shops had their security shutters lowered already and although we didn't feel threatened or unsafe, the atmosphere was...tense. As we drove out of the car park (which was even emptier than when we'd arrived) we saw the entrance had been completely closed off, you could get out but there was no way in. According to news reports the whole centre shut at 4pm.

Our last meal in England was a good old take out curry - bliss, but now I need to get some serious hours in down at the gym to undo this three weeks of over indulgence, I hope I can manage to fit into my jeans in time for autumn, which is surely just around the corner judging by the weather.

Contraband brought back in the spare bag included Walkers salt and vinegar crisps, prawn cocktail Skips, chichen bisto, self raising flour (x2) mixed spice (x2) Galaxy chocolate bars, Bassetts Liquorice Allsorts, Jelly Babies, Milky Way Stars, Jelly Tots, Tootie Frooties, a fairy cake bun tray, M&S undies and a heap of English magazines - none of which I would die without but none of which can be found here (apart from the flour, but the s.r flour in the chinese supermarket here just doesn't seem to work as well as that from Sainsbury - why is that?!)

* no names, no pack-drill.
** I invited MIL to come shopping with us but she said she'd be far too busy with bbq prep. - I guess I'm incredibly lazy, because to me a bbq is when Si stands over the meat (sausages/burger/chicken if we're feeling adventurous or maybe kebabs from the butchers) and I throw together a salad, some couscous and possibly potato wedges - we're talking an hour's prep, max.

Notes from abroad

2011-08-15T14:46:00.004+02:00

I've been very, very lazy over the last three weeks (as my weight gain shows) I did, however, manage to write some things down, so here are my thoughts of 'abroad' (when home is Germany that is).

- Spain is hot & airless, especially in the morning, there is a breeze but you either have to go to the beach (which involves cycling or driving) or wait by the pool for the breeze that picks up in the afternoon.
- I have loved doing 40-50 minutes of yoga on the balcony first thing - well by first thing I mean 9.30 ish, any earlier & it's too early, any later and the sun is too high & burns my head and gets in my eyes. I find it sets me up for a day of doing...nothing, and sorts all the kinks out of my spine from the previous day's lying on the sun lounger.
- Si has been getting very cross about the crapness of the technology here (which amuses me no end), whilst on holiday, no 3G, the internet connection is shite etc etc etc - we're on holiday, so why is it such an insurmountable problem?
- Since we were here last year they've set up a paintball area just behnd the tennis courts (which are in front of our balcony) so instead of hearing the gentle thunking of ball on racket we get the rattle of machine gun fire from midday through to the evening, it's quite bizarre.
- Tried really hard not to get burnt to a cinder this year by applying factor 50 on both me and the kids (Si can take care of himseslf) but it bewilders me that Jas gets a better, deeper and more consistant tan than I do, when she spends all her time in the pool upside down doing handstands. Factor 50 is definitely the way to go though, no burning and no peeling - result!
- The beach is great for people watching, although sunglasses are a necessity. There are bodies of all shapes and sizes out there and clad in all manner of things too...sprayed on, bacofoil silver teeny trunks, not quite the brevity of speedos but they certainly had the budgie smuggler capability, then there are the young girls with just their bikini bottoms on, flaunting their perfect tans as much as their perfectly pert boobies (certainly an eye opener for the younger boys) the older matrons with their sensible one pieces, whose lycra is seriously stressed with the job of covering the ample girth. Younger boys, stylishly wearing their boxers under their (big 'n baggy) board shorts, making sure that the waist band and logo (of the boxers) is visible, and then there were the two girls sunbathing, I had to look twice before I spotted their teensy weensy thongs, clearly the only way to get an immaculate seamless tan (without trekking off to a nudist beach that is).
- Aren't beaches sandy? A little sea breeze on a scorching day is wonderful but I hadn't expected to get exfoliated at the same time, after a shower, a swim and another shower I was still finding sand in unexpected places.
- I worked hard at catching up on my chinese food intake. The one and only restaurant near us in Germany has seriously reduced its menu and was quite disappointing the last time we were there, but in the tiny little Spanish town where we stayed there is a very good chinese, is two visits in a 10 day period overdoing my MSG intake? Or just readjusting my yearly balance maybe?

Might manage to tell you about my week in England next time, we were in Spain Saturday through to a week on Wednesday then we had two nights at home (just enough time to unpack and repack) before flying off to England on the Friday before finally coming home six days later. I have caught up on the washing but somehow the ironing mountain just keeps growing...

Sunday Snaps 74

2011-08-14T06:46:00.000+02:00

I'm back, 10 (or was it 11?) days in sunny Spain, hopped home to change suitcase contents and then a week in riotous England. Here's a few pics;

1st the pool in Spain, my foot is meant to be in shot.

Then the birthday cakes at my sister in law's 'surprise' birthday celebration (the reason we went to England)
This is a decoration on top of a bridge in a fab Thai restaurant we went to with M&D, dad reckoned it was a pineapple...I don't think so.
And lastly a shot of an almost deserted carpark in the centre of Birmingham, mid morning the day after the riots - perfect day for shopping in the Bullring, the looters hadn't got in and the other shoppers were too scared to go shop.

We're all going on a...

2011-07-23T21:10:00.000+02:00

...summer holiday...

back soon....

....watch this space!

School's Out

2011-07-21T14:52:00.002+02:00

School's out for summer.

It's been a long time coming, so many days of getting up at 6.30am and so many afternoons spent helping with homework, but finally it's the summer holidays.

There have been years in the past when I've dreaded the six weeks when the children are at home, driftless and the constant refrain is 'what are we doing today?' But as the children are growing up, so the necessity for me to provide entertainment is waning, they'd much rather play with friends than do something I've suggested and so at this point in my parenting career I'm looking forward to six weeks with no desperate need to be somewhere.

Quite why the schools didn't all break up last week is beyond me, they certainly haven't done any work in the last four days. At the high school they handed their text books back last Friday and then have been on a very reduced timetable - in at 9 (instead of 7.50) on two days & back whenever the teachers had had enough of them (maybe that's just how it seemed, there's certainly been no adherence to the timetable) yesterday they weren't in till 11 and then it was only in order to run as many 2.5k sponsored laps as they could in order to raise funds for the school beautification programme. The primary school has been equally lax this week, Jas reporting many lessons were 'playing lessons' and today her class went down to the the Eiscafé.

Anyway, another school term and year is done with, six weeks of doing very little to look forward to! Just hope the weather plays along, I don't want six weeks trapped in a house with a stinky wet dog and two kids who want to be outside!

Endurance-fest

2011-07-19T11:50:00.003+02:00

Sunday was the Abschlussfest for Jasmine's class. It's the end of term and the year 4's leave to start their new schools, so with a mixed year group class the year 4's are saying goodbye to primary education and the year 3's to their classmates.

As a year 3 mom I didn't need to help out but I thought in the spirit of integration it would be good for me (and then maybe I can pick up tips for next year, when I will be expected to play more of a role). The party was due to start at 3pm so we were setting up tables at 1. All was going smoothly, tables up, benches up, paper table clothes firmly stuck down with duct-tape* due to the unseasonal gale like winds - at least we were in no danger of anyone getting heat stroke or sunburn. The kids (belonging to the parents who were setting up) were playing either tig (fang as it's called here) or football. Julian fell over and cried out in pain, and continued to cry out...there was nothing obviously broken, but his upper arm hurt - a lot. Half an hour, an ice pack and several cubes of sugar later the arm still hurt just as much and he was shipped off to hospital, to return an hour or two later with the arm strapped to his torso, broken.

The party started with the cake buffet, coffee (or tea) and cake, lots of mingling and small talk being made - well small talk anyway, in this kind of situation the parents tend to find their little cliques and stick together, fine if you've got a clique, tough if you don't. Fortunately Rebecca's son is in the same class as Jas, so I was not alone, in fact later on at the bbq we had our own little 'ausländer'* clique, there were the English, the French, Polish and Albanian.

After cake we had the entertainment, the year 4's sang a song written for their teacher, the year 3's had another song to say goodbye and good luck to the year 4's. Then there was an almost cringey song/rhyme from two of the leaving moms all about Herr B and how wonderful the children (and the parents) think he is, before the pièce de résistance, a short film of interviews with the departing students about their two years with Herr B. This was very cleverly done and copied onto enough DVDs that every child got a copy.

Then came the bbq and at last the wine was opened, a good job really seeing as the fest wasn't even halfway through. I got home shortly after 10pm, having spent the last couple of hours sitting on a bench in the school playground with a fire burning and a guitar playing.

It was a good day, but did it really have to last so long? The problem stemmed from the fact that the parents were allowing the kids to call the shots, none of the kids wanted to go home if their friends were staying and so all the adults had to stay. Last year I ducked out before the bbq started up, thoroughly annoying Jas at the time and further annoying her when the following day she discovered just how late everyone had been there and what she'd missed out on, so this year I'd agreed to stay till the bitter end. We were both wrecked yesterday, I was running purely on caffeine and Jas on sugar (and coca cola), thank goodness the fest is only once a year, I need my 6 weeks schulfrei! Role on Saturday.

* a word that in my head is spelt 'duck-tape', but I'm sure it's not.
** ausländer = foreigner

Sunday Snaps 73

2011-07-17T11:25:00.003+02:00

My German teacher went away for the week, this is me doing my grammar while she's swanning about in Sicily.

Quiz-ie Rascal

2011-07-15T07:08:00.006+02:00

Last night was the 2nd Expats Quiz Night, sadly the turnout wasn't up to that of last months due to the truly crappy weather I'm sure, but that didn't stop us, we had enough for three teams of three and so the battle commenced!

Ian slaves all month long on writing the quiz (yeah, I don't believe that either, I mean, he does have a proper job afterall!) and delights in tormenting our grey matter. Here's a few of the questions we were taxed with:

What types of Disney animal are the following?
- Iago?
- Scar?
- Robin Hood?

Sport round;
- Sebastian Vettel won last years Formula 1 championship but who came 2nd?
- In what year did the Ryder Cup start? 1917, 1927 or 1937?
- Which is the first tournament of the year in the Tennis Grand Slam?

General knowedge;
- Name the secretary general of the U.N.
- Route 66 connects L.A with which other city?
- Where is the Gobi desert?

There was also a picture round, we had to name the car brands from their badges - a piece of automobile cake for J* and me, but the Luscious Lulus confused this:

for this:oops!

It was another fun, quiz night which has even won over Rachael, who "doesn't do quiz nights", previously declaring them to be too serious and dull...that cannot be said of Mr Quizmaster Hookham, who seems to have the level of our (un)intelligence and (lack of) general knowledge finely judged.

The three teams were very close, with the cheating** Yanks winning by 2 points followed by the Luscious Lulus and the United Nations both getting 19/25. We then screamed ahead to claim second prize by getting the tie breaker question correct:

In a worldwide survey the French were (supposedly) declared to be the nation which has the most sex, but how much do they get in a year?
J was ecstatic. He knew that, he declared, he'd heard it once and clearly never forgets a fact once he's heard it...so first he wrote down 167, changed it to 168 and finally settled on 170. Fortunately for J (whose infallible memory was clearly suffering from 1 glass of wine*** too many) the Lulus guessed higher than us and as the answer was something like 130**** we then won 2nd prize. Gloat? Of course we didn't!

* a self confessed petrol head with a sad weakness for Suzuki Swifts.
** they admitted to cheating on at least one question.
*** this makes him sound like a raging alcoholic, when in fact, as he was intending to drive home (but not in a Swift) he only drank 1 glass of wine all evening.
**** I've tried to find the right answer online as the Quizmaster said it was a proper (Wiki verified) fact, but I've failed and really don't want to keep Googling 'frequent & sex'...

Don't forget your towel

2011-07-13T12:29:00.003+02:00

Was Douglas Adams German d'you think?

This is the Douglas Adams of "Hitchhiker's Guide" fame. He famously wrote that towels were "the most massively useful thing an interstellar hitchhiker can have". They could be used to keep the hitchhiker warm, to lie on, as a sail on a boat, can be wetted for hand to hand combat, waved as a distress signal and even, if it's clean and dry enough used as a means to dry off.

The towel became such a symbol of the Hitchhiker books that every year on May 25th there is a "Towel Day" when fans of Douglas Adams commemorate his untimely death (in 2001) by carrying towels with them.

Germans are notoriously portrayed as towel carrying sun lounger hoggers, who plan with military precision their dawn raids on the best spots by the pool. As much as I shudder with embarassment at the foibles of my fellow countrymen when on holiday (the demanding of a cooked "English" breakfast everyday, the negligible use of sunscreen ensuring that days 2-14 are spent lobster hued and the necessity to drink lager at all times of the day) so Germans cringe when you mention the words "Strandtuch"* and "Sonnenliege"** in the same sentence. I have witnessed this in action and know it is not just hype, if you don't baggsy a sun lounger before breakfast then expect to spend the day either in full shade or next to the screaming action in the toddler pool!

Recently I've seen the German baggsy-ing method being used in the gym. A cross trainer standing completely idle but with a newspaper propped up on the screen, a full bottle of water and a towel draped over the side - but not a person in sight, and no-one claimed the machine for a good 20 minutes. I think the reason the guy didn't want to use any one of the other 15 cross trainers is because this particular one is right next to the floor to ceiling glass windows of the studio that was about to be used for a step class, I guess he wanted something to oggle when the newspaper got too dull. And then just today I was at the gym early (just after 8) and already in the aerobic studio there was a mat on the floor with a towel, 30 minutes later and there were two mats with towels, another 10 minutes passed and another mat with towel - all this for a class due to start at 9am, clearly positioning within a class is of vital importance. Fortunately this has no impact on me, with the machines I'm happy to use whichever is available and for my yoga class I try to hide as far at the back as possible, let the other Kettwigefrauen fight it out for the spots at the front under the teacher's nose, I'll just wobble along and over balance out of sight!

* beach towel
** sun lounger

Shopping, but not as you know it

2011-07-12T16:23:00.004+02:00

Do you remember "Swapshop"? It was a Saturday morning kids tv programme back in the early 80's with Noel Edmonds. The premise was that kids rang in with stuff they had that they didn't want any longer and wanted to swap for something else. I used to watch but never dreamed of joining in, althnough the temptation to ring in to swap my little brother's weird bionic man with his seeing eye must have been great.

Last night I had an invitation to a live swap, I had to be at Lulu's* at 7pm with 20-30 items that I no longer wanted.

Leslie tries to organise the event so that there are between 6 & 10 people, any fewer and there's not enough bargaining going on or choice of stuff, any more and the evening goes on until dawn - as it was I didn't get home till pumpkin time. Last night there were only six of us as a couple had cancelled a the last moment, possibly not a bad thing otherwise I'd have got even less sleep!

The evening ran as follows; everyone pays 10 euro and receives 10 coffee beans which are then used as swap currency. Everyone takes a turn to show something to the group that they want to swap, if you want it you pay 1 bean, if more than one person wants the item then they try to outbid each other. Not everything gets swapped, a floor length black leather coat was tried on by all of us but no-one quite had the swagger to carry it off (without looking like an SS storm trooper or a Rocky Horror fugitive) and there was a white jacket that was too tight on some people and completely shapeless on others. There were also items that almost brought people to blows - mostly footwear...a pair of wedge heeled green suede boots of mine sparked a bidding war so ferocious in the first round that we decided they had to be put aside and come back to - and even then a deal had to be brokered whereby both parties have access to the luscious boots. Then there was a pair of cream snakeskin (possibly effect, but they are American, so who knows) backless shoes that were so comfy and yet so 'WOW' I wanted them as much as Yvonne did...in the end I let Yvonne take them as I'd thought to get the pair of cowboy boots (that I'd spotted waiting) coming up later, that plan backfired as Leslie (owner of both pairs) decided she needed the boots to go with a pair of jeans she's just paid a bean for...damn! I shall know better next time!

It was a successful evening for everyone I think, I got rid of shoes and clothes that I no longer wear and at the same time picked up some new clothes, a pair of pretty silver ballerina pumps and some new necklaces, and managed to come home 7 euro up!

Now I just need an invitation to a party so that I can wear the gorgeous strapless frock that I picked up for a single coffee bean!

* for those new here, Lulu's is almost my 2nd home, a small (but perfectly formed) bar run by a Manc & a Yank, our venue of choice for celebrations, commiserations and general socialising - we were there last Friday for Princie's birthday & are there again on Thursday for expats night.

Word of the day; to swap - tauschen

Sunday Snaps 72

2011-07-10T08:31:00.002+02:00

The end of the party debris from celebrating Princie's 30th.

Those that can, do...

2011-07-08T15:35:00.004+02:00

...and those that can't, teach.

A very poor spirited proverb that demeans teachers, it always leaves me wondering about those that can't even teach? Like me for example.

I'm so child unfriendly that if I were a toy I'd be labelled 'only suitable for those over 18'. I can get on fine with my children (although they might disagree) and with other people's children (in small doses, although this does depend on the child...there are some I choose not to have in my house) but children en masse? In a schooling situation? No thank you. I'd rather stick pins in my eyes.

So quite how I found myself this morning, in front of a class of 22 ten year olds still escapes me.

The current topic for Jasmine's class is 'the body', a subject that when first mooted was supposed to include sex & reproduction, this has clearly been forgotten about (unless they're going to cover that in the next two weeks, which I can't see) as they've been backwards and forwards over healthy eating and vegetables and exercise and now they've all prepared a specific topic (Jas did the skin) to present to the class.

My first mistake: A few weeks ago, on a wet weekend, I finally gave in to Simon's unsubtle nagging about tidying up the study. I emptied all the shelves, re-ordered everything and created two bin bags of rubbish (Simon will so regret this, he'll never find anything, ever again) during my tidying I came across an old science kit of Ben's entitled 'Blood, Bones and Body Bits' and suggested to Jas that it might be useful for her current school project - silly me.

Inside this box was a heart, a red plastic (with gruesome vein detailing) heart and the instructions for demonstrating to children how blood flows into and out of the heart and the function of the valves. Jas and I took this to show her teacher, and I asked him whether he'd be able to understand the instructions (as they're, thoughtlessly, only in English) he said he'd get his daughter to translate it for him. And that was my second mistake. I should have gone along with the instructions already translated, because of course he didn't get round to translating it and so I said I'd come in to show the class.

My third mistake: Choosing a day and a time that he wasn't there. Herr B sloped off to a 'meeting', leaving me with 20+ children and a substitute teacher (this class is pretty wild, and Herr B does seem to be the only one who can get them to be productive).

However I survived. It was a terrifying ordeal though, standing at the front of a hot classroom, trying to demonstrate in a foreign language an experiment that I hadn't had the forethought to try out at home...

I'm so glad that I took some time yesterday to think through how the experiment would run and what extra words I might need ('cos I don't have the German for 'heart valve' or 'ventricle' in my day to day vocab) I also thought to take with me newspaper (to protect the desk - I'm such a Blue Peter girl at heart) and a large plastic bowl*.

We started by making the 'blood' (water + red and green food colouring) then we listened to each other's hearts, established that everyone was still alive (although it's quite likely some of the boys are brain dead) and the noise that the heart makes, and then things got messy. Taking the heart we connected the valves and then poured in the blood and squeezed. The bowl was definitely my best decision, catching all the blood that came out and enabling all the kids to have a go at squeezing blood out of a heart.

Hopefully it was an interesting lesson for the class, hopefully I didn't make a complete fool of myself, at least I didn't end up with red or green food colouring on my clothes which was my one worry, just red hands from all that blood!

* just before Christmas I bought what is probably meant to be a small baby bath for the sole purpose of soaking my turkey in it (a great recipe btw) but it has since been used for pedicures and now 'blood' collecting.

Whoops I dun it again

2011-07-07T09:15:00.003+02:00

I am card-less.

Again.

Bank card-less that is.

When we first moved here four years ago I treated my sparkly new German bank cards with the same casual manner that I treated my English ones. Stuff them in my purse and forget about them until I need to flex the plastic. Never had any problems.

But it turns out that German cards are a little more sensitive and less hard wearing than their English counterparts. Maybe this is due to the credit based nature of English society requiring durable plastic, whereas Germany is still very much a cash based society, here visa is what you need as well as your passport to get into some countries, not something to use instead of cash.

My first Commerzbank card didn't last a year, I had to go grovelling into our local branch (had to make a note of their opening hours first, because they take an hour for lunch and some days they shut early in the afternoon) and beg for a new card.

The second card lasted even less time. They weren't amused. I had to undergo a full interogation as to how I had managed to knacker two cards in such quick succession. This interogation session did have a result though (as well as the new card) as I was informed that it was probably the magnetic clasp on my (new) purse that was ruining the bank cards (funny how it was only the Commerzbank cards that couldn't cope with a bit of magnetism eh?)

That replacement lasted until this week. I was running low on cash (not a sensible thing to allow to happen here in 'cash is king' Deutschland) and went to the bank. There are two machines, one's an 'in&out'* and the other is just an 'out'. I tried the one, it asked for my PIN and then the amount, thought about it, chuntered to itself, and then told me my card wasn't valid and to please use one that was...so I tried the other machine and got the same reaction. I'd have gone into the bank there and then but just as the 2nd machine was thumbing its nose at me the staff went to lunch, leaving me to turn the air blue and walk away empty handed.

I went back yesterday, tried the machines again (just in case a miracle had occured) and then went inside to accost some innocent bank teller. I told him my card was 'kapputt' and I told him what had happened. First he checked the bank account (to make sure it wasn't empty) then after much umming and ahhing he got me to show him how it didn't work...He got quite excited when the card wasn't immediately rejected, trying to tell me that it wasn't kapputt, that it was working again. So I told him to wait and then the machine performed its trick for him and he had to confess that the customer was right and the card was indeed knackered.

20 minutes it took to get a new card ordered and still I have no cash - I'm reduced to borrowing from the 14 year old son (who usually has more cash than me) and begging off Simon.

Fortunately we have another bank account (with a different bank) so I do still have an active bank card (therefore shopping is not impeded) unfortunately there isn't a cashpoint in Kettwig that takes this card.

Another cloud on my horizon - each new bank card comes with a new PIN...and no opportunity to change the PIN either. Crap. I'm rubbish at remembering PINs, and the expired card had such a lovely PIN, I could remember it and now I have to try and wipe it from my memory and prepare a space for a new one. Bugger.

* the 'in and out' machine is amazing. You take along all your loose change (except Germans NEVER have loose change as they ALWAYS count out every single bean in order to pay the cashier the exact amount) and tip it into the hole in the machine, stick in your bank card and the machine then sorts and counts everything before depositing it into your account. A-mazing. The weird thing is though that it only takes x number of coins, anything over x gets returned to you...so that must mean I'm supposed to count out the coins so that I deposit only the right number...not happening.

Busy Bee

2011-07-04T13:49:00.004+02:00

I have had such a ridiculously busy weekend.

Normally my diary is a blank (for 'fun' things anyway, it's always full of stuff like 'German lesson' & 'Jas maths' & 'dentist') occasionally I'll get a weekend with a Friday evening outing or, even rarer, a Saturday one but this weekend? Mad busy!

It all kicked off with book group, 16 or 17 of us talking ten to the dozen, annoying all the Germans around us because we were so loud and they still couldn't eavesdrop because we were yakking in English and probably way too fast for them - sad. We (Rebecca, Emma & I) made the decision to drink red (as opposed to the pink which got us ruinously drunk last month) with the theory that we'd drink less that way, fortunately steered clear of the the bio tempranillo, which when drunk on a previous occasion gave us all really bad heads (and it wasn't anything to do with the quantity trust me) Kamesh and Muna forgot this vital fact though and apparently suffered the whole of Saturday for it. This month we have a proper book to read - Ken Follett, The Pillars of the Earth. This was on the recommendation of (big) Rebecca* who was shocked into almost speechlessness (not an easy thing to accomplish as she's American, only not talking when drinking, actually she quite likes a drink...) when we said none of us there had read it, we could live to regret this hasty decision as it turns out to have about a billion pages...I guess it'll keep me entertained on holiday.

Saturday we had an invitation to an American Independence Day celebration at Princie's. Princie and John rent an apartment down on the edge of the river so large amunts of party time were spent on the balcony, glass in one hand, other hand waving at nosey people walking along the river bank who would stop and stare. The party was good fun; good food, nice wine and good company, about half and half (Brits to Yanks) with the odd Kraut thrown in as well for good measure. The Brits took the dress code to be red, white and blue (see yesterday's blog for a pic) whilst the Yanks went for heavy accessorising - stars 'n stripes hats, red, white 'n blue flower garlands etc. this almost but not quite made up for the teensie weensie white shorts that were being worn. I know I sound bitter and twisted but that's because I am, the itsy bitsy shorts were accompanied by endless brown legs and long blonde hair - jailbait if ever I saw it, turns out the 2 girls were 13...OMG, and I nearly offered them a glass of wine each!

Sunday and we had a diary clash, Ben had his end of term do from 2pm at the canoe club up river, cake, bbq and canoe polo were on the menu, but at 3pm Jas and I had to be at her school for yet another performance of the Pied Piper (she's in it & I'm back stage) so after grabbing a piece of cake and squeezing in a bit of chat we had to dash back here. After the performance we had to take apart the stage and put all the chairs back in the classrooms and generally turn the gym hall back into a functioning gym hall. All I wanted to do yesterday evening was sleep!

I told you I'd had a packed weekend, I almost need a weekend to recover, but hey, at least there's only three weeks of school left and then we're off to Spain to relax in the sun, 19 days and counting!

* book group has two Rebeccas, one is about 2 feet taller than the other...

Word of the day; einräumen - to admit to a lie, or, to stack shelves

Sunday Snaps 71

2011-07-03T09:58:00.003+02:00

Last night's festivities, helping American friends here celebrate American Independance Day.

Grammar Test #1

2011-06-30T06:42:00.000+02:00

How good is your English Grammar?

Do you know the difference between the present perfect, the past perfect and the pluperfect for example?

Do you know when to use "its" and "it's"?

Or when colon or a semi colon should be used?

Me either...(I'm now wondering whether that's a grammatically correct statement...)

When you learn to speak a language as a native you rarely have to learn the rules, the only reason I tend to know more about English tenses now is because I've learnt the German rules.

A couple of weeks ago Ben's bilingual English class took a grammar test on indirect speech. His teacher sent me an email after marking the papers appologising for his grade, and the fact that he'd been beaten (in his mother tongue) by several of his German classmates. She was very relieved when I laughed, a German parent would have more likely demanded the paper to be re-graded apparently, but although the result is disappointing, it's also understandable. Ben might think he knows the grammar rules but his brain has spent the last 14 years absorbing the spoken English language, and to then try to take that knowledge and force it through grammar hoops is tricky. I know this from personal experience, because I asked if I could also do the test...

How would you do? Can you put these examples into indirect speech, i.e. report what these people said:

- Dieter Bohlen: "I always did my homework when I was a child, life was easier, but I didn't know this then."
- Lionel Messi: "I've never been to America, but I really want to go there."
- Xavier Naidoo: "Religion is important to me. It always has been. That's why my songs contain religious messages."

Here's what you should have written:

- DB admitted that he had always done his homework when he had been a child, he said that he hadn't known that life had been easier then. (I got 0.5/4.5 for that one)
- LM confessed that he had never been to America but really wanted to go there. (0.5/2.5)
- XN declared that religion was really important to him and it had always been. This was why many of his songs contained religious messages. (0.5/4.5)

I got a D+, worse than Ben, but as I happily pointed out to him and his teacher, I could talk circles (in English) around those kids who beat me, and my accent is better!

Whilst writing this blog I found some great quotes:

"when a thought takes one's breath away, a grammar lesson seems an impertinence" - Thomas W. Higginson.
"grammar is the grave of letters" - Elbert Hubbard.
"grammar is a piano I play by ear. All I know about grammar is its power" - Joan Didion.
"I am the King of Rome, and above grammar" - Emperor Sigismund.

And I'll leave you with this on youtube, it helps if you've seen the film "The Inglorious Basterds", but it's not essential.

Book Reviews #21

2011-06-29T06:24:00.000+02:00

Jump - Jilly Cooper.

There are many (very brief) sentences I could use to describe my feelings about our last book group read..."what a pile of poo" and "don't bother" being amongst them.

There was a fair bit of disagreement over the choice of book after the evening, but it only seemed fair to continue on with the chosen book and although I stand by that decision I do feel as though I have egg on my face (and it was't even my book suggestion).

I have read many, many Jilly Cooper books over the years, afterall she written a fair few and been very successful, enough to warrant the honour of receiving an OBE. Her books tend to be horsey and raunchy, she was writing chick lit long before the term was invented and she never usually disappoints but I fear with Jump, Jilly has lost her mojo.

I gave it till past page 100 but then decided to throw in the towel. It was just too dull and annoying with a main character who is in her 60's with two grown up children who treat her like the doormat she is. That really is as much as I can be bothered to tell you, definitely not Jilly at her best.

Huggy Bear

2011-06-27T09:21:00.000+02:00

This weekend 14 year old Ben went on a school trip with his class, they left Friday morning and returned Sunday morning. They didn't go far, Nettetal - maybe an hour or so away, to a youth hostel.

Ben's 14, taller than me now (and has been so for probably the last year, he'll overtake Si eventually (6ft 4) I guess) and although he will happily lark about with his dad I never get to be on the receiving end of his affection (sob).

As he is so independant I left it to him to pack his stuff, gave him the list from school and then before he left checked that he had everything...good job, seeing as otherwise he'd have managed not to take a spare spare of jeans or any pj's. Sunscreen was on the list (afterall it is midsummer) but as the forecast for the weekend was dreadful I told him not to bother, it then proceded to rain & drizzle for the whole time he was away.

Si dropped him off at the collection point & reported that Ben's bag was probably the smallest and that all the girls had huge cases. Some of the boys were apparently chased by their mothers for a goodbye hug/kiss. I had actually managed to get a hug off Ben before he left the house - well, I say hug, but that implies a two way movement. I hugged Ben as he stood as immobile as a board, but hey, at least he stood still, I didn't chance a kiss.

I collected Ben on Sunday, as uncommunicative as when he'd left.

- Did you have a good time?
- Grunt of affirmation.
- How was the food?
- Acceptable.
- What did you do?
- Stuff.
- What kind of stuff?
- Archery 'n stuff.
- What else?
- Climbing 'n stuff.
- Was there a disco?
- Grunt.
- What did you do in the evenings?
- Some people played spin the bottle (but not him, I gather)
- What did you do?
- Something else...chatted...

At least I can rest easy in the knowledge that my child has not been brain wiped by aliens, I have clearly got the same child back that left on Friday.

Sunday Snaps 70

2011-06-26T06:29:00.000+02:00

A friend has moved house and I suddenly have a whole new area to find 'quirky' garden decorations in...here's the first!

How many Germans does it take to...

2011-06-22T17:24:00.002+02:00

...organise a bbq?

Germans might be reknown for their engineering and punctuality but when it comes down to organising the simple stuff...jeez, nightmare!

In three weeks time we have the end of term celebration for Jasmine's class. It's a mixed year class (half year 3, half year 4) and consequently half the children leave the school forever at the end of term and move onto high school. Because of this the party is a big deal. This is the second meeting we've had to talk about it. The first one was spent discussing the invitations and the gifts that should be organised from the leaving children to the teacher and also the 'performance' that the children would present...

Last night we met again, to discuss the food and the rest of the 'entertainment'. There were six of us, which is clearly too many, about four or five too many in my opinion. Over the course of almost three hours we established the following:

- Frau N would purchase the meat for the bbq, but no mention was made as to what (apart from sausages) or how much should be bought.
- Frau H & S would sort out the table decorations, but no mention of how many tables.
- Frau H would source the red & white wine & beer, but again no mention of quantities.
- Frau N volunteered to do the flowers for the tables (!) how many she'll do I don't know as we have no idea of how many tables there will be.
- I've got the easiest job of providing the ice to keep the beer cold. How much ice I should get I've no idea as no decision was reached on what the beer and the ice should go into.
- Frau N is also going to order the bread and collect it, they collectively decided to go with the tastier but more expensive 'bonjour' instead of the normal baguette or bread rolls that the kids eat wholesale. So we'll have 40-50 'bonjours' (that figure was definitely agreed upon) to be sliced up and spread with herb butter but no bread rolls for the sausages to go into...huge oversight in my book, but hey, I'm just the foreigner, what do I know?
- the games for the children to play (this is Germany, so we're talking competitive games here, tug of war, football etc.) were briefly touched upon, as in 'that'd be a good idea' but no plan was made as to what would be done when.

I do know that I have to be there two hours before kick off in order to set up the unknown number of tables etc. and I'm also quite certain that there will be enough wine to drink so I can spend the afternoon in a fuzzy blur as I gradually convince myself that I'm actually incredibly fluent in German and so proficient that I no longer have any need for lessons!