De do do do, de da da da*

Yesterday Ben and I had a conversation about how teachers at high school get really...peeved (was going to use another word also beginning with p and ending with d and with the same number of letters, but I thought I'd be polite - for once) with students who don't use the formal 'Sie'** when addressing them. In primary school the children get away with using the informal and friendly 'du'** probably because they're too young to know better, but come high school the rules change, you have to use Sie with the teachers to show respect.

Anyway, today Ben says a teacher said to him (& I'll give you the English translation so you wont have to bother with 'google translate';

"did you du me?"

Ben quite probably had du'ed the teacher, he's a foreigner afterall and people make mistakes in their mother tongue often enough so in a language that isn't your own it's even easier - the teacher should be glad Ben got the word order right (Germans have a really bad habit of sticking verbs at the end of sentences, so I have a tendency to forget the verb...)

And another thing, while I'm whining about schools and Germans;
it's hot here, it's almost July afterall, we've just had the longest day and everything, it's the middle of summer and it's H.O.T.
Both my children came home yesterday saying they've got 'Hitzeplan'*** while the weather is being so...summery. This means that the primary school has shorter lessons and on 3 out of 5 days Jas will be home at 1130, high school just drop the last lesson (or is it last 2?) resulting in children also being home earlier than planned, but it gets more complicated than that, at high school the temperature in the school is checked daily and only if it's above a certain level in a specified number of classrooms and if 35% of children in 1 class are wearing green striped socks (ok, I made that bit up) then hitzeplan comes into force...bloody good job I don't work eh?



* a really old song by the Police
** Sie & du both mean 'you', Sie is typically used with people you don't know but also in the workplace to show respect/hierarchy, du is used with people you know and also to children whether you know them or not - to a foreigner it's a minefield and scared me off talking to my neighbours in German because I was unsure whether to use du or Sie (this didn't mean I didn't talk to them, 'cos they're dead modern and speak excellent English, way better than our German)
*** hitze = heat, plan = plan

They're going home

- the English football team that is.

In fact they're probably back in Blighty already, scurrying homewards to their mansions before packing their speedos and Ambre Solaire and heading off to the beaches of 5* resorts as far away from the likes of you and me and the journalists and paparazzi of Fleet Street as possible, in the desperate hope that by the time the English premiere league starts another interminable season (in the middle of August, so I wont even get a full month without the damn game) maybe, just maybe the public and the fans will have forgotten the dreadful charade that was the England team in South Africa, having rings run around them...although I doubt it somehow.

We watched the "match" with English friends in the company of an equal number of Germans, it was a lovely afternoon - perfect weather (blisteringly hot) great bbq food and free flowing prosecco, just a shame about the entertainment really. We'd had such high hopes, even the Germans locally, prior to the match had been saying they didn't rate Germany's chances, but I should know by now that Germans tend to be reticent about things like that, preferring to downplay matters as opposed to the cocky, self-sure nature of the Brits, it's only in recent years that they've felt proud to display their country's flag (although they have gone a little overboard now).

Fortunately the late afternoon timing of the match (as opposed to evening) meant that the post match celebrations were over long before bedtime, I can do without trying to get to sleep while 20-30 scooters and flag laden cars honk their way around town.

I am planning to lie low for as long as possible this week, I have food supplies laid in that mean I don't have to go to the supermarket until Wednesday, maybe even Thursday (such forward planning eh? I knew whichever way the match went, being English in Germany this week wouldn't be fun). At least I have that option, I feel sorry for my kids who have had to go to school and face their German friends, Ben says the girls in his class were the meanest - although that doesn't appear to bother him, as in his mind girls don't count (yet - it's only a matter of time) Jas very cannily preempted any snide comments by painting the German flag on her ankle and wearing the German flag to school.

Sunday Snaps 20

There's a tiny airport nearby which is home to, among other things, a zeppelin, which on fine days takes people up on tours of the area - Logan hates it, has been known to bark at it, whilst cowering behind my skirts I might add.

A bad night

I slept so badly last night, it needed more than 1 cup of tea to turn me from a zombie into a part way functioning human bean, to be honest it always takes more than 1 cup of tea (usually 2) but today the 1 cup had no effect whatsoever and so I went straight for the coffee, bypassing the 2nd cuppa.

I think my poor sleep was due to several factors;

- the heat
- the world cup/Germans
- yoga
- mice/Hermione Granger

The Heat - we're in full on summer mode here now, having to water the lawn to stop it becoming a mini Sahara, sitting inside in the shade, children demanding ice creams and getting away with it, I'm not complaining (wouldn't dare) but our house is very good at retaining heat (perfect for winter) and so our bedrooms can be rather warm in the height of summer (an issue soon to be remedied, we hope, when we get external roller shutters fitted - hopefully before the summer is completely past)

The world cup - England won their game and went through - big cheers all round and so did Germany - more cheers, in fact lots and lots and lots more cheers and beeping of horns and general driving around causing a ruckus until goodness knows when - at least this time they weren't still partying hard at 8am like after their thorough wupping of the aussies.

Yoga - the new yoga class is very good and it was made especially so because there were just 3 of us (plus teacher) there, the others wanting to watch the footie. This meant we had personal attention, which is good in that our poses were perfect but bad in that the teacher must be related to my previous pilates teacher who clearly had a qualification in torture. Legs were straightend, feet were pushed against, pelvis's nudged and arms encouraged to stretch that little bit further. As I said, it was very good and by the end I felt very long and reasonably relaxed, however my body wasn't as relaxed as my mind and was very twitchy.

Mice & Hermione - I woke up around 4am and really struggled to get back to sleep, when I did I dreamt there was a mouse in my bed, it had a mouse hole right where the mattress met the brick wall (there's actually a wooden bedhead between my mattress and the plaster of my bedroom wall, but this was a dream so anything goes) and then I was chatting to someone (no idea who & I think this must have been a different dream because I wasn't still in bed - that'd be just weird) about how Germans love to wear Burberry - thinking nothing of wearing a whole outfit of beige check, but in the UK that same expensive beige check has become synonymous with chavs, then I discovered the person overhearing my comments was none other than Emma Watson, the face of Burberry, oops.

All in all not a great night's sleep, maybe I'll do better tonight, at least there isn't a German footie game on and I have no yoga planned, that still leaves the heat of summer and whatever my imagination will present me with...