happy hallowe'en

Germany is backward in many things in comparison to the UK & the US - shopping, customer service, mobile phone rates (don't get me started on that one) cost of electronic games, quality of TV programmes and Hallowe'en.

Hallowe'en is huge in the US and in the UK it's gradually got bigger and bigger - when we left England 2 years ago children expected on Hallowe'en to dress up ghoulishly and go around in the dark demanding sweets from any household they could. The shops would all be full of everything you could need for the evening, costumes, room decorations, - everything.

Here it's a different story. There are pumpkins galore but although people buy them they don't carve them, they place them in pretty arrangements by their front door. I've seen only 1 other house in our neighbourhood with a carved pumpkin, so to make up for the lack we've got 3!

Tomorrow my son and his friends are keenly anticipating ringing on doorbells demanding 'trick or treat' (or whatever the German equivalent is, I'll remember it as soon as I hear it over and over tomorrow night) and Jas has a Hallowe'en party to go to, BUT, (it's a big but) can you find stuff here for Hallowe'en? Not a chance. Lots and lots of Christmas stuff (8 weeks away and counting) and autumnal leafy decorative stuff but spooky outfits and the like? No way.

I eventually found a witches outfit for Jas (that will be too big but that was all I could find) but failed miserably to find any silly spray string for Ben (a trick).

So although the Germans like the idea of doing Hallowe'en you can't actually find the stuff to do it with. Like I said - 20 years behind. Ho hum!

Laissez faire

Walking the dog with my friend Rebecca, discussing life, the universe and everything as usual and generally having a bitch about Germans and our shared cleaner (Latvian & quite bonkers) one of the many subjects covered was that of children.

Now I'm not sure whether it's because we're both English and in days gone by English children were expected to be 'seen and not heard' or whether its because we're both in our 40's (ok, I apologize to Rebecca here, she's not 40 till December 19) but what I mean is, we're both of the same generation and were brought up by parents who remember the war (just) so as children we were brought up 'firmly'.

My children certainly have a different attitude to grownups than I did as a child, when all grownups were addressed as Mr or Mrs, these days children call adults by their christian names - which is fine by me (I've been married 20 years and still think that Mrs Evans is my mother in law) and actually that formality remains here in Germany.

Anyway, for children growing up these days there is far more tolerance of behaviour and in Germany even more so -which is at odds with the formal name thingy, but hey.

Rebecca's youngest, Thomas, started kindergarten in August and he's loving it. At last he gets to go play with the older children but on the flip side he's learning new behaviour and getting away with it, yes he gets disciplined but if the disciplining doesn't change the behaviour you have to ask yourself how effective the discipline is!

At home previously Thomas was always the joker but naughty behaviour would be stamped on. At kindergarten his sister reports that he burps and blows raspberries at the dining table and continues despite being told he'll get no pudding (he loves his food) and when he doesn't stop he's sent outside (whilst sticking his tongue out at the teacher - I'm presuming she doesn't see this) He has yet to try this behaviour at home, probably because he knows he wont get away with it.

German kids do get far more choice or rather they are allowed far more choice, for example an activity may be mutually arranged and then 1 child is asked whether they want to do it and when the answer is no then everyone's plans are changed.

This kind of freedom of choice is seen in the schools also where the children go unchecked from class to class, with just a thin layer of trust to hope that they stay on the school premises.

A laissez faire attitude I think.

with friends like these

I was looking forward to Saturday, a friend, let's call her L, had invited me as a late birthday present to go to an art exhibition in Dusseldorf with her, with coffee and cake at hers first.
A lovely girly afternoon without the children (who truly wouldn't appreciate looking around an art exhibition).

It started well (apart from the fact that she asked me how old I'd turned on my birthday, now I don't have a problem with owning up to my 44 years as I'm frequently told that I don't look my age, but when I said to L that I was 44 she expressed surprise and followed up with the comment that I looked more like 41 or 42. I'm sorry, but she might as well have just said that I looked my age - what the hell difference is there between 42 & 44?)
anyway nice cake & good coffee and then onto the exhibition.

After the exhibition, which was ok, but only ok, she suggested we go into the Altstadt for a walk and a bite to eat, I explained that I wanted to be home for 7 at the latest in order to eat with my family (L lives alone and had maybe planned to stay out longer but nothing had been said earlier, as far as I was concerned we were meeting for cake & then going to the museum, I could have arranged to get food out later but hadn't and didn't feel like changing my plans on her whim) although I was more than happy to go into the Altstadt before heading home.

In the Altstadt L bought a takeout pizza, we walked and talked as she ate her pizza, I was explaining to her about a Bonfire night party we're trying to organise for next week which sidetracked me into talking about Guy Fawkes and the punishment for treason being hanging, drawing and quartering - at which point she got huffy and said she thought she was supposed to be hearing about a party...ok....

A while later she suddenly attacked - verbally not physically, why did I hate learning German? I didn't I told her but she refused to accept that, I never spoke German with her therefore in her eyes I hate learning German.

It's true, we don't speak German together, we only speak English, because to me our friendship is based on her wanting to speak English with me to practice her English - she even knows that I have a small English group, the members of which pay me to speak English with them...adn the first time we spoke was in a supermarket where she'd heard me and Jas talking and had asked if we could get together to chat.

Now I hate arguments, I would go out of my way to avoid confrontation but when it's personal like that and so wrong I had to stand my ground.

She didn't like it. Germans love to argue and they love to be right.

Anyway, we eventually got past that, walked around a bit more and started home.

On the way back there was an uncomfortable silence in the car and at one point we drove past a sign for the local blood donation centre so to make conversation I asked whether she gave blood (I used to in the UK) the answer I got was something along the lines of 'no, it'd take too long to explain in English why'. I then commented that I can't give blood here in Germany as the German authorities wont take English blood for fear of CJD. I might as well have lit a firwork in the car for her reaction...she pretty much called me a liar and told me to check my facts - so I have;
http://www.roteskreuz.at/blutspende/informationen-zur-blutspende/wer-darf-blutspenden/
and I've emailed the link to her!

That killed any further conversation so when we got to her house she got out and asked whether I wanted to take the rest of the cake home (afterall it had been made for me) but I said no that she should keep it and eat it (-a mistake I'm told by my husband) so she stomped off...

So much for my happy, girly, relaxing afternoon!

Friday!! Yeah!

At last its the last day of half term (sorry, Herbst Ferien). From Monday my life can get back to its usual routine without the constant nag from 2 children of;

'what's for breakfast?', 'can I watch TV?', 'what are we doing today?', 'what's for lunch?', 'can I have a biscuit?', 'can I call someone?', 'what's for tea?', 'what are we doing this afternoon?', 'can I watch TV?', 'can I have some sweets?', 'when's tea?'... my life is a never ending question.

Maybe its my own fault and I should have organised for us to do stuff over the two weeks, but to be honest, as I'm still trying to get rid of this damned cold I've had no desire to get out and do much - I haven't run for almost 6 weeks and even over the summer holidays I've usually managed to fit in running, but it's only in the last couple of days that the cough has reduced in intensity, so the idea of running has never been taken seriously - I figure I'll start up again next week when the children go back to school and as I said, life can back to its normal routine.

The end of Herbst Ferien also means that Christmas looms ever closer - just counted and it's 9 weeks away today exactly.

Ben keeps informing me that "Father Christmas" (his paranthesis, not mine) doesn't exist. This is the first year he's come out and said it.
Prior to this declaration he'd always said that he didn't believe in God (so getting him out of all religion classes at school) but there was actual physical evidence that Father Christmas existed because of the presents...whereas God...? Where's the evidence?
We (Simon and I) probably didn't help by the fact that we are complete non-believers, we're both far too scientific to believe in creationism, Darwinism sits much better within our belief system.
Not long ago a friend of mine in bookgroup said she was a believer in creationism, I was speechless! Literally. All I could say to her was that I was so shocked I couldn't argue the point with her. Evolution is a subject that I studied at university (admittedly that's a long time ago) and Primatology too, both of which make far more logical sense than creationism.

Back to Ben - clearly too grown up now to believe in Father Christmas and the tooth fairy (although I think she got the boot before Santa) I wonder if he still believes in the German Niklaus who comes along at the beginning of December and fills the children's shoes with sweets (although we've been asked by Jasmine's teacher to ensure each child also receives a fountain pen...)
I disabused him of the Easter Bunny last Easter - the Germans are big fans of the Easter bunny who leaves lots of chocolate eggs scattered all around the garden for the children to find.
It's not something we'd done as a family in England but it's quite a nice thing to do - hide lots of eggs where the dog can't get them but the children can, and then referee the ensuing fight as they argue over who has the most eggs.
This year Ben made some comment about the Easter bunny and I couldn't help myself - I laid the facts out for him - how does a rabbit have the money to buy the chocolate eggs and how does a rabbit carrying that weight of chocolate, bearing in mind the fact that a rabbit doesn't have opposable thumbs let alone much of a brain? If it was an Easter monkey then maybe, just maybe, but that still leaves the issue of the animal buying the eggs from a shop with money...

9 weeks to Christmas...
62 shopping days in the normal world
53 shopping days here in Germany where they still refuse to open on a Sunday
I better start planning!!