Once you're there you'll love it.

Waiting on the now 20 cents dearer U-bahn, which I know about because I have started reading a local newspaper which from what I can tell is written for thick-witted folk with a reading age of 4. I figured I might as well start, seeing as I am in their ideal demographic. Lots of photos of outraged travellers holding aloft their tickets in case you hadn't grasped the story from the 6cm high headline font, and some thrilling leg amputation news for celeb-lovers.

The kids are finally starting to feel better, and today Orla felt well enough to go back to Kita. Hamish on the other hand doesn't really fancy it that much any more. I knew it was going to be hard getting him to go back after the holiday break, but it's going to be more of a struggle than I thought. I was going to be strong today and pack them both off and do my best not to succumb to the heart-wrenching wails of "I just want to stay with yooooouuuu!".

But as soon as Hamish's little bottom lip started wobbling, that was it for me. It doesn't matter that as soon as I go "oh, ok then" he starts singing a little happy song, once he's broken me, that's it. I'm weak.

The other problem is that the longer he stays away from Kita the less he'll want to go back. I know the feeling. I am dreading going back to German class. I feel like I have forgotten most of the German I learnt before the break and now missing a week (nearly) has me worried that it'll take me eons to catch up, and I kind of feel like I just don't want to. Even though really I do want to because I really would like to get to B2 level which is another 28 weeks away to completion. And then I think, why do I want to do this? Apart from wanting to be able to communicate better I really would like to get to the point of sitting the B2 level exam which if I passed would be good enough to allow me to work in Germany.

Not that I want to do that. I just want to achieve that. I'd be quite happy just setting up my freelance career again and getting back into illustration. And for that, I don't need that level of German, or any level of German really. (that's my argument and while I'm in this huff with German, I'm sticking to it.)

It surprised me how quickly I got out of the habit of speaking German once I got back to Scotland. Apart from the occasional "Danke schon! Schonen Tag!" (Sorry I cannot do umlauts on this keyboard) that slipped out without thinking in the shops (which would be fine if they hadn't already heard me speaking English in a fine local accent), it just slipped away.

Now I'm back where I was a couple of months ago, where I really just can't be b o t h e r e d! So really it's me who needs to drag myself kicking and screaming back to German class whether I like it or not.