I love the KaDeWe at Christmas

I love Berlin. I am going to miss it so very much when we leave. I also love the KaDeWe, Berlin's version of Harrods.

Christmas is something special at the KaDeWe. It's shiny, it's excessive, it's less 'less is more' and more 'more is more' with a whole bag of more thrown in on top.



Who doesn't need a mouse in a crown? Who doesn't want to be transported into another world? The KaDeWe can give you it all.

This year's theme is 'Alice in Wonderland'. Giant chairs, a giant teddy, a giant fireplace with giant Christmas stockings hanging from it.

You walk into a huge room lined with giant bookshelves which on it's own would be pretty outstanding. But with all it's beautiful things piled up and sparkling and shining and tempting, it's just gorgeous.

There aren't many things I wouldn't happily take home with me. I want bowls full of baubles decorated with fine glittery scrolls.

I want tables stacked high with golden cake stands and silver candelabras and one hundred snowglobes each one with Santa.

I'm pretty sure my new house would feel more homely were it filled with stars and flowers and golden dishes and incense.

I love this place. This is how Christmas should look. Marvellous.

The best advent calendars: 2012

Last year I wrote about all the advent calendar choice I discovered in Berlin. I was pretty impressed. We settled on two Playmobil advent calendars and I was pretty pleased with them to be honest. I managed to shop around and get them at a good price in Germany, and what would be a really good price in the UK :)

This year, I am slightly less impressed. Why? Because they look the same as last year!!!! I'm always disappointed when I get the feeling they've just rolled out all last years stock from the stock room but are still selling it at full price. Pah! I know that this isn't really the case but on the whole this years selection of advent calendars doesn't really look like it's differing from last years.

So here's the run down:

Playmobil (around EUR 12.99 - 14.99)

Playmobil this year have a choice of 6 advent calendars this year, which includes 2 new ones this year. All of them are available on the Playmobil.de website for a great price between Euros 12.99 - 14.99, which is cheaper than you can usually find them in the shops, but there is a delivery charge to add. I'd quite like either of the new ones this year, or both to be honest. One is snappily called in English (thanks to Google translate, no doubt) 'Police Alert Treasure Robbers on the run'. With a title like that the only other thing you need to know is that the scene is set in a museum, and you get to lower the robber from the ceiling in a Mission Impossible kind of way!

The other new advent calendar from Playmobil is the Reiterhof, or horse stables. I like this one a lot. It's got a 3 horses, some people, and a little carriage you can attach to a horse and pull around. This one is potentially more for girls, but I reckon both boys and girls might like it.

The other Playmobil advent calendars are: Princess Castle; Knights Tournament (which I haven't ever seen in the shops, which Hamish likes the look of); Pirate Treasure Cave; and Forest Animals. Forest Animals is the only one this year which features Santa. There doesn't seem to be Santa's Post Office this year, though I imagine it will be available online somewhere.

Lego (around EUR 19.99 - 29.99)

Hamish has decided that he wants the Lego advent calendar this year. There are a few designs available Lego City Fire and Star Wars and this year there is also a Lego Friends advent calendar. The Star Wars one retails at a higher price than the others, and I do think these are all expensive in relation to what the potential contents might be. Mind you, you probably get the same amount of Lego in these advent calendars as you would in the Friends, City, or Star Wars sets on sale at the same prices. It's just that they are all just made from tiny pieces (for obvious reasons) that makes me feel slightly cheated.

Filly (approx EUR 22.00)
This is Orla's advent calendar of choice this year. She's taken a recent interest in all things 'Filly' and wants this advent calendar more than words could describe! Here's a sneaky peak that I found online:


Filly Advent Calendar - Tv-spot from AZT-Media on Vimeo.

Awesome stuff, huh? Take that girl's look of wonderment and multiply it by 10 and you'll get an approximation of Orla's face when she sees that jewellry.

Littlest Pet Shop (around EUR 15.99 - 22.00)

Along similar lines to the Filly advent calendar is The Littlest Pet Shop advent calendar which retails on Amazon UK for £21.49, and is available on Amazon.de for Euros 15.99 - MUCH CHEAPER! If you buy yours through Amazon you'll see that there are a few styles of advent calendar packaging to choose from, presumably these are from past years.

ZhuZhu Pets (from £10.98*)

I'm not sure how popular ZhuZhu Pets are fairing in popularity nowadays, but if you want an advent calendar a bit cheaper than the others, Amazon UK has the Zhu Zhu Pets one for £10.98 (previously £29.99). It has a board to lay out which is designed as a little house set, and each of the daily windows contains either a little plastic hamster or a piece of furniture. It looks quite sweet I think.

Polly Pocket (around EUR 11.99 - 17.99)

I had reckoned we would be buying a Polly Pocket advent calendar this year, but Orla's not quite as keen on Polly Pocket as I thought she might be. Which is a shame really because Amazon.de have the 2012 advent calendar on sale for Euros 11.99 and if I bought both my advent calendars from there I'd be eligble for free delivery! So what do you get? Well it looks to me like you get one doll (Polly) and every day you get an item of clothing or an accessory. I reckon most Polly Pocket fans would love this calendar, and you'd have a good collection of outfits for Polly by Christmas Eve. I wish I could gather a Christmas wardrobe in a similar fashion.

Barbie (EUR 18.39 - 29.99)

Oh dear Barbie, I'm not impressed. Orla is just getting to the stage of being 'into' Barbie in quite a big way, and I might have considered buying the barbie advent calendar had I not just seen a photo of the contents. One dress??? Seriously? That's crazy. Even with all the accessories, the only way I would think this was good value was if they had included one of their entry level basic Barbie's in the box. They're only a couple of Euros, surely it wouldn't have hurt. I've seen this on sale at 30 Euros which just seems ridiculously overpriced. It's not even a fancy Christmas 'gown'!

Haribo (around EUR 7.99)

I've not really had a look at the chocolate advent calendars this year. Instead for the non-chocolate lovers, here's an advent calendar that seems to be pretty popular on Amazon. Behind each door is a different Haribo sweet or (I think) a little toy. It gets pretty excellent reviews, and apparently "is an excellent gift". So there you go.

Die Drei??? (around EUR 14.99 - 19.99)

Now I have to say, I feel this year there's not an awful lot on offer for boys. I haven't seen a Hot Wheels advent calendar this year, and there doesn't seem to be an equal plethora of hideously expensive tiny plastic toy advent calendars for boys as there are for girls (read: Littlest Pet Shop, Filly, My Little Pony, Barbie, Polly Pocket....). Why not? Who knows. Maybe most boys want a Playmobil one or a Lego one and that's it. Nice German boys also like the Die Drei??? advet calendars which are a spin off from the Die Drei??? mystery books and radio series which is very popular here. Admittedly, I know utterly nothing about this but I do know that the advent calendar contains lots of clues which build up to allow you to solve a mystery. Sounds like a pretty cool idea.

227 days to go!

Surprise, no it's not another countdown to the London 2012 olympic's post. It's a remarkably unseasonable Christmas post. Yay! What's not to love about another wedge of Christmas right in the middle of May? I got a Christmas card yesterday as it happens. Stevie came back from a work trip to Derby, where he'd also managed to fit in a visit to the house to see how things were going with our tenant. Anyway, he brought me back a nice 5 month old Christmas card from an old colleague, which was nice. Maybe that got Christmas into my subconscious, but today when Hamish and I were heading to the bank to drop off a payment slip to the police for that amusing time when Stevie had the car towed away, we were just heading along the Ku'damm when I noticed the Käthe Wohlfahrt shop which is a permanent (mostly Christmas) shop that you'll probably be familiar with if you've been to a German Christmas market. Given that it was a 'frosty' 29 degrees Celsius outside, I thought it might be a good idea to pop in.

So in case the name is not jogging your memory, the Käthe Wohlfahrt shop at German Christmas markets is usually in a pretty big log cabin. They have it set out so you have to wander round following a set route more or less, and you kind of just shuffle round in your allotted position in amongst about 400 other people all doing the same thing. You might also remember it as the place where you can't take any photos, and indeed photography is also banned in the shop. But one of the sales assistants asked me if we wanted our photo taken in front of the one area of the shop in which it is allowed. So here we are. I wish we'd worn woolly hats at least.

I wasn't too pleased with her effort, considering she barely managed to get Santa in. So I took a photo myself.

And then I started getting brave and started quickly whipping my camera out of my bag, grabbing a shot, and then I spent the next 20 seconds worrying that I'd get caught and they'd confiscate my camera. Hence, ahem, the um... lack of focus that follows. 

There is an AMAZING cuckoo clock on this wall that I wish I had take a close up of. It's got 3 bears on it and the detail on it is just stunning. They do have some of the clocks on the website, but not the 3 bears one. But anyway, I would love, love, love, to have a spare (best part of a) grand to buy a 3 bears clock. I really like these, but when I think about it, I would have to have the kind of money a footballer's wife has in order to permit myself to buy one of these. 

Moving on, you can walk up a big winter wonderland spiral that goes round a central giant Christmas tree that takes you up to the Christmas shop on the first floor. It's quite pretty! There are lots of little dioramas set up to gaze at along your journey. Hamish thought it was great. 

This is the central Christmas tree that the spiral ramp goes round. As you can see they have gone with my family's preferred decorating method of cramming as much on as possible. There tree of course was upwards of about 20 feet whereas we can fit the same amount of decorations on to a 4 foot tree. I guess they just need a bit more practice in time for next year.

Once you're at the top there are all sorts of lovely things to behold. I am not really a big fan of the decorations that are made out of pale sort of balsa wood, with jig-sawed designs, but even I can be persuaded when I see something like this on such a big scale. Cool, isn't it? Excruciatingly expensive of course, but you could be like the Christmas shop and have it up all year round.

And in case you're wondering how a Christmas shop can stay open all year round, well let me just say, we weren't the only ones there: there were people buying stuff too! 

Thinking outside the brown cardboard box

'Heaven knows I'm miserable now'

'You've got everything now'
(and for a bonus point, name the album which I have never owned but am strangely referencing in these captions)

The decorations in our house are down; the Christmas markets have been dismantled; and yet yesterday, for one day only, it was Christmas once again. For finally our big, annual box of Christmas goodies arrived. And there's nothing more fun than opening a giant box of presents you have already opened when you haven't seen them but have longed for them for ages*  (*or just over a week which can seem like ages to a 3 and 4 year old.).

This year we shipped one box less than last year. Not for any reasons pertaining to the recession, but because Stevie is starting to resist allowing new things into this apartment given our potential return to the UK in just under 5 months time. Still, very little can dent the joy of enthusiastic parcel receivers like Orla, Hamish, and myself, and we were more than satisfied.

The only dampner on the day was the news from work headquarters that we may not be able to request a years extension to our secondment. Stevie, immer upbeat, says that "this just provides us with more options". But still, I feel a little sad. I am just not ready to go back to Derby.

While I do miss my friends from there, I now feel like I have some really good friends here. People who I not only want to keep as my friends for years to come, but also whom I wish I had been able to have met sooner. People who share my new, altered view of the world; people who understand how awful & amazing all at the same time it is to live here and make me laugh like mad about it; people who...I am beginning to feel settled with. And the thing is that I would miss them terribly in a way that I didn't have to miss my Derby friends, because then I was departing on an unknown adventure, and the excitement of that offset those feelings, whereas a return to Derby feels like a trip into the known, and not much of an adventure at all.

BUT, of course there are things about a move back that I would love. So in fact, I am not wholly against the idea. In fact, let's face it, the fact alone that I have known that I would/could return is the reason I have been able to enjoy my stay in a foreign land so much. I could never deny that I have adored my little safety blanket.

And now, we have options. And more than likely over the course of the next few months, I'll start talking about what those are for us. In the mean time, my job is to investigate them and see which ones would realistically work for us as a family. And options are good, for in the very least I will have loads of big brown boxes to open somewhere, be it in Derby, Berlin, or somewhere in between.

Let's hope Santa is real

Last year I was in a panic because I felt like I had left all my Christmas shopping until way too late, and the way things were looking it appeared I only had about 3 shopping minutes until Christmas, and that was going to have to be done in the airport. Toblerone, anyone?

But that was November. November! What I wouldn't give for November and all it's juicy shopping days now. But here we are, beyond mid-December, less than a full week until we fly back to the UK, and I am so behind schedule that even if there was a schedule, I might as well crumple it up into a ball and eat it.

It's hard to believe I am in a worse-organised situation than I was last year, but there you go. It's hard to emulate those people who announce on Facebook that they have completed all their Christmas shopping, have it all wrapped, cards written, and are sitting with their feet up drinking wine, and spraying the internet with their smugness at the beginning of November, when all I can do is feel sharp, stabby, feelings of hatred curdled with jealousy towards them. It's just not me either. How can you feel festive in December if you don't have the joys of frantic impulse shopping,very late night present wrapping, and glorious panic, if you have nothing left to do in December.

If only I had known that we would have had weeks of children (ok, child, but one is enough) with bronchitis and pneumonia, followed by visitors, followed by adult illness, horrid events, more visitors, more illness combined with a complete inability to actually undertake any task beyond trying not to appear to my guests like I might just drop to the ground... and there you have have it. A month where it might have been nice to not have to do anything.

Normally the internet is my friend. He saves my present-buying bacon time and time again. But I seem to be lacking the patience to trawl and price check and go back to other sites and blah, blah, blah. I have a pile of presents for my nieces sitting in a corner of the dining room that I should have posted at least last week. But I still need to find a box the right size and that seems like a task requiring too much energy and brain-time.

So, I am reaching a place where nausea and tiredness are taking over and strangely giving me an inner calm. I can hear them chanting "None of this really matters. Put the internet down, give the children all the Christmas chocolate you have gathered, and go and lie down in the bed beside the man with the raging temperature. And sleep.".

But most of all, I don't want this...

I just read on a blog about a gift giving service called GiveEmThis.com which uses your Facebook eh...'stuff ' to select presents for your friends and family... or yourself.

Sounds like my idea of fun! So I went on the site and allowed it access to all my details and ran myself through their ginormous computing might to see what the perfect gifts for me would be. After all, we need to test it's accuracy, right?

I have the feeling that status updates and comments on other people's statuses are not probably that indicative of the kind of gifts that you like. Unless of course each day your staus is something like "Today I would like a Kitchenaid mixer in ice blue".

Alas, I seem to talk about messenger pigeons quite a bit. I don't know why either, but there you go, I'm complex like that. But let me tell you what GiveEmThis.com came up with for me. Before you go getting your credit card out and asking for my delivery address, here's what I don't want.

Dear Santa,
I really would be quite saddened if you were to 'make' me:

This book: 'Pigeons: The Fascinating Saga of the World's Most Revered and Reviled Bird' (I'm swithering on this, it could be a good read couldn't it? Actually having just looked at it on Amazon, it get's fantastic reviews - I shall post an excerpt of one review below)
Mermaid Songs (I have never heard mermaid songs, but I am 100% sure they would make my ears bleed)
Kushion Kraft Void Filling Paper (though it would be handy for packing the boxes I have to ship back after Christmas, but hey let's save that special one for Stevie to get me)
A Somalian 10 shillings rope edged coin on an 18" chain (honestly save the US delivery charges - they have this kind of crap in the Argos catalogue, and I would have a better chance of returning it)
4, yes 4, commercial sausage stuffers (Honestly how much sausage chat do I do???)
Palm Tree Crystal Necklace in Monkey with Banana Gift Box (I know it has crystals on it, but that's still not selling it to me)
A Huntingdon Snubber Hard - I don't know what that even is, but if you want to send me the $92 I will definitely, probably not, order this for myself. Sadly the link to buy it doesn't work.

But most of all, what could possibly make you think that I would ever want
a Solid Brass Rodent Jaw?

I wouldn't say no to the 48 Cadbury's Creme Eggs though. That would make up for having to send back all that other guff.

Need I say, this is not a sponsored post?

Excerpt from one Amazon review on the Pigeon book:
"Though I must also confess that the revolting chapter related to the gutting and lung-ing of squabs elicited a whole series of voluminous UGHS! and BLECHS! The mental picture you provided was gruesome enough to force me to consider going totally vegan.

The man who wrote his doctoral thesis on spider hearing was intriguing, can you write his biography too? 

And you also left me wanting to know more about the man who wrapped himself in tinfoil to keep himself warm. Sally Bananas was fascinating and I was riveted by the chapter devoted to Mike Tyson. Despite never meeting him you captured something NO ONE has ever done before... You showed his subtle and poignant humanity and made me wish the whole world could know him THAT way. "

Sounds like a fun read, huh? I might suggest it to my book group.

1000 steps... round the KaDeWe!

Main: The Princess & the Pea window display. Inserts: Outside the KaDeWe.  No matter the day there will always  be a crowd outside waiting to get in at 10am. 

It's Christmas time in the KaDeWe. Last week the windows were shrouded while the displays were perfected, but it didn't stop people trying to peek. The theme this year is 'fairytales', and it's been done beautifully. I couldn't wait to see the main foyer display. So I waited with the daily crowds (instead of going to the supermarket) and decided it would be the perfect time for another 1000 steps!

 30 steps... 

If you don't have a silver hand-held mirror that rests on a silver platter, then don't worry: they've got it! Christmas comes in all shades. These pale lilac baubles were rather lovely, though my camera hasn't quite captured their true colour.

Oh, and inside it's just lovely. The foyer is packed full of beautiful things. A zillion things that I wouldn't say no to. Admittedly, that would mean that my house would be chock-full of Christmas tree decorations and scented tealights, but I could be happy living like that. Especially those little tealights that smell like the essence of Christmas and come in the teensiest little ceramic casserole dish complete with lid. Oh, and they have a fine selection of festive fascinators - my favourite was a jaunty cup of tea with lovely ribbons, but I'm not sure if it would coordinate with my snowboots, so I've left it for now...

 50 steps... 

Main: birdcage and birdies, the tree of many baubles and Christmas products piled high. Inserts: Louis Vuitton boots, and the most gorgeously illustrated book of fairy tales. I esp. like the purple cover.

Enter into the world of eclectic prettiness. I have fallen for their gilt birdcages which are dotted around the outskirts of the foyer. They sit atop golden pillars, displaying little feathered or glass birds to clip on to the branches of your tree. Want, want, want...the whole lot. But the foyer complete with all it's overflowing displays is dominated by the KaDeWe's very own ginormous Christmas tree. It's the place to stop with your baby or your boyfriend and have your photo taken for your Christmas card, or more likely your FB profile pic.

 300 steps... 

For the girl who has nothing and wants everything: a crystal studded DeLonghi coffee machine; Red Westco scales: totally worth the money as turn them around and they're a CLOCK!; I do need a hole punch for Orla's school newsletters...

So I skipped the rest of the ground floor which is mainly populated with the cosmetics department and handbags. Which is nice and everything and there are probably more exclusive brands than you'd get in other department stores but really, most cosmetics departments have the same 'look' so I just bypassed it on my tour. The ground floor is also home to an outer perimeter walkway where there are lots of little individual stores. It's here that you can find Prada, Gucci, Tiffany & Co, Chanel, etc, and the lifts without a view. If you are in a rush, avoid the glass lifts in the central atrium, you'll be waiting forever.

I also skipped the 1st and 2nd floors. Menswear & Ladieswear. I couldn't be bothered and I thought I might run out of 'steps', so I went to the 3rd - home of bed & bath, childrenswear, hairdressing, and the creche of joy. But I haven't sorted my photos of it. I love the 3rd floor. I can never get tired of gasping at 50 euro Armani baby bottles, or choking over a completely plain tiny baby t-shirt that costs the same as a return flight to Scotland. And the creche, well I adore the creche and the 3 hours of FREE fun they allow me.

So onwards and upwards to the 4th floor - homewares. When I first arrived in Berlin my neighbour's famous words to me were "Buy your fruit, veg, fish, and meat from the market. For everything else there's the KaDeWe". As I couldn't find a single shop selling mops, I did what my neighbour said and went to the KaDeWe. Alas, while the KaDeWe have most things, they do not stock mops. Unless they are studded with diamonds...

 500 steps... 

They do have a 'My First Barbie' but I'd rather have one of these. Left to right: Van Gogh Barbie, Gustav Klimt Barbie, Sinatra Barbie, Elvis Barbie, Grace Kelly Barbie, and Farah Fawcett Barbie - all 50 Euros each - uh-huh-huh, ooohhh, yeah!

Next floor up and it's toys, stationary, books, and technology on the 5th. I love the toy department. It's not the best one I've ever been in, but it's nice. They have a great selection of Playmobil & Lego, and a lot of Steiff, and Haba, and their play food selection is to die for. Admittedly the play food is far more expensive than the real thing, but you are paying for cuteness, and eh..the creche staff wages.

Lego Santa is back in town; the glorious English-language section of Hugendubel in the KaDeWe; the big Steiff bear who costs more than your house is worth.

  600 steps...  

We're still on the 5th but we're round at the Hugendubel franchise. This is my usual first stop hangout when I drop the kids off at the creche. There is an English-language section - look that's it you can see right there! This is the place that is responsible for some of my stranger forays into literature. I just buy what they have that I haven't read. Especially as I haven't really been in the mood for crime since I got here, so I limit myself to 1 bookcase. But it's made me more experimental, and on top of that, there are seats where you can just sit and read as much of a book as you can in 3 hours and then put it back! Yay!

 800 steps... 

Hello! It's lucky you are protected by glass or I would throw myself at you.

 Just one floor up on the 6th is the KaDeWe food hall. It's great. You'd like it. I promise. It's everything you could ever want at a price you can barely afford! There are unusual, hard-to-get-hold-of things and there are everyday things. I like the bread counter and the cake counter with the lovely little petit fours - they do the tiniest little chocolate eclairs that are only about 3 cm long and a cm wide, they have the broadest range of loaves I have seen this side of the city all displayed beautifully. There are little restaurant stands dotted throughout the food department which are on the ok-side of a-bit-dear. Stevie and I have frequented the Chinese restaurant a couple of times where you can watch your food being prepared as well as watching the world go by and it seems pretty reasonably priced. Really I want to be one of the people hanging out in the Moet bar at 10:30am, having a little glass of champagne while I meet a client. Those are my kind of meetings! Behind the Moet bar you can find the fresh fish; fresh to the point that some of them are in tanks so you can point to the one you want. Around this part of the food hall there are oyster bars which are always busy. Ah, oysters and champagne, or even oysters and beer...if only I liked oysters!

You can buy tea from giant ceramic urns, and choose wurst and cold meats from a massive selection. There are walls of sauces and condiments, a whole section dedicated to different chocolate companies including Godiva. And of course there's the 'American section' which I adore. But you could do all your regular grocery shopping here too. There are fruit and veg sections (see below) which stock everything that you could hope for. I read on someone else's blog that they didn't think people actually shopped there, but that in order to be a proper food hall it was a requirement. I can confirm that I have seen on quite a few occasions people buying potatoes or apples or in fact a whole shopping list of perfect quality produce.

The KaDeWe food hall. This bit has the more exotic things like baby pineapples and plantains, but you could also buy just a regular apple, onion, or orange round the corner. 

 1000 steps... 

Part of the glass roof on a sunny, blue sky, November morning. The seasoning station where you can add herbs, oils, dressings, and spices to your lunch. Nice. Bottom: Dessert. Kids in the creche? Why, yes, I think I will have the strawberries!

From the 6th floor there is an escalator (or lift) which takes you up to the restaurant and bar on the 7th floor. (Just before you get on the escalator you should take a moment to admire the huge Brandenburg Gate which sits in a glass display cabinet. I never gave it too much examination before, but it turns out it's made of 50 kilos of marzipan and took 150 hours to make by hand)  In the restaurant the food is displayed no-less beautifully than you would expect. Everything looks totally delicious. You can buy salads and so on by weight, there is a lovely selection of cakes, always at least two soups, and a wide range of hot meals all freshly prepared. But it is quite dear. You can however get perfect strawberries and cream all year round - but let's just say, you'll pay for that pleasure.

The restaurant itself is set in the roof of the KaDeWe and has great views from the giant arched window which faces out on to Tauentzienstrasse and Wittenbergplatz. You can also see the Fernsehturm from here which is the only place round this end of town that I have actually seen it from. But mostly it's nice just sitting under the glass roof, with a beer, and a new book, and two kids having a great time in the creche 4 floors below. Aaahhh.....

More photos on my Flickr

Advent calendars galore!!!

Have you noticed the sudden glut of advent calendars on the market? When I was a kid you just got one where you opened the little doors each day and there was a different picture behind. That was pretty exciting. It was especially exciting if the door for the 24th was extra big. I could barely contain myself. As I was growing up I remember the introduction of advent calendars with chocolate in them. In fact I can still taste the horrid cardboardy taste of that awful brand Kinnerton. To give them their due, it says on their website that they offer a 'dairy-free' chocolate filled advent calendar (you can find a downloadable order form on their site). As I recall even way back in the 80's you'd be hard pressed to taste any dairy in that chocolate. Now maybe their recipe has changed since then and it takes much better, but I am in no rush to try. Especially when there are Milka advent calendars on the market. (Kids ones too - here)

Hello, I am made for mummies. Oh yes I am! That's why I am priced at Euro 13.99 - no way you're spending that on a kid. Plus I have more child-friendly versions for them. Cheaper too. Look you could hang me right beside your side of the bed. I have a lovely satin ribbon. Why not buy one for both sides of the bed to balance the room? He doesn't like chocolate anyway....

See? This is the one to get the kids (or maybe store under your pillow). It's only  Euro 5.49. Not as pretty as the mummy one, but not as much chocolate either. 200g versus 329g...

Of course nowadays it is possible to even order your own branded advent calendars with chocolate in. And when I say 'branded' I mean YOUR OWN brand. You might need to order 1000 of them to get a good price £1.76 each per 1000 I saw somewhere, but you could sell them on to your friends, hand them out to promote ..eh...diabetes.... or just eat them all yourself. That would be 24,000 chocolates. You could build a little cairn around yourself and eat your way out.

Anyway, prepare yourself for some pretty awful photographs. I was in the toyshop and I wanted to sneakily take some photos of the new breed of advent calendar - those with gifts! Last year, we had 2 Playmobil advent calendars but I saw the range of alternate advent calendars on sale this year and I was very tempted.

Here we have a car construction one, followed by  two Star Wars ones. 

 I have also saw a Hot Wheels one (ah, it's in the photo below) which I thought gave you a car behind each door but it's one car with lots of bits you can interchange. Not that great for the overall cost in my opinion, and no use really for anyone under 5 really.

Here we have some of the Lego advent calendars on the top (Hamish rather fancies the Lego Police one) and then the Hot Wheels one. On the second row you can see a couple of the Playmobil ones, followed by something to do with volcanoes and jungles and then the girl version with a unicorn. I have no idea what's in these. Bottom row: more Playmobil and the My Little Pony & Filly ones you can see better below...

 I like the Lego ones, but what puts me off is the fact that they say "Other sets will be required to create this scene" or very similar wording to that effect. Really? Well, that seems like a bit of a swizz. Cause I would like to think that what you see on the box is what you get in the box. So what are you getting? A brick behind each door? Probably not much more than that. If it takes you longer than one day to create say the Christmas tree then that's just too much waiting for a child I'd say.

I am a big fan of the Playmobil ones, though I have noticed that they are a fair bit more expensive in the UK. At the moment you can get these for around Euro 12.99 in places like Kaufland. The toy shops are a bit more expensive at around Euro 14.99. This years' Playmobil themes are: Princess Wedding; Santa & Woodland Animals; Pirates; Dinosaur Expedition; Santa's Post Office; and the Knights one. In fact, I've just seen that most of these are reduced on the Playmobil.de website to Euro 11.99. Which is good, but if you add on the delivery charge you are back to the original price...might as well wait until after Christmas then buy one for next year in the Karstadt sale.

Finally here we have the My Little Pony and the Filly advent calendars.

Orla would love both of these. I did think about getting her the Filly one but it was Euro 19.99 (which seems to be the more or less standard price for these gift filled advent calendars) and it was just too expensive. Especially if I think about the fact that I would need to buy one for Hamish too. Euro 40 makes me kind of choke. Orla would probably also really like the Barbie one or the Littlest Pet Shop one (Both not pictured), but I thought they were kind of dear too.

So there's a lot of choice out there. Of course looking at these I can't help but think I should buy a nice wooden one with little drawers and fill it myself and use it year after year. There are loads of them here and they're all very pretty. So what would you choose?



Guardian article on advent calendars v selection boxes
(http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/wordofmouth/poll/2011/nov/17/advent-chocolates-calendars-or-selection-boxes)

Advent calendars for cats (I know, this is truly mental, isn't it?):
(http://www.amazon.co.uk/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=advent+calendar+for+cats&x=0&y=0)

Gawd-awful Kinnerton advent chocolate:
(http://www.kinnerton.com/Products/Seasonal/ThisChristmas/CharacterConfectionery.aspx)

'hamisch' Hamish

Do you believe in karma? Today was Hamish's first day back at Kita after quite an extended break with a week-long illness following on from Christmas and New Year. To say he hasn't been looking forward to his return is an understatement. To say I haven't been looking forward to dropping him off and seeing him cry and wail, and scream and cling to my leg, and beg to go home with me is also an understatement. So much so that really he could have gone back at the end of last week, but I just couldn't face it.

But there was no more putting it off. This morning we just had to do it, through gritted teeth and false smiles. The whinging started not long after we left the house, quietened for a while on the U-bahn, especially after the driver waved at him (do they know that they are complete superstars in the eyes of toddlers (along with postmen)?). As soon as we reached the vicinity of the building he started screaming and built up to a nice crescendo by the time we reached the 4th floor. Cue: more wailing, screaming, leg-clinging, & begging.

The only reason I was able to drag myself away without him was because I had to go to German class. I've already missed a week and was dreading my return and the insurmountable catch-up that I'd need to do. Anyway German class turned out to be fine, and I returned to pick up the kids afterwards. Hamish had in his own words "cried for a long time", and according to the staff this was correct and he hadn't played with anyone, just on his own, and wouldn't eat his lunch (never a good sign in a boy like Hamish). Talk about feeling guilty about leaving him somewhere that he wasn't happy? Yuck. I hate it.

So we went down to collect Orla from the 2nd floor, and as we always have a wait until she has finished lunch, brushed teeth, washed hands, etc etc, I took the opportunity to go to the toilet, taking Hamish with me to keep him out of trouble. Though it turned out that that is exactly what he was planning. My head was full of thoughts about whether I'd need to look for another Kita-solution for Hamish, or whether this might be temporary, although he's felt more or less this way since before Christmas. Anyway, my eye just wasn't on the ball.

No sooner had I started peeing when there were people trying to break the door down and shouting German 'stuff' through the door. Quick as a flash the door was opened on me (still peeing) and there are the Kita Manager and the handy man. It was only at this point that I realised that the very quiet (and I mean REALLY quiet) buzzing noise was Hamish pressing the emergency call button repeatedly. Crap. I'd say he got his own back on me for leaving him there.

BTW: My teacher told me before Christmas that 'hamisch' means 'malicious' in German. Wunderbar!

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.

A warming Christmas tale

My parents got a new heating system put in in December - new radiators, new combi boiler, new thermostat. But it links in with their old system. Why? Who knows. Another great mystery will remain unsolved. Anyway, new system is great, works a treat! EXCEPT when you turn it down to 8 DEGREES overnight. Then it seems a bit cold, and it takes a while to heat up in the morning/midday/grr.

So ANYWAY...my dad had asked me to bleed his radiator in the kitchen on Christmas Eve, but what with being up to my eyeballs wrapping, still buying (yup, that's how organised I am) and helping to cook, I asked Stevie to do it and he did all the radiatiors. No prob with that, he's done it loads before. Overnight the heating was down at 8 again and as had become our practice we turned it up by a further 10 degrees after my parents were asleep. So here we are, CHRISTMAS DAY MORNING- BEFORE THE KIDS HAVE OPENED THEIR PRESENTS - standing in the hall arguing. Nice!

My dad woke up freezing and discovered that "The HEATING'S not working!!", to which my mum started going off her nut and kept rattling on about how "WE'LL have to get the PLUMBER out! Call him! Call him!"

(Yes, it was a very dramatic time). So Stevie says that everything is ok, and it's just the pressure in the system that's down and he can fix it. To say my parents didn't like the sound of this idea was an understatement. They accused Stevie of breaking their heating by turning it UP!!! Ha, ha, it makes me laugh just writing that. Then I get grilled on whether I have turned up one of the radiators in the bedrooms as this "will unbalance the system, and cause it not to work AT ALL". I like this one. They stand by this argument utterly and completely. They say the plumber balanced the system and told them that they aren't to touch the controls on the radiators. Really? Then why do radiators have them then? I asked. Well, I think I got some rambled answer, but the fundamental is that these are most likely just controls for the plumber to use in his initial setting up...uh...huh...

So my parents were totally frantic and stressed out and my mum was desperate to call this plumber at 7am on Christmas morning and my dad was nearly pegging out at the thought of Stevie manhandling his new boiler, and Stevie was making it worse by trying to reassure them that he "is an Engineer after all", which obviously is no comfort to anyone who knows him. I love him dearly, but I swear if I had a car/motorbike/Vespa in pale blue or boiler that I loved, there's no way I'd be letting him near it. It's a wonder I fly to be honest.

Anyway, while we were arguing about the radiator controls he asked my dad for a knife which he planned on using to adjust the pressure (yes, that'll be why no one has any confidence in his abilities) which actually made my dad laugh (possibly hysterically but I didn't notice as I was laughing too) and then he gave him a screwdriver or whatever it was that he really needed and as quick as a flash the problem was solved, the heating was back on and everyone was happy (ish). Ho, ho, ho, what a Merry Christmas indeed.

Freezing inside & out

Oh dear Stevie, looks like you're only getting 3 old fishfingers this year seeing as you've been so horrid of late. Impatience never pays. Let that be a lesson to you young man.

Present hiding in this apartment is so hard. There are very few cupboards and those I have are constantly being explored by my two little helpers. I started getting myself organised for Christmas tonight and began the wrapping of the presents. Orla's are the red and white, Hamish's the blue and white. It looks like I'm going for an American theme, but really, it was just the case that the nicest paper I saw was in IKEA. I have really pretty German ribbons to tie them up, but I got bored so that'll be tomorrow nights task.

That, and putting together the Playmobil. (At least I can hide that in the now defunct washing machine)

P.S. This freezer has never been on, so I am not actually freezing the presents. I brought my freezer with me, and since the fridge above this frrezer is crap, I didn't see the point in trying it out.

Christmas in its component parts

I have 3 sodding bags of Playmobil requiring my attention. Literally sodding. I decided I should start getting ready for Christmas whenever I have a chance in the evening as otherwise I'll run out of time. Amongst other things I have got the kids, I have managed to buy them a whole load of second hand Playmobil.

Hamish was desperate for the zoo and I was lucky enough to find it in the second hand shop round the corner from my language school, along with extra elephants and brand new in box pandas.

Orla was throwing desirous glances at the princesses sets, and I managed to get a small/medium set of that at a great price. And they both rather fancied the farm, and lo and behold the very next day after buying the zoo they had a box of farm bits and bobs with the largest herd of cattle imaginable. Well there're about 12, I'm sure you can imagine more, but you get the picture.

I also walked past another second hand shop in Charlottenburg one Sunday and spied what I thought might be a massive selection of zoo animals. So when Hamish was off Kita with the sick bug (but in recovery) I walked 3 miles there and 3 miles back, and all just for a family of polar bears and a camel.

My German teacher recommended washing it in the washing machine on a 30 degree wash, and that is what I have done. I have 3 bags which have zip closings and are washable and I stuffed them each full of Playmobil last night and washed them today.

The result is handbags full of Playmobil chaos. Everything has come apart. Down to all the little flowers coming off the princess garden foliage (I kind of expected that), but I also have a camel missing a leg and anything that can be broken down into smaller parts is in smaller parts. It took us ages to make up the zoo and we broke it back down into more manageable sizes for washing, but I can see I have many hours work ahead of me.

25% - part two

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From this...

to this... (to well, not much tidier 6 months later really).

I have made my P E A C E with the whole food shopping thing. Ok, maybe not entirely, but I did find Rice Krispies today, so you've caught me in an upbeat mood. The whole supermarket/food shopping thing has been one of the hardest things to get to grips with. But I'm getting there. When I first arrived I was having to have conversations with the woman behind the meat counter along the lines of "...und das ist alles 'moo'?" because I was living in fear of buying horsemeat thanks to my dad, and I didn't know what beef was called, or what the difference between 'rinderfleisch' and 'hackfleisch' and 'rinderhackfleisch' was. You go out for a 'hack' on a horse, don't you? That's the kind of word that made me pretty wary. As it turns out, really, you're going out for a 'mince' on a horse. Make of that what you will.

Now though, I'm getting to grips with most of it. I still have difficulties with the fish. I was never very good at recognising fish in the first place, so seeing it with unrecognisable names and with it's head and skin and fins and malarky on, rather than in a neat skinned, de-boned fillet, vacuum packed on a Tesco shelf has me a little lost. I am also just a little fish-phobic. I really can't bring myself to touch a fish with it's skin on, and I honestly can't see the day when I would be willing to chop ones head off. So with the help of my lovely fish counter friend in Edeka, I have learned to ask for the salmon that I need and to have it skinned.

Despite all my moaning on and on about the state of the crisps market here and how very little has changed in the past 30 years, I have discovered that I actually like paprika crisps. I had some about a month ago, and I was actually quite surprised. For a moment I thought I must actually be turning into a German, and then I realised that if I'd only had them for the past 30 years, I would hate them with a passion.

Today I went to Real for the very first time. There's one out by Rolls-Royce. I'd heard talk about there being bigger supermarkets that are more along the lines of British supermarkets where you can buy lots of non-food items as well, but to date the only place I'd been was Kaufland and it's just a pale imitation of an Asda or something. Stevie has been to Real a couple of times in his lunchbreak and to be honest I can't believe he hasn't told me about it before now. They have loads of things that we could have been doing with, not least of all the Rice Krispies, which are a viable alternative for Hamish who is sick of Weetabix and has gone off Cheerios.

The kids fell asleep in the car on the way there and I went in on my own. Always a mistake in Stevie's eyes. Apparently I was in there for "120 minutes? Did you watch a movie or something??". To me it felt like 20, and I thought I was rushing. Still it gave Stevie a 2 hour window to nurse his tired hangover.

We were out last night for dinner with some friends who are leaving Berlin after nearly 4 years here. Stevie used to know the guy back in Derby and when he ran into him quite early on in the canteen over here he thought he was just over for the day. Shows how quickly time flies without you noticing. Anyway, we've seen a fair bit of them and we have really enjoyed their company, but we've known from the start that they were hoping to get back before Christmas. And so it has come. They have the relocation team coming on Monday to pick up their stuff, and they've got our old relocation service provider, Heidi, sorting out their paperwork, and they're leaving on Thursday.

I'm really going to miss them, and I'm also just a little envious of them. Our move is still fresh in my memory, and I enjoyed it and it was all quite exciting, and I can well imagine that they are feeling quite excited about going back. Perhaps not about the fact that they've both still got to sort out the jobs that they'll go back to, but this has been a long wait for them. I hope that we meet some more people just as nice as them while we're here, and I am already looking forward to being good friends again when we return to Derby.

Roll on the next 6 months!