You say "turbine", I say "turban".

After work, Stevie was telling me a little story about what they had been talking about in his German class last night.

"You know... that pain in the ass woman I was talking about, the one who has already completed A2 level but is re-doing it because she thinks she missed the grammar, but really all she's doing is taking up the teacher's time speaking German that we can't understand? Well, she was talking about the high school system and the teacher said that her mother says that it's crazy that UK kids go to high school at age 12. She says it's too late."

"Uh-huh...." (I am busy trying not to chop my fingers off while attempting to finely slice onions, so please excuse my lack of intellectual contribution)

"But surely to have your school path mapped out at 10 years old is far too soon?"

(In Germany, you are put into one of three 'streams' - based on your academic ability and I think your parents get a bit of say-so too. Hauptschule, Realschule, or Gymnasium. The Hauptschule follow the same subjects as the other 2 types of school but at a slower pace and they also teach some vocational courses too. Realschule strikes me as the middle ground, where some people go on towards vocational training afterwards and some people go on to further academic study. If you want to go to University after attending Realschule, I think you have to go to Gymnasium and study for the Abitur which is a diploma which can allow you to follow a path into university. Don't quote me though, this is just my very basic understanding that I picked up in German class.) Anyway, where was he...?

"I mean, what would have been the outcome for me in a system like that?"

"Well, I reckon they can probably tell how brainy you are by 10 years old. You'd probably have been fine."

"But when I was young I had a really crap English teacher. I was stuck with her, and maybe she would have held me back and that would determine what school I went to and my whole future at age 10!"

"Well, you went to a crap school anyway, and did really well, so...."

"Yes, but the people in the 'credit' stream got the best English teachers, and the people like me in 'foundation/general' level got the crap teachers...." (lost in thought)

"Yes, maybe, but that's not universal. In my school I know that there were equally good teachers teaching foundation level English as were teaching credit level English."

".... I'm sure I should have been in a higher English class. Man, she really was just crap. She was this old Indian woman and she wore a wig and stuff, and it kept falling off her head, and she never noticed..."

"What? The wig?"

"No! Her turbine!!"

"Case closed. I think you can stop worrying about being put in the wrong stream."

"Why?...."

[Incidentally, Google searchers, turbine is pronounced with the same 'i' sound as in 'twine' or 'lime' or 'time'. You're welcome!]

I take a break from German.

So, this weekend I made a decision, and once I'd made it I felt so much better, and a weight that I hadn't really known was on my shoulders was lifted. I decided to quit German... for a while. I have just started B1 (my 21st week of intensive German), but I felt as though I hadn't grasped enough of the previous 20 weeks to really keep going forward and take the B1 exam.

I find that with the kids I don't get a chance to study in the afternoon, and then by evening I'm usually too tired to really take much in. I do the work, but even I know that it's not sticking, and sometimes if I am especially tired and just need to get it done for the next day, then I rely rather heavily on the answers at the back of the book just so I can get to bed sooner.

I've also missed a few days of late with Hamish being ill and that doesn't help. So I thought things over and really the only thing that was keeping me there was the fact that I really like my teacher and the people in my class, and that I want to get to the B2 exam before the end of the year.

So I checked the calendar and worked backwards from December and realised that I could afford to take a few months off and go over what I should have learnt and have a break too.

And

it

feels

GREAT!

So I went today and postponed the weeks I have left and re-booked for June. I felt I really needed to have a date for going back otherwise it might be too easy to let it slip (and also not study). And then I met my classmates for coffee and said my goodbyes, though I am hoping we'll still keep in touch. And now I feel like I am on holiday. Yippee!

"Wonderfully translated by John E. Woods"

Wednesday night was book group night. I go every month, but last night was a special event. One of our group is a good friend of the literary translator John E. Woods. He was asked if he would like to select one of 'his' books for us, and perhaps come along to our group and tell us all about his work. I was looking forward to hearing all about his work, as as a German learner I'm wrestling with the grammar every day and increasingly realising how hard it is to directly translate phrases and sentences that I would say in English but which just don't work in German.

John is an American living in Berlin who translates from German into English. He's pretty famous in the translating world, but he's a modest guy, and comes across as utterly charming, fantastically interesting, and the type of person that you'd kill for at your dinner party.

I have to admit though I wasn't completely looking forward to last night. The book he chose for us to read was Ingo Schultz's '33 Moments of Happiness'. As I said on my book list, for me it was like 33 moments of unhappiness, and I literally had to force myself to read it. Briefly, it's a series of short stories capturing small moments of the lives of people living in St. Petersburg all set around the late '80's and early '90's during the dissolution of the Soviet Union. Anyway, I just didn't like it. And I couldn't finish it. And I felt like I should because we had the translator coming and it would be rude not to. But I couldn't, so I half thought that I might not go. But I am so glad I did.

Normally, as with everywhere I go, I turn up late. But last night I was nice and early and turned up just behind our special guest and his friend. Literally, just behind, as in 4 steps behind on the escalator. So I called to them and he introduced himself and I introduced myself and he told me that I was "the one person in the group he'd heard all about", and went on to comment on my "beautiful accent", etc, etc. See what I mean? Totally charming. I'm sure he would have had something lovely to say to whichever one of the group had been in my shoes, but what does it matter: he charmed me!

So then we joined the group in our little reading den and the normal routine is that we go round and say whether we liked or disliked the book and in 3 sentences more or less, say what we thought, before we get into a real discussion over it. I was sat at the end of the semi-circle and totally avoided eye contact with everyone when this came up as I so totally didn't want to be the one starting off with "Well, I hated it, so much that I couldn't finish it....", so lucky for me the person at the start of the semi-circle did it and it turned out she hated it too. In actual fact there were very few people who had finished it, and not many who liked it, so by the time it got to me, quite honestly it didn't matter what I said.

Anyhow John started off telling us about how his career began. (I wish I'd taken notes, I'll probably be a bit wrong). He started off wanting to be a writer, but quickly came up against writer's block. He then moved to Germany for a while where he took an intensive German course with the Goethe Institute. The secret to his excellent German he says is that he married his German teacher. Because he felt he was going nowhere as a writer he decided to try his hand at translating a german book by Arno Schmidt. Once he'd worked his way through it he approached a publisher who loved it and published it.

John managed to build his career from this point. He was able to secure a long term contract with this publishing house and also managed to secure a long term contract with the Arno Schmidt Foundation to translate his works. By doing this John has become one of very few translators to actually make a career out of translating. He says that it is very difficult for others who have to go from contract to contract and that there is generally little money in it, but that he has been fortunate. At nearly 70 years old he is looking forward to his retirement, though as an avid reader he won't be putting down the books.

We enquired about his method of working. He says he has always been the type of person who has been able to get up in the morning, have breakfast, then sit down and get stuck into his work. He normally manages to translate around 5 or so pages a day, and in the evening he reads his work aloud, and if he stumbles or hesitates over any part, then he knows there's something wrong with it.

He talked about the differences in the languages, of how you can't ever do a 1:1 translation. There are far more words in English than there are in German, and it's not just the words that you are trying to translate but the author's voice, the 'feel', and I wish I could remember the word he used to encompass all of this, but basically all of the above plus the culture too. It'll come to me, and I'll change it when it does. He spoke of how in German you can create sentences that have a real 'punch' at the end, but when translated into English just don't do that. That he has to find other ways to recreate that feeling or provide something that creates the same punch through the words. He says where German has it's grammar, English relies on it's syntax.

He told us how each year around 300-400 books are translated from foreign language into English and of these perhaps only 30-40 are German. On the reverse he thinks that there are approximately a couple of thousand books translated from English into German. Apparently, we English speakers just aren't that interested in reading books which have been translated, which seems a shame really, because I am sure we must be missing out.

I asked John how he felt about reviews of the books he had translated. Did the books feel more like 'his' books, and did he then take the review more personally as they were essentially 'his words'? He said in terms of reviews of 'the translation' normally these didn't extend beyond one or two words, either "Beautifully translated by..." or "A terrible translation..", but I meant more than that. Without it being a one-to-one translation, surely an English review is commenting on more than just the original author's work. Ah yes, he said. When they write "This author's prose is beautifully crafted" I do think 'But that's my prose!'. Translation is certainly not a job for those seeking glory and praise.

John talked more about his life and his career and about the books of Ingo Schultz, whom he counts as a good friend. He meets up with him while translating his work to discuss areas which he needs clarification on and to discuss the translation. He says this is so useful as most authors he translates are dead and he doesn't have the opportunity to get more of an understanding of phrases which may seem ambiguous. Although, he says, sometimes it is easier this way as he can interpret things as he chooses.

I thoroughly enjoyed meeting and listening to John E. Woods. It's not often that I meet people who I think afterwards that it was a real honour to meet, but he was certainly one of them. John plans on retiring soon, and is working on his final translation, Arno Schmidt's 'Zettel's Traum'. As a final question, I asked him what he enjoys reading, outside of translating. He brought a book from his bag and showed us: 'The Yiddish Policeman's Union' by Michael Chabon - more than just a good detective story. I think I might try it!

Of course as we packed up our books and all got ready to leave, we all thanked John for a great evening. I said that when he next meets up with Ingo Schultz to be sure to tell him that we all loved his book. Though perhaps I said it with a grin!

You can read a little more about John E. Woods on The Local - Germany's news in English

Booking a guilt-trip through Easyjet

How can mothers make you feel guilty so easily? It's a life skill I really must learn.... probably should ask my mum, really.

I phoned her the other night and happened to mention that I was planning a trip back to Derby in April. Just Friday evening until Sunday lunchtime - nothing excessive. But of course I mentioned also that I am going without the kids. Not good, in my mother's opinion. According to her it would be wrong to "leave the children in a foreign country" (eh, with their father). She would "feel terribly funny" doing such a thing, and says she never left me and my sister ever.

I'm not entirely sure I believe that. I must check with my sister, but I do remember there were always 'dinner dances' throughout my childhood, and when I say I remember them, I don't mean because I recall my sister and I looking lovely in our long dresses sipping cocktails by the bar.

The reason I gave for going on my own is that I feel like I just want/need some time on my own. And also because if I took them we'd be sleeping in one room together, and to date my children have never been able to sleep in the same room, so I'd be awake most of the night and then I'd be even more shattered than usual and it wouldn't really be a break at all.

I had the option of going back last week when Stevie was heading back for a couple of days with work. But he was staying in a hotel, and we were going to be staying with a friend, and I weighed up no sleep plus constantly worrying about my children ruining this friend's child-free lovely house, and I just thought it wasn't worth it.

I don't think I lead a necessarily 'typical' life. I am never without the kids. I am a full-time mum in the fullest sense of the word. I live in another country from my family and even when I lived in the UK, I've always lived far away from them. So it's not like I'm working full-time and my only quality time with them is at the weekend and early evening, and it's not like I can drop the kids off at their granny's when I fancy going to the shops or have a doctors appointment. Nope, everywhere I go, they go. So I find it pretty unrelenting. Gruelling even at times.

In fact last night is the first time I have ever used a babysitter. Apart from once when I went to a wedding and they stayed at their granny's house. But with this trip, I feel like I am being perceived as doing the wrong thing and well, definetly it's like I am being really selfish. But really, am I? Doesn't everyone need a little time to themselves?

Of course my mother is somewhat fickle. Recently she (ok well, maybe not just recently. She has always thought it was wrong for me to put the kids in nursery, but recently) she has been saying that it's not really fair to have Hamish in Kita as he doesn't like it, and how my sister and I never wanted to go so she didn't send us. Of course I don't like that he's hating going but I need to learn German and so if we have any problem when I finish my course then I'll take him out. My mum has suggested that I maybe just do the evening course, but then you learn very little at any great speed and really, with hospital appointments and other things of importance I really feel like I need to know what's being said and so it's important that I learn as quickly as I can.


I don't think she agrees. I can tell she's thinking "JUST CHUCK IT!", and I too have my moments of thinking maybe I should. But then the next time I speak to my mum she'll have done a complete u-turn and will say that she thinks it would be a very good idea if I stick at my German and do the exams at B2 level because then that gives me further career options when I return to the UK as maybe I could "teach German to retired folk". Well, that's only another 24 weeks away, and while I would like to do it, in all honesty teaching German to retired folk is lingering somewhere around fairground ride attendant in my list of career aspirations.

So I can't win. And selfish old me is still planning to get on a plane alone and see her friends. Feel free to side with my mother and share your criticisms below. Go on, I'd enjoy it!

I'm busy doing nothing.

I think I saw this on FB somewhere and liked it (no, not 'liked' it, just liked it in a normal way)but I forgot to save the source details, so apologies for not linking back to the life coach who created this.

I am an expert when it comes to frittering away time. I just need to sit down with access to the internet and all of a sudden two hours mysteriously pass. Which surprises me really, because I don't look at that many websites, not really, well, maybe just a few, enough I suppose that if you asked me where you could get a really pretty digital radio from online, or which website would give you the best price for a chrome Magimix food processor, I would have no hesitation in telling you. Incidentally, I have neither of these things, which is probably why I have these things stashed in my head taking up space where some German verbs should be conjugating.

Stevie has gone back to Derby for work, and I, secretly, having a little holiday. Just from German class. I think it has done me the world of good. I've had two lovely mornings of frittering away time. Yesterday I used the time well I think and took the long trek along to the doctors to get my repeat prescription. I altered the amounts so that I don't need to go back for insulin as often and the receptionist didn't bat an eyelid. I'd expected to have to have a discussion about this, so perhaps there are benefits to the German medical system after all.

Anyway, I also stopped along the way on the way back and did some food shopping, went to the post office and took some photos of some of the 60's and 70's style U-Bahn stations along the way.

Then I came home and did a little light blog reading and pottering around the house. Lovely! Today was much the same but with some tidying up thrown in. I've really enjoyed having a break from class. Stevie's back tonight so I'll be back at school tomorrow. Bah humbug!

But it's been nice while it's lasted.

Timing is... everything

I've had a 'What am I doing here?' morning. Sometimes something will happen and I'll just suddenly find myself wondering why on earth I am bothering to put myself though this. Of course I know the answer, it's not the obvious question I'm asking myself.

This morning we arrived at Kita and had just gone to wait for the lift, when another little boy arrived with his grandmother. There were other parents and kids there too, but this little boy came up to Hamish and hit him. And I just couldn't think of what to say in German straight away, and then the moment passed and by the time I had formulated the words in my head it felt like it was too late.

The grandmother had already had a talk to the little boy, but I felt like there should have been an apology to Hamish at least. I wanted to say "Hold on a minute!", and I could have said "Woah! Ein Minuten bitte!" but all I could think of was 'I don't know the verb for 'to hold' and that got in the way of thinking of simpler alternatives. I felt so frustrated and angry with myself, and it left me feeling totally downhearted for the rest of the morning.

I hate not being able to express myself properly, and instead of saying what I want to say, constantly having to think of simpler ways of expressing myself. But to be honest I haven't really had any moments before this where I've really needed to say something and the timing has mattered. That seems to be the thing that has left me feeling most frustrated and wishing I was just back 'home' telling random people exactly what I thought of them.

Except I don't really do that. In fact after being sat in German class I spoke to Stevie and told him how I was feeling and he said "But did you tell Hamish just to hit him back?". Well, apart from the fact that I don't want my kids hitting other kids, it did cross my mind, but I thought to myself "Crap, I can't even say that because I bet one of these other parents speaks English and they'll know what I'm saying and then I'll seem like the bad mummy". So I stayed frustrated with my muteness.

Well I did until I got upstairs, and then in front of this grandmother I told Hamish's teacher that this boy had hit him and pointed at the culprit and asked if they could keep an eye on things as I wouldn't like to think that this might be another reason why Hamish is hating Kita. But even that didn't shake my gloom, and normally being really obvious like that would cancel out my earlier frustration and amuse me back into a normal state of happiness.

My German is annoying me at the moment. I know the more I do and the longer I stay on the course, the better my German will get and the better equipped I'll be to respond to people the way I want. But at the same time I am feeling like I don't have enough time to properly go over what I have learnt and as new stuff goes in, some of the old stuff is just leaking straight back out again. After this morning and thinking, 'I should be able to deal with a situation like that: I've been learning German for 14 weeks!' I can't help but think 'What is the point?'. But it could also be that we've just been doing endless grammar and I'm feeling my vocabulary isn't getting any better. Who knows. I'm booked on until April. So I have time to decide if I want to go further at that point or whether I want to have a break from it for a bit.

1. organise, 2. prioritise, 3. & get off that bloody internet!

Of course I do the nice things first, and leave the actual important things till last

I feel so way behind on everything at the moment. It's driving me crazy. All I want is to have a few extra hours every day to just get things done. I read lots of blogs (particularly the creative ones) where people seem to be able to do a million things a day, every day and I'm not sure why this kind of beautiful life evades me. How do people have time to blog, knit a dress, go thrifting, take some time out to photograph a friends new baby, spend some time in their studio painting gorgeous pictures, and take photographs of their enviable homes, etc, etc, and yet I am struggling to find the time each day to phone the tax office and stay in a queue for 20 minutes?

Perhaps it's because I spend too much time reading these blogs? I do hope that's not the answer.

So I have a long list of things that all need doing now, some of them nice things like design work and making a photobook for both my mother-in-law and mum (see above), and some of them ok things like completing Orla's school application, and some tedious but necessary things, like reapplying for Orla's Kita voucher as she gets it free now, and possibly going to the Burgeramt to wait for 2 hours to get a form stamped for the tax office.

Of course on top of these things I have my general day to day stuff to do, tidying up, cleaning, cooking, helping people pee in toilets and potties, stopping people breaking legs from jumping off the table and from scaring the living daylights out of their sister by locking her in our wardrobe. Oh and German. My German needs quite a bit of attention and when I do have the time to study, I generally have no desire to do that.

Anyway, I just can't fathom how to fit more into my days. There must be blogs I could be reading about this... (and that is a little bit of irony right there).

'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.

25% - part two

*NEW!* Follow my blog with bloglovin

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!

25% - part one

From here...

...to here.

ONE WHOLE Q U A R T E R OF THE WAY...

We have completed our first 6 months in Berlin. In some ways it seems to have flown by, where did the good weather suddenly go? Yet, in other ways, it seems so long ago that we lived in Derby. Looking back on the past 6 months, I think I would sum it up by saying that I really like it here, but I'm not exactly sure why. As my life is so much harder here.

Getting the negative out of the way: I HATE THE MEDICAL SYSTEM HERE!

I am 100% sure that they have great doctors here (and also 100% sure that they have some lousy ones too, like that weird clown-loving GP that I saw first), but I really would like to just see one GP, and not have to find my own specialists, and it is probably much better to have a paediatrician, but to be honest, I find it easier to just drag us all to the doctor together and get us all over-innoculated at once.

Oh that's right. Should you decide to move abroad with your children, I'd advise you to make sure that their red books are completely up to date with all their information and innoculations. I had just assumed they were, and even if they weren't I never really realised that it would really matter. Not that it does. Just that Orla has now just had an extra polio injection than the rest of the European population.

We've only just got a letter from Price Waterhouse advising us about forms we need to fill out that will make the whole health insurance annoyance easier. Instead of me having to take my passport, and nearly every other item of ID with me along with my private insurance card and my European Health Insurance Card every time I either need a repeat prescription or need to see a doctor; get them all photocopied (every single time!); see the doctor; get billed; go to the bank to pay the bill; give the bill to Stevie to claim back through the insurance company; then wrangle with the insurance company that it is something that is covered. This will all change (supposedly). We will be issued with new cards which the receptionist will swipe and hopefully that will be that. We'll wait and see. Call me cynical, but I can't quite believe I won't be showing them 3 cards, my passport, and all my ID, etc etc.

What do I like about being here? APART FROM THE CHOCOLATE...

Well, the chocolate is good, and I never knew how much love I could feel for Choko Liebniz. I know you can get them in the UK, but with so much (ahem..) choice in British supermarkets, I never gave them a second glance.

But what I really like about here is that there is so much to do. Hell, if I wasn't filling my days dropping off kids, picking up kids, learning German, seeing doctors, and arguing with the Commerzbank, I think I'd be having a great time. We generally fill our weekends with something new and different to do. At home I think we just got into a routine and we did go places with the kids a lot but it's less enticing when you have an hours drive in front of you to get to a zoo, compared with a 10 minute walk, or the closest aquarium is in Birmingham, and the closest dinosaur is in London. Here, it feels like we have everything on our doorstep, and that is the best thing about living in a capital city. In the summer it was great because we went out every evening when Stevie got home from work and we went places and saw things and ate out and generally had fun in some really nice weather.

I feel like we packed in quite a lot of sightseeing and activities over the summer and I still have a big list of things that I HAVE to do next summer. Our plans over the winter are to see the museums and galleries, though I am sure there must be some ban in place for taking toddlers.

I wonder what I will win today?

The trouble with being one of those people that everyone hates cause they saunter into exams having done the absolute minimum of study and then coast through, not a re-sit in sight, is that eventually 20 years down the line, they fail a crappy, non-important German test and have so much anger with themselves that they would scream really, really loudly, if only they didn't think the neighbours would complain that it was outside the hours allotted to expressing inner pain.

My sister LOVED me as a child. I nearly said 'hated' but of course that's not true as I was/am quite a monumentally loveable person. But it can be quite hard to love someone who consistently says on the morning of the Easter egg decoration/ Christmas card design competition/ blah, blah, blah, competition at school, year in, year out "I wonder what my prize will be?". You kind of want them to fail. Miserably.

May todays dark, dark, event never recur.

(Of course I did fail my driving test first time, but I blame the bus that emergency stopped in front of me and took me by surprise)

The snobbery of the Vorderhaus

Can you see my neighbour who is out on his balcony, wind, rain, snow, or shine making phone calls in his dressing gown?

What an icy blast of air I felt when I opened the door on to the balcony to take this photo this morning. Finally it feels like winter is here. We got a little snow yesterday and the day before, but it didn't really feel that cold. So today is the day I will finally go and get a winter coat and I guess Kita will probably already be composing a letter to me saying that the kids need those thick snowsuits, 2 sets, one for outdoors, one for in.

The purpose of my chilly (rare) visit on to the balcony was that I finally discovered the secret of the 'Vorderhaus (front house) snobbery'. Eons ago when we first moved into this apartment our old upstairs neighbour indicated that being in the Vorderhaus was far better than being in the side or rear houses - these are the ones you can see in the photo. I wasn't really sure why, and assumed that it was because she lived in the Vorderhaus and maybe didn't like some of the people in the other houses.

A little while ago I went a wander round the back of the other side of the building to see where the rear (hinterhaus) came out on to the street. It doesn't. It's literally a concrete wall. Obviously there would have been other buildings attached before they got destroyed in the war, but the process of redeveloping the building from the ruined shell has left it as a big blank wall. I'm not sure whether the bank would have gone up before this building was properly re-built, but nonetheless it has sandwiched -in the rest of the building.

I started reading Ian McEwan's 'The Innocent' a couple of days ago. It's about a British guy who goes to Berlin as part of a British-American surveillance team. In it he meets a woman who he visits in the Hinterhaus. Suddenly, it all became clear! He says...

'The apartments at the rear of the old Berlin blocks were traditionally the cheapest and most cramped. They had once housed the servants whose masters lived in the grander quarters at the front facing the road. Those at the rear had windows facing on to the courtyard, or across a narrow space to the next building.'

Now I wonder whether the apartments in the Vorderhaus were much bigger than what we're in now. The Canadians below us have around 380 square metres, which seems big enough to warrant servants. There's is over two floors but if you were to have one complete floor of the Vorderhaus then that would probably amount to the same. I can't really imagine that there would be servants in anything smaller, but I could be wrong. A cleaner would certainly be nice for this place, and maybe a cook, and well, life would be a little easier with a nanny I guess, and maybe even a butler or maid.

Suddenly I'm not feeling quite so 'chatty'

"We'd just like a word with you..."
A word? A word? I wonder if that means I only need to get down to my underwear???

Remember this? My last visit to the doctor, where I had been told I could go for a prescription, and then once I got there was told I couldn't and had to find another doctor and blah, blah, blah... rain... late for German,...etc, etc, and eventually came away with an appointment on (not the) 19th for a "chat with the doctor"?

So it was today. Not the 19th, and so I didn't miss anymore German I made the appointment for the afternoon, balancing up the missing of more German with the having to take the kids with me. I figured that with the kids with me, the appointment would be kept quite short as they make it plain that long appointments do not fit in with their lifestyle. And anyway, the appointment was for 4:45 so it would be post-nap (for Hamish) and hopefully they would not be tired and utterly horrible.

But then Stevie offered to come home early so I could go on my own. So I did, and just as well, as I didn't get home until 7pm so the kids would have lost the plot.

So anyway, the appointment was with the Frauenarzt - that's a gynaecologist/obstetrician and you have to go to one of them if you want contraception or a smear test, or well, a baby. So, I had been wondering what we might possibly have to talk about. Given that I thought I was going to have to take the kids with me I reckoned we could bypass the "Do you want any more kids?" question pretty swiftly, and probably without me having to speak too much German. But what else was there to 'chat' about. I assumed it was going to be something similar to what you get in the UK when you join a new doctors practice and you have to have that appointment where it's a bit like a meet & greet and basically they take a medical history, ask you if you need to see them about anything, and then thank you for coming.

Well, it was like that if you've ever been to one of those 'meet the doctor' appointments and had your chat with absolutely no clothes on. Now that was quite a surprise! The chat started pretty much as soon as I walked into her office and she said "Hello, pleased to meet you, would you like to go behind that screen and take off your clothes?". I thought I'd prepared myself by phoning my GP's office in England earlier today and asking when I'd last had a smear test. I even looked it up in my German dictionary in case I needed to mention that I didn't need one yet in German. That's how prepared I was. But I wasn't prepared to have to say this while actually getting a smear test. Apparently the Germans like to have them once a year even if you have never had any problems.

Then we continued our chat over on the examination bed where I was surprised to get both a breast examination and then an ultrasound to check my uterus, fallopian tubes, and to see if there were any tumours lurking. To add to my delight, unlike in the UK where if you have an ultrasound while pregnant, and you have the awkwardness of craning your neck round while trying to see the screen when really they don't want you to yet, here you get your own screen which hangs at the perfect angle from the ceiling for you to see the fibroids hanging off your uterus should you have any to see. Wouldn't that be nice?

I was then allowed to get my clothes back on, while she introduced the idea of getting Stevie a vasectomy for Christmas. I said it sounded like the perfect stocking filler, but I wasn't sure if Stevie would be too keen. He's never really fancied any of those Boots Gift Experiences, and this would probably have even less appeal for him than a hot air balloon ride.

Then she offered me an IUD for 400 Euros. In a toss-up between that and the lens for my camera that I've got sitting in my Amazon shopping basket, I think I'd prefer the lens to win. So that was that. A surprising evening that'll make me somewhat wary about chatting with Germans in the future.

Deutsch Heute fur die Leute

I have lost my German-learning mojo. It was there one minute and then all of a sudden it was gone. I blame Friday. We had a hellish night on Thursday with the kids - so bad in fact that I was too tired to remember what happened. It's still all a blur. Anyway, I dropped the kids off at Kita in a daze and decided to give German class a miss thinking I would go home and go straight back to bed. Of course I didn't actually do that. My immediate thought was that I had some child-free time so I'd be better off spending it wisely at the shops and getting new boots.

I wasn't too concerned about missing one session, especially at the end of the week. The teacher had been telling us that we would always start the new stuff at the beginning of the week.So it was an easy decision to make. So on Monday I went in, and I swear it was like a complete mystery. They'd done a whole new tense, and suddenly all my verbs were different too. I hated it. The pace is such that there's not really a lot of time to go over things. By the end of yesterday's 3 hour session I can honestly say I could no longer be bothered trying. I just couldn't get the hang of it at all. I intended doing a lot of catch-up study last night, but as per usual procrastinated on the internet until finally it was time for bed.

Today was marginally better, though I was still in a 'can't be bothered' mood. If I never saw another German book again or had to write my sentences in two different tenses again, I honestly think I'd be a little relieved. I hope this passes, and soon, cause I am booked on till April.

(Deutsch Heute was the name of the German book we used at school. I was crap at it then, and I'm getting worse now)....(or so it feels)

Be thankful for the NHS

Another weekend of visitors over, another week of German class, and another grim visit to the doctor. German class is still quite enjoyable though I wish I could learn more words and sentences with more practical application in my day to day life. Last week we learned how to rent an apartment, talk about our square meterage, and discuss house rules. All fair enough, but we've all been through this process already without being able to speak German. It's just a bit 'shutting the stable door after the horse has bolted'.

On Friday I phoned my doctor's surgery speaking my very best German and told them I needed a prescription. I'd spoken to the doctor about it before and he had told me that he wasn't sure what it might be called over here, so I did him a favour and Googled it for him, before making the call on Friday. "No problem" they said. "Just come in and pick up your prescripton and make an appointment to have it administered". So I cycled there in the cold and rain this morning with my passport and every other piece of documentation that they would be likely to ask for.

Admittedly, it struck me as odd that you could just ask the receptionist for medication and they would just make you up a prescription with no questions asked, but sure enough I got there and they gave me the prescription. The paper literally brushed my fingertips before she whipped it back off me saying she maybe better just check with the doctor. Grr... She came back and tore it up in front of me and told me that they couldn't give me it and I'd need to go and see another doctor and get the prescription from them.

Already running wildly late for German class, I considered giving up but then realised I'd just have to go through this palava again another day and miss even more German. So off I went to find this other doctor. Did I mention it was raining ? Or that my bum was so wet from the saddle that I looked like I'd wet myself? Eventually found the doctor I needed, though strangely not the one they had recommended who should have been in the same building. Once again I showed my passport, insurance card, European Health card, etc, etc, filled out forms and got myself the prescription printed out. Then they told me I could come for my appointment on the 19th? Did I mention that I needed it this week? My vocabulary does not yet extend far enough to allow me to express feelings of panic, but obviously my facial expressions transcend language barriers. I now have a prescription and can take it with me tomorrow morning, and still have an appointment for the 19th - though for what I really have no clue.

I can't tell you how much I am looking forward to that appointment as I don't even know if this doctor will speak any English. Still, as my German is coming on leaps and bounds I will be able to ask her whether she keeps a sledge in her loft and tell her she is not allowed to mount an aerial on the roof. And if all else fails, I guess I can muster up a smile.

How to make friends & interrogate people.

My new friend: the fish counter lady in Edeka.

I've had some pretty torturous conversations with some Germans since I've been here. And I mean the kind of conversations that are such hard work mentally that you feel like you need a little sit down afterwards. These for me, tend to take place with people who speak not a single word of English which means I can't rely on slipping the odd English word into an otherwise difficult sentence and allowing my brain not to implode as it carries out a ruthless search for any word that might be a close approximation to the word that I am really wanting to use but don't actually know.

But since starting my course I now feel like the German that I do speak has been validated by someone and marked as correct so I have oodles more confidence in my questions and responses. Before, it felt I think like there was a possibility that I might just be guessing the words and spitting them out through my random word generating mouth.

At Kita yesterday, I was stopped and asked "Bist du die Mama aus Schottland?". Having just spent about 7 hours going over this enthralling question with my classmates, even I was surprised at just how enthusiastically I answered her. "Ja! Das bin ich!", I pretty much shouted. She would have thought it was like I had been waiting all my life for someone to ask me that. But such it seems is the way for those who FINALLY really KNOW that they are understanding things properly and being understood. It's such a pleasure that you want to use all your words at once. With literally anyone.

And so this takes us nicely back to the beginning: my new friend. Over the past few weeks, maybe months, I've had some really hellish conversations with the woman who works behind the fish counter in Edeka. I don't know what I really want to say, she doesn't know what I am trying to say, and usually it ends up with me acting out the components of the meal I am trying to make. She was the person I first spoke to about stock cubes (might want to make a cup of strong coffee right about now, my stock cube conversations are not exactly enthralling). The fact that this woman, it turned out, didn't speak English didn't put me off continuing with trying to explain what I was after - it's like once you've started you've got to keep going, you know? And then you start bringing in hand actions and miming.

Anyway, this woman always seemed to be my first port of call when I needed to ask someone whether parsley might really be called Peterslie, or if there is a reason why 8 out of 10 onions I buy are bad in the middle. I'm quite bad at not recognising people again who I don't really know, so I think each time I just assumed it was a different person until I realised I was trapped in another difficult questioning session with the same woman again.

So this woman has grown to know me and quite possibly dread me. She has taught me practically week in and week out how to ask her to take the skin off my salmon, and other little handy phrases. So, yesterday, I was chatting to Orla while we were picking up some pork, and I heard someone call "Oh hello!" in my direction. I looked to my right and here was the fish counter lady. She asked how I was getting on (as on a previous day I had told her I would be a marvel of fish-related chat in 5 weeks now that I had started my German course). She made the mistake of asking me what i had been learning, and all of a sudden she was the victim of a barrage of questions relating to her personal life. "Are you married? Do you have children? What age are you? Are you from Berlin? What's your address? Can you spell that? Slowly?"

I may have inadvertantly given the impression of being a none-too-subtle identity thief, or the new-in-town local nutjob, but she didn't seem to mind, and for me it was just lovely to get it all out to a real person, not a Spaniard playing the part of Herr Schmidt. The thing was though that I was so busy asking the questions and feeling all good about it that I didn't pay a blind bit of notice to her answers. At the end of it all she told me that she would like to learn a bit of English from me and I could learn some German from her. She seems nice, and looks about the same age as me. I dream of days where me and Fish Counter Lady are sitting having a latte discussing whether she enjoys playing tennis and going to the cinema with friends, or if she might prefer eating pizza and reading comics.

Stevie of course just thinks I am going mental and need a trip home.

'One' would like to sob in class.

Day 2 of German school, and we're all starting to get to know each other. It was inevitable, given the amount of times we are required to ask each others' names, where we are from and how gut it really geht's.

We lost one of the Spaniard's and gained a Korean. After endlessly enquiring happily after each other, we moved on to asking each other what age we were. The plan was that the teacher would ask the first person and then they would ask the second and we would work our way round the class. Sadly, when we got to the Spanish woman in position 3 she broke down on being asked her age and sat and sobbed noisily for a good 5 minutes. The Italian and Frenchman on either side of her tried to comfort her while the teacher looked on bemused. But the rest of us knew the cause was the fact that her age contains a '6' which she can't pronounce. Instead of pretending she was 35 instead, she took herself off for an hour to compose herself.

Language class does strange things to people. Even I was required to do an impression of the Queen to explain in English how the word 'man' works in the sentence 'Wie schreibt man das?' (How does 'one' write that?). It wasn't pretty.

Lesson time x 2

So today was my first day at German school. That is, of course, me learning German. I went with starting from scratch. I may have mentioned that I have a Higher in German somewhere before on this blog, but as you might have gathered from other posts I am not that great at it. I can understand written German, follow most of what is being said in conversations, can spell in German (though where this talent comes from I have no idea), but to actually speak German, I am garbled at best. Often I just speak strange lists of words, sometimes the right ones, probably never really in the right order.

So back to basics. Already day one, I am wondering if I made a real error. ONE WHOLE HOUR on 'My name is...', 'I am called...'. Then numbers, then all the 'I am 13 years old' stuff, and to round off 'I come from Scotland'. Except everybody in the class more or less comes from Spain and speaks no English. I am thoroughly disappointed. I wanted to make lots of friends in the class, but unless I fast track my way through all the Dora the Explorer back catalogue, I am going to struggle. I don't know that counting their fingers, singing Merry Christmas in Spanish at them, shouting 'stop!' and 'let's go!' are enough to even base a Facebook friendship on, never mind sustain me through a coffee break.

And so, the only English speakers in the class are a 57 year old man from Paris who seems nice enough, and has a pleasingly very French name; a smug Korean guy who arrived only 3 days ago and here to study bio-chemistry; and an Israeli guy who copies my answers and hasn't got much to say. I am a little disappointed. I had dreams of busloads of Americans, Brits, and Canadians all round about my age and here as the accompanying spouse of someone 'from the Embassy'. There's a bit of me that wants to stay up all night, work my way through the beginners course book so that I can get into the next class up tomorrow. Sadly though, there's another bit of me that just can't be bothered and would rather sit here and read other people's blogs.

You always think 'Ah, if I went back to school and re-did all my subjects I would totally apply myself and come out with straight A's and about 6 more qualifications than I did'. The thing is, I think, that sometimes you might be a grown up version of yourself, but when faced with a rather dull German class you're still the kind of person who thinks 'I'd much rather be in Art right now'.

Anyway, meanwhile, back in the real world, I went and picked Orla and Hamish up from Kita and found Orla wearing the jeans again that I'd just washed and handed back to the Kita from last week when nobody understood Orla saying she needed the toilet. I was gutted thinking we were heading into a 'pee-your-pants-cause-you-hate-nursery-phase' until I couldn't find her wet leggings and knickers anywhere in the building. And then, it clicked. Last week nursery left a woolly hat in Hamish's locker as if to say 'Get your act together. This boy must be freezing!' and I knew the next step would be someone actually coming and telling me that it was 3 minutes past summertime and he should be wearing tights under his trousers. So, I had a wee peek under the jeans and sure enough, Orla was still wearing her own clothes underneath.

I can't quite get to grips with the German obsession with the cold. There have been some ovely days recently where it's been in the 20's (degrees C) and it's been quite possible to go out wearing a light top. But you will still find everyone wearing coats and see children with woolly tights and fleeces and hats and gloves. My friend who has lived here now for a couple of years and had a baby over here has fully embraced the German way of life in this regard. She says that she worries that she has not got her daughter wrapped up enough as strangers will stop you in the street and tell you that your child hasn't got enough on. Can you believe that?

Well, they can try with my pair, but it'll be another 4 weeks before I'll be able to understand them.

"I'll be back!" she said in a German accent.

Essential reading for new applicants

We've been trying to sort out a nursery for Orla and Hamish. It's a lot harder than I thought it would be. You have to get some forms from the Rathaus (town hall) and fill those out stating what hours you and your partner work and what your income is. The number of hours you work will determine how many hours your children get in Kita (nursery) and the amount you earn determines how much you pay towards it. Nurseries are a lot cheaper here than in the UK. We would expect to pay nearly the same for Orla and Hamish to each do a morning each for 1 week and for that to cost the same as it would for them to be in Kita here full time for a month!

With me not working it might be difficult to get them a Gutschein (voucher) that you have to have to get them into the nursery. However, with my need to learn German this might help as I need the time during the day to go to class. I have hit a bit of a vicious circle though. I need proof for the Gutschein that I have a German class to go to, but I can't book (pay) to go a German course until I know that they have a place in Kita.

Yesterday, I had an appointment with one Kita that was arranged through the relocation company, and had an appointment to phone one that I found that said they 'might' have places. I went with Claudia from the relocation company on the visit to the first Kita. It was massive. Over 150 children, from over 20 nationalities, set in a huge building over 6 floors. The focus the lady said in German which Claudia translated for me is "learning through play, with an emphasis on learning German". That, is exactly what I need. They set up the childrens groups differently to how they would in the UK. The babies from 0 - 2 years old are in one group and then the rest from 2 years old to 6 years old are split up in mixed groups. This is apparently quite the norm in Berlin nurseries. I am not sure that I think it's the best way: I tend to think that the older children are more likely to rule the roost and make sure that they have the best toys, etc. The lady, via the medium of Claudia said that it "encourages the older children to behave more like older brothers and sisters towards the younger ones". My point exactly, but I think we might be looking at it from two different perspectives. I don't doubt that some will have a caring, nurturing side to them and will look out for the younger ones, but I suspect that the 'I want that, I'm going to have that' urge is harder for some to suppress.

Apart from this, the place seemed great. They had loads of facilities and rooms for building, art, music, exercise and dance, and a fantastic garden. In fact it was in the garden that I saw one of the bigger boys 'nurturing' a large spade off of a white-knuckled 3 year old.

What is good is that they do separate the children into age groups for set activities during the day, and they do lots of different things with them. Unlike other Kita's I wouldn't be required to cook (argghh!) a meal for all the children once a week (phew!) and also this place has got space to take both Orla and Hamish. We had heard that it's difficult to find spaces in the Kita's, and that many have very long waiting lists, so the fact that this one is close by and has space is a bonus. On the other hand they can't give us the places until September and then I would need to spend a month going to the Kita with the children until they settled in. Another difference to UK nurseries- where I spent two half hours settling Orla and Hamish in to their old nursery, here they expect you to hang around for 4 weeks. I'm not altogether opposed to this idea especially as Orla and Hamish don't speak the language, but it does mean that I wouldn't be able to start German classes until October.

Later that day I phoned the other Kita that I found near my local supermarket. I really liked the look of this one - lovely toys, quite small, really close to the flat, and they have English lessons on a Friday. I had been in last week and they had told me to phone back when they would know if they had spaces. When I phoned it was a bit odd in that I was quizzed first of all on my level of German. I explained that this was one of the reasons why I was trying to find the children a Kita place, so that I could go and learn it. Once the quizzing was over, she said, "I will go and speak to my boss" and came back moments later and said "Sorry, we did have places, but we have a very long waiting list". Somehow, I suspect that the fact that I don't speak much German might have played a part in it. I was a bit annoyed about that, and I think the worst part is realising that you are a minority and that this is how minority groups tend to be treated at times. That for them it's just easier if they've got parents and children who speak the same language as them. I'll be fluent by Christmas and then I'll sort them out once I can argue the case for equal rights!