We'll take it!

I could be wrong, but I think there's some irony there.

Myths about life as a returning expat:

No.1 You might not like being back but you will be ecstatic about being able to do everything in your own language.

Living abroad is excellent fun, until you have to deal with a problem in a language that is quite foreign to you. My first experience of this if we don't count having to ask in Kaisers if the mince contained any horsemeat, came as a dreaded phone call to Kabel Deutschland as our pin code wasn't working. Talk about a cold sweat. It still gives me nightmares.

Eventually after overcoming numerous problems in a combination of poor German and excellent mime, you can't help but think back to life in your home country and think "there would be no problem big or small that I couldn't solve! Phone calls would be a breeze! Returning faulty goods would be something I would actually do! Oh the exotic plethora of words I would spill onto council officials and call centre operators!".

And to a degree this is true. You have a problem; you know all the words you need to describe said problem; you understand the response, and bingo! Problem *should* in theory be solved.

But somewhere along the line I wonder if I thought the problems wouldn't be as frequent or as frustrating in my own land. And now, on our return I find they are. The house we have moved into is awash with problems. As I have already listed them in a 32 page inventory that took me hours to complete, I won't go into detail again here. But suffice to say, it does not feel like it has been easier. From front door keys that won't lock the door from the inside because they are either snapped or bent, to french windows that leak so badly that when it rains the carpet soaks right up to the bed which is a metre away from said windows. *sigh*. Oh and everywhere was filthy. So dirty in fact that we couldn't have the boxes unpacked. *double sigh*

I couldn't bath the kids for most of the week because the bath couldn't hold water as the plug had no seal and there was a big crack in the bath which we weren't sure was leaking or not. Nor could we stick them in the shower as it was veering from freezing to boiling and back and forward between the two. The boiler needless to say is so old that it makes it quite difficult to listen to each others moans as it sounds as if someone is repeatedly starting up an old tractor in the utility room.

But don't worry. The landlord says we are "difficult tenants". So that's that sorted then. Problem solved. Except that it's not and he isn't very keen to do anything and when I raced down to the letting agent the first morning after we moved in to ask if there was a 'cooling off' period or a way out of this contract I was told that no we are stuck here for a minimum of 6 months because we signed the contract. You don't even want to know how much rent we are paying for this place. And I can't tell you because I might start wailing and not be able to stop. Ok, let's move on.

No.2 You might not like being back but you will be ecstatic about being able to do everything in your own language.

What? Yes, it's the same as number 1, but shoosh! wheesht! I'm thoroughly fed up and I don't care. Do you remember I lost my phone on the u-bahn a few weeks before we moved? Probably not, but anyway I decided to wait until I was back in the UK to get a new one.

So then I started looking at which phone I liked the look of. Wrong, wrong, wrong, said Stevie. You need to work out what functionality you want and then decide how often you would be on the internet etc. Having never had the internet on my phone before it was nigh on impossible to guess how often I would use it in reality. But he had me doing spreadsheets comparing deals with data, text, and calls and phone cost across a selection of the major mobile phone providers. Then, he had me researching the deals offered by the companies that offer mobile phone contracts bundled with home phone and broadband and tv. I hadn't even chosen a phone at this point because beyond knowing I wanted one that looked nice, had the internet, possibly had sat nav and a half decent camera, I didn't know what else to really look for. So I narrowed it down to approximately 3 phones, but multiply that with innumerable phone contracts and you have at least a few evenings of thoroughly boring work. And that's not even factoring in the fact that I don't know what I am doing in Excel.

By the time I had finished I was pretty sure I could live without a phone if it mean avoiding having to do this kind of thing, and Stevie's popularity rating was reaching an all time low. But I did end up with a phone which was nice, though the relief from being done with the dreaded spreadsheet was only temporary as Stevie announced that we were going to get a Parkers Guide, fire up Excel again and let it tell us which car we should buy. Can I just say, many, many days later, we still are no closer to knowing what we are going to buy.

Now let me tell you what would have happened with the mobile phone in Germany. As indeed when we arrived in Berlin I needed to get a new mobile phone. All I knew at that point was that I wasn't going to get a contract as we weren't sure how difficult it would be to get out of it should we decide to leave before 2 years. So we went to Saturn, the only place we had seen that we knew would have them. We wandered around and had a quick look at them and then I said "That one looks ok, doesn't it?" and Stevie said "yes" and we bought it. None of the faffing about that you see above. Why? Because we didn't have the knowledge to know where to find deals and bundles, and we didn't have the language skills to ask about them. And that was the way we bought a lot of stuff in Berlin. If someone told us you could get tv through Kabel Deutschland then we went to Kabel Deutschland. When we needed a new washing machine we pretty much bought the one that we saw first and looked a decent enough price. And maybe it cost us a few more Euros but it was easier and didn't involve Ex-bloody-cel and dark thoughts of boyfriend hatred.

Wherever we go... Hugo!

Do you remember we had a date with Hugo?

Hugo in Tiergarten

Well, much to our own surprise, we had him to stay for a sleepover. I'd mentioned that we would be happy to have him should his owners ever fancy a weekend away, and it just so happened they did. It was brilliant fun. And it was a really great experience for the kids. I think they learned a lot from having him here.

Hugo and his pack.

He came on Sunday morning and we let him settle in and have a good sniff around the place. I made best use of Hugo's visit by getting the kids to tidy up all their toys in case Hugo swallowed small bits and choked on them. Hugo had no intention of eating any of their toys, but still it kept them nice and tidy for a couple of days. So it was worth it for that alone.

We took him on a good long walk around Tiergarten. His 'mum' had said that he enjoyed long walks, so that's what we gave him walking via Hansaplatz to the English Tea Garden then on through Tiergarten to the playground and a little picnic and a rest, then straight through the middle of the nude sunbathing area (can I just say Stevie chose the route: Hugo hardly knew where to look for all the sausages on display) and then back home via the boating lake, the Zoo, and then I 'think' we might have stopped off at the American Festival of the People in Breitscheidplatz on the way back.

He's the perfect size for little girls.

Not knowing Hugo's routine very well I tried taking him out again after dinner, and again at bedtime. He wasn't very keen on going out after dinner, and when it came to the bedtime walk he just looked at me as if to say "Seriously, you want to go out again?" and then refused to leave the apartment.

The kids were thrilled to have Hugo to stay. Stevie less so. Mostly because he was being selected as a test subject to see if he *really* was allergic or just pretending as I suspected. "What a hassle" he kept muttering, until after a couple of hours he realised that Hugo was in fact a miniature fraction of the hassle of our two kids. I think he particularly appreciated the fact that you can walk with Hugo attached to you and he's not trying to pull your arm from it's socket by spontaneously swinging off it, and he doesn't whine and moan every few steps about 'how much further' it might be. He was a joy that way.

It was such a big learning experience for us all. The kids learned so much over the course of a couple of days about how Hugo is different to a person ("Are you sure he won't talk AT ALL???", "Why is he not having lunch???" "Couldn't we help him use our toilet?"), we learned that Stevie is allergic, in the sense that it was as if he suddenly developed a really bad cold and was sniffing away all the day, but not so allergic (eyes puffy and red and streaming) that it would completely put me off. But we also learned, or rather I did, that now is not a good time for us to have a dog. Man, being a grown-up actually sucks.

If we got a dog, then it would be *my* dog and I would be the one to look after it and take it out, and the trouble would be that it just wouldn't always be practical to take the dog out given we have the two kids. Hamish was getting a bit bored of going out walks all the time (though admittedly Hugo could have been walked a lot less, but my only dog walking experience was my springer spaniel when I was a teenager, and she enjoyed a lot of walking) so I am sure there would be a lot of arguments about having to accompany me on walks with the dog on rainy, cold, or snowy days. On top of this, with Stevie often away with work, I just couldn't take the dog out at night if the kids are in bed. We can't just stick the dog out the back door when we live in an apartment, and even though it is likely we will move back to our house with a garden at some point, it made me think about how the kids get narky at even 7 o'clock when I'd need to walk it at it's early evening walk.

So much as we loved having him, we had to hand him back, and we all miss him quite a lot because he added to our family. And I still think it's crap that I have to be a grown up and can't just follow Hamish's instruction of "just tell his Mummy that he's ours now".

Moments when social media freaks you out.

Sometimes I really freak out about social media. This morning was one of those moments. I went on to my Flickr account and in my 'recent activity' notifications I saw that some guy, a complete stranger, had marked one of my photos as a 'favourite'. Now that's not exactly odd, but I decided that I would click on this stranger's name and have a wee look at his photos.

My photo, that the strange guy liked.

So, that's what I did. I landed on his photostream and scrolled down a bit and that's when I freaked out. Because he has this photo:



Yes, there's a particularly large and happy leprechaun in this photo, but what freaked me out was that not only do I know this green giant, but he is standing next to Stevie! Not that odd perhaps that someone else in Berlin 'favourited' my photo also of Berlin, but how weird is it that they should have taken a photo of my boyfriend and his friends out of nearly 3.5 million?

I sent this photo to Stevie at work, and he sent a text saying, "That's a nice photo you took of ----', and I said, "You think? Who was looking after the kids??". Freaky! Freaky!

Under a bush, down memory lane

When I was in primary school there was a boy in my class who ran away from home and hid and slept in a bush for two days before being discovered. As I recall, nobody seemed particularly concerned (well, we were only about 6 or 7 at the time), and it just seemed the kind of thing that he would do, and I suppose I just thought he'd be back at school within a few days. And he was. The thing about this boy was that he was a little bit of an oddball. A bit of a loner, a bit of a loser, didn't really talk much, oh, and often turned up to school wearing his pyjamas under his uniform. That's the bit that sticks in my head, and that's why I can totally recall this boy and his name and where he lived and what he looked like. Unlike most of the people I went to primary school with, I would probably recognise this guy if I saw him in the street.

Without ever having consciously thought it, I suppose I have always wanted to make sure I never had a kid like this boy. I have no idea what his home life was like, I just assumed it was the same as mine. Normal. But who knows. I wouldn't have known at that age what might have been going on at home, and maybe things can't be ok if you feel the need to go and hide in a bush for a couple of days. I've been thinking about this boy a bit and wondering what he's doing now. (He's not on FB so maybe he's got more of a life than me).

Yesterday Orla came home from school missing her school sweatshirt which I discovered was in with all her soaking wet swimming things. According to her, her teacher told her to put it in there. Not anything at all to do with the fact that she hates wearing it because it's too big. Anyway, peeking out at the top of her polo shirt I caught sight of a pink t-shirt. My automatic reaction was to assume that we must be into 'hinting season': where teachers and Kita careworkers drop subtle hints to me to tell me that my kids aren't wearing anywhere near enough clothes. 'Bugger!' I thought. Is it that time already?

On closer inspection, it became apparent that it wasn't the teacher dropping hints, but in actual fact her father quite possibly being asleep when he started dressing her. For Orla was wearing her Minnie Mouse pyjama top underneath her school uniform. Oh the shame!! It wouldn't have been quite so bad except that she'd had swimming so there was definitely someone who saw it, but most often it's not the actual class teacher that takes them to the swimming pool. So to top it off Orla decided that she would like to show her teacher her Disney Princess knickers (as you do) so I can be pretty certain that she saw her pyjamas too. Oh, the double shame! Eek! Incidentally, her teacher said 'Nice...'. Though I would have thought a 'Wow! Cool! I've got those too! Gleiche!' would have been more appropriate.

And now I am wondering whether the boy in my class who sometimes wore his pyjamas under his uniform maybe just had to dress himself or had a really tired father.

Of flowers & fireworks...

10 whole years together. I didn't even know. That's how good I am. But Stevie remembered. I know I give him a hard time on this blog, especially for his funny little Stevie-isms, but he intersperses them with moments of great romance which take me all the more by surprise. He bought me a huge bouquet of roses, which I loved all the more because I could see that they hadn't come from a petrol station or a supermarket. He bought a card and wrote me a lovely letter in it. Admittedly, it was a birthday card, but it had a number 10 on it, so I get where he was coming from. He says he didn't know what he should be looking for in German.

We had a lovely romantic evening. I provided a lovely dinner that no one would eat (let's pretend that that's because it was so beautiful it would have been a shame to eat a work of art), and then we strolled down memory lane to the swing park, and swung by the video shop for a movie, 2 Chupa Chups and a bottle of Prosecco. It was like a scene out of a Barbara Cartland novel. I've never read any Barbara Cartland, but I'll bet there are plenty of beautiful romantic scenes where the female protagonist ends up with a cherry Chuppa Chup stuck to her best trousers cause it's "diz-guss-TING!"

But as Stevie said "You can't expect it to be all fireworks after 10 years together". As if to illustrate this point our evening was rounded off in the most wonderful, heart-stopping manner, as two of the neighbour's cars went up in flames right outside our building.

Nothing says "I love you" like 8 exploding tyres at 2am. I thought Orla's balcony had fallen off.

What you can't see in this photo is all our neighbours in various states of undress huddled round watching the smouldering cars and merrily toasting our momentous anniversary with champagne* while we all choked on the noxious fumes.

Was ist das? "You....fan........the flames.......of...my...heart". Ein Hinweis vielleicht!

It was a wonderful night. Here's to the next 10 years!

*This is possibly not true.

According to one of our neighbours this was another incident of luxury car arson, which has happened quite a lot in Berlin. It seems that people set fire to cars such as Mercedes and Porsches in "concerted attacks on conspicuous wealth" (The Local). Police found another car in flames a couple of streets away from our street. The arsonists choose slow-burning substances such as barbeque lighters to start the fires under the cars allowing them to be some distance away when the fire takes hold. Here's a link to the car arson map of Berlin.

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!]

Part 2- Paradise: not to be confused with utopia or Tropical Islands

Tropical Islands: well one thing you can't complain about is lack of parking.

The Truman Show' style backdrop for one of the pools. Great, isn't it?

Inside the dome (or giant caterpillar, as Orla thought) with all the rainforest-y goodness, and tents which may or may not be crawling with cockroaches and quail.

Tent city

Gorgeous white sand, fabulous blue sky, water a sultry 28 - 31 degrees... I have managed to avoid going to Tropical Islands for the best part of a year. On paper it's everything I hate. Swimming, sand, camping with sand, and then a bit more swimming thrown in just to make sure I have a crap time.

I really utterly dislike swimming. It's the pools, the plasters, the dirt, the wet dirt, and bathing in countless peoples' urine. Stevie on the other hand loves it. Revels I think in my discomfort. Has craved this summer and the endless weekends of swimming opportunities in the outdoor pools. I don't mind the outdoor pools anywhere near as much as indoor pools. Less mould I suppose, fresher air (if you don't count the Berliners all around you that by god, really do like to smoke), and even the possibility of "going a little wander round the nudist section with the kids for a look" (honest to God, he was serious).

Tropical Islands though has been high on Stevie's agenda since we've been here. Especially over the winter. But luckily I managed to avoid it's 66, 000 square metres of tropical delights up until now because the kids thankfully managed to be ill every time it re-surfaced in his mind. But I messed up last week. I took my eye off the ball and left it too late to book us into a cottage in Ruegen (sorry, I don't have an umlaut). Ruegen is an island off the Baltic coast. Meant to be lovely, great for the kids, lots of interesting things to see, but I was too busy frittering time away on Facebook and the like to get it sorted out. And of course it was the German bank holiday, so by the time I did get on to it, what was available was rather expensive.

"Not to worry." says Stevie, "We'll just have to go to Tropical Islands". And I felt kind of trapped. I was left to do the booking. I assumed that he'd want us to stay for a couple of days, and more than likely he'd wanted us to stay over as cheaply as possible. Stevie strongly believes that when you go on holiday there is no point in spending much on your accommodation as you are only going to be there to sleep, and if you're not conscious then what's the point in having a fancy room. Stevie and I, in case you haven't realised this before now, are polar opposites. But seeing as he's the one earning the money now, well, I try to humour him a little.

Thus, sleeping on the beach for 15 Euros each was swiftly ruled out. In fact, I'd ruled that one out before I'd even looked at the website as a friend who'd been who decided they'd had enough at 5am walked to the exit via the beach and described it as looking like everyone had been washed up, and you had to pick your way gingerly through sleeping families crammed into every available space. Option two is to stay in a tent. Fine. (Though I don't much care for camping if the truth be known, but fine). The tents even come with mattresses, pillows, blankets. Great!

It was when I scrolled down and read the notes that I kind of went off the idea. For starters there's the possibility that you'll have to share your tent with other people, unless you are willing to pay for all the beds. But more off-putting than that is the second note which tells you that given the campsites close proximity to the worlds largest indoor rain forest, and the fact that they like to keep things natural, you may also be sharing your tent with cockroaches amongst other things. No thanks. I like to sleep.

There are other much more lovely options when it comes to places to stay but I knew Stevie wouldn't be interested beyond the tent option. So you can imagine I was dreading it. But as luck would have it, he decided that seeing as it was handy enough (it's on the road between Berlin & Dresden) we would just come home.

So we went. And can I just say, really, I had a great time. I may have done a bit of moaning about having to go to the children's play area wearing only a bathing costume but really it was fine. The place was massive, I think it was used to build airships or something in the past, and really it is great inside. The air was warm, the water was as warm as the pee I thought I was swimming in, the kids were happy, and we all had good fun. We spent a good long day there, and all my usual thoughts of germs, fungus, plasters, filth and what have you, disappeared (for the most part) from my mind.

Well, at least until the next day when Hamish threw up on the sofa and wouldn't eat all day, and I lay gr(m)oaning and feeling ghastly & nauseous in bed from all the pee-pee water we had drunk. But would I go back? Actually, I think I might. Though I might have a good moan about it first.

Just don't analyse the state of my bookshelves, ok?

It's Stevie's birthday!
You could be forgiven for thinking he'd just turned 47.

But really he's much younger than that...

I made his 'work' birthday cake. [plain sponge, white chocolate buttercream icing & strawberries, in case you're wondering if that's just a tub of Lurpak spread across there].

His only stipulation was that it shouldn't be teddy-bear shaped.



Boo. To compensate I let the kids decorate his 'personal' birthday cake. Ah...that's much better!

Wow! You look good for your age!

Or the one where Stevie discovers the secret to feeling good about his receding, greying hairline.


Stevie has a thing about his age. Or rather not so much about his age, as he happens to feel like a 20 year old who wouldn't mind meeting the boys for a few beers and then stopping off at a few hip joints to check out the other 20 year olds. But the thing is, while he feels like he is still in the prime of his youthful 20's, about once every few months he catches a glimpse of himself in the mirror, and sees how the +15 years have ravaged his hairline. It's the only time you'll see him a little sad.

A few years ago he used to not be able to see the grey bits which tended to stay hidden until it was time for a haircut. And he definetly could not see his balding patch at the back at the top, and of course being the loyal, loving girlfriend I am, I certainly never pointed it out. In fact, I was the one who coloured it in with a grey felt tip while he slept, all the little greying hairs jumping ship from his head to his pillow as I worked.

Every so often he takes out his old work pass and compares the photo with the one on his new German one. And he sighs. For hair at the front of his head that has long gone, never to return. Does he secretly think of growing a fringe, I wonder? I know he has frightening thoughts first of all about bleaching it all (why? how could that possibly help matters?) and then calms down and considers Just For Men.

But today, he feels great. He is a man with more hair than he thinks he should have. He looks superb, fantastic, handsomely hirsute. The reason being that today he lied about his age. Someone on his football team asked him how old he was, and he said a lie just came out. He told them he was 46. And they said "Wow! That's amazing!". Of course they were referring to his athletic ability on the football pitch, but he's also surmising that he looks great for 46. And so he should, seeing as he's only 35.

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.

Saturday-Shoplifter Stevie

So at the end of my last post I mentioned that I had thought I'd had my purse stolen and then I tried as I thought, unsuccessfully, to cancel my Commerzbank card, and got the neighbours upstairs involved in the cancelling before Stevie came up holding the purse that had been sitting on the sofa.

As things turned out I had quite a lot on my mind the next day what with people poking about with my eyes and then an afternoon split between entertaining the kids and mulling over the prospect of needles in my eye every 8 weeks. Apparently what I should have been doing is going down to the Commerzbank and checking whether I had actually managed to cancel my card. But I didn't. I reasoned that I either had done it, or I hadn't. If I hadn't then, great, next time I used my card all would be fine. If I had cancelleed it then my card wouldn't work and no doubt a new one and a new PIN would be making their way to me some time around Christmas. Or New Year, knowing the Commerzbank.

Am I too casual about things like this? We had cash and I wasn't in any immediate need to take money out. I didn't really give it much thought, and to be honest by Friday I'd forgotten about it. So by today, it was a near distant memory.

Until we went to IKEA. (Why is it that when you combine IKEA, me, and the Commerzbank things go hideously wrong?? Should I change my bank to get out of this horrid cycle?) We had gone sledging nearby and the kids were starving afterwards so as IKEA was handy we stopped off there for some meatballs and I managed to pick up a few storage boxes for the growing Playmobil collection which (note: I handily stacked so they were easier to carry). Oh and they had the kids basket of fabric vegetables back in so I got one of those, and then as we were passing I also thought I should get a new storage jar for my risotto rice. And then because Stevie was getting impatient to the point of not coping with IKEA on a Saturday and because the vegetables were for Orla, he went to the express checkout to pay with his card and I wandered over to the meatball freezer with the kids.

The first thing that really pissed off Stevie was getting accused of shoplifting. It's easy done when you only listen to the first half of your dear girlfriend's conversation regarding toy storage. "Should I get 2 of these? Would you be opposed to me buying another of these storage units in the New Year? Do you even care? Ok, I'm getting 3! Because I am definetly buying that when the car isn't full of sledges and crates of empty bottles.". So he scanned 1 crate twice, and then he got collared and the first I knew about it was him screaming across at me "What? 3??? You never told me you were getting 3? Moan, moan, moan". At this point I could tell that Stevie was getting to the point where he can easily be tipped over the edge of reasonableness into a foul mood not because he was now being classed as a shoplifter, but because the transaction was taking too long.

So I shouted back, "Just forget it then, just get 2. It really doesn't matter", you know as you do, because even though you really want something you'd rather just have an easy life. And then we got to payment. If I had known better I would have walked out of the shop with my children and run for the hills and never returned. But you see, I'd forgotten all about Wednesday night. But I remembered as quick as a flash when his card got rejected and he got directed over to a 'colleague'. Shoplifter and card stealer!

Well, what can I say? I forgot it was a joint account and that he might be affected. Curse the Commerzbank! Curse my successful telephone cancelling!

I am going to end up with a terrible guilt complex. Not only do I feel bad about cancelling Stevie's card, but when we got home I put on the washing machine (with a final big bag of Playmobil in it) and now the washing machine is broken. It isn't able to drain, and we can't find the blockage, and even though there is no substantiating evidence, I think we all know that there is a high probability that a pride of lions are more than likely the cause of our soaking wet floor. Has anyone got a dark hole I can crawl into before the downstairs neighbours come round to complain about the massive costly damp patch on their ceiling?

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.

2 auld witches knocked at my door.

A pretty terrible photo of us but one of only a few where we are all together.

My favourite Brandenburg Gate photo.

Near Checkpoint Charlie

Having fun at the wall near Potsdamer Platz just after we went down the big winter snow slide in rubber rings.

So I never got started 'Herr Carotten'. I was the victim of an elaborate ruse. Stevie came home from work on Friday and started tidying and cleaning the flat just as I was getting a pounding headache that rendered me unable to help much. A coincidence? Normally, I'd say no, but I was so distracted by it I hardly even gave a second thought as to why Stevie might suddenly take it apon himself to clean the shower room.

After dinner he said he was going out to meet a friend who not a week previous had he been saying he thought was an idiot and someone he might try and drift away from. Not even this aroused my suspiscion, as as you may have already garnered, in Stevie-world very little makes sense.

So off he went and I got changed into my pyjamas intending to have an early night to nurse my headache, but instead ended up watching a documentary about Hitler's relatives. Stevie came back a good while later and then a minute later the door buzzer went. Stevie shouted "Are you not going to get that?" and I said "No". For some reason unless there's a possibility that's it's a postman at the door, I have found I have no interest in opening it. Especially not in my pyjamas. With no make-up on. At some time after 10pm.

And then the thought crossed my mind that it was Stevie's friend and that he'd followed him home. This was a reasonable thing to think at the time as Stevie came home calling the guy all sorts of names and it sounded like they might have had an argument. So I wandered up to the door to have a look through the spy hole, not thinking at the time that this person would have had to have gotten through 2 locked doors to get to our door, and again Stevie asked me to open it. So I did, and there were two people in rubber witches masks in my doorway. In the second before they took off the masks I had time to give an inward groan at the prospect of early Halloweener's with whom I would struggle to communicate the message 'I have no sweeties! Beat it!' without sounding aggressive. But then the masks came off, and I had one of those split-second stream of consciousness thoughts which went along the lines of 'I recognise them, but I can't think where in Berlin I know them from. Crap, I'm going to have to say hello in a minute and yet I can't think who the hell they are. Bookgroup? No. German school? No. Kita? No. Oh my god, it's my best friends from Derby!'. It was very odd getting my head round them being so out of context as I hadn't thought they would be coming over until late next year, if at all.

So after getting over the surprise and shock it was lovely. We had a great weekend doing all the touristy things, and shopping, and eating, and taking photos, and generally having just a great laugh. I would love if they could surprise me again this weekend. The time just flew by too quickly.

Welcome to Anywhere

If you post me back I'll see less of the place, right? Oh and can you send me by DHL? I want to get back in time for Emmerdale.

So you've got a few hang-ups about the war. And you've convinced yourself that Berlin is probably still a war-torn city lying in ruins. And it scores high on your list of 'Places I Wouldn't Visit In A Million Years'. So what do you do when friends and family move there and you'd really quite like to see them?

Fret not, dear readers, for Stevie has a solution.

Welcome to Anywhere Weekends ... where a holiday is a home from home.

• Start off Friday evening with a badly home cooked meal courtesy of my good self.
  
• Then it's off to the Irish Pub for some Guinness and maybe a few Baileys for the ladies.
  
• Saturday brings a whirlwind of excitement with a visit to a tropical paradise all under a roof and hot all year round (~ sounds a bit like the pool at Center Parcs to me), then maybe a spot of shopping at H&M, eh... IKEA, and eh.... Starbucks.
  
• Close your eyes on the way to dinner, enter the wary travellers safe haven, and savour the smell of your McDonalds. Hey, your on your holidays, why not go large?
  
• Sunday brings a day of relaxation, enjoy your surroundings (in the flat) and stop moaning.
  
• Round off your trip on Monday with a quick dash round the airport shops to stock up on Toblerone and Pringles, and before you know it you're back home.

And don't eat all my chocolate digestives while you're here.

Fed up with Facebook

It was fun for a while, Facebook, wasn't it?

I really enjoyed looking at photos of people I haven't seen since school, university, previous workplaces, and their babies, and their weddings, and holidays. Of course I have always been one to reciprocate. I have plenty of albums of photos of my kids and places I've been and all that kind of stuff.

And I really have enjoyed being back in touch with people who I never would have otherwise, and now I have lots of little friendships re-ignited and all of that is brilliant and makes me happy. And of course it's really handy with us being away for two years. People can keep up with what we're up to and how the kids are changing and growing and it's an easy way to stay in contact.

But recently I started to get sick of the whole thing. I used to post links to my blog through Facebook but then I realised that there were probably quite a few people on there that I really didn't want knowing exactly what I was doing. Not for any terrible reason, just little things like one person who had previously been a good friend who when they moved house just wouldn't even give me their new address to send a card to. Needless to say, why would I want to share what is going on in my life with them. So they were the first person I deleted. (Though actually, going by my little visitor monitor, I think they are still reading the blog, and it's about high time they stuck to their guns and got lost).

Then other friends started doing 'friend culls' of people who they either had made friends with and then had nothing to do with, or people who "bring nothing to the party". You know, the ones who don't do anything on Facebook but lurk around looking at everyone elses stuff and usually haven't even bothered to put up a profile photo. When I stopped posting links to my blog one of these people got in touch with me and asked what was going on in my life as I had been a bit quiet recently. Literally a one line email. I'm surprised they didn't just ask for the web address.

Then I discovered that I could be a bit more experimental with the privacy settings, and I started to block some people's access to certain photo albums, links, and so on. Again, someone who has never put up a single photo emailed me asking if I had had a good holiday and where were the photos from it. Not that my photos are really anything of interest to most people.

And recently it's been friend requests. It's such a sensitive subject for people. If you don't accept their friend request then people take offence. That's fine if it's someone from school or whatever that you never see anyway, but it's a bit more difficult when it's Stevie's friends who we see sometimes when we go back to Scotland. Or your mother-in-law or your mother-in-law's best friend. It's not that I don't like these people, but I certainly don't want them seeing all the little funny things I might say about life with Stevie...now do I?

So it's just becoming a lot less fun and too much like a hassle. Or maybe I'm just tired and need to stop taking it so seriously and go to bed.

Pork comes to those who wait

Oh how refreshed I've felt today. I have stumbled through the day so tired that I can barely think. I tried to think of something simple to make for dinner, but I couldn't think of anything beyond pork. I am utterly sick of it, but still I made it. Pork loins in a honey and mustard glaze. The kids are also sick to death of pork. Hamish asked what we were eating, and so fearful was I that if I said pork he wouldn't eat it, I lied and said chicken. I think we're all sick of chicken too.

I am going to be inspired by this Julie & Julia film (if ever I get to see it) and am going to broaden my culinary repertoire---somehow---not sure how yet. It's taken me 30 odd years to get to pork with a honey and mustard glaze, and I feel I need to act fast before we have pork break downs. Stevie has warned me that if I make "meatballs with that bloody pork mince" one more time in the near future he'll lose the will to live. This from a man who claims "It doesn't matter what you eat, it's just going into your stomach to be churned up and made into energy". It's a recipe book tagline just waiting to happen.

Fun times at the Baltic Sea (Warning: It's a poo story)

We went to the Baltic coast yesterday. It's not a place that I would ever have thought of going; it doesn't conjure up great images in my mind. Given the name, I think it's going to be pretty cold, and possibly a bit grey and murky. But, having been, I can say it's lovely and almost worth the 4.5 hour drive it took to get there. It should have only taken 2 and a bit but the German's believe in doing proper roadworks. They don't just dig up a small section at a time and work on that, they take the whole road away and start again. I bet it takes less time that way, but it's not great if you're trying to travel.

Anyway, if you get the chance to visit it, it's really pretty. We went to Warnemunde (which should have an umlaut in it, but who knows where that kind of punctuation is on this keyboard). The sea was shallow and a reasonable 20 degrees, though Hamish continously yelled "I don't like this swimming pool!" but he did enjoy the sand which was a lovely light golden colour and only contained a spattering of cigarette butts which, (given our limited experience) seems quite unusual for Germany.

Hamish managed to make the day more interesting by doing a jobby (that'll be a 'poo' for English speakers) inside his all-in-one swim/sun protection suit. My brain wasn't working properly after my long drive, and I couldn't think how I should resolve the situation on the beach with 2 toddlers and an audience of thousands without leaving all our belongings unattended including my precious camera, so I called Stevie in out of the water where he was having a swim and let him resolve it with his, ...eh... hand. It was so utterly disgusting, my sides ached from laughing.

This demonstrates the difference between my beloved and me. I would have dragged Hamish up and down the beach hunting for a toilet, all the time worrying that it would be giving him a sore bum (and it seemed the closest toilets were in the town), or have tried to think of an ingenious solution whereby I would have wrapped my hands in wipes and (oh this isn't painting a good picture, is it? I hope you're not eating your dinner). Stevie's brain, on the other hand, thinks in simple terms - Retrieve, remove, what with? Ah, hand. there is no messing about in Stevie-land. Though my brain, even if it thought along similar lines to Stevie's would have taken it down the leg (the suit stopped at the knee and as Hamish doesn't have particularly long legs, it's not so much of a distance). But, to reach down the back of his NECK?????

Meatballs & aeroplane engines

Hamish likes to ask me in the morning where 'Daddy has gone'. I usually tell him he has gone to work, except occasionally in our pre-Berlin days when he went to play football on Saturday morning. Recently our early morning conversation about Daddy's whereabouts has moved on a question: I tell him that Daddy has gone to work, and he says "To make meatballs?". I'm not sure where he has got this idea from, but it's just easier I find to say "yes".

Orla, on the other hand is old enough to handle the truth. She asked me what Daddy does at work, and I told her that "Daddy makes aeroplane engines. That's why people are scared to fly."