Like I say, I'm not immune.

It's very likely that this could be the last time we have the joy of racing back to Berlin and waiting for a big box of goodies to arrive. So this time I thought I would share with you the kind of crap essentials that I buy to make my expat life more complete. The theme of this box is 'back to school meets supermarket sweep'. Enjoy it in all it's glorious minutiae. 

So where to start. Shoes! Kids shoes in Germany are far more expensive than in the UK, and although many Germans will argue that their price here reflects better quality, it's not really true. Shoes are just ridiculously expensive, and if I can time a trip back to coincide with a need for shoes then I'm happy. So from left to right (below) you can see where I started to go a bit shoe crazy: Orla got school boots, snow boots, Hamish got snow boots too, then Orla's school shoes, then Hamish's school shoes, both sets of trainers for sport at school (all from Clarks), pink sparkly wellies for Orla - from Mothercare (I managed to leave Hamish's at my parents) and lastly purple Nike trainers for me which were a bargain and bought with a voucher left over from Christmas.



Next up you can see some PE shorts, a Sylvanian Families Wedding Car, one of three cookbooks I had waiting on me that I had ordered from The Book People (Rachel Allen's 'Entertaining at Home, Delia's Complete Cookery Course, and I got Jamie's Great Britain for free.). And just before we went to Scotland I decided what I really needed was an ice cream machine. I found this one on Amazon UK for just under £20 and it gets great reviews. My first try was a little disasterous, but I am sure it will be great with a bit of practice! Anyway it was probably the heaviest thing in the box as it has a double walled insulated bowl which is really heavy.

Next up, clockwise from top left, a cake mould which is 6 little gingerbread men that I couldn't not buy from Wilkinson's, which is lying slightly on top of 2 double sheets which really are dirt cheap in Tesco. Next are a couple of things left over from Christmas which I decided to squeeze in for the kids: foam letters and foam face parts which I bought in the sale at the Early Learning Centre. Below them are some glittery craft shapes (always going to be handy for school projects! Though probably for me and not the kids!). Two books I picked up in Tesco, as I feel our bookshelves really do need a good refreshing. Two little tops and a card for one of my friends who has just had a baby boy, some food clips which are smaller than the IKEA ones, a DVD, and 3 bottles of Mr Muscle Kitchen Cleaner (yes, I know I could buy kitchen cleaner here, but I just like this best). Oh and right at the top is an extra large pencil case for all of Orla's felt tip pens.

Again from top left, I went a wee bit mad in Wilkinson's as everything seemed such a great bargain. I bought 12 (2 packs) of star shaped silicone cupcake cases, 2 children's mixing spoons, some stationary on a 4 for £1 deal that I could put in the kids Schultutes (though I brought a carrier bag more of this in my hand luggage for that purpose), 2 Crayola craft kits (maybe for presents?) and an awful lot of starry cupcake cases in paper. It always surprises me that while Dr Oetker is a German company, the range in Germany is far more limited than it is in Britain. Odd.

These things are all sitting on box number 2 which contains books I had sent to my mums ages ago. I bought the full range of Roald Dahl books for the kids - I think Orla is just about the right age for me to start reading some of them to her. I bought the cookbooks mentioned above, and a set of Harlan Coben books that my mum recommended but which I have never read. In front of the box is some chocolate, the kids don't see much white chocolate here and you don't really get buttons, white brown or otherwise, so...

Below those are some more craft things, patterned papers, glittery paper, and dinosaur stickers. Below those are some Winnie the Pooh cookie cutters (which were meant to be in a Christmas gift for someone, but which were discovered at my parents) and 3 packs of Crayola felt tips which can go into presents for school friends as a wee extra.

Now you can see at the top the tripod my dad bought for me in Aldi or Lidl which I used last night while a bit drunk at my friend's party. The purpose of which is to stop any camera shake, but weirdly the amount of alcohol I drank still seems to have affected the focus of my photos. Oh dear. Then a Lego book also from the Book People which contains Lego and guidelines on how to make about a dozen little toys. A swim cap and googles for Hamish's school swimming lessons, a blue stripy top (part of a set of 2) and a bear hat for Orla from M&S. Cream cable knit leggings from Tesco for Orla which I thought looked warm for winter under dresses. Make up from Boots for me. I planned on stocking up but they are changing the packaging this week, so all the old No.7 range was in the sale and there wasn't much left to buy. Two shopping bags from Tesco, a Cars jigsaw we never shipped back at Christmas, and some plasticine (perhaps left over from Christmas??)

Beside Hamish's swimming cap are a selection of DVD's from Granny Margaret, some tights from Mothercare for winter for Orla, a nice bright cardi from M&S, 1 pair (from a pack of 2) jogging bottoms for Hamish, and enough clasps to hopefully restrain Orla's hair until at least Christmas. I have stopped buying clasps that cost much as she seems to lose them on a near daily basis.

Beside the coloured tights, there are tights for school and a million pairs of pants for both kids, Orla's £3 for a pack of 5 from Tesco, and Hamish's £7 for 5 Fireman Sam ones and half price £3.50 for Thomas ones, both from M&S. Below those some swimming trunks in the sale for Hamish for his weekly swimming lessons, and packs of school socks for both of them from M&S.

 Finally, packs of vests for winter for both kids, 2 of Hamish's 'guys', a whole bunch of underwear for me, 3 pairs of pirate mix and match pyjamas for Hamish from M&S, a tankini for Orla in the next size up (it was in the sale), and 2 plain white polo tops which I can potentially sneak under their school jumpers even though they don't have the school logo. These were priced at £2 for a 2 pack in Tesco! And that's not even a sale price. And there we have it. Back to school shopping (more or less) in a nutshell.

The Chocolate Afternoon

How did I manage to leave Fassbender & Rausch without entering a sugar-enduced coma?

This afternoon I took the kids on a small chocolate tour of Berlin. Very small. We only covered the Gendarmenmarkt area of Berlin, the bit where you have the Französische Dom and Deutsches Dom - it's just behind Friedrichstrasse. I have been waiting to take the pair of them to the Ritter Sport shop for ages, but I keep forgetting to do it. In fact if I am honest, I've been hoping that we could stay in Berlin for another 3 years purely based on the Ritter Sport place off Friedrichstrasse. And the reason is because you have to be a minimum of 7 years old to have a shot of wearing a little Ritter Sport white lab coat and getting to go down to the basement to design your own chocolate. Alternatively, I'd be happy if any of you could find a machine that would take 30 years off my age and to hell with the kids; I'll take a day off school and go myself. 

The Ritter Sport shop, buzzing with like minded souls.

So, anyway, this was our first time there and it's a chocolate lovers dream. Seriously. You walk in and there's a huge queue of people waiting at a counter to request a member of Ritter Sport staff to pour melted chocolate into a mould for them and then sprinkle 1 of about 40 toppings on it. It then gets stuck in a fridge for a bit and then popped out of the mould, packaged and sold to you. Yum.

Behind this area is the shop where you can buy a huge range of Ritter Sport chocolate. They have teeny ones, normal sized packs, and huge carrier bags of the stuff. Actually I was very tempted to buy a carrier bag of it - it was only 13 Euros something, which seemed like a total bargain. But I restrained myself, cause I know I would have wanted to eat it all in one night.

No chocolate is too big for us.

Instead I let the kids choose a block each from a massive wall of chocolate. Each bar is only around 85 cents, so that seemed pretty good value to me, and we bought a special '100 years of Ritter Sport' bar for my dad. My mum will be delighted, seeing as he's a diabetic too. Upstairs you can learn all about the process  of making chocolate and visit the cafe. It's a lovely place and I would have been very tempted to stay and try out some of their cakes, but I reckon their cafe is actually dearer than the one on the other stop on our chocolate tour. Because just at the corner of Charlottenstrasse you'll find Fassbender & Rausch.

Fassbender & Rausch in Gendarmenmarkt.

If you want to make your chocolate-loving heart skip a beat, then this is the place to come. It's gorgeous. It's all lovely and dark and chocolatey inside with a distinctly old-fashioned feel - the way a chocolate shop should feel. Darkened glass cabinets with row apon row of stacked chocolate in all the colours of the chocolate rainbow. Turn a corner and there are more dark cabinets filled with just enough gorgeously presented little desserts to make you instantly justify their price as something you deserve. I wish I had visited this place sooner. It's just lovely. And it's the perfect place to send all your touristy friends. Not only can they immerse themselves in the enveloping chocolatey smell that draws you in at the door, but they'll also have the added bonus of seeing all the sights made out of chocolate while they are there, including the Reichstag, the Brandenburg Gate, the Gedachtniskirche, and um... the Titanic. Who cares, there's the possibility that they might bring you back something. It's got to be worth it!

It's so unfair to keep it behind glass.

The staff all speak German and English which makes it even easier to buy chocolate. I decided to ask about the chocolate factory they have in Tempelhof, to see if it was worth going to with the kids. Apparently it is essentially a factory shop (which sounds like it might have good discounts), which has a big window where you can look into the workshop. They said that you can see 'more' in the actual shop, and I guess it probably would be better for kids in the shop. Anyway, I got rewarded for carrying out my conversation in German with a little 'under the counter' piece of chocolate, and the kids each got a bit too. So there's my top tip: take some kids, and ask each member of staff a question in German, and see if you can score some free squares of chocolate off of them.

We're going to party like it's 8 years before you were born.

We had a great time. We are quite good at celebrating, I think. There were moments where I felt like I could happily kill some people, and vowed never to have a kids party in my home again, but on the whole, I'd say we all enjoyed ourselves massively, guests included. After a late nights prep where I kind of panicked about not knowing just how many people would be coming and ended up making enough cupcakes to feed the whole building, I was awoken at 5 (how apt) by the birthday girl. Lucky me to get to share in her excitement when I hadn't gone to bed until after midnight.

We'd been decorating, clearing, prepping, tidying, and all the other things you need to do. I gave a very relaxed Stevie a bag of balloons to blow up. My theory is that kids of Orla and Hamish's age are happy as long as there are balloons and music. So I went mad on the balloons too. We nearly blacked out simultaneously trying to get them all blown up. It was fun. We veered from lightheadedness into near unconsciousness many, many times until Stevie begged me to find my balloon pump. 

I left him to finish up while I got on with the finishing touches... Little did I know he had left the balloon pump lying out so when I got ready to get my modelling balloons ready the next morning, it turned out Orla had managed to break it. I could have cried. Well, not really, I was a bit annoyed at not being able to do it, but not so much that I wanted to go out and find a new pump. Hell, I was up to my eyeballs preparing the unhealthiest food kids could ever desire. 

Actually, in the 5 hours sleep I got I had a nightmare about the children having huge allergic reactions to the cake glitter. It's edible, and it looks amazing, but they do recommend that you *don't eat it*. I ignored that advice, valuing aesthetics over possible seizures, and then spent my sleeping hours in torment. 

And my little princess & my little pirate (who couldn't understand why I was making him wear his pyjama bottoms) were packed with excitement like little tightly coiled springs waiting for the party to start. Everyone arrived at once, bang on 2pm, someone gave me 30 seconds warning of their child's *severe* nut allergy  - I did mention the cake glitter *may* be made with peanut oil...but they decided to take their chances in exchange for sparkly prettiness. And no kids died or ended up in hospital, so that was good!

So we danced, played games, gave out prizes for being good, and some for those who were utterly crap, ate, sung, laughed, broke up arguments, and ran around like nutcases. What more do you want from a party, well except copious amounts of alcohol? That would have been nice.

By quarter to 4 they were creating an awesome amount of noise, and we left them to play in Orla's room. The girls mostly took to the tent and camped out, while the boys jumped, and argued, and bounced, and ran around some more. And then bang on 4pm all the parents appeared as if by magic and whisked their buzzing little kids away, and just like that, it was over.

Let's hope Santa is real

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

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

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

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

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

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

2011: The year I wanted to lick my son.

Farewell to longish lie-ins on Christmas.
I was woken at 5am by someone shouting "I need the front door open!"
For it is Nikolaus, the 6th of December, fill your boots with chocolate, don't confuse him with Santa, time.

Marek? Who is Marek??? Who cares. You had me at "hello".

I believe in Nikolaus. Mostly because this year he seemed to have been thinking of me too. The kids put their boots out just before they went to bed, and just before I went to bed I handily remembered that I had forgotten to fill them. That would have been a bummer for the early risers this morning. I would have had to have said that patently their behaviour hadn't been deemed good enough this year and empty boots meant that they were in for a darn good spanking. However, when I opened the door last night to my delight, the boots had already been filled! With Lindt Santas. And not just that. But 'Marek' above was sitting on the doormat. In true Cinderella style, I know Marek was left for me, because he fits in my boot. And as for all this sharing nonsense the kids are coming away with, well, it's funny how I only hear that word when they're not the ones skipping in circles up and down the hall, cradling their Santa-shaped-built-for-diabetics-who'll-happily-take-another-zillion-units-of-insulin-just-to-cover-this-breakfast. Uh-huh, you want to share? You can have the ribbon at the top. 


Orla, who seems to have inherited Stevie's self-control has gone off to school with a small chocolate hippo (that would have been from me obviously - totally off-theme) which she's keeping until lunchtime. Hamish on the other hand, sat in a huff because he wanted to eat all the chocolate for breakfast and was being forced to eat at-least-some-toast before being let loose on a Lindt Santa. I don't know who he takes after to be honest. Must be some distant relation on Stevie's side...

There goes at least 50 cents worth down the drain.

And I can honestly say, this is the first time ever that I have thought "I'd quite like to lick your hands clean" and had to steel myself to say "Let's get you to the bathroom without touching ANYTHING on the way".

Links:
'The Local' gives the lowdown on Nikolaus (http://www.thelocal.de/society/20111206-15915.html)

Advent calendars galore!!!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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



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

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

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

Hands up if you want me to post you some!

Do you remember just over a year ago when Kraft foods took over Cadbury's? Everyone was worried about the outcome for Cadbury's with union bosses prophetsising factory closures and job losses. One year on, and there is still concern for both jobs and factories. (See links below for further info)

Kraft also own Milka. Milka is lovely. You more than likely know that because you can get it everywhere. Only people like Stevie who neither eat chocolate nor give shop shelves more than a passing glance would not be aware of it's existence. (Though who knows, maybe there are places outside Europe that you can't get it. I wonder, is there any airport in the world where you can't buy a Toblerone?). Anyway, back to Milka...

Well, of course, sometimes not everything turns out well. We tend to dislike the idea of big companies like Kraft coming along and tampering with our Milka bars and our Dairy Milks. Kraft just don't have the right to play God when it comes to our chocolate products. Did you click the link? Did it make you feel just a little bit sick? I saw a massive billboard with that advertised on it, and it literally made my stomach turn. Though from scouting around the internet for images, it certainly gets a lot of positive reviews.

I wouldn't like to think that one day I might buy a Creme Egg or 12, only to discover that they were filled with a mix of fondant and cream cheese. There's a chance the shock could kill me before the sugar rush. But, have you seen the pictures? Have you gazed longingly at what I found in the shops? It seems like a genetically engineered dream! A cross between a Creme Egg and a Milka bar! And the box! How...just...'delightful' is that? I think I love everything from the eating guidelines, to the 2 little plastic spoons. Though I can't work out if that means you are meant to share with someone else and eat 2 in one sitting, or whether the spoons are flimsy and getting through all 4 will cause you to snap your spoon in reckless abandon!

I bought these for my neice to whom at Christmas I gifted a year of chocolate. Each month I try and find her something different that she might never have tried from 'over here' and send it with a different Berlin postcard and a little note. The trouble is, that these are meant for March - it's not that long since I sent February's, and I was fearful that they might not survive when I knew where I had hidden them. So I bought another box. The kids and I will road test them, just to make sure they are not off or anything.

Now you could look at the links below, or you could just scroll back up and lick the screen.

• Cadbury's Chairman speaking about the takeover - (BBC News)


• The founder's great-great-grandaughter talking on the Today Programme about 'the horror story' (BBC)


• The Kraft/Cadbury takeover - 1 year on. (BBC News)

...way back, back into time...

If I didn't feel so nauseous I'd lick myself clean like a cat.

... to the days when being ill was nice, even a joy. Do you remember? It wasn't that long ago. Let me remind you: Once apon a time you could be as sick as you like, throwing up at your pleasure, lying in bed moaning and wailing and feeling as sorry for yourself as you liked, maybe even treating yourself to a wee cry just because you feel really crap, just because you can.

I could take you back even further to a beautiful time when there was someone to check you were ok, to see if you felt like eating some toast, or maybe a wee bit scrambled egg, and bringing you colouring books and comics in bed. But no, we don't need to go that far back to remember the simple pleasures of illness. Just 4 or so years.

To a time before kids. It's not that I don't appreciate that I now have a tag team of enthusiastic youngsters willing to hold back my hair, joyfully recreating the wretching noises, and even occasionally saying "It's ok Mummy, it's ok." accompanied by a wee pat on the arm. It's just that I'd really like to be in bed, reading magazines and books and drifting off to sleep as and when it comes up my humpf.

Today I am accompanied by two sick toddlers. I feel rocky, Orla has a temperature, Hamish is on the potty every 10 minutes, but the thing with toddler sickness is that they don't want to just lie in bed. They want to do stuff, make glittery pictures, grind Playdoh into the rug, make massive amounts of mess, make their mummy yelp in pain as a small plastic hippo is tossed into the path of her walking feet.

I want to lie still, drink tea, consume as much paracetemol as is possible without making my innards conk out to ease the razor blade agony living in my throat. I want a nice hot bath when I feel cold and I wouldn't mind watching some DVD's under a great big quilt. I do not want to go to the zoo and see baby animals.

Of course last night I made the mistake of not feeling tired and stayed up late pottering about with a German chocolate face mask on. From what I could gether from the packaging you could eat it if you were in desperate need of some chocolate and no harm would befall you. I would need to be stuck up a mountain with only the choice of that or some Kendal mint cake to keep me going in order for me to eat 'cosmetic products' (though god knows I bet you eat enough lipsticks in your lifetime, but at least that is more of a passive activity).

Anyway, come 2am I struck gold with Orla having a raging temperature and needing a hanky for her nose every 5 minutes. I'm feeling very tired, and I still have chocolate in my eyebrows. Times like this I wish I had a dog.

Celebrating the 6th

On the 4th of Decmber it was our 6 month anniversary of life in Berlin. We have all celebrated this with a delightful sick bug that has had us running out of sheets (Hamish keeps being sick in the bed) and we've all felt utterly hideous for the past couple of days. Orla is much better and seems to have had it the mildest and I am finally getting over it today.

Anyway, today is the 6th of December, don't you know. As in the day that (not Santa) Nikolaus lets us know how good or naughty my children have been. Sadly I missed my 'discussion' with my upstairs neighbour on this topic: I'm hoping the sound of wretching coming from downstairs stopped her from ringing our bell. Nonetheless, I dragged myself to the door this morning out of pure nosiness, and to see whether we really were going to be stick recipients. But no! She had used the childrens boots and put these little felt Christmas bags in them.

The contents included: a Kinder chocolate Santa; Lindt chocolate squares (I think Nikolaus might have meant some of these for me); a bag of Christmassy biscuits; and a healthy little bag of raisins and nuts. You're disappointed aren't you? You thought we'd get sticks, didn't you?

Update: I've just read a really good explanation of the 6th Dec Celebrations in 'The Local' (Germany's news in English)

Happy Easter!

I've been keeping Easter quiet. Orla has grasped that there's something with little chicks and hats and eggs, and who knows maybe her work (nursery) will have gone into the religious side of things, but the chocolate side of things I have been keeping quiet. I don't let them have masses of chocolate and they don't eat sweets at all. My mother-in-law and possibly quite a few of my friends think I am a food fascist on this score but I know that there will come a time when sweeties will come into their life all by themselves without my introducing them.

7am: Hamish turns on the tv as soon as he gets downstairs. Orla grateful for his skill at finding Milkshake on Channel 5 sits down and listens as the presenter says "...is busy eating his easter eggs already. Happy Easter, everyone! Hope you are all enjoying your easter egg!". Orla to mummy: "I don't want breakfast. I want easter eggs!". Ha, ha, so much for keeping it quiet!