Diary of a move: when life gets in the way

I think we've all woken up in Barbie's shoes after 6 too many cocktails.

I can't help but think that sometimes in life things happen in order to teach you important lessons about not being too lazy and disorganised and not to leave all the sorting through and throwing out until the day before you move. I believe this because this kind of thing happens to me quite a lot, and my personality type is aligned to just ignore it and carry on merrily surfing the internet without a care in the world. La, la, la-la, la!

Given that Hamish is still getting over his hernia operation, and I am utterly beyond tired keeping tabs on his movements like a Stasi agent with strong suspicions that he's up to no good; I was comfortable with the fact that I was pretty much incapable of doing much else. The dishes have pretty much sat in the sink since Monday night, though I have become more experimental in trying out non-dishwasher safe things in the dishwasher (who knew that Calpol measuring spoons melt in relatively hot water!?), while I have been dealing with the pretty much constant chants of "Mama! Mama!" (Hamish has decided to go German post-operatively it seems). So you can imagine the delight in my voice as I exclaimed "Oh. You. Are. Kidding!" at 1am when I heard a different voice whimpering "Mama! Mama!" from a different room. And ta-da! Orla had  a temperature.

Orla keeps in generally good health. A fact that always surprises me when I realise she hasn't missed a day of school through illness since she started. I like to pat myself on the back thinking that my general shoddy levels of household cleanliness have contributed towards a sterling immune system. Anyway, talk about hard work: it's been crap. I had to take Hamish back to see the surgeon at his clinic in the middle of nowhere yesterday and thankfully Stevie stayed home to look after Orla while I took him. I was really pleased that the operation seems to have gone very well, and Hamish was especially pleased to have the dressing removed and to get the news that he could now have a bath (albeit a camomile tea bath).

I am trying to be more organised about this move, and am taking the opportunity whenever I have it to sort through a cupboard, or clean a bookshelf or whatever while I supervise Hamish to make sure he's not abseiling or whatever in whatever room he happens to be in. So I decided to clean the world's most awkward corner bath before Hamish bathed in it - best not to allow the sediment that lingers under the bath toys that never get removed because they're too awkward to get to, to get into the wound. Anyway, given I had Stevie to take over child supervision, I went for it, and cleaned the giant tiled shelf behind the bath. It's like a metre deep and I can count the number of times I have properly scrubbed it on one finger.

Armed with my Cif with Bleach I scrubbed and scrubbed until everything was sparkling. It brought tears to my eyes to see it so clean, though I suspect that was the fumes from the bleach. Then I rinsed and rinsed and rinsed some more, before running Hamish's bath and boiling up a nice 4 bag litre of tea to pop into it. This is the second prescribed batch of camomile tea baths in our house in the past two weeks - seems to be far more popular here than in the UK. I imagine it is very soothing and gentle on the skin; ideal for after an operation. It was not camomile though that Hamish smelt of as I lifted him out of the bath, but the rather pungent perfume of bleach. God, I felt sick at the thought of it. Mind you, at least the wound was clean.... (arrgghh!!!!)

So terrible a mother I felt, that I did my utmost to make up for it, cooking favourite meals, letting Hamish play a little bit later than normal before bed, etc. Guilt makes me awfully productive. It does nothing for my prioritisation skills however. So instead of getting the dishes done, I stayed up late sewing sleeping bags for Barbie to go camping with. I knew Orla really wanted them and given how rotten she was feeling, I knew she'd be over the moon to discover them in the morning. Today has been a marginal improvement on yesterday, though Orla's temperature keeps going up every time the medicine times out, but we're getting there.

I'm still shattered, but what this has taught me is that things like illness could really put a spanner in the works if it had happened closer to the move, so I need to be organised and get things done early. The removal team manager phoned yesterday and told us that we have 50% more stuff than what we came here with. In my opinion that's utter nonsense, but nonetheless, I am now going through stuff ruthlessly. Or rather I would be if  I wasn't sitting here messing about on the internet....

The taste of homoeopathic dirt

My fluffy patch of hair is feeling a little under the weather.

Call me Captain Bronchitis! I have the power! The power to identify the first stages of bronchitis at 20 paces. Bring me a child, and I will diagnose them! Yup, Hamish is ill again. I am so bored of bronchitis already. I have lost count via all the sleepless nights I've had of the number of times he's had it.

So I had an inkling that it was on it's way again. Something funny about his breathing that I couldn't just put down to a regular sniffly cold. So I made a appointment for the following day, and yesterday we went to see the Kinderarzt. Turns out that I caught the bronchitis right at the beginning stages, and his oxygen saturation levels were still high, but I'd missed that he had a virus as well, and also a middle ear infection. Ah well, can't win them all. Just as well I'm not a doctor, eh?

We walked away with a carrier bag of medicine which cost 58 Euros. For that sum I got a new inhaler thing, which we've had before, but which I suspect is nearly empty because I use it with him every time I think his breathing is a bit funny, and I don't want to admit to the doctor that I am self-medicating him. Though he started talking to me about whether I had used any of the spare suppositories we had for him, but in my book that's taking self-medicating a finger up the bum too far. Anyway, he gave me 2 more suppositories for fun evenings in when his breathing is really bad, a nasal spray, some ibuprofen, and a bottle of homoeopathic medicine for the middle ear infection.

Keeping a check on the timings of all these medicines is an art. The last one, the homoeopathic one needs to be taken every hour up to 10 times a day. Just 6 drops on a spoon. I have no hang ups with homoeopathic medicine, my mum used to give me arnica when I was a child, but I do know that people say that the active ingredient is so diluted that there is no way that it can work. So seeing Hamish's face screw up and his whole body shudder at the first administration came as a surprise to me. He said " I think Dr ----- has made a mistake with my medicine. This can't be for me. This tastes like yucky dirt.". So I tried it. Jeez-us-CHRIST!!! Even I dived for a drink to take the taste away. So hideously intense! So utterly vile! I even triple checked the box to make sure I wasn't meant to put the 6 drops in his ear rather than in his mouth. If this is the stuff diluted I can't imagine what it's like in undiluted form. It better work, is all I can say. I have faith that something that tastes that bad must be doing some good. And now, wish me luck for I must go and administer the next dose.

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.".

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.

An apple a day...

photo & artwork copyright of Tiel Seivl-Keevers

....is just what I need right now.

I've been a little off-colour over the past couple of days with a stomach bug. Today at least I managed to get out of bed. To cheer myself up I bought myself a lovely apple from one of my favourite artists, Tiel Seivl-Keevers from Australia. She has a few of these in her Tsk Tsk Petite shop, and really I would love to buy another 3 of them as I think they would look lovely either grouped in a square or in a horizontal line.

I love Tiel's work and the fact that she has managed to produce artwork & build a business while having two children leaves me somewhat in awe of her. She's started producing gorgeous paintings and artworks for her other store Tsk Tsk. I love these. I hardly dare look at them because I can't afford them. And then I do go and look at them and I think "hmm...but I could get one of the '8 days a week' prints that I bought for my sister for myself", and then I have to stop myself. Paypal is so easy and such a dangerous thing.

The time I confused bronchitis for a hernia

'Sister' checks the the patients 'vitals' (dummy, blanket, DVD on loop) and dispenses with the use of sterile gloves. "A nice cup of tea and you'll be right as rain in no time!"

Here's the thing. Hamish has a hernia. A teeny tiny umbilical hernia, that was diagnosed the minute we moved to Germany and had our first appointment with our Kinderarzt (paediatrician). I had always thought that there was something 'not quite right' (I won't go into details - it would embarrass him too much) and had asked our GP in Derby what was going on. They always said they weren't sure and told me to come back every six months when they would tell me again that they weren't sure.

Our Kinderarzt is really good. He's friendly (not always the case with German doctors who can quite often lack "bedside manner"), he's excellent at his job, and he's happy to see you at any time. To the point whereby he gave us his mobile number so we can call him anytime. Yeah, yeah, I know that's because it's all private insurance here so technically we're paying for that, but I just can't get my head round a doctor giving us his number so we could call at 3 am on a Sunday morning if we wanted (or should that be 'needed'?). The only way you'd get the mobile number of a GP in the UK is if you had had a particularly successful date with one (and you weren't their patient).

In the last couple of days Hamish has been complaining that his 'booby hurts'. His 'booby' is what he calls his tummy. In the main it's been when he's climbing stairs or when he's running, and he's been putting a hand to his tummy and crying 'Ow!'. I kept my eye on things for a couple of days and then made the appointment with the doctor. My view (and God knows, us Gray's do quite like to self-diagnose) was that his hernia had perhaps got worse and it was this giving him pain.

So, I tell the doctor what I think and he has a little feel and asks if there is anything else wrong with Hamish. "No", I say, "not really". I mention that he has a cough and a cold, but you know...

He asks, "Have you given him anything for it?". "Well, no". Of course I haven't given him anything. Because in the UK you're not allowed to buy or give cough medicine to a child of Hamish's age. You used to be able to, but they decided that 'suppressing a cough' should be illegal. It's better for you to suffer and cough all through the night keeping your parents up. And in all seriousness I do agree with the NHS on their decision. That's not to say I haven't gone to a Tesco (alone) before and pretended I had an 8 year old in dire need of some children's Benylin.

In Germany though you can buy children's cough medicines. But strangely, I didn't rush out and buy a crate-load as soon as I arrived in this country. Though I may take some back when I return to the UK. (In the same way I stock-piled Calpol, buying it 2 bottles at a time before I came here)

Then right on cue, Hamish started wheezing. Ach Manno! as they say. There are times when I would have given either of my children a mountain of chocolate buttons if they had just displayed half the symptoms they had 10 minutes earlier in the house, instead of making a miraculous recovery the moment I walked into the surgery, thus rendering me a fool in front of the doctor. Anyway, this time the total opposite. I swear I had never heard him wheeze before.

The doctor asks "Why didn't you bring him in with this cough?" (Might I add, with a scowl). I tried to explain that I hadn't even thought about it. "What? This boy has bronchitis!". And here we can see the difference between the NHS and private healthcare. In the UK, if you take your child to a doctor because they have a cough and a cold you are 'essentially' told you are wasting the doctors time. There is nothing they can do. There is nothing they can prescribe. These things are normal, especially at this time of the year. Or even as a friend reminded me today the famous line every mother has heard "It's just a virus, it'll get better in a few days". I've heard this so often that I just would NEVER take my children to see a doctor with a cough and a cold unless they were doing something odd like whooping or making some other unusual cough-y noises. You are made to feel like a time-wasting fool if you even try.

In Germany though I was made to feel like a neglectful, bad British mother. It was the slow shake of the head that said it all. So Hamish is now medicated and we have another appointment on Monday morning to check on his improvement. I had a look on NHS Direct's website to see what they said about bronchitis. They say things like this:

"Bronchitis is usually a mild and self-limiting condition. Self-limiting means that it usually clears up by itself, usually within a couple of weeks. This is known as acute bronchitis as it lasts for only a short period of time."

It doesn't seem so bad. Not as bad as I was led to believe. But who do I believe?

I also spoke to the doctor about Hamish's hernia. He said that as it has not closed up by age 2 then it's not going to. He needs the operation but he could have it any time - either now, or when he's 24 if he likes. But it could cause problems later. And it could get bigger. He wants me to see another specialist about it. I'm happy to do that.

I also checked on umbilical hernias on NHS Direct. They say that:

"9 out 10 umbilical hernias heal without treatment by the time that the child reaches 3 or 4 years of age. Your surgeon will usually advise you to wait until your child reaches this age before considering having an operation."

So, I've decided to go British with this one. I'll wait until he's at least a year older and have it re-checked, and then if it's still not healed we can take advantage of the marvellous German healthcare through our insurance.

I am happy to misdiagnose your symptoms in the comments section below. In fact I would get real pleasure from just being *that* nosey.

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.

...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.

It's all about 2011

New Years Eve or Hogmanay as it's called in Scotland. It's Silvester over here and I've just checked Wikipedia to see if there are any odd traditions I need to be prepared for:

Since 1972, each New Year's Eve, several German television stations broadcast a short comedy play in English (recorded by West German television in 1963) entitled Dinner for One.[20] A line from the comedy sketch, "the same procedure as every year", has become a catch phrase in Germany.[21] Every year Berlin hosts one of the largest New Year's Eve celebrations in all of Europe which is attended by over a million people. The focal point is the Brandenburg Gate and the fireworks at midnight are centered on that location. Germans have a reputation for spending large amounts of money on firecrackers and fireworks, and so fireworks are to be seen all over the country on this night. When the clock strikes midnight on Silvester, Germans toast the New Year with a glass of Sekt (German sparkling wine) or champagne. 'Bleigießen' is another German New Year's Eve custom, which involves telling fortunes by the shapes made by molten lead dropped into cold water. Other luck bringing things are touching a chimney sweeper or have him rub some ash onto your forehead for good luck and health. Traditionally jelly filled doughnuts with and with out liquor fillings are eaten. An finally a tiny marzipan pig is consumed for more good luck.

Probably no odder than anything that's done in Scotland. Today we have fought the crowds in Edeka (where I met my fish counter friend who I haven't seen in ages) and Orla & I have been into town to look for boots. I think we left it a little too late as all the shops were closing when we got there. So we gave up and came home and made some cakes.

The fireworks have started already. There were some last night, but now they're starting off in earnest. We have heard that in some parts of the city you have people just letting off fireworks in the streets and they're flying all over the place. The Canadians downstairs are going to the Brandenburg Gate tonight with a million other people and were it not for the kids, we'd probably join them. Instead, Stevie is nursing a temperature and I'm considering nursing a packet of shortbread over a big cup of tea. I could watch that English language programme mentioned above, but if "the same procedure every year" is the funniest part, I think I'd be better off with the White Heather Club...

Incidentally, I have made a nice big list of new years resolutions/plans which you can have a nosey at here. There's also a link on the side bar entitled somewhere...somehow...

Happy New Year everyone xx

10ml Calpol + 5ml Nurofen, in the most delightful way!

Too ill to be bothered with anything

Too ill to eat

Too ill even to sleep

There's something going round, and Hamish has caught it. He's been too ill to go to nursery, which has meant no German school for me in the last 2 days. He's got a high temperature and a cough, and feels like he just needs his mummy.

Were it not for the temperature that I'm throwing the old faithful combo of Calpol and Baby Nurofen at, I would have my doubts that he was really that ill. It's a sort of man-flu thing. See pictures for details.