Don't panic

It's Halloween again (hope I spelled it right this year). This is our giant pumpkin, ably carved by CG, who was at home today while I had to work.   Whilst there I had time to reflect on my day of driving yesterday (everyone else was on holiday, so I had nothing to do at all).  I suppose it was a worthwhile exercise.  We now know that our new car has excellent brakes, at least it did before I slammed them on at least twenty times in succession on a variety of road surfaces.  Considering that most of the participants were there because they were anxious about some aspect of driving, I found it somewhat ironic that the trainer was called Ms Panick (but don't, she told us, the irony thankfully not eluding her).  

Meanwhile Johann and Sophie are settling in well, if you could call it that.  I had a moment of anxiety on Saturday though.  We had arranged a little pond for them, with a ramp for easy access.  I watched as they padded up and then promptly fell in to the water, and seemingly disappeared.  Suddenly I wondered if they could actually swim?  Imagine having to explain to people that your new ducks had just drowned.  I'd have been the laughing stock of the neighbourhood.  But they can swim, of course - they are waterfowl, after all.  Silly me.  They just needed a moment to orientate themselves.  And considering they are runner ducks, they don't spend much time running.  They hang out in the water the whole time.  I don't know what they will do in winter, because we are not planning to heat their pool.  

I have to go now.  A crowd of trick or treaters is approaching our door.  CG is lying in wait with his death mask on.  He looks too scary for words.  

Spring forwards, fall backwards

Introducing our new duck friends, Johann (right) and Sophie, who are not to be re-christened any more as the children feel it irreverent to the previous owner.  She was quite moved as she said goodbye this morning.  Johann and Sophie were very quiet during the journey home.  Apart from a couple of muffled quacks and the smell of duck poo, you would never have known they were there.  Their first day has gone pretty well, I'm thinking - they've been for a swim in their pond, they've been inspected by Herr NN, and they've fought Max and won.

Tonight the clocks go back.  The only positive thing about this is the extra hour in bed tomorrow morning, I feel.  I read yesterday with great interest that Britain is considering joining CET - about time, Blighty - but that 'Scottish farmers are not happy'.  CG remarked that they never are anyway, so why should they throw a spanner in the works?  I think it would be wonderful if Germany and Britain were in the same timezone.  Who cares what the Scottish farmers think?  If you are one, by the way, reading this in between oat harvests or whatever else you do up there, please drop me a line and enlighten us all.  I mean, we all know it is something to do with more daylight, but all the tractors round here have headlights powerful enough to floodlight a football pitch.  Surely the Scottish could stretch to this - after all, it is 2011?

I will not be languishing in bed too long tomorrow, as I must be up betimes to get to my driving course somewhere else in Bavaria (which is huge, by the way).  I know it is eighty miles from here and I have to be there by 9 a.m.  I am taking Gaia for moral support.  She is under strict instructions not to laugh or distract me when I'm negotiating the obstacle course or in the skid-pan.  Nor is she to try and do her make-up in the passenger mirror.  I am quite excited.  Everyone I know who has done one of these courses says it is exhilarating.   I chose a women-only variety, as apparently the mixed sex groups tend to be dominated by guys wanting to try out their new motor and see what it can do.  I, too, wish to do this, but my objective is safety, rather than speed.  Yes, those days are long gone.  Now I am off to adjust the first clock.

Last cow post - really

I promise this will be the last cow-related post of the year.  This won't be hard to keep, as the poor creatures are due to be locked up again till springtime.  I wonder if they know that the barn is beckoning.  Anyway.  On my run yesterday evening I came across a typical scene.  Farmer on bicycle wobbling along to field of cows.  Throws bike to the ground, grabs his stick, and goes in to usher the girls out onto the road.  They all obey in their pondering, meandering way except for one - I'm going to call her Flossie - who remained sitting on the grass, facing the opposite direction.  Farmer pokes her back end with stick.  Flossie flinches but doesn't budge. Farmer roars a strange Bavarian word.  More pokes with stick.  Flossie heaves herself up reluctantly.  Observing this from the road, I see her walk ever so slowly towards the gate, Farmer following behind.  Just as slowly and deliberately, she raises her tail and showers him with liquid excrement.  The rest of the herd and a few car drivers laugh with me as Farmer gloweringly wipes himself down. 

Once they were all on their way, I had the pleasure of weaving in between them - this is quite an art, actually, running through a cow herd.  You have to be extremely careful not to spook them as, like horses, they don't like surprises and it shouldn't be forgotten that they are very, very heavy.  A cow stepping on my foot would mean no more running for a while, perhaps ever.

Tomorrow we collect our new duck friends Donald and Daisy, and I suppose the day will be spent helping them to acclimatize to their new environment.  I have warned Max to be on his best behaviour.

The Resentment List

Dire warning from Titus this morning.  Fierce Teacher has decreed that any child coughing even once will be sent home immediately.  Panic gripped my heart.  I am half way through my trial period at work, and it would be so nice if I could manage six months without having to take any time off.  I told Titus he was not to cough.  But what if I have to, he said.  Smother it, I told him.  Because I know he is not ill.  Anyone who rides tractors and plays football in the rain wearing only a t-shirt is clearly hard as nails, and it will take more than a bit of snot and the odd cough to render him bedridden. Of course, Titus couldn't leave it at that.  He started listing illnesses and injuries of increasing gravity to test my response.  This game is otherwise known as 'how merciless is my mother?' - I know it well, as it's been passed down to him by Gaia and Hedda.   According to Gaia I am one of the least sympathetic mothers ever.

Children naturally assume the role of upholder of the maternal guilty conscience.  I know that my three have a bottomless pit of incidents pertaining to every area of daily life, ranging from petty disappointments (not checking that the swimming pool was open, and having to drive home again; not reserving cinema tickets and arriving to a sold-out film) to broken or forgotten promises on a larger, more complicated scale (fitting out the doll's house with electric lights, getting pet rabbits).  Thus far the winner has to be Gaia's sixth birthday, when she was given a miniature potter's wheel, lots of slimy clay and powder and all the stuff that you might expect to find in a pottery set.  The picture on the box was enough to send most parents running for cover, being of three children smeared with clay, forming uneven shapes in a room equally smeared with clay.   OK, admittedly it looked fun. But I couldn't bear the thought of the mess, so I kept saying when you're seven.  And then she was seven, and I still couldn't face it, so I put it off another year.  And again, and again, until finally she lost interest in it and we gave it away to a deserving cause.  (I think a local occupational therapy centre, but that is irrelevant.)  Anyway, not only does Gaia sporadically remind me of this.  Hedda and Titus, in solidarity, also wheel it out when it suits their cause.  I swear that one day, when I am old and rich, I will send them all on a week-long pottery course, perhaps in Stoke-on-Trent, and they can muck around and form pots a la Patrick and Demi to their hearts' content.

I just heard an ominous cough from upstairs.  Poor Titus.  I'm willing him through two more 'days' at school - remember they are only there for three hours - and then he can relax into autumn half-term and all the joys that Halloween has to offer, if I only remember to pick up a giant pumpkin on the way home from work tomorrow.  There's an old bloke - he may have served in the last world war - standing by a pile of them at the roadside.  He looks scary, to be honest, which is why I always tootle on past, but I don't want this Halloween to be added to the Resentment List (I can just hear it now: Mummy, you said you'd get us a huge pumpkin.  Since you've been working you forget EVERYTHING!)  so I'll be sure to stop and choose his plumpest specimen, so to speak.  And then gare out the flesh with a sharp knife.  Grrr.

To absent friends

Last week a crumpled piece of paper in our letterbox announced the annual wreath-laying ceremony of the Bovinian Military Reservist and Veteran Society.  (What a long sentence.)  CG thought, as a serving officer, that it would be a nice idea to go along and offer moral, and possibly other, support.  Being, as you know, of a curious nature, I was keen to accompany him and was proud when we set off, so fine he looked in his regalia, tall and upright, buttons gleaming.  The sun had long set when we arrived at the the meeting place and focal point for all Bovinian events, the maypole.  We looked around for other uniformed personages, but could only see the brass band warming up, which they needed to badly, as it was freezing.  You might think they were playing a few last minute scales and arpeggios, but actually their idea of preparing for a performance is hurriedly chain smoking and draining their beer glass as they gather up their respective wind instrument. A few other figures lurked in the gloaming, all over seventy years of age, woolen cardigans under their blazers and various sashes and feathers adorning their hats/shoulders/whatever.  We presumed these to be the Society, as such, as there was nobody else around, and edged towards them.  As usual we were eyed suspiciously and not a word was uttered, until the tallest of the grey men approached CG and asked worriedly if he was a VIP.  At which my husband laughed - in a kind way, I should add - and said he was 'just a normal soldier', and the grey tall man heaved a sigh of relief and introduced himself as the Chairman.  The Society, quite sizable really with 93 members, was present in a somewhat depleted form, he said, as most were carousing at a wedding in another village. So it was just us, the old guys, the band and then the mayor, whose arrival always puts the official seal on things.  I asked the mayor if I should be part of the procession, being the only woman, and he ushered me into line with a wicked chuckle.  Before I could protest, the band struck up a jaunty tune and off we marched.

Thank goodness it was dark.  I felt most ill at ease in a line of military men, albeit mostly decrepit.  And just for your future reference, don't try it with a handbag on your shoulder - it severely affects arm swinging symmetry.  It wasn't a long way into the church, where I escaped into a pew at the earliest opportunity.  The mass was short and business-like.  We had the feeling that Father Hans had his eye on an unseen clock and I felt pretty sure that his mind was on his planned activities for the evening.  Perhaps a nightclub in Munich?  Surely there is a place where they all go and let their hair down.  He rattled through the service, we all poured out into the cold night, and stood around while tall grey Chairman made a brief speech and laid a wreath at the village war memorial. Bovinia wouldn't be Bovinia without the token surprise, though, and this time it was three huge canon blasts - I know not from whence they came - which shook us to the core and caused the maypole to visibly wobble.  Then they all got in line again, except CG who'd had enough of being the only one in a real uniform and needed to get home and into back into mufti.  As we drove away the band and the old men paraded up and down the street, and the audience drifted into the Gasthof for a quick schnapps.  The smell of old schnitzel frying fat wafted out as the door opened.  The flaming torches around the maypole were efficiently extinguished by the bored local fire brigade, and peace was once again restored to the village centre.

New faces and moonshine

Our next-door-neighbours, the NNs, have got a new tenant in their upstairs flat.  According to Frau NN, it's a separated man - let me rephrase that, a man who has just separated from his wife - and he'll be living alone, primarily.  I had to ask as to the meaning of primarily in this instance.  Frau NN went on to say that although his marriage is over, his wife intends to come over every weekend to do his cooking and washing (presumably his clothes).  Does she have a screw loose, or just a guilty conscience?  Who in their right mind would do this??  I haven't seen the new neighbour yet, but Gaia, who spied him in the garden yesterday, says he is the spitting image of 'the perverted murderer from The Lovely Bones'.  It turned out she had only seen him from behind, so he may not be that bad.  Time will tell.

In the last blog I told you that we might be acquiring some ducks.  It is now official, and they will take up residence on 29th October.  We have decided to change their names to Donald and Daisy.  Original that is not, but these are the only two names the whole family could agree on.  They don't know how lucky they are.  Last Sunday was a feast day known as Kirchweih, and ducks all over Bavaria were slaughtered and served up with red cabbage and a smattering of spices.  All Donald and Daisy will have to worry about is the prominent cat community.  Not Max himself, who is a bit of a wuss, but other, more aggressive types.  You may wonder why we are getting ducks at all, but the other two runner duck couples in the street seem to hold their own very well and don't let anyone, feline or otherwise, ruffle their feathers.  They just move away quickly, making gentle quacking noises (strange, I know) to somewhere out of harm's way.

How can I go without telling you about what I did this morning.  I got up at three thirty a.m. to meet some people from work for a Mondscheintour, a moonlight hike up to the top of the Herzogstand (one of the nearby mountains).  We reached the top ten minutes before the sun rose.  I cannot describe the beauty of it all.  It more than compensated for the tiredness I am now feeling.  Snow-capped peaks bathed in an orange glow, valleys thick with drifting cloud, absolute silence, and then the sun bursting over the horizon bathing everything in light.  The cloud and fog slowly moved away to reveal the lakes and villages below.  It was stunning.  On the way down we met several people on their way up, all looking a bit dour, to be honest.  I greeted them all perkily, feeling smug that just for once, I was one of the first instead of dragging my way up at midday.  I don't think they appreciated my cheeriness, but they might be feeling a bit better now, sitting up there sipping tea and chewing a Weisswurst.  I hope so.

Mmm, that looks good - what is it??

My blog suffers when we have visitors.  But that is the only downside of having loving family to stay.  They've gone now, so I'm settling back into 'normal' life. Might as well enjoy it while I can, for guess what - we are about to acquire two new additions!  No, I am not pregnant with twins; nor is anyone else.  Tomorrow morning, we are going to meet Johann and Sophie, a pair of Indian runner ducks - whose owner can no longer keep them due to 'lack of space'. On the telephone, the current owner confided that it 'would break her heart to see them go' and that such an amicable couple of ducks I would never find, even if I searched the length and breadth of Bavaria.  Talk about raising my expectations.  I know that Johann has a green head, and that Sophie has a brown back and white chest (not unlike somebody who fell asleep while sunbathing; my words, not the duck lady's).  But the rest remains to be seen.  I didn't wish to commit myself to taking them by phone - they might only have one leg between them.  More tomorrow.

Let me just give you a little update about my world of work.  It really isn't going too badly now.  I daren't write too much about it, or invent pseudonyms for my colleagues, tempting though this is.  That would be most unwise, I feel.  Eventually, the good people would come across my blog, identify themselves and bang - I'd be sent to Coventry before you could say unmanned aerial vehicle.  I can impart, however, that I am tiring of having my lunch analysed by everyone who passes.  It is true that I take a lot of time and effort to prepare myself a healthy and appetising repast.  If nothing else, it provides something to look forward to during the long morning hours (I start at 7.30 a.m. - criminal).  It was hard, in the beginning, to get used to eating in front of people who are not also eating.  I have always disliked this.  I've had to get used to it, otherwise I would be horribly hungry by the time I get home.  It spoils the taste of a good salad, however, when I have to recite the ingredients six times whilst consuming it.  Yesterday I had two or three colleagues discussing my lunch, even arguing about whether sun-dried tomatoes go with lentils or not.  I try to take all this as a compliment, even when a particular person - particular being the operative word - leaned over my shoulder, peered into my plate and said mmm, how delicious, except I could never eat that, I hate sun-dried tomatoes.  Just as well I am not offering you any, I privately thought, so bugger off and let me eat my lunch in peace.  I couldn't face the same again today, neither the food nor the attention, so I took peanut butter sandwiches.  You know what happened?  People still stopped and commented, but this time it was whaaat?  That's all you're having???  Are you ill, perhaps?  I wolfed down the sandwiches and wound up with peanut butter sticking to the roof of my mouth and had to swill it off with a cup of tea.  I was pleased when the whole spectacle was over and I could concentrate on reading the weather forecast online.  A glorious weekend beckons.

The big green container

What an enticing title.  If you even clicked on it, which you must have or you wouldn't be reading this, you must be having a slow day in the office/at home/wherever.  As I have now got your attention, though, let me remind you of posts from a year back, when the big green garden waste container was deposited at the end of our street and our neighbour, Herr NN, was positively orgasmic about its arrival.  If you have been following this blog from the beginning, you may remember that he would not rest until we had also made the acquaintance of the container and trailed down the street with a full wheelbarrow.

Well, it's there again (it has a summer break, for who needs to dispose of garden waste then).  Usually I wait for CG to do all the recycling/waste/rubbish jobs, because he is a man and they don't seem to mind as much as women do.  But he wasn't there and we had a huge pile of old foliage, so I piled my barrow high and trudged off to the BGC.  Whilst I was struggling to dump my load therein, the toothless, be-hearing-aided man who 'works' there came to my assistance.  Haven't you got a husband to do this, he asked.  Sure, I said.  But he's away at the moment.  Ah, said the man.  Would that be the Preuss (Prussian) who works down in Garmisch?*  That's him, I said.  And I am from England.  At this his eyes lit up.  Apparently his grandson had been there recently, and what had impressed him the most?  That the buses stop wherever you want them to.  I asked him if he meant London.  Yes indeed, he said.  That is England, isn't it?  Mmm.  I thought of shattering his illusions for a moment, and telling him that his grandson must have availed himself of the expensive hop on, hop off tourist bus service in old London town, but then it occurred to me that it was the first time a Bavarian had said something positive about England, so I let it lie.  He's far too old to go and find out for himself. Doing a neat turn with my barrow I tried to leave, but he'd pinned me down (metaphorically speaking only, I hasten to add) and I had to listen to a further ten minutes of dialogue about the bus-riding grandson who was training to be a famous actor.  Finally somebody pitched up with a trailer full of tree branches and he lost interest in me, so I trundled off back home.

*Bavarians call anyone who comes from the North of Germany Prussian (Bavarian: Preiss), and woe betide you if you are one - it's better to be English, and that's saying something in these parts.

Feeling my age and loving it

I should have blogged about being 40 before now, but somehow things have been a little crazy since I crossed the line.  And as in the last six years, I have little time to recover before I tackle the next challenge, namely Titus' birthday cake.  Now you may remember the mountain cake with cable car from last year.  Well, he requested the same again, but I had to decline, mindful of the hours I spent sculpturing green marzipan and white royal icing onto lumps of lemon sponge cake.  Not to mention the cable car wires.  His only other suggestion was the Titanic (what else) but, as that is really beyond my powers, I have privately settled for a volcano, based on the mountain principle but using melted chocolate and poppyseeds for the covering instead.   I haven't yet worked out how to do the molten lava dripping down the sides, but I do have an idea for the smoke.  Watch this space. (As I wrote then, the space is now filled with above photo.)

So back to my new decade.  It feels just fine, actually.  I think it helps that I live in a country where people always talk up their ages - they'll happily say they are already 59 in January, even though their actual birthday is in August.  This means that most people around me who are aware of my year of birth will already have written me off as 40 way back in the spring.  October 1st is thus merely a formality.  Anyway, I was lovingly spoiled and treated like a queen and all the things that one should feel when happy, I did.  When else will I be in an expensive clothes shop with CG, see an amazingly beautiful pair of exorbitantly priced trousers, sigh, oh my, aren't they lovely, to hear the words - try them on!  I'll buy you them.  I rushed to the changing room before he could change his mind.  They fit like a glove - or should I say a sock, as I don't have enough legs for a glove - and I am now the proud owner thereof.  I spared a thought for all those hard done-by wives, who have to make do with a new ironing board or vacuum cleaner, as I skipped out of the shop.