What kind of Mr Man are you??

Over the festive period we had more family meals than normal (good for social development, bad for washing up and argument potential).  These days, it is hard to steer Gaia and Hedda away from their current hot topic, geography.  I am all for encouraging my daughters' interest in our planet, but there are only so many times I am happy to list capital cities in Asia or quibble over the GDP of, for example, Lithuania.  All three children love to list the countries to which they have been.  Then rows break out as to whether stopping at a public toilet constitutes actually visiting a country.  I say yes, especially when you have to pay 50 cents per toilet visit to the depressed looking attendant sitting in the corner.  But others beg to differ.

Anyhow, I was looking for a new and exciting subject and chanced upon the Mr Men (who are just emerging here in a new, weirdly translated guise - not sure if they are going to be as popular as they are in the UK).  I am going to assume you know who they are.  Sometime during my adolescence, a 'Little Miss' range was added, presumably with equal opportunities in mind.  I decided it would be fun to consider which one we would all be.  I didn't even have to think about CG.  He would be, indubitably, Mr Doom.  A grey, dome-like body, down-turned mouth and furrowed brow.  The story would entail various parties or festivities being underway when a chill would fall on the room and, without turning round, everyone would sense his presence.  In deep, lugubrious tones he would ask, do I hear laughter in here?  All the kids agreed with me so I must be right.  Even CG looked happy.  For years, my pet name for him has been Voice of Doom.  Despite being the kindest and loveliest man ever, he has the ability to bring you crashing down to earth from whatever cloud of jollity you happen to be floating on.  Don't do that, you'll catch cold.  If you touch that, you'll break it.  Mmm, looks cheap.  Probably won't last long. And the annoying thing?  99% of the time, he is RIGHT!

Moving on, we decided on Little Miss Squirrel for Gaia, as she is always squirrelling things away in her Bermuda Triangle of a bedroom.  Things go in there and never come out, or if they do, they look as if they've been tossed and turned in a tempestuous sea.  Hedda is Little Miss Irrelevant.  Titus, Mr Tantrum.  Nobody could decide whether I should be Little Miss Busy, Internet or Sporty.  I like Multi-Task.  I would have ten arms and in each hand would be a different object.  Neon trainers would be on my feet, and a stick of celery hanging out of my mouth to compensate for the cigarette I would like to smoke, were I less health-conscious.  I would have a perpetually confused expression on my face.  Why am I saying would?

This conversation made a deep impression on me (obviously, or I wouldn't have remembered it).  Since then though, we've been back onto lakes, mountains, flags and capital cities.  And school and work have also intervened, so family lunches are fewer and further between and the house is, I have to admit, much more peaceful.

Dead Trousers

As a bilingual family (which sounds like something special but is actually the result of mere coincidence and a couple of Cupid's arrows) we are often asked how we communicate with each other, to which I reply with neanderthal grunts and moans and the odd bit of thrown pottery.  Ha ha, they say, we mean which language do you speak?  What is your system?  System?  While it is true that we do have a rough framework, the fact of the matter is that when both parents speak both languages, in our case German and English, it is extremely difficult to stick to 'your' language when speaking to the offspring, particularly when all of you are sitting at the dinner table, for instance.  Not only in fun do we end up mix and matching, chucking German words into English sentences and vice versa, or using direct (and wrong) translations - one of my favourites is the German expression 'tote Hose', literally 'dead trousers', meaning there was nothing going on.  And it is nice to liven up the domestic humdrum by coming home from somewhere - let's say one of our fabulous local supermarkets - and reporting that it was dead trousers.  Random visitors will prick up their ears and momentarily wonder at our curious lexical choices, then go back to their guidebook, vowing never to move to the country, if that's what it does to you.

Jesting aside, I am truly a champion of my language, and desire that my children speak it as well as I can, or at least could, before I started getting stuck in the ex-pat quagmire, otherwise entitled forgetting how to talk English proper.  The longer we all live together - and hopefully this happy coexistence will continue for some time to come - the harder it gets to keep us all on the straight and narrow.  Getting impatient with the necessity in English to refer to upper and lower layers specifically - i.e. up there, down there, upstairs, downstairs, on the top, on the bottom etc etc, it is tempting to just use the German oben and unten.  So practical!  But then I find myself asking my kids whether they have brushed their teeth upstairs and downstairs, and they stare back quizzically, as their bathroom is upstairs, as in on the first floor.  And it's not just me.  I distinctly heard CG the other day referring to trousers (uncountable noun in English, singular) as plural in German. (Are you still with me? I'm nearly done.)

Take the German verb 'sagen' - to say.  Once again, practicality prevails.  Sag es mir, they say.  Say it me.  (Purists will argue that 'mir' means 'to me' - let them).  But in English you have to say it to me.  Or, confusingly, you can tell me.  Not tell it me.  Is it any wonder our children are durcheinander?*

Oh, I could go on forever, but luckily for you, I won't, as Eastenders is on in twenty minutes.  In case you are thinking I am unusually verbose this evening, you'd be right.  I am working every spare minute to finish an assignment for my MA, and the forty-year-old brain is getting a horrible shock, actually having to think harder than what kind of washing powder to buy or how far to run.   Goodness me.  But I was so humbled by my first assignment grade (if you really want to know it, contact me privately) that I am spurred on to show that I've got what it takes, even if I do need 10 days to complete a 1000 word essay.  I've really enjoyed writing this post, by the way.  Simply being allowed to put thoughts to screen and not have to back them up with academic references is heaven.


*Confused, or alternatively, 'through one another' - an interesting thought.

Better out than in

As CG has just remarked to me that I have yet to blog this year, I am putting fingers to keyboard immediately.  In my defence, I told him that blogging, or being in the state to do so, is in some way comparable with constipation.  You need time and peace to reflect, and then it will all come out.

I do not suffer from the above affliction, I am pleased to say.  I think very few vegetable fantatics do, but I won't expand on that topic further.  I thought about posting a little happy new 2012 message yesterday but everyone was doing that.  And of course, in Bovinia, the world is ticking by slowly at its normal, cow-meandering-down-the-street tempo.  Nothing has changed.  Only spectacular (and quite dangerous) fireworks marked the end of 2011.  It is one of the contradictions about Germany: such a tidy, ordered country, yet for a couple of days a year, you are allowed to purchase vast amounts of explosive devices, detonate them wherever you like, and leave the street littered with wet pyrotechnical paraphernalia for some poor council worker to come and sweep up the next day.

In our little bilingual, non-Bavarian ghetto, we are girding our loins for the year ahead.  We have reassured our children that the world will not come to an end, contrary to certain forecasts. We have made promises to ourselves and each other, mostly regarding bad moods and temper tantrums, that we may or may not keep.  We are spring-cleaning although winter has only just got going, but only because we forgot to last year.  The Christmas tree is still presiding over the living room but you can see its spirits are lagging.  Had we mistletoe, the berries would be mouldy by now, which is exactly why we don't.  We are about to take our considerable bottle collection to the glass recycling place.  Just waiting for the neighbours to be looking the other way, so it may take a while.

I wish you all a wonderful year. x

Snow-woman, no cry

Take a look at this photo.  What do you see?  That's right, a solitary snowman on the shore of an alpine lake, gazing pensively into the deep, still waters.  A sight for sore eyes, and indeed so much so that it enticed me down from the path to take a picture.  It wasn't the most beautifully crafted snowman, but it did have breasts (bet you any money that its creator was male).  No, it was the serenity of the scene that made it so special.  I took the picture and would have taken more but CG, on his way to join me, knocked its head off.  The torso and breasts remained.  The head rolled gently over the shingle and came to rest on a pile of stones.  Sorry, snowman.  Or should I say snow-woman.  (Interesting that spellcheck forces me to insert a hyphen for the latter.  But only if you are a punctuation buff like me.)

So this is Christmas, and what have you done.  Well, in CG's case, you've decapitated a snowman (woman), amongst other things.  Another year is almost over.  Some people are dreading 2012, but not me.  It has a nice ring to it.  Just for once, I am extremely grateful NOT to be residing in the UK, what with the upcoming Olympic Games.  I reckon we should have left all that behind in Ancient Greece.  Modern Greece could certainly do with the income.  

When I was little, I hated it when people said, on December 27th, that Christmas was over.  Or when they asked, how was your Christmas?  I would always reply, indignantly, that there were ten days left of it.  My daughters are exactly the same, even without being brainwashed by me.  We have done Christmas proud for the last four days, but tonight we cannot face lighting the 38 candles on our tree, for which you have to be present - obviously, to light it, but I mean to ensure that whole house doesn't catch fire - so we are retreating to our room to watch three hours of TV from dear old Blighty (is Yusef finally dead?  Hope so).  Upstairs, Titus has muscled in on Hedda's sleepover.  He was offered one of his own but chickened out at the last minute.  The prospect of sleeping in the cellar of his support teacher's house was too creepy, and I've got to say I don't blame him.  

Last but not least I must salute our venerable turkey.  CG specifically requested that we should have 'enough left over for a sandwich or two' after the Christmas dinner.  Three days on, we still have a mountain of turkey meat in our fridge.  Nobody else can face any more, so it looks like turkey sandwiches for CG till 2012 pops it merry little head round the door.

High winds

Bovinia was hit by a storm called Joachim last night.  (Who chooses storm names???) A number of barns lost some roof tiles, but far worse, our satellite dish - my link to the UK - took a battering and we now have NO BRITISH TV.  Normally I wouldn't think this so disastrous, but this evening it's the final of Strictly Come Dancing and Hedda and I were so looking forward to it.

CG is pretending not to be smug, as the German channels are still working.  He claimed it would be too dangerous to climb up the snow-covered roof to adjust the dish.  If I do that, you might as well order the ambulance now, he said.  We'll see how the weather is tomorrow.  Pah!  Little does he suspect, lying there watching German football (which is much superior to English football, but then again so are most things), that he will be up on that roof tomorrow  come what may.  Or I shall do it myself.  Ah well.  I guess we know who is going to win anyway.

Have you noticed that I rarely talk about nature any more?   I hope I am not starting to take it all for granted.  This morning we awoke to a winter wonderland and it was still snowing.  Although the silly antique clock and people snoring had roused me from my sleep far too early, I felt a thrill of anticipation about my first snowy run.  There's nothing like it.  I set off down the road, treading very gingerly to avoid breaking my leg with the neighbours watching.  Everything was quiet, apart from somebody shouting at their dogs.  Within minutes I was completely alone, whiteness all around me.  It struck me that the crows, never the most dynamic and interesting of birds,  were looking particularly despondent.  Then I saw what I thought to be a husky or wolf sitting in the middle of a field.  It turned out to be a huge dark-red fox, who rushed off into the bushes when he saw me coming.  It was all wonderful.  At lunchtime, I glowingly recounted this scene to my devoted family.  CG thought for a minute.  Did the fox have bald patches and keep scratching itself, he then asked me.  No.  WHY???  Apparently, there is a vicious fox epidemic doing the rounds.  CG had heard this on Radio Oberland, his source of all regional information.  I never get to listen to it, for half way to work it starts going all crackly and I get bursts of opera singing, or people speaking Russian, which is most confusing.  And then it disappears altogether.

I don't like to think about ill foxes but at least it might mean Johann and Sophie need not be so fearful.   Goodness knows they are already scared enough.  I observed them coming home yesterday evening.  Their friends dropped them off at the end of our little road.  I swear that they all quacked goodbye to each other.  Then our two pat-patted along, very slowly, to the gate.  Every time a car went past, or somebody sneezed, or the wind whistled, they stopped and did their panic routine.  I had to ask the lady next door to pause her drilling, or they would have been standing outside all night.  She obligingly did.

Basil in winter?

I haven't blogged because nothing has happened.  Nothing of note, anyway.  All I have to offer you are little vignettes, such as today, when I decided to call in at a village shop for the first time.  The village in question, which shall remain nameless and doesn't even deserve a pseudonym, is somewhere I drive through on my way to work, and for some reason I decided to call in there today and buy a basil plant.  I should have known from the door, which looked like an ordinary house door with a knocker and a bell, that a brightly-lit, well-stocked supermarket would not be what was waiting behind it.  The door creaked in a cliched way as I opened it and peered inside.  A few wrinkled oranges, the ubiquitous sausages, a dusty linoleum floor.  Someone appeared out of the gloom and made me jump.  Can I help you, it, I mean she, enquired.  Freaked out, I tried to escape but it was no good.  I'm looking for some basil, actually, I stuttered.  Ha!  We don't sell 'things like that' here, she said.  No call for it.  Especially not in winter.  Silly me, wanting basil in winter!  (And it isn't even winter yet.) When will I ever learn?

We ate our tortellini, without the basil, and Hedda had sausages.  Titus made a big show of not eating the latter, as he has recently been talking about being a vegetarian again. According to him, he 'wanted to, but wasn't allowed' - tosh!  I told him he could when he was ready.  He swore blind that he was ready this time.  The test came this afternoon after Christmas shopping in Garmisch.  We were on our way to Burger King and the girls were licking their lips in anticipation of a big fat juicy burger.  'I shall have fries and ketchup ONLY' declared Titus.  Just outside the restaurant, he tugged on my coat.  'I am not a vegetarian yet, actually, Mummy, sorry' he said.  And proceeded to enjoy six chicken nuggets.  His justification was that they look nothing like a hen.  Interesting, as not many cuts of meat resemble the animal from which they derive, but I know what he means.  It is a well-known fact that there are 38 different ingredients in a single chicken nugget, although admittedly this refers to McDonald's ones.  Who knows - perhaps the BK nuggets only have 16, or maybe a grand total of 42?

The Nativity - live

The house is being buffeted by wind and rain and flying objects (not birds, but other detritus).  The mountains have retreated into the thick grey cloud, roads are turning into streams and we are waiting for the snow.  This didn't stop anyone from having a good time at the Christmas market yesterday evening, however.  Around here, these markets are two a penny.  Any village worth its salt has one - people come from far and wide to peruse the wares being flogged by locals and more eminent vendors alike.  It struck me last night that such markets can be quite hazardous.  You nudge your way through crowds of people, half of whom have a mug of boiling hot alcohol in their hand and a lit cigarette in the other.  For some reason, the cigarettes are always on a level with small children's eyes.  The only light comes from flickering fires and candles.  Hungry revellers fight their way to sausages spitting fat and squabble over the mustard.  If you are lucky, there will be a 'live' nativity scene.  Perhaps you are not familiar with this concept.  School children are recruited for the various roles (Mary, Joseph, Shepherd No. 1 etc) and wear their robes over winter clothes, making them all look a tad obese.  There are always real animals, that normally behave far better than the kids.  Yesterday's example had a very well mannered donkey.  I think it must have been on valium, stuck as it was in a small enclosure with four shepherds goading each other with flaming sticks.  Bored angels ran to and fro, Joseph had gone AWOL, Mary sat sadly next to the manger, her glasses steamed up from the night air.  Sheep picked desultorily at the hay around Baby Jesus.  A couple of goats locked horns and head-butted. Nobody said anything.  Parents dressed in Bavarian clothes stood at the fence and admired their offspring.  We watched for five minutes, just to see if the donkey caught fire, but it didn't, so we moved on.

Back to Friday evening and the company Christmas party.  Our 'turn' went down a treat.  Sad to say, it will not be appearing on youtube (as far as I know).  I played Prince Charming in a potted version of Cinderella.  Then we sang a silly little song, one verse each; I got to go first, naturally.  I was more terrified than I'd ever been, more, even, than when I had to play O little town of Bethlehem at a nativity play on the piano and my fingers were shaking. The rest of the evening was not too bad though, on the whole.  There were vast amounts of food and fine wines and beer and cocktails.  People I hardly knew came up to me, slinging an arm over my shoulder and slurring professions of love for the English language.  (They must have been rat-arsed.)  I was one of the first to leave at half-past midnight.  As I got into my car two hundred yards away, I could still hear roaring and raucous singing and see people leaping about.  With relief, I made my way home through the dark, rainy night.