Spot the Canadian

Back in February, I blogged about snow in a mild climate. Well it has snowed again here in southern England and once again there is chaos on the roads. I will cut slightly more slack for yesterday, when it rained in the afternoon which slowly turned to snow as the temperature dropped. That, on top of the snow that has been around since Friday made for very slippery conditions. People in the nearby towns abandoned their cars and walked the couple of miles back home, rather than spending another several hours in stopped traffic. I've read accounts of people taking over an hour to move 200 metres down the road and four hours sitting at the bottom of a hill with plenty of others stuck in their cars for company.

Once again, I was one of only two people who cleaned off our sidewalk. It surprises me how ingrained it is into me to shovel off the snow, but it is. The only other person I saw removing the snow last week? A woman sweeping the snow away from the front of the pharmacy. She used to live in Germany, so once again the old connection pops up (read my other blog post if you don't know what I mean). As I'm the only house that has clean sidewalk, if you live in Cookham, it might be fairly easy today to spot the house where I live, hence spot the Canadian.

I know when I walk down a snowy street I find myself alternately thanking and cursing the owners of the house I was walking past, depending on whether they have bothered to clear their sidewalks. I'm not bothering to curse at anyone, but I am feeling slightly smug, thinking that people might be inwardly thanking me for my consideration of them. They may be thinking I'm a fool to have bothered, but I will continue to take pride in having a cleared sidewalk. As long as it remains a novelty of once or twice a year at least!

Snow in a Mild Climate

This week it has been snowing all over in the UK. And this is actual snow, not just what Canadians would dismiss as dust. Monday, February 2, was a big downfall, followed by another load overnight to wake up to on Thursday and now today it's snowing again as I type. It's pretty warm still, hovering around zero, so it's not going to last forever. But it was enough snow to build a snowman on Monday and it's been cold enough that until yesterday that he held his shape (although he did look like he was doing the Limbo as the head tilted backwards with the melt). Here he is in his full glory:

 

It snows so infrequently in the southern parts of the UK, and it usually melts so quickly, that the country is really unprepared for snowfall. I understand that it's a silly waste of resources to have a fleet of sanders and snowplows when they get used at most once a year, more likely every 3 to 4 years. None the less, I find how the whole country shuts down because of snow quite amusing. There was about 6-7cm when we woke up on Monday morning and every school in the area closed. If that were the amount of snow that would close schools where I grew up, I would have stayed home from mid-November until April. 

I also know I'm the only Canadian or North American who lives on my fairly long street, as our sidewalk was the only one that was swept clear of snow first thing in the morning on the days it snowed. It must be ingrained in my system. I belong to a mail group for parents in the area and there was a mail this morning from another Canadian woman, suggesting to people that they clear their sidewalks of snow as well. I wrote back to her as I thought it was funny that all the Canadians in the area were out there cleaning snow. She said she received several responses from Canadians and Germans, all who had cleaned off their walks and were the only ones to do so. This made me laugh even more, that the Germans did it too. The two countries I've lived in previously have obviously had some impact on my behaviour.

So if you still have snow in front of your house here in England, "be nice and remove your ice". I'm sure everyone walking past will appreciate it. 

Beer, Glorious Beer!

We were in Munich a couple of weekends ago for another visit. G had to go for work, which he does on occasion. It just happened that this occasion was also during Oktoberfest. Last year was the first year time I missed it after 14 years in a row. Last year I didn't mind, but this year I really was pining for it. Oktoberfest is not for the faint-hearted, or is it for a quiet tete-a-tete with a friend. But neither is it only about the beer. Sure, that's the image most people have of it, but it's also a fun fest where families can have fun on some rides. I will be honest though, and admit that it wasn't the fun fest carnival rides that I was pining for. So when G said he was going to be there for the Munich Hash House Harriers Oktoberfest weekend bash, I decided I should go along too.

Munich always has a great atmosphere during the 2 weeks of Oktoberfest. There seems to be a sense of anticipation in the air, people are walking around wearing traditional Bavarian clothing of Dirndls for the women and Lederhosen for the men. There are lots of tourists and they are pretty excited. Well, when they aren't already drunk or nursing hangovers, haha. Actually, if you only do Oktoberfest, you have to work really hard to get a hangover, as they stop serving beer at 10:30pm and close the tents at 11pm. If you are sensible, you go home at that point, get a decent night's sleep and don't feel too bad the next day. Of course, not everyone is sensible.

Anyways, we had a great time at Oktoberfest, seeing the Hashers and seeing our friends Dee and Martin, who kindly put us up despite jet lag from their own very recent trip. I took Lena on Friday morning to the Fest, meeting up with some other new moms I know. It was funny being there as a parent, you certainly see the thing through different eyes. Lena was very keen to go on the rides, which I indulged her in, as it's not like we will be there every year.

Speaking of beer, I just baked Beer Bread tonight. A very simple recipe actually. 3 cups of self-raising flour, 340ml of beer and 3 tablespoons of sugar. Mix enough to wet everything, whack it in a loaf tin and bake at 190°C for close on an hour. This recipe will obvious vary in taste depending on which beer you use. I used Carlsberg because that's what we have (reasons given below) and found it okay, but in need of tweaking. With this mild beer, the 3 tbsps of sugar made it a bit too sweet. It's a nice quick bread, but to me it didn't really taste or feel like yeasted bread, which was what I was craving. But again, as a quick bread, it was okay. If you make this, I'd like to hear how it turned out and which beer you used.

The reason I used Carlsberg is we *still* have several cartons of it after having 2 big events back in May and June this year. The last one was G's 30th birthday party. The problem we have is that we keep estimating alcohol amounts based on the parties we had in Munich. Now, that doesn't mean all our friends in Munich were lushes who drank like fish. Okay, they are, but that's not why we overestimated here (just kidding folks, you aren't really lushes. Well, not ALL of you). Living out in the countryside, at least half the people came by car to the party, which cuts out a drinker. A lot of the people we invited were also from our NCT group, so with a little toddler to look after, no one is going to drink as much as they might otherwise, simply from lack of time and opportunity to get a new beer! Plus I think that women in the UK drink more wine than beer than the women in Germany (I noticed the same in Australia too), so yet even fewer beers drunk. With so much beer left over, G has being doing his best to finish it off and I've been helping him on occasion too. But there's enough to try out any other lager-based recipes I might come across or any recipes someone reading this blog might care to share.

Fat Tuesday

Today, in case the less religious amongst you doesn't know, is Shrove Tuesday. Also known as Pancake Tuesday or Pancake Day in the UK; Mardi Gras in New Orleans and most of South America; Fasching, Fastnacht or Karneval in Germany. Basically, it's the last day before Lent, the last day you can really party and eat up before setting down to 40 days of fasting. The reason for the pancakes is to use up all your eggs, one of the foods traditionally avoided during Lent. The Germans don't have pancakes, they eat Krapfen, which are basically jelly doughnuts. The Germans also have Krapfen on offer for several weeks to months before Shrove Tuesday, which can be a killer if you have a sweet tooth and are trying to watch your weight.

Other than making pancakes and there usually being a pancake race in some towns, nothing really happens in the UK for this day. On the other hand, in Germany people dress up in costumes (fancy-dress for the Brits) and in parts of the country it's an official holiday. Cologne and Mannheim, to name two of the more famous places. In Munich, it is sort of a semi-holiday. Lots of businesses and shops close for the day, or close at noon, but many others stay open. It's simply a matter of chance, as far as I can tell. Along with eating up their eggs in the Krapfen, the Germans also like to do a fair amount of drinking at Fasching. I have many memories, some strong, some very vague, of partying and drinking from around noon until late at the Viktualienmarkt in Munich. Really, considering the enormity of the hangovers, the Wednesday after should be the holiday, not the Tuesday.

We combined a bit of both German and British culture for Shrove Tuesday. We had the pancakes, in the form of crêpes. And we had the alcohol, in the form of a healthy dose of Grand Marnier in the Crêpes Suzette sauce. Lena just had scrambled eggs, no Grand Marnier. Just in case you were worried.

Smoke Free England

On July 1st, England banned smoking in nearly any public place. This is of course a good thing in my non-smoking opinion. But it's funny, because it's been so rare that I've been bothered by cigarette smoke since moving to here, it won't make much of an impact on my day-to-day life. One, I don't head out to smoky places very much nowadays. Partly due to not wanting to expose Lena to smoke but more due to not being out disco dancing in clubs or late-night bars anymore. In most restaurants we haven't had much smoke and other places we've been it's been the same story. England in general, isn't a smoky place for a young family. If you want to experience smoke, go to Germany. Where, by the way, the price for a pack of smokes is far less than Britain. German restaurants are only slowly coming around to the idea of having a separate seating area for non-smokers and there are still plenty who don't offer that option. It was only in the last year or so that the main train station in Munich stopped people from smoking inside the station. It might have been very film-noir in effect, but it really wasn't very cool. That's probably the one thing that I totally do not miss at all about living in Germany.

I've also noticed that along with the ban, there are lots of ads on how to give up smoking. Many by the NHS, the National Health Service, offering advice and help on quitting. But not just them. The drugstores that sell cigarette patches and so on are also advertising more. And I bet Nicorette thinks all their Christmases have come at once with this ban. Ah well, I can't be too cynical about it, fresh air is a great benefit.

Present and Past Times

It was a lovely weekend just gone and I found myself missing Munich on Saturday. One specific thing about Munich. Beergardens. Beergardens in Bavaria aren't like the ones here in England. In England, if a pub has an outside space that's not on the street, they call it a beergarden. That's not a beergarden in my opinion. A beergarden is a wonderful thing when properly done. It's an area usually shaded by chestnut trees. There are rows of beer tables set up and you just pick one that suits you. If it's busy, it's very normal to share a table. You go up to the counter and buy your drink. In Munich the usual offers of drinks would be regular beer (Helles), wheat beer (Weissbier), shandy (Radler-a bicyclist, to be precise) or a wheat beer shandy (Russ'n-a Russian, strangely enough). There are usually other drinks on offer, along with short list of non-alcoholic drinks, but those 4 drinks are the main ones you'll see in a beergarden. Now this next step is what I really like. You can then head to the next counter and get some food. Or you can skip this step and eat the food you brought yourself to the beergarden. Because in a proper beergarden, you are allowed to bring your own food, only the drinks have to be bought from the operators of the beergarden. This makes it a reasonable option for everyone for an afternoon or evening out. Families, pensioners, young adults and students can afford to spend the day there, not just people with a lot of disposable income. The beers are naturally not as cheap as you could get at the store, but considering that's all you have to buy and there's no one rushing you along to buy another, it's very easy to just buy one and sip slowly at it. Well, maybe not easy to sip, as it tastes so nice on a warm day. I'd love it if I could find something similar here in England, but I'm afraid it's unlikely.

As much as I miss beergardens, England has lovely bits to it too. On Sunday I had a pleasant experience that I never had living in Germany. I went to a school fete, or fair. It was the Cookham Rise School fair and I decided to go since it is literally only minutes away from our house. It was very busy, which wasn't surprising considering the weather. Of course in Germany they have fairs too, and I've been to many of them, especially in Pullach. But this one had more of a homey feeling to it. Most of the fairs in Germany have stands that seem to all be professionally run. Meaning the local restaurants put up a stand. Maybe the Scouts will have a stand, but that will be the only one that's not done by a business. But the school fair seemed to be all done on volunteer basis, to raise money for the school. There was a stand to buy hamburgers or hot dogs and another to buy drinks, all being run by parents and family as far as I could tell. They had a wheelbarrow race course, a chance to try and shoot a goal against some the Wycombe Wanderers (see here for my post about them), a 2nd hand toy sale, a 2nd hand stuff sale, a kids' raffle and an adults' raffle, a silent auction, facepainting, plus a few other things I can't remember exactly. A lot for just a few hours on a sunny Sunday. I didn't spend long there, but I could see how someone with school age kids certainly could! It was enjoyable and I hoped they raised a lot of money.

So although summer has brought a point that I miss in Munich, it seems there's other things to fill the gap here in Cookham.

What's in a name?

What's in a name? That which we call my last name would be just as difficult for the English to spell. Which is particularly funny, because it's a very common Scottish surname. Yes, there are many variations of it, and yes, it's not spelled the way it sounds. But honestly, I've had more misspellings of my name here, on this tiny island where the origin of the name is a mere 1000km away, than I ever did in Germany where the name is not well known. I guess it's because in Germany I would spell it out using the German phonetic alphabet so there could be no mistaking how it was spelled. It took me ages to get used to it, as it's totally different from the "Alpha Bravo Charlie" of the English-speaking system. The Germans use German first names (for the most part) instead, so it starts off as "Anton Berta Caesar". So for example, old Tony would say "Berta Ludwig Anton Ida Richard" to spell his last name. Or I live in Caesar Otto Otto Kaufmann Heinrich Anton Martha. When I first heard it, someone would be spelling something to me on the phone and rattling off these words at a million miles a second and I would think they wanted me to write these words, not realising they were using them to spell something. The Germans use this spelling alphabet far more than any English speakers do. It's quite useful, once you finally get used to it. For one, my name was never misspelled after I learnt the system. Maybe I should try the same with the English. Canadians never had trouble with the name either by the way; it's a far more common surname where I came from in Canada than it is around these southern regions of England.

Remembrance of times past

I just was suddenly transplanted back to Germany whilst watching TV. One of the video channels is doing a 90s classic video hour. This alone is enough to bring back memories of Munich, as I lived there for nearly the entire decade, and certainly did my share of dancing to pop music then. It's amazing how a piece of music or a smell can remind you so strongly of another place and time. But what really brought back Germany to me is that they showed an M People video that was filmed in Berlin (Don't Look Any Further if you really want to know). It was out in 1993, the first year I went to Germany. And one specific little shot that transported me back to that year. They had a very short picture of the Ampelmännchen.


Ampel is the German word for traffic light. And Mann is German for man. If you put -chen at the end of a word, it makes it a small version. Like in English when you put a -y sound on something, eg. doggy, kitty. So Ampelmännchen means "little traffic light man", which is exactly what it is. It's the figures on the pedestrian light at an intersection which show you when to walk or to wait. West Germany has the boring normal one, which is just a skinny stick figure, sort of like what they use to illustrate the Olympic sports. But East Germany has/had a much much cooler set of figures:

Aren't they great? Full of character with that stout body and hat. I really like the green one, walking off with purpose and with his hat set at a jaunty angle, ready to face the world. Not to slight the red one, he manages to show that you should wait without making you feel that you are being preached to. And who wouldn't want to wait, to stride across the street with the green man, pretending you are wearing a hat that is set at a jaunty angle?

I first saw them in February 1994, when I went on a week tour of eastern Germany; visiting Leipzig, Halle, Dresden and Berlin. Seeing them again on TV, especially after hearing music from the time period as well, brought that moment in time and place back to me. It was a very Proustian moment.

Beergardening in Munich

Some pictures from our biergarten visit back in March. Not everyone's picture is here, but stay tuned, they should be up on our website gallery soon enough.

Kathie cuddling the kid.

Katie cuddling the kid.

Katrina cuddling the kid. (do you see a trend here?)

Phil and myself. It was Phil's brilliant idea to go to have a slackers' beer garden visit. Thanks Phil! It was chilly, but fun.

Nicola giving us tips on how one truly disciplines children.

Maybe this is more like it...

I would like you to note two things in this photo. One, all the Hashers are looking rather spiffy, which is not a usual state for them. Two, note all the beer glasses, (Maß) which is a normal state for Hashers.

Inside every German lives a Policeman

That's the title of an article from The Telegraph. The author talks about how Germans always feel the need to tell you the right way to do things. And she's right, they do do that, for better or worse. But what I found amusing was one of the examples she listed as perhaps "worse behaviour" is one of the things I think is worse here in the UK. She writes:

For anyone visiting Germany for the first time, one of the things that you notice almost immediately is the orderliness of the country. It is striking to see that all cars are parked in the direction of the traffic. Imagine trying to impose such rules in Britain, or even more ridiculous, in Bangkok or Mexico City.

This is one of the more annoying aspects of driving in the UK; the fact that cars are parked in either direction on both sides of the street. The number of times G or myself have turned onto a street and suddenly panicked is countless. We turn the corner and seeing all the cars facing us we both fear that we've turned the wrong way onto a one-way street. The feeling usually only lasts about 10-20 seconds, until we realise we must be on a two way street because there are street signs facing us, but it's pretty upsetting at first. On this point, I really wish the Brits would take a page out of the German book.

Greeting people

We went out for a walk this afternoon onto the moor. No ankle mishaps this time, but lots of people and dogs out as it was lovely weather. A slight bit chilly, but other than when the breeze caught you or you noticed the lack of leaves on the trees, you would never know it's only a week until Christmas and nearly the shortest day of the year. I'm glad we got to get out and enjoy the sunshine.

I wish there was an easy greeting to give people here like there is in Bavaria. In Bavaria when we'd be out walking, you simply say "Grüß Gott" [groosz got] to everyone who crosses your path. It is a shortened version of the longer (and never used) greeting "Grüße dich Gott", which directly translated means "Greetings to God". This is a bit of a mistranslation, as the grüßen (greeting) verb here has the older meaning of blessing, rather than greeting. So it actually means "God bless you". Even non-Bavarians will make a joke of the direct translation though, answering "Yes, when I see him" or "Hopefully not too soon". But normally when you are out and about on a walk, if you say "Grüß Gott" to any group of people you come across, they will automatically answer back with a "Grüß Gott", especially anyone slightly older. Younger people might give more of a "Servus" or "Hallo" to each other. You can say it when you go into a small shop to greet everyone there or when you walk into the waiting room at the doctor's office as well. I loved getting this automatic interaction with people, it's seriously drummed in as the polite thing to say. It doesn't mean you are going to start having conversation with everyone there, it is simply cheery and nice; you aren't ignoring the fact that there are other people out there with you.

The British are friendly, they will smile or nod when you cross paths with them, but there isn't such a formal easy-to-use greeting. I say "Afternoon" when appropriate, but it just doesn't quite have the same feeling to it. "Hello" isn't quite right either, it sounds like you are about to engage them in conversation. Of course, the people sometimes aren't quite ready to be greeted either, so they don't have a quick reply ready, leaving them to just say "hello" back or give you a nod. "Good day", although appropriate at all times, sounds awfully formal, something you only here in 18/19th century period dramas with a "Good day sir!" to dismiss someone. I guess in time I'll probably get used to not greeting people, but I'd rather have something to say.

Oh, and for anyone who thinks that "Grüß Gott" is way to religious to say, remember that "goodbye" comes from the expression "God be with ye". It's just words for most nowadays.

Electricity - We will, we will Shock you!

I think the British must have an innate fear of being electrocuted. Let me show you what I mean.

Electrical plugs come in two sizes in Germany/Europe. The sleek version:


And the slightly more bulky version known as a "Schuko plug":


The British, (and Irish, as different as they might like to claim to be) despite using the same power as the rest of Europe - around 220 volts - use this monster of a plug:


I'm not going to bore you with the whys and wherefores of the differences in the plugs, if you really want to know about electricity, I found a very nice explanation of the different electrical and plug systems here.

But it's not just the plugs that are huge and bulky, they have taken extra steps on the sockets themselves:


That bit in the middle is two switches to turn on the power to each individual socket! I tell you, that caused me a fair amount of short-lived frustration the first week or so. I'd plug something in, turn it on and then be baffled as to why it wasn't working. Then I'd remember that I had to flip the switch to turn on the socket. Which of course is usually located somewhere awkward and low, so me with my big pregnant belly would have to do all sorts of contortions again to flip the switch. This has resulted in the having the opposite effect of what is intended. Instead of the extra safety of a switch, I just leave all of them on. Risking my life, I'm sure.

This doesn't just stop at the plugs and outlets. Oh no. The bathrooms are the same way, with an even greater fear of electricity and water. All bathrooms have a pull switch to turn on the light, so that the dangerous power is far out of reach. It always looks really dinky to me, having a cord to turn on the light. Okay, Germany wasn't really any different because their light switches for the bathroom are located outside of the room itself, allowing your friends and family to amuse themselves by turning off the light while you are taking a shower, causing outrage within the bathroom and laughter without. But in Germany, they at least trust you to plug in electrical appliances. In every bathroom I had, there was at least one regular electrical outlet. Usually located a bit high on the wall (above the mirror or so) so it didn't get water splashed on it, but you could at least plug in your hair dryer or toothbrush. In our place here, we have one of those dinky little things where you can plug in an electrical razor, but nothing else stronger. Just out of curiousity I tried the hair dryer, and it most definitely doesn't work. There aren't a lot of outlets around the house in the first place, so it's annoying not to have one in the bathroom.

To top it all off, what amazes me, after all this caution towards electricity; it seems quite a standard thing to rewire a plug! Something I've never ever done, nor had to do in my over 30 years of life. Yet the English seem to find it a very normal thing to do. Why rewiring might be a useful skill, I have yet to learn. One of the mysteries of living on the island that has yet to be solved...

Understanding of Time

This is one big difference between the Germans and English that is quite irritating. In Germany, if you need something repaired or someone is going to come around, you agree to a time and they are there at that time. Let's say I need someone to fix my furnace. I call up the furnace repair people, they say they can send someone on Tuesday at 2pm. Actually, they would say 14, as Germans work on a 24-hour clock. Within 10 minutes of 2pm on Tuesday, the repair person would be there.

In England, you seem to be give a range of hours when they might show up. Between 9am and 2pm seems to be the normal time to give. Which really ticks me off, because even if I'm not working anymore, I do have more to do than to just hang around waiting for someone else to show up. And they always show up at the end of the time period. Today for example; someone is supposed to be coming by to fix our shower as it makes horrid noises when you turn up the pressure. Sometime between 9am and 1pm. Well, it's 12:15 and no one in sight. Normally I could live with this, but a midwife is supposed to be coming between 2pm and 4pm to visit me, and I really don't need the overlap. She'll of course be early instead of late, I'm sure, knowing Murphy's Law. Plus the fact I need to get to the bank today to get a banker's draft to pay for our car today. If I knew that the repair person wouldn't be here before noon, I could have gone this morning. But with this stupid time range, I have to suspend my life to wait for him.

This is one thing I already miss from Germany. Punctuality.

Moving Update

Am over at my friend's, D's, place and using her computer, that's why the update in such a short period of time.

Both G and I didn't sleep too well the night before the movers came, too nervous about the whole thing. In the end, our worries were pretty unnecessary, as it all worked out well. It will cost us more than they estimated (what a surprise) but we'll see what happens there. They came in the morning and I was telling them what to pack and they kept asking, "Alles? Es kommt alles mit?" (Everything? Everything is coming with?) I think the 4 flights of stairs and 4 rooms of stuff was quite daunting for them. Oh well, better them than me, that's all I have to say. We did tip them well at the end though.

Friday was pretty tiring for us too, as we were busy sorting things to throw away from things to keep, started ripping out the carpet (we have to take it out as part of our rental contract), took a bunch of junk to the junk yard, making sure that stuff we need like passports didn't get packed and pulling down shelf units that were built-in. The carpet was easy to rip out, but the backing underlay is horrible stuff that has basically turned to powder in several places, so we only did a few pieces and cleared out one room before deciding to leave it until Saturday. For me, the big tiring thing was going up and down our stairs a dozen or so times over the course of an hour or so. Being 7 months pregnant and many kilos heavier than usual made that a real workout. G had to go up and down many more times than me, poor thing. The actual easy thing that I was a bit nervous about was taking stuff to the junk yard, aka Wertstoffhof in German. You have to be a Munich resident to be allowed to take things there for free, so I had our rental contract with us, and you are only supposed to be allowed to dump 2 cubic meters per household per day, so I was worried they would measure us to see how much stuff we had. Yet another thing I was nervous about was that it would be a huge line-up to get into the junk yard and take forever. In the end, it was the easiest thing we did all day. Drove straight in, no one measured our stuff, no one asked for proof that we live in Munich. Dumped our stuff in the appropriate bins and drove straight out.

Saturday was another full-on working day for us. We ripped out the rest of the carpets and took down the shelves in our closet. This was such a futile thing to do. The shelves were very useful and I'm sure anyone who moves in will want shelving in there. But the way German rental contracts are, you have to take everything out. Everything. We have to remove the kitchen in the flat too, according to our contract, but we are hoping to sell that on to the next renter so we are leaving it for now. Also as mentioned, we needed to remove the carpets. So basically, you rent a flat that consists of walls, roof and floor. Oh, the toilet, bathtub and sink are staying too, so you don't have to bring your own john at least. Anyways, the shelves were a bit of a pain to get out; one because of the futile nature of the business, two because the people who put them up used a zillion different sized screws with different heads on them to put them up. So I had to keep changing the head on the drill to remove them which really slowed things down. Finally we got them down and did two more trips to the dump.

Oh, you may be wondering where we are staying in the meantime, since our flat is totally empty. A friend of ours is on holidays right now and kindly offered his place during the move. 3 cheers for TJ for being such a generous guy, we really appreciate it. I'm sure several of our other friends would have offered us space, in fact I think some did. But it's good not to intrude on anyone and also to be able to come home at the end of a day like Saturday and just shower and then hang around in your pyjamas without worrying about socialising with anyone.

Today is G's last full day in Munich, he flies out for good tomorrow morning. My flight still isn't booked, as I have to arrange when the flat transfer to the housing agents/landlord. That can't happen until Friday, as the painters are in Wednesday/Thursday next week. Soooo, sometime before November is still the best answer I can give there. Ah well, eventually we will have the full contigent of C'lonials for our attack upon Britain...