A little bit of rain in Spain

October 17/2016

trip to Spain.....

....yes, Mallorca, that island Germans love to invade..and the British too .And you can tell them easyly apart, the Germans are the ones roasting like grilled chickens ,the British sitting paleskinned under sunumbrellas at the pool. But lets start from the beginning. Reason for our little trip our 60th wedding anniversary. Amazing that we still love each other - our way! lol...never mind! Again, like at our last trip, the taxi put us out at the wrong gate and since we were early on account of the strike situation from two airlines we were not so sure if we would leave at all.Since this time we had to drag the luggie along  we had booked carrier service but of course the guys were not available yet. So I deposited Fred and our baggage and went hunting for them at the airport milling with hundreds of people...first day of fall school holidays and all of Germany must have decided to travel! well ,found them and then I had to take luggie and seperate batteries to a special check-in, then we had to organize handicap service for hubby,because he is unable to walk even a few meters.Finally we were seated  in our plane which left with just a little delay and upon arrival in Spain we were supposed to be taken out of the plane with a lift, which left us sitting cold. We had the pleasure to watch the cleaning staff and the change of crews, no lift! and the plane could not leave before they got rid of us. On top of that we were afraid our limo service would have left and our bags and luggie ended up in lost and found. Finally the device showed up and took us on an airport sightseeing tour. Hubby had the brilliant idea to phone the hotel to tell them to hold the limousine. Our bags and luggie still were turning lonely tours on the belt. But the arrival at the hotel really made up for all the mishap, a beautiful place

with superfriendly staff. We treated ourselves to a drink at a loungebar and had a great view over the sea and the harbour bay. Today, sunday,we took it easy we also solved the small gau...Toilet seat too low for Freddie, but I had the brilliant idea to put the luggie in front ,so he can pull himself up .....tonite we will have our special dinner, toasting the next 60 years! ...tomorrow more!

Monday..

ventured to Soller Port by shuttle, bought a perfect bag for the battery since the airline broke the case it had been packed togther with the charger and the cable..luckily the things did  not get lost!  we ate lunch at a little harbour restaurant where Fred orderd a dish he then claimed it was not what he ordered. Bought a straw hat, the absolute guaranty that the nice weather will be over. Had a pretty cold swim in the infinity pool and then we had our first tapa meal...absolutely to be recommended. But we dined inside,the nights are getting kind of chilly.

Tuesday

we are very lazy, actually I am waiting for the sun to come out, we had a very heavy rainfall, but in contrary to home it does not hold. So later on for a swim in the infinity pool! I took quite some pics of the hotel and the view.

Wednesday

One of my "do it yourself" days. Went with the tram to Soller. If you take the train,which is also old open waggons  you can drive all the way to Palma..But I did ot want to leave Herr H. for such a longtime, so I went to Soller,just to get the hang of the ride. ....very picturesqe! a valley with little villages,lush gardens full of orange  lemon and olive trees. Went to a little museum presenting Picasso and Miro exhibits, quite nice, Then I visited the cathedral, which is quite impresssive,but I liked the small church here at Soller Port better. Coming back I ran all over the port looking for a taxi stand, since the shuttle only ran two hours later.found one finally..puh! Treated myself to some spa, very relaxing! At nite we ate at the soushi lounge here at the hotel.

Thursday

Spa galore!  Herr H. complained that he was stuck in the room all day.Own fault I would say if one is too sluggish to take a little initiative. We booked a table at one of the harbour restaurants, Called NuNu

, lovely food  for me and hubby,like mostly,made the wrong choice and got moody. during the night we had quite a thunderstorm and this morning .....

friday

the sea is very rough. a pleasure cruise, quite a big boot  , gave it a try, we watched it from our balcony having arough ride in the surf and then giving up and returning to the harbour  with probably mostly puking passengers. 

so now I will treat myself to the spa for a last time and then I will have to pack two bags with stuff,of which we at most used 2/3.

saturday....

I will not talk about our trip back, a delayed plane and this horrible airport at Palma. But we made it home safe and sound after a nice week, that's what counts! 👌

Home again...

ü.April 30/16

.......for a week now already and it seems as if we have never been gone.

The place to stay we picked on that northern island Sylt turned out to be a very good choice.

- as a matter of fact it has been perfect, a cozy,spacious room with our own porch..with a beach basket!

( very much favoured in german coastal resorts) we even could make use of  when the sun decided to peek out! ,good food, nice ambiente and superfriendly service. We has the view upon a little sportsharbor and the sea. It had not been the open seaside, with the rough surf and the dunes and the sand, but we had the advantage of watching the turning of the tide. We flew by Air Berlin and the handicap sevice for Herr H. worked very well, I managed to handle our 2 pieces of luggage and the handluggage, I am developping routine! The flying time had been under one hour, beats travelling by car by far! We made the wise decision to send the scooter per freight, so it awaited us at the hotel and Herr H. could move around like speedy Gonzales right away. Of course it is not laid out for distances 6 km/h) so we had been confined to the hotel radius, but I rented an ebike for one day and made a big tour which I named nature and culture. I visited a very old church (12th century) an old frisian home, equipped with furniture and all, very neat! and of course I had to see the open sea and the big dunes. Left my bike at a parking spot for bikes and got a fit when I came back and the key did not work only to find out that out of the three bikes parked at that huge lot I had picked the wrong bike. Very embarassing and I was happy the owner did not show up, he must have taken me for a bike robber! 😂...

Days passed real fast, I spent quite some time in the wellness section, had massages, took my daily hour of swimming, so I could feast on the good food  in the evening without regret.-

oh yes,lol...there was that one time when the spa lady and myself tried to help hubby into the whirlpool, we hang onto him when he started to slip like a slippery fish on the steps and we barely managed to hold him, so  the pool  and whirlpool were an  out for him, a real shame, but a broken hip would have been worse!

Flight home went without complications and we had a sweet taxi driver who even carried our bags into the house.

I think we will be back to that place and maybe next time it will be a bit warmer.Up there north it's even more ice age than around here. We can forget spring and hope for a better summer!

Could have been such a good day!

June 15..5:50 p.m.

Matjes ( pickled herring) and jazz at Haus Meer for lunch yesterday,sunday, seemed such a good idea. We enjoyed the music, our food and a glass of beer resp. white wine. Since the weather had been nice,we took scooter -hubby - and e-bike - me and on the way home we separated since I wanted to take a little detour. Towards our home the bike path is a touch downhill , so I had been a little bit " speedy Gonzales" and wanting to make a left turn into our streed I overestimated the speed of a lady coming from the opposite direction. Now she in turn had been at snailpace, so I had only the choice to run into her or take a bigger turn. unfortunately I  hit a decorock..stupid idea to put such a thing there..and ran into a pole which would not go away. result..sommersault,bruised collarbone,breast and a finger really cut open on some iron sign. Had a crowd of people right away,some nice ones helping me to assemble myself and bike and giving me paperhanky to press on my wildly bleeding finger, 

others just standing there gapping.And all that in sight of my own place. what a bummer!  

Had a somewhat painful night but managed with the help of Paracetamol. and no..I did not see an emergency ward. That would have spoiled my day completely.

A Wintertale

january 18/2015....3.00 p.m.

So we are having the first snow this winter, time for a winter tale. Around Xmas time I had been looking like mad for a book, in my possession since ages, it is "Breakfast at Tiffany's ", but why I wanted to find it so badly was because of that little tale "a Christmas Memory" , that little story which can move me almost to tears every time I read it. It is in this little book of stories by Truman Capote . I just love to read it around Xmas time! To make a long story short, I did not find it. 

Now today I suddenly remembered a long ago stowed away box of old books, hunted for it and bingo...the very last book I took out has been IT ! 

For me like a late Xmas and the snow is like the icing on the cake for this event.

Hard Times

January 17/2015..6 am

The start of the new year has not been so good for us. On December 29/14 Herr Husband had colon cancer surgery, which fortunately was sucessful, but then he had to top it with a heart attack and it had been a time of worries and in and out of intensive care. Now he is slowly recovering and has been moved to another hospital for a pre rehab. There is still a long way to go but at least he is making a little progress.

Yesterday I drove the first time to visiting him at his new place and on the way back my navi took me ways I never expected to drive in my life..a horror!  Duisburg will be added to my list of hated places, up to now Krefeld had been the winner. 

Today I will take a day off from hospital visits, to top it off,weather predictions are awful. 

Everything only can get better!

Leo ...the X-mas dog

X-mas day Landfrau had full house, so to say. Above all the huzz an buzz of laughing and talking the doorbell rang. I counted heads..no did not expect any one any more. As I opened the door I was confronted with a rather desperate lady who asked if I had an idea about the whereabouts  of our neighbours. Now I must mention the neighbours run a small pension for dogs. The  desperate lady wanted to board her dog Leo with them but no one answered the door and she and her family would be off by plane very early next morning for Xmas  

holidays to Spain. Well, asked her in and then we tried to reach neighbours by phone, no such luck! so after those fruitless efforts we offered the lady a coffee and to "board" doggie Leo till...hopefully...neighbours returned home. Lady was very thankful and we got all of Leo' s  stuff and instructions about feeding and medication. She then left and of course our crowd now went into wild speculations what to do, if maybe neighbours had also left for a trip. Daughter no.2 then said that it might be a wise idea to at least stick a note to their door and doing so, left our front door ajar and Leo, who by then had adopted her as foster mother, followed her, unnoticed by the rest of us.Daughter came back laughing her head off, she had picked up Leo in our driveway! Imagine, we had him for 20 min. and almost lost him. By the time we all had gotten used to Leo and him to us, the neighbours returned and we lost our Xmas dog the second time. He was so cute!

A ghost in the House

November 17/14

Last night we had a spooky phenomen. We were in bed and it had been round about midnight when a phone started ringing. So hubby asked me why I did not go and answer since it must be my cell phone (for our house line we have a phone right beside the bed so this was out ) but I told him that it probably must be a wrong number since no one hardly ever calls my phone. It rang for quite a while. Now this morning I wanted to check who had called me, but my phone had been switched off and showed no incomming missed calls, neither did all the other devices in our home,fax ,hubby's phone, iPad.  Hubby told me that it had happened once before, which I can not verify..I had been asleep at that time. Now our speculations run wild..burglar in front of the house is an option, hubby thinks he smelled cigarette smoke. But which burglar would be so stupid as to stand there smoking and letting his phone ring no end?..you tell me!

Senior Moments

September 29/2014... 8:07 a.m.

After an absence of 2 years we are here again for a few days in Luxembourg. And the food is so excellent as ever! There goes my diet. And last night at dinner the lady of the house came up to our table and we chatted. But when I incidently looked at my wrists I was so embarrassed...I was wearing a watch on each! sneaked off one and only hoped no one had noticed, only then I had to fight a giggling fit very hard!

Our Seavoyage to St.Petersburg - Russia

Our seavoyage to St. Petersburg,Russia

To start off with must say, that it has been very interesting but did by far not beat the charm of our Virgin Islands trip last year. Going up north you must think that you end up with forrest ,lakes, sea and elks...no way! True, passing the baltic coast you see hundreds of little and big islands, lined with charming country homes, some of them have their own little harbour with sail and motorboats..still,the big harbours we visited on our trip are bustling cities with crowds of people milling around and traffic jams. St. Petersburg for example has a population of about 5 million people which almost equals the population of Estland.The capital City of Tallinn ,btw, has been the only place i could imagine myself to live..and there comes the big if....the summer would not only be 3 months and the rest long,dark very cold winter.

Now lets bring a little sequence in my report. As you might have noticed the trip started out with 2 days of Amsterdam, very nice, lively place! We stayed 2 days awaiting the ship and I started out with my mostly solo tours,which had been one of the problems of this journey. Herr H. simply could not cope with the strain of sightseeing any more ,so sharing so often was out. Once aboard it did not change much, what he loved most has been the bed. But I made the best of it, only in St.P., which I had been sooo looking forward to I was hit by dizzy spells and had to see the ship's hospital for an infusion. Tried to visit the Hermitage but had to leave after 3 rooms, the whole place started to turn summersaults around me.Besides ....being weekend,it had been very hot and crowded. But I had a marvellous river- and canal trip including the fortress of St.Peter & Paul with the great (former- museum now) cathedral( where almost all the zars have been burried) the next day. The weather played along, nice and warm...lovely! - So next it had been Estonia with Tallin and then Helsinki ,Finnland, where we had some discrepancies with our booked tour and ended up taking an hop-on-and off leaving from the harbour,which was in the end maybe the better idea, since the weather being very nice we sat on the open deck. Had some worries about being back in time on account of the traffic...ship does not wait for selfarranged tours! but we made it. Helsinki a very bustly city too with nice sights to see and very crowded. But I think up north people enjoy being out once the sun is shining. The weather had been great for sightseeing most of the time during our trip, Twenties C / sixties F.
Dissapointed I had been from Copenhagen/Denmark. First with hundreds of people we glared at the little meermaid (sits quite close to the passenger terminal) then we had a boring tour in the middle of traffic jams looking mostly at road constructions - they build a subway- and the bus was too cold on top, which did not help hubby's severe cough he had develop and still battles with.

Just notice I skipped our first harbour..Warnemünde in Germany, There we took a taxi to Rosock, a pretty,friendly little university town . We enjoyed it!

Now about our life aboard. They put us on a german table, not what we really wanted, Germans we meet plenty around here..they were ok though . Notice my black friends, there had been quite a big table of black people, but did not get to meet any of them. Matter of fact we met not many folks, one night we got stuck at the martini bar, the most highlife place aboard, hangover had been programmed next morning, all I needed with my already swirling head! At the end of the journey Mr. H. got seasick, so there I was again with my lonely meals and ventures.

So, friends, thats about it in short, the little things would take too long 

A Prank

November 1/13

...no,no, not Halloween, Herr H. is no doubt able to practice prancs without a given reason. 
Well, judge for yourselves. 

Around this time of the year my car needs a tire change and usually Herr H. takes my car to the service shop. Since he had taken another tumble the previousday I did not quite trust him with my little car. He always claims anyway that he can not drive it (not automatic and the pedals are too small  - which makes me remark that it is not a toy car, other adults drive it also ) - anyway, I took him along to pay at least the bill. The shop usually serves breakfast during waiting time, a nice service, along with morning papers, quite convinient! - So we sat down for our meal and Herr H. had to visit the bathroom. I had my coffee, a nice fresh roll with different things and had a nice chat with the counter guy. After a very long time my dear husband appeared, claiming that he was totally sweaty. It so had happened, that he ,always needing something to hold on to get off the seat, had grabbed the doorhandle which came off and he catapulted right back onto the seat and had himself locked in...door without handle! So he sat there and waited for help but no one showed up and with many efforts got the handle back into the door, he had to be very careful not to push it out on the other side, then he really would have been imprisoned.  You can imagine that I laughed me head off and he still complains up to today that I did not check on him.."There she sat,having leisurely breakfast not giving a damn that I did not show up" he keeps telling everyone. 

But the car had been ready by the time he showed up again.

A somewhat unusual travel report

April 21/13...     6:23 p.m.

A SOMEWHAT UNUSUAL TRAVEL REPORT

dreamview at Paradise Point

I like to fly, once you made it into the plane, mind you, but after 3 hours I turn into a whining kid – are we not there yet? – well…

Atlanta airport is the airport of the long,long ways and the fast black girls pushing Fred’s wheelchair. Beats me, the young lady had been twice my size but 3 times faster! Mr. H. of course is sitting in his wheelchair like the VIP he is and me, I am trailing equipped with 2 jackets,two carry ons and a waterbottle, upon which I finally sat on the boat proudly presenting wet pants from then on. Great!

We arrived in Florida- Ft.Lauderdale in pouring rain Thursday afternoon and had the luck to find again (always seem to happen to us) the dumbest taxidriver around who did not know this really big hotel at the beachside and kept asking us for the address. As if we knew. Cooling down my thickly feet in the sea at the beach had not been possible, sky and sea purest black. Check-in aboard our vessel the next morning and security were a scream, much sterner than at immigration,which I found astonishingly friendly. But that had been maybe thanks to our “push girl” a real sunshine! In our cabin we found the electric wheelchair as ordered but no gala dinner outfit for F. Our friendly steward came up with the clothes later but unfortunately Herr Husband did not have the athletic shoulders to fit in. So we got one size smaller, which showed a little tight around the waist, will move the button a little later on. Last nite dress code had been smart casual, tonite wil be formal but we will dine at the Tuscon Grille, also dressed up. The staff is friendly all over and the passengers are a mixed crowd. To watch people is fun. We are sitting on our balcony, sun is absent but it is warm. I always have to giggle when I think of my friend Charly who just recently took a cruise and one of his hints had been – do not stick to your cabin all the time, there is much to see on the ship, mix! – hmmm…Charly!

Summing up Saturday April 6 – 1st day at sea….



St. Thomas

Trying to get familiar with the ship, gotten lost at least 3 times, the wrong steward started to call me by name, drank 2 fruitpunch, almost drunk, thought there had been no alcohol in ! And then, while dressing for dinner, I broke out into a terrific sun allergy even if I had not been frying in the sun! charming! Good thing, that the Tuscon Grille and bar had dimmed lights. Must be the long, nasty winter which made me sensitive like Dracula’s sister. The southafrican waitress had been a darling and so attractive! Herr H. is trying hard to destroy the ship with his wheelchair, first he ripped the bed from the wall, not so easy that, because he claimed the extensions cord for loading was not long enough – of course it was – then he performed his master stunt., he rammed the restaurant table and everything, glasses,dishes cutlery fell over and downs and the very decorative balsamico-oliveoil bottle crashed against the picture window. The stuff running down the glass and the broken pieces all over the place. We had to move untill our place had been cleaned up again. All the culprit had to say that he did not do it by purpose. Well,that really would have been it!. And coming out of ther elevator on the way to our cabin he rammed a pillar because he had to turn around. The music plays up front,mister! Then I had a laughing fit, in the restaurant I had been pretty pissed off. –

So, today,Sunday sunscreen 50 will go on my skin, sun or no sun. We are just landing at Basseterre/St.Kitts . It is Tuesday (the day my friend Arthur would have been looking for us at St.Thomas) April 9 and in a little while our nice cabin steward will bring our breakfast to our balcony and then we are off to hit the sugar train. About yesterday and day before I will talk later, now we watch the docking!

So, back aboard, minus driver’s licence Mr. Schultze, that he lost. Basseterre railway tour had been interesting, all those waving people at the side of the tracks gave us the impression that this had been organized. Today even number houses have to wave, tomorrow the uneven ones. The little village I liked more than Charlotte Amalie where we took an unvoluntary island tour. Actually we only wanted to take only a tour of the place, because our date Arthur did not show up and he wanted to be our guide. Turned out he had mixed up the day and the fellow at the security gate from the ship had added to the confusion. Since I asked him for help because I could not quite figure out Arthur’s answering machine, he told me I had the wrong number. As it turned out he had told Arthur that there were 2 passengers waiting for him at the pier and Arthur told him that he had ordered no packages and that must be a wrong number. As I always say – shit happens – and we finally managed to get together after all but then we had only about 2 hours left. So Arthur took us up by car to Paradise Point where also a cable car is running . He invited us to drinks and time passed too fast with getting to know each other. There had been sympathy from both sides and I had the feeling we knew each other for ages. And the view from Paradise Point had been fabulous!

So now it is Arthurs’ turn to let us show him our sights whenever he takes his trip to Paris sometime in the future.

Today we had our first tropical rain, like a warm shower it was.

Wednesday April 10

….took us to Barbados, very exciting, since we wanted to organize our own tour and I played my hamster in the wheel role to find a wheelchair somewhere for F. to get him from the shuttle to a taxi. Wow…It turned out that the el.wheelchair was good aboard but rather useless ashore, because it had not been foldable and we could not take it along this way. But our taxitour which we shared with another couple had been a success, alone from the aspect of getting to know the scenery of island life for a bit. St.John’s Church, presumably the oldest catholic church upon the islands, was impressive, especially the spooky tombs.

Thursday April 11

…led us to Dominica, the most tropic of the islands. It had been quite humid and warm of course and we decided to organize us again ourselves. Our guide, Danny suggested that we visit the Jacko Falls, which Fred could also reach by walking a few paces. This time we had taken the electric wheelchair along – bummer – useless on the terrain. Now this had been real rainforrest and we have seen our first banana plantation and I had been so astonished that Ananas grows on the ground, I had figured them growing on trees. In the evening we skipped dinner and rather watched the beautiful sunset and took a snack from the buffet which we had on the outside part of the restaurant.

Now, Friday, 12th of April gave us a beach day at Palm Beach on St. Maarten including a lousy B-B-Q at the French part of the island. The other half is Dutch. I never thought that surf can pull your feet away like that and I really hit my knee on the ground. The bad one at that. Must say that we are still learnable and therefore we took a shipside owned wheelchair along and I pushed. Of course I did everything wrong and had a very unsatisfied passenger. Our busguide had been a Texan, he was funny and helpfull - unfortunately somewhat fast in speech. His favoured words had been cool and uncool. St. Maarten seemed very clean but the island had suffered heavily from hurricanes.

Well, another two days at sea and then again Ft. Lauderdale, there we took a tour aboard the Jungle Queen through the canal region and I finally managed to get a sunburn ,well shit! And Herr H. spilled bloody Mary onto the brightwhite tablecloth in the restaurant. – end of mischief!

To top it off, never saw so many fat people like aboard and have not walked such long distances since we sent Shaylor dog to dog’s heaven.

My Minniemouse Cup

September 14/2012.....  9:32h

Now here I am again, after a very long time - it is not my fault,believe me, blame facebook which keeps me so occupied and darn...I can not resist! - But now to my story, another one about Herr H., he is my favoured victim, now that Herr Hund only plays his pranks in dog' s heaven.
- So I have this favoured minniemouse cup, gifted with by grandson ages ago after his visit to Disneyland Paris with grandpa. I just love to have my morning milkcoffee out of it. And what happened? I opened the dishwasher and there it was, minus handle. It had come off very neatly.
I had been heartbroken, mind you! showed it to Herrn  H and he suggested I glue it on. That' s what I did and I used that very strong glue,which you never get off your fingers when you are not careful. Set the cup aside for drying. Last nite Herr H  decided to fix himself a cup of tea (very seldom he manages something like that by himself - lol ) and told me very much later of his achievment and that his fingers were full of glue. Now then my mouth dropped open because of all the cups we have sitting around he had to take the glued one which he even knew about being broken. Imagine the handle would have come off again, he really could have scalded himself with the boiling hot tea!  Well, he was lucky that the handle stuck and was pissed off about me laughing so hard about the glue on his fingers. Said that I would not get a good night kiss! - I survived that!

SENIOR MOMENTS

May 6/2012....1:00 p.m.

....We have them and we live with them, one of the unpleasanteries of getting older. But sometimes they are downright funny - like this one:
We had been visiting with our young family in Hungen the previous weekend and as it happened, there had been this may festivity in Kindergarten.  Of course our little one, 4 years old, had been very excited and from the time we arrived talked about us coming along to see her performing the "fire dance".  We wanted first to check into our little country inn,a few miles from their home where we usually stay ,and unpack our bags, and..tough luck...arrived at the kindergarten too late. The fire dance had been over and our little actress had missed her stage show. Sobbing and throwing a temperfit (understandable) grandpa tried to comfort her, telling her that there would be another performance an hour later, which then we would watch etc. etc. 
 Only the kid had not been bawling, instead looking at him with big round eyes and me standing next to the scene had a terrible laughing fit, trying in vain to stop him from talking down the wrong kid. And you should have seen the face of the kid's father, he must have been thinking his kid ran into a "good uncle" and was about to grab grandpa by the neck. Only seeing my laughing efforts to try to stop grandpa made him realize what happened and he joined me laughing and grandpa finally caught on and let go of the wrong kid,claiming that wearing the same cap they all looked alike.

And,by the way, we watched our little star perform the "fire dance" and her little world had been set straight again.

Plitsch-Platsch - I'm taking a Bath....

March 14/12....3:50 p.m.

No, no, not me, I prefer a shower!  So does Herr Husband, but once a while he thinks he should take a bath , not in the tub, mind you, he chooses our little pond. Fortunately the fish are goners since the heron gobbled them up a year ago, otherwise now they would have died of a heart attack when this big whale dived in. No kidding, I thought that would have been impossible for a grown up, but he almost managed to drown himself.  He, who never lifts a finger, suddenly decided to fill up the pond. Result: he stumbled and fell head over heels into the puddle,taking along an abundance of rocks decorating the edge. And since he hardly is able to get out of a chair by himself, he was lost and me being upstairs in the house only heard his cries for help after a while. Fortunately I had been around or he still would be lying about. He had been lucky that he touched ground with his arm, otherwise he might have managed to get his head under water.  I do not know if pleading not guilty would have helped me during an investigation. O.K.after I stopped laughing we tried to get him into an upright position which had been a hell of an effort. 

The victim lost some fingernails and had some bruises and a stiff neck, the helper had a tummy ache from laughing.

and next winter I will put up a sign: NO WALKING ON ICE!

Give it a Try

March 3/12....5:00 p.m
I know, I know, have been absent too long, somehow I seem to suffer from a kind of writer's block or I am spending,or should I say wasting, all my wisdom on facebook and twitter. Not that I have to say much there either, but talking with a feedback somehow makes it easier.
No funny family stories either and Herr Husband lost his ability to act as my object of fun. o.k. to be honest, the incidents which make me laugh I can not write about, they belong into the privacy corner.   And Herr Hund, who always had been good fo a fun tale, is wagging his tail on that big meadow behind the rainbow. It has been over a year now that he left us, but I still miss the rascal, to be honest not the walks in the cold and the rain. Took the bike today to give it a go against the wind, not excactly a fun ride, but at least my bad concience will keep it's mouth shut at tonite's pizza battle. Gave Herr H. the choice between veggie or pizza dinner...pizza it is. 

Somehow it is amazing how I can go on babbling about nothing, an art in itself - three cheers for Landfrau! So now I will top off my "having nothing to say" with some beautiful flowers, still sitting on our dining room table and evaporating a hint of spring.

I am living with Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde

August 11/11 ...12:11 p.m.


Yes, and  they  have 4 legs.  By now you might know whom I am talking about, mad Max, our guest dog. As Dr. Jekyll he is very good and nice to have around the house (well, lets be generous and forget about food stolen from the table and a hole bitten into the linnen "horse" bread bag hanging at the radiator, and gobbling up the dried bread) but put him on a leash and leave the house with him, he turns into Mr. Hyde in a jiffy. First he loses his ears, as soon as he spots another dog about half a km away he is off like a thunderbolt, no yelling or whistling is of any use. He wont do any harm , but tell that the other dog and most of all the owner! Same thing happens with people with kids. He produces a kickstart before he realizes that it is a toddler,not a dog. Up to now with have been lucky with nice parents but I could not blame them if they would be upset.


looks like an angel

  Now, why don't I  keep him on the leash? There I have a problem , since my stupid accident in the fall last year my knee is not so stable any more and he is too fast pulling me  all over the places.


So we are always happy when we are back home without incidents and then Dr. Jekyll and me are friends again.

I'm still around!

April 27/11.....5:10 p.m.

I know, I know, I have been neglecting you, my dear blog. But, hanging around, not feeling so super duper on account of my persistant coughing does not make me feel imaginative to tell little tales. At least, after my final visit to a specialist, I aquired a coughing licence, i.e. I know now what I am suffering from - a stupid bronchitis - and now I have to suck powder out of a box once in the morning and once in the evening. Sounds stupid and it is stupid, somehow I always have the tendency to blow into the thing. Let's hope it helps. -

We had a leisurely easter time, the weather had been so great and we enjoyed hanging around on our sundeck , having nice food and drinks and once a while Herr Husband took a drive with  what I baptized his "cripple quad" (a bit mean, I know, but with a wink)  and to give you an impression, here is a little video.

He really turns into"speedy gonzales"!

Curing the Heart

April 3rd/11........3:26 p.m.

too bad,Herr H. does not want to be creative and fabricate a teddy bear!

Yesterday, saturday, daughter 2 and myself took a drive to Waldliesborn, to visit Herr Husband at his clinic- hangout - Klinik Eichholz - an about 2hrs. drive. We took my Mini, but daughter did the driving, Landfrau is not such a great driver on unknown terrain. At least my car had a ball, km 160/h it never had been driven. It did fine, although you have a bit of a go-cart feeling, but not bad alltogether. The weather had been really great, summer temperatures of 25° C and we found our patient at very good shape. He is the hit of the place, envied by many as owner of his  electric luggie. He zooms around like speedy gonzales all over the compound.  - So we had lunch together and later on coffee and cake at one of the outside terraces, very relaxing. And since the place has a big in-outdoor pool (which Herr.H. unfortunately is not allowed to use - it is rather strong sole - ) it also has a little boutique, offering bathing suits. So daugther found a real cute one at a bargain , I fould a nice one too, unfortunately bargains are not to be had in my size, too many heftier customers around! - Late afternoon we decided to drive back home, we wanted to pass by Dortmund before a real important soccer game ended just about the time we were at the spot. We had been lucky, we just made it before being caught up in the fan traffic jam.
Back home Landfrau invited daughter for a drink and a delicious salad at a nearby bistro, our first time sitting outside in the evening.
By then we both had been bushed and my bed saw me pretty early. - It had been a nice day!

Sunday, Sunday

February 20/11........9:20 a.m.

To put it straight, sunday is not my favoured day of the week. It might have something to do with childhood memories, somehow sunday had been such a day of boredom on one side and  obligations on the other side.  Only thing, one could stay in bed a little longer, but then it started, had to help mother to prepare breakfast, had to help do the dishes, had to go to church during my formative years and then, after a long lunchtime meal, where usually my brothers got to fight over desert who had gotten the bigger portion, had to help with the dishes again. Then, after the afternoon sunday coffee- cake time , the whole family took a long boring walk. Anyway, till my father got his first car. Then it had been long drives into the countryside, sometimes surprising my aunt, who lived about 100 kms away and usually broke out in tears when we showed up, because she hated surprise visits.  I do not blame her. So I got to know the radius of about 100 kms around my parent's home pretty well and by the time we got home from our drive , my parents were in the no talking state, because my mother, who had no driver's license, always knew better and had been giving my father instructions till he blew his top and then my mother sulked.  Well, after sandwich time in the evening, there came the worst part, the whole family assembled around the radio,  later on it had been television, to listen to resp. watch a show and my mother presented a basket of socks full of holes, belonging to my dad and brothers and mom and daughter had to mend the holes. This had been the moment when I wished I had been one of my brothers!  Mind you, dad produced holes big as potatoes and I could have broken out into a screaming fit having to mend them. 

I never repair a sock now-a-days, off into the garbage they go. This is my revenge.

Later on, when I had my own life, sundays could be very pleasant days, only bad thing had been,that the next day had to be monday. But somehow memory of those childhood sundays sticks and they do not brighten up with time.                                                                     

Another Replacement

October 14/10 ....4:01 p.m.

It should have been the isle of Jersey in September, but the die had been cast and our trip had to be cancelled. So we decided on some quite different kind of journey.  Since we had not seen our young family for a while (they live in Hessen)  Landfrau had the bright idea to look for a comfy place in Hessen where we could meet and decided on Göbel's Schlosshotel   - good choice!

It is amazing, how ignorant we are about this region of Germany which is so full of history, not only the recent one of border region to the former DDR but history dating back much,much further. We learned that the region had been an important tradesroute connecting Leipzig/Sa and Frankfurt/Main among other things and that in Bad Hersfeld every year there is the oldest German country fair , celebrated since 852  - it has religious origin. The event took place while we had been there and the grounds are set up in the middle of town and we saw so many stoned people that they would have put the Munich Oktoberfest numbers of  boozed up crowds to shame.

Now back to our castle which is breathing history and offering the comforts of today.

We had a great time and the only regret has been that our little family could only join us for one night.  The weather played along too, it deserved its name of golden October.

Now we are back home with our memories!