Christmas 2005
We’ve had snow since the middle of November, Sabrina has already been ice-skating a couple of times and we’re once again addicted to “Strictly Come Dancing”; the run up to Christmas has begun.
“All I want for Christmas is my two front teeth” would be appropriate for Sabrina at the moment: she has lost 5 so far. She has had another demanding year at school, rising at 6.30 am and usually an hour’s homework per day. The school day is tough for her but she gains the advantage of having the best german language out of the four of us, by a long chalk. She attends an after school club (Hort) when school finishes at about 12.30 pm and stays there until 4 pm, the leaders are very supportive and she has a wonderful time playing with her friends. They put on a summer party based on the American Indian theme, which they had been working on throughout the year. Also during the summer term, the school was helped by a team of artists and each group of 10 children created large paintings for display at the summer fete.
“Push the button and let me know”. Eve adores animals, never seems to tire of jigsaw puzzles and more recently enjoys learning from CDs on the computer. It’s funny watching her clicking the buttons, not quite sure what the options are: “press orange for easy, blue for hard” as the mouse clonks on blue, then a flurry of pressing and “please try again”s until the right answers are found: she is patient and determined. She has a bit of a ‘love /hate’ relationship with Kindergarten, however, when she sees her friends it is often OK. She declares she loves everybody – not sure how long that will last.
“Will you still need me, will you still feed me … ?” Katie’s year saw opportunities for personal growth and some developments musically: she often plays at Church (they were slightly desperate!), loves it and finds the playing satisfying. A couple of weeks ago, a neighbour came to ask for 2 appropriate English songs for her to sing at a family wedding. We came up with a hymn which we had at our wedding and ‘When I am 64’! Helga came across to practice a few times, it was certainly interesting trying to teach a german how to pronounce and understand phrases like ‘knit a sweater’ or ‘mending a fuse’. Her children and ours are becoming firm friends. They are a bit wild together but have great fun. A highlight was seeing the original production of Mamma Mia at the Olympiahalle - great music, very uplifting and a good excuse for our (nearly) once a year night out. In fact, we also attended an open air classical concert conducted by Leonard Slatkin and a piano concert by David Helfgott (from the film “Shine”).
“Dad, can we have loud music?” Phil’s biggest challenge this year was looking after the children for a long weekend whilst Katie was away (sent away, according to Katie). Fortunately he had 2 days off work but ended up falling asleep both days after having got one off to school or the other off to Kindergarten. Perennial favourites were the hi-fi exhibition, the Oktoberfest and various concerts: Go-Betweens, Paul Weller and a joint concert by Todd Rundgren and Joe Jackson, as well as local band Cellarfolks, who play Irish folk. Work has involved plenty of trips “up north” to Telefonica’s technical centre in Gütersloh, near Hannover. Highlight was the networkers conference in Cannes, south of France for 5 days of fun … ehm work. One reading treasure discovered this year is a book called “The Second Kingdom” by Rebecca Gablé, about the Norman Conquest, 1066 and all that.
Visits this year included Freiburg in the Black Forest region with Anke who took us to a beautiful picnic spot: a log jutting out into a delightfully still lake, needless to say the girls wanted to swim/paddle and we hadn’t brought any costumes. We also spent a week in Frankenwald with Sabrina’s Kids Club, which was encouraging in that so many children of varying ages could get on so well and look out for each other. There was a quick visit to Berchtesgaden, with a trip on the Königsee and a wonderful evening in the Brauhaus after bumping into our next door neighbours. Small world.
We managed to visit England three times, one baptism, one wedding and a long holiday.
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