Christmas 2008
Another year is almost over and a new one stands at the door, as they say here. It’s always at the beginning of December when the calendar fills up with birthday celebrations, Christmas events, school bazaars and concerts, Nativity plays etc. Somehow, in the midst of this hectic blur of activity, we must, we want to find time to write to you! Apologies that this letter will most likely arrive late – we have just had too much on.
Our quiet hour (!) usually occurs sometime after 9 pm when the girls are hopefully in bed and calm enough not to get out again. That is not guaranteed. So here we are at 9.35 pm putting pen to paper, a brief respite from constant demands. The typing up had to wait till a morning train journey to Stuttgart before fingers started tapping the keyboard at 8.05 am. This preceded the morning rush out of the flat, taking the U-bahn to drop Sabrina off for school, then another U-bahn, picking up the main train ticket, grabbing something for breakfast for the journey and then boarding the correct train at the main station, all in 40 minutes flat. When everything runs to plan it is so rewarding! And what a reward the view from the train window is. Snow covered fields like rolled off cotton wool in a child’s Christmas scene, bare spindly trees scattered about, a light mist hanging about 10 metres from the ground, merging into a sasparella-sherbet horizon leading to a cold blue sky. Phil was once in a commuter train when an American, noting the typically ordered silence of german commuters buried in newspapers, books or computers, exclaimed to his family, “it’s like a library in here !”. As expected, trains are clean, efficient and orderly, “Ordnung muss sein”.
We are staying in Munich again for Christmas and have invited a friend to have a typical English Christmas meal with us on 25th. This has gone slightly awry since turkey is not freely available here and Phil returned from England with a toffee pudding, instead of plum since there were none without the obligatory, it seems, cider, brandy or rum. The girls will appreciate the mistake though.
We continue to enjoy living in our apartment, which is more or less finished inside. We do have 2 or 3 pictures on the wall now with plans for more but have sadly acquired a broken cupboard and a leaky bathroom ceiling. We are waiting for replacements or repairs, for the bathroom ceiling already 18 months and for the decorating of the outside communal hallways a good 2 years already. This is not something you can take on individually, there is a bi-yearly owners meeting where these things get discussed and agreed. German bureaucracy in this respect is slow.
The girls have grown hugely this year. Sabrina threatens to overtake Katie before next summer and makes subtle enquiries about her shoe size. Eve is also tall for her age and is making up for lost time in her early years by announcing every 10 minutes that she is hungry. The fridge has to be restocked daily, fortunately she loves fruit and the fruit bowl needs to be kept full or there is trouble.
1st August was Sabrina’s last day at primary school. It was an emotional event for parents and classmates, but a lovely one nevertheless. The children all gather round in the playground and sing songs, then there were balloons let off by the children who were leaving. Each had a note tied on for anyone who found it, with a return address, Sabrina’s is still out there somewhere. Afterwards, Sabrina went off with her pals to the Italian for large ice creams. She has now started secondary school and is taking time settling in. We went to her Christmas concert and it was all very sweet with most dressed in typical Bavarian costumes to sing and play instruments. It was funny watching some children including her, laughing and giggling with one another when they should have been sitting quietly. Sabrina also gets choir practice which she enjoys.
Evie enjoyed her birthday party on a very hot day in July. Phil was in his element arranging running races, sack races, egg and spoon etc, even marking out the field! It was great fun. Evie received a new bike and enjoyed the new freedom in the summer, although she still wobbles dangerously at times. And it also gave us a bit more freedom to explore biergartens a little further afield. She is so easy to please with regards to choices, any bike would have been adequate and she is much easier to buy clothes for. As a contrast, we’ve had snow and rain for a month now and Sabrina still cannot make up her mind about which boots to get, preferring her cold pumps. Evie is a relatively content member of the second class and is asserting her independence and determination. She is popular despite her shy, reserved nature.
Katie still finds home life fairly demanding, overseeing homework, being general cook and bottle-washer. She does find time though to play the piano and has taken up occasional lessons again, hoping to develop an interest in jazz and improvisation. Sabrina also takes piano lessons from a nice tutor who somehow seems to get the best out of her, even when she is grumpy, which can happen with Sabrina and piano practice! Sabrina is actually talented musically and performed Greensleeves in front of the class recently which she coped with; most of the class had to do this, if they took extra lessons in a particular instrument. Sometimes the school system over here can seem very demanding and cruel, but fortunately the teachers are mostly kind and supportive.
Phil’s year has been challenging at Cisco. A typical month consists of one week in Stuttgart and half a week in Frankfurt, compensated by working at home mostly otherwise. This means he can drop Eve off for school 4 days a week and Sabrina one day a week. He goes into the office a couple of times a month since it is so far out, one stop from the airport. In some respects Cisco reminds him of BT 12 years ago, there is a similar vision about the power of communications, collaboration and the internet, only this time round there seems a better chance of success, back then most of the ideas were still on the drawing board and the technology wasn’t quite there. In a funny way also, some of the characters remind him of that time at BT in the late 90s. Perhaps it can all be put down to age! The job requires a high degree of organisation, something which has been a challenge previously but it is starting to come slowly to someone who has not been the best at time management. Who knows how things will develop in the current economic situation though? REM, Paul Weller and Heather Nova were seen at concerts this year.
For our summer holidays, we took a gamble and travelled to England to visit family and catch up with old friends. This proved a bad idea, since apart from having one beautiful day in York and sunshine once or twice, it was almost constant rain. We stayed in Chester for a time, again torrential rain and on the way down to Worcester to visit our new Godson, we thought it would have been better to have hired a boat than a car, the road was so waterlogged. This summer we hope for a holiday somewhere sunny!
The winter is coming in and the lake near us (Drachensee) has already frozen over, last year it lasted into February and people even ice-skated on it. And we have found an Italian restaurant nearby where we are “locals”. Friendly owners with a sense of humour, arbitary bill, great food.
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