I did forget someone!

We have five cats, still. We adopted Mitzi and her son, Felix, at the end of March. Felix ran off about six and a half weeks later, which was very upsetting as he was the more affectionate of the two.

Mitzi is fifteen, Felix was fourteen. He has tattooed ears, but no one has ever contacted me to say they've found him. I hope he is safe and well somewhere, but I fear the worst. He'd been going out for about three days when he disappeared, so he may have become disorientated and lost his way. Poor wee man...

Mitzi has taken a long time to settle in. She is a very individual old lady, still pretty spry. Very pretty little face. She doesn't like to be petted too much, but she does like it until she remembers she's meant to be a mean old baggage. You have to read the signs to know when to stop, or she will scratch and try to bite. I lost count of the scratches I received in the first six to ten weeks or so. Things are much better now, but she is still a solitary individual. We discovered in mid-May that her kidneys aren't working too well, so she is on the renal diet food.

Wanda is now, too. She also had to have her thyroid gland removed, both halves of it were hugely enlarged, and now the poor wee soul has to have thyroxine! Trust her to be different; usually there's enough thyroid tissue elsewhere in the body that they don't need any help. The enlarged gland went unnoticed for a couple of years or more because instead of being in her throat, it was deeper in the chest and couldn't be felt on an external exam, so our vet assumed her weight loss and poor coat condition was just one of those things. We do have a fabulous vet, though, he and his wife are both excellent.

She's also having a few neurological problems, but seems to be doing a bit better now. Nowadays she sleeps most of the time, waking to eat and that's about it. While she is still happy and enjoying life, we will do our best to make sure that that continues. The vet is at a loss as to what has happened. Further investigation would be expensive, and pointless as there is nothing they could do to help her. The thyroxine has made quite a difference, though.

A busy seven months

Wow...I really must update my Blog a little more frequently!

Let me see, what's happened since the last time? Let's start with the sad news first of all. On July 9th, in the early hours of the morning, I went out looking for Loki and Kit as they'd not yet come in. Loki had gone out quite late, around 10.30 pm, and usually would have been back in to go up to bed with us much earlier. D asked me where he was after we went up just after midnight; the first time I looked, I couldn't see him anywhere. I went out again half an hour later, and found his body in front of our neighbour's fence...to say that I was hysterical would not be an exaggeration. My precious, beautiful ginger bear boy had been hit by a car and must have died instantly.

A couple of weekends ago, we went to the Eifel to a camping ground that one of D's friends goes to most weekends during the season. When we returned home, we found that Tigger, our 18 and a half year old Wiener kitty, had died in her sleep. The strange thing about that was that on Sunday night, without saying anything to each other, we both felt very strongly that something was wrong at home with one of the cats and that we should leave. We both dismissed it. There was nothing that we could have done had we been there, she was very old and very sick. I'd said on the way up that I wanted to take her to the vet the next week. I'm sad that she is gone, but glad that she didn't suffer and that she was able to die curled up on her dad's chair in her favourite spot (or one of them) and went peacefully.

And now for some good news! I received my exam results for course B1 about a week after the last update. I got a grade 2, scoring 86% overall. 83% for the reading, writing and listening comprehension part of the exam and 97% (!!!) for the spoken exam. Woot! All thanks to my classmate Nicole, who was my partner for the spoken exam and has fantastically good German. She got 96% overall, and I reckon had it not been for the orchestral accompaniment during the grammar part of the exam she would have aced it totally.

After losing Loki, we'd decided within a couple of days that we needed another ginger bear of a Norwegian Forest Cat. After much scouring of the internet, we found two possibilities, one about 90 minutes away and one almost three hours away. There was a mix-up over the first possible, so I got in touch with the second lady who had not one, not two, but three ginger boys! One was already adopted, so we went to meet Roxy and Quin in mid-July. We couldn't choose, so D put the money from the sale of the classic Mercedes towards both kittens, and I chipped in with the rest. They're four months old this week (Roxy is four days younger, but is Quin's uncle as well as his half-brother; Quin's mum is the daughter of Roxy's mother.) They are two mad bundles of fluffy energy, on the go every second they are awake. They are already about the size of our old lady cats in length, but still recognisably kittens. They're going to be big boys when they finish growing around the age of five! We are madly in love with them both.

My gorgeous nephew turned one on August 10. He is almost walking; he decided not to bother with crawling and is still shuffling everywhere on his bum!

Towards the end of May - the 21st, if you want me to be exact - I decided I had to do something about my weight. It's been up and down so many times over the last few years and I was frankly sick of being in pain and feeling semi-disabled by the state of my knees. I had a hard time getting up off the sofa, and last year during the walk in Diekirch I couldn't get off a low bench for a good five minutes because my knees just did not want to lift my huge weight off the seat. The heaviest that I know I reached is 21 stone 8 pounds, but that was the August of 2008. When I joined WeightWatchers online for the umpteenth time (sixth or seventh, I think), I had been weighed at the doctor's here and came in at 135 kg or 21 stone. As of yesterday morning, I was 116 kilos or 18 stone on the nose.

It's a jolly good job that I did embark on a diet, because three weeks ago, D proposed! We're getting married next February in Inverness. Today I am going to try on some wedding dresses with the help of Nicole, to get an idea as to what suits me and how my body shape might look in five months' time. Not sure what will look best, which is the reason for going to try on frocks. I can say right now I don't want a strapless dress (too busty for comfort) or a sleeveless dress, but that may go by the wayside when I try some on.

Life is good...still struggling through the latest German course, with an exam in November and the next course starting about a week later. That's if I stick with the VHS in Schwetzingen and don't say 'sod it!' and decide to do C1 in four weeks in Heidelberg. However, without knowing the result of the B2 exam, I can't start that class, and getting married may get in the way of taking a four week course, so...

My soon-to-be niece Nicole is getting married on November 27 in Florida, and is expecting a baby in mid-March next year! She doesn't hang around; she met Tony, was pregnant and engaged to him in about six weeks! She seems to be blissfully happy, and we both wish them all the very best for the future.

One of our other nieces, Dawn, had a fourth baby, another boy, Max, earlier this year. He is a big, bouncing boy, full of smiles and very handsome. Dawn and DeAnn, her sister, have the most gorgeous children!

I think that's all the news; I've probably forgotten lots, but never mind!

Poor, neglected Blog!

Well, it's been a while. How've you been, Blog? Keeping well? You're looking a little sparse in terms of the number of posts of late. Guess I'd best update things, hey?

So, what's happened since the last time we spoke? Well, first and foremost and most wonderfully of all, Aiden Norman Parlett made his entrance to this life on August 10 2009. He is gorgeous, of course, and stole everyone's heart as soon they set eyes on him.

Another cool thing that's happened is that I actually made a friend. This is a rare enough thing that it should be written about. Marilyn was born in Nigeria, is married to a German guy called Wolfgang, and they have two gorgeous boys, Andreas and Martin who are - let me get this right! - 12 and 11. Marilyn and I were on the same German language course at the Volkshochschule in Schwetzingen last year and usually get together one day a week to go walking or swimming together. She stuffs me full of food, entertains me - my word, is she funny! We have each other in stitches, and she has one heck of a laugh on her.

Wolfgang is a sweetheart; he drove us to our exam in January at the VHS in Heidelberg. Well, first of all, he drove me home again because I Forgot My Passport, and the letter from the school said we HAD to have ID with us. I was in such a state I didn't dare race home in the snow, so Wolfgang drove me home, I ran into the house and grabbed the passport from my handbag and ran back to the car, whereupon we drove hell for leather back to their house in Oftersheim, grabbed Marilyn and raced off to Heidelberg. We still got there almost an hour before the exam started!

Let me say first of all, that I have never ever before sat an exam to orchestral accompaniment. Imagine, then, my horror, when halfway through the most difficult part of the exam (a lengthy text all in German with a series of multiple-choice questions pertaining to the text, followed by two letters with blanks that need to be filled in, one multiple-choice and one with ten blanks and fifteen options which you need to sort through and choose the correct word for the relevant space), first flutes then violins could be heard. The orchestra was in the room directly above us, rehearsing what sounded like a rather nice piece of Mozart. It was lovely, but it did absolutely nothing for our concentration. I did ask whether we had to just put up with it, the invigilator merely shrugged and apologised.

Come the mid-morning break, myself, Marilyn and our friend from school Nicole were standing outside in the freezing cold, me and Nicole chainsmoking, swearing our asses off and jittering like mad as we bemoaned our fate and bitched about the stupidity of sitting an exam with an orchestra playing overhead.

Luckily the noise had stopped when we went back in. Good thing, too, because we had the listening comprehension test next, followed by a letter-writing exercise.

We had lunch in a swish bar/restaurant just up the road from the school. The afternoon held the delights of the spoken exam, and Nicole and me were partnered up for that. Marilyn had a stranger for a partner who hadn't shown up for the morning's papers, so she was rather nervous. We sat and talked for a while, then Marilyn set off to find her partner and Nicole and I ran through a few things.

The exam was a little different to what we'd expected. We were shown into a room with three people in it and sat at two tables well apart from each other, and allotted letters A and B. We each had a different photo, which we had to describe to each other, and I wasn't really expecting that so it kind of threw me a little.

It is never a good idea to speak English when you are being examined on your ability in German. So of course, I at some point opened my mouth and said 'I mean...', clapped my hand over my mouth in horror, sneaked a glance at the invigilators and muttered 'you didn't hear that, right?', to their great amusement. I lost a couple of points for that, but still managed to get 73/75. Yeah, that's right. 97% or so. Me, who lost it so totally during the last spoken exam I sat in German back in 1991 that I flunked it absolutely.

I passed the whole exam this time around, with an overall score of 86%, giving me a solid 2 pass. That's pretty good going, I think. The lowest scores were for the parts where we had the orchestral accompaniment; comparing results, Marilyn and I both did our worst during that part of the exam.

So, that was pretty cool. The next class starts on Wednesday evening. Just the two evenings each week, Wednesdays and Fridays, from 18:15 to 21:30. That means I will have the daytime free, and as I now have some degree of competence in German I can think about maybe finding a job of some kind.

I can also hopefully continue to get the house in order. We have one of the upstairs rooms decorated and that has become my study/library/entertainment room/guest bedroom and somewhere I can escape to if I need alone time. I like that.

Lots more still to be done, though, and I am planning on starting that tomorrow. Well, today, given it is currently around 4 am. Not been sleeping too well lately, I think mostly due to the stress of waiting for the exam results over the last five weeks.

What else has been happening? Oh, we bought a motorhome! A huge American one, thirty feet long with a bedroom, shower, toilet, kitchenette, dining/living area and two huge captain's chairs in the front. It's about fourteen years old, so not in the first flush of youth, but has very few miles on the clock engine-wise. Needs a new gas bottle, a new mounting shock on the generator, a new oxygen sensor and a bit more fiddling with the electrics and then it should be grand! I plan on investing some of my pennies in helping to get it fixed up - that seems like a good, solid thing to do for the two of us.

As we now have a motorhome that will sleep 8 people, we have the ability to take guests to places they might like to see. It also gives us somewhere to relax and sleep when we go off on Volksmarches. A great idea! We did Diekirch together last year (just the 20km/13 mile trail) and it was cold and wet despite being early June. We were supposed to pick up a tent at the Ramstein BX en route to Luxembourg, but they'd sold out! So, we wound up sleeping in the back of the Toyota for two nights. That was just miserable. So narrow I had to wake up to turn over, a big ridge across the middle where the rear seat was folded over, and cold. Oh, and we were in a car park across the street from the start/finish line.

Did you know that the Dutch army had a pipe band? Michelle knows...and they're very good, but not at zerostupidhundredhours!

We still have all four cats with us. Tigger is very nearly 18 years old now, and continues to do well. Her kidney function last time we had her tested just before Christmas was within normal limits on all results, which was fantastic news! The renal diet has really helped her, although it is hellishly expensive at around £1 a pouch - she can get through three or four in a day, as she still has the squits most of the time. Nothing wrong with her there, though. No parasites or viruses or infection that the vet can find. (Believe me when I say, though, that scooping catsquit into a wee vial is not a very pleasant task.)

Loki, Kit and Wanda have really taken to life in Germany. They love having a big house to run around in, even though the garden is a postage stamp compared to the five acres they became used to back in Elkesley! Kit has become a beachball with feet, even though she seems to eat very little and we've had her on diet food for a year now. Wanda is thin these days, she lost a lot of her excess weight once I got her away from Butthead and she no longer had too many treats and too much food. She's still a very solitary girl and doesn't spend much time with the other cats if she can help it. Always to the fore at food time, though! Loki is a delight, as he ever was. He likes to sleep with his people, either on my tummy or on Dave's, curled up around my head on the pillow, on top of the pillow Dave pulls over his head or up on the bedstead bookcase.

So, that's my wee update! I will, as I always say, try to update more frequently. See how it goes! I have lots to keep me occupied at the minute, so we'll see.

What Time Is It?!

We're back from Florida, the house is still standing, the garden desperately needs weeding and the 'grass' cutting, the kitties are all hale and hearty.

We had great luck on the flights out, with both of us on different days having a window seat with the aisle seat free. No such luck yesterday, the plane was absolutely packed to the rafters in coach, and we haven't the funds to fly business class. We had aisle seats across from each other at least, so we could wave and check in on each other from time to time.

It was a night flight, and I know from listening to other well-travelled folk that it is a good idea to set your watch to local time at your destination, so when we were due to take off at 4.25 pm in Florida it was 10.25 in Frankfurt. Dinner was due to be served around 6 pm/midnight, so I was looking forward to settling down to sleep after that.

Unfortunately, a poor man on the row in front on the left hand side of the seating collapsed while we were still on the tarmac. There was a paramedic on the flight, so he checked on him, and the emergency services were called. The cabin crew did a very good job indeed of co-ordinating things and keeping the gawkers at bay. All I heard was a big bang as he hit the floor, and I'm not the sort to start rubbernecking. They had no need of my rusty first aid skills so I kept in my seat, but my understanding was he had a history of heart problems and had got up from his seat to go back to the bathroom before we left the gate and collapsed on his way back.

It took a little over an hour to get him off to hospital, take details of witnesses, find his baggage and remove it from the hold. Then we had to wait for a new take-off slot, and as we queued up an airplane ahead of us blew a tyre on take-off and so they had to close the runway to clean it up. That meant waiting for another slot.

In the end, I think it was about 6.30 by the time we took off. Whatever, by the time we'd eaten dinner and had the last round of beverage service after it, it was about 3 am German time, so I settled down to sleep. That was when I realised the guy on the other side of the aisle row was blasting out heavy metal on his iPod, which I could hear over the engine noise even with earplugs in.

The cabin lights stayed on for another couple of hours, so even with the eyeshades they provide you, it was too bright to sleep. Every twenty minutes or so the cabin crew came round with water, which was nice, but rather loud.

And then, after the cabin lights went out and some of us finally managed to drift off, first of all the guy on the left of me refused to let the guy in the middle back into his seat, so he had to wake me up, followed a few minutes later by the duty free trolley coming round and making enough noise to wake even D, who will sleep through earthquakes.

So, I think all told I might have snatched maybe an hour on the flight. I'd started to feel headachey in the airport and took some painkillers on the plane, but had to wait so long to get a drink (forgot to buy water) my migraine had really taken hold, so I was in a pretty miserable state.

The crowning glory of the day had to be the wrangling of the baggage - three suitcases, one of which has wheels but is the old-fashioned kind that has the wheels on the long axis so I was bent double trying to pull it along. It was easier just to carry it. Out the terminal, onto the bus to the railway station at the other terminal, the long walk to the station itself and the escalators down to the platform...by the time we got down there, I was almost fainting and had to lean on the luggage trolley for support.

I was semi-conscious on the twenty minute train ride to Mannheim, but then had to drag the older suitcase through the station and out to the taxi rank. That meant wrangling it the length of the platform as I had to get to the escalator because the funky conveyor belt by the stairs is still out of order and has been for months, then dragging it back the length of the station building and up a hill to the taxi rank. I think taxi drivers in every city in the world are equally deranged...

I was so pleased to see Monty when we got to our friends' flat, but not pleased to note that someone had keyed the panel between the door and the bonnet...

Got home, checked the gardens - I have a green pepper growing, and all the tomato plants and peppers are in full bloom, my gladioli bulbs have all sprouted, the peas and beans are growing well, clematis, poppies, peonies are all blooming, and the weeds are taking over!

Then I staggered upstairs and crashed out for a few hours, and now I need to think about packing a few things to take to Scotland with me tomorrow. Change at Manchester and Edinburgh...argh!!!!

Excitement Abounds!

Well. No, not really. But I have managed to finally get around to gutting the living room and re-arranging the furniture, and tomorrow we will be replacing the unit that the TV and electrical stuff stands upon. We've been looking for the perfect replacement for a couple of years now. Not too wide and not too tall. The present incumbent is about a metre and a half high by about 160 centimetres wide. The replacement is maybe five centimetres wider and about the same height, with drawers and cupboards where DVDs and CDs can be squirreled away. This is great, because at the moment thetop of the piano and of a small cupboard are covered with CD holders and piled-up CDs, and we ran out of room on the DVD unit (nigh on 2 metres tall, big enough to have two rows of DVDs on each shelf) years ago. 

D also bought me a new bookcase, as my existing one (which will hopefully be rebuilt either later today or tomorrow) is overloaded. Or would have been overloaded when rebuilt! I am quite looking forward to getting some of my books unpacked...I may and go do that in a little while.

I've also found out that German courses start at the local college next month, and I have to go along next Tuesday evening to find out which level of course I need to go on. Apparently they will administer a test and that will sort out which class I need to take. Probably a series of classes, in all honesty, as I'd like to get my German up to as near fluent as I can. Hopefully though I can start looking for work by about Easter - if not before! I've had a look at some job sites, but most office work round here requires a decent level of German, and I can get by when I go shopping and that's really about it at the moment. Not really good enough!

We've had some snow of late, too, much to the delight of the resident felines. Loki  - being a Norwegian Forest cat - is supposed to be built for snowy weather. He was Not Amused, as this photo should illustrate!

So What Have I Been Doing?

Obviously I didn't do nothing between the end of September last year and the second of January this.

Well, there was finishing work. Then there was packing (I'd made a start, but not as much of a start as I'd thought). Then I flew out to Germany for a week or so and we drove back over in a hired van and spent a further ten days packing up my flat and cleaning it up as best we could. D hurt his back and I came down with a filthy cold, so we didn't actually finish till we were all but driving to Hull to catch the ferry. I had to leave a few things behind, but hopefully they will still be there later when I go to pick them up, which will probably be this summer some time.

We got back to Germany on 28 October, and most of my stuff is now either in the dining area or in the second spare bedroom. We've managed to just about finish decorating that room now, although there are still some bits of trim still to finish off and I have to paint the woodwork. The bookcase is going to be sanded, stained and reconstructed, with some added strengthening bits and new castors. 

I had the opportunity in November to spend a couple of weeks in Ullapool at my brother's. We only had a couple of days together though, as the purpose of my visit was to cover for him and his wife while they were in Norway. So, I had almost two weeks of working in the shop every day, something I haven't actually done in years. Not sure I've ever worked the whole day from opening to closing, or at least I hadn't before this last trip. It was actually quite good fun!

I also got to spend time with H's kids, who are now 17 and 16. I remember when they were babies - hard to believe they're both about to finish school and one is off to University to become a primary school teacher. 

The most difficult part was keeping quiet as to why they were off to Norway. It did cause quite a lot of gossip, mainly because Norway in November isn't exactly the sort of warm, exotic place you imagine jetting off to for your first holiday together in a good three years. 

Fortunately I had the presence of mind to ask whether H's kids knew why they were going. No, they had no idea. They still have no idea, and won't till probably the beginning of February. 

Apart from that, I've just been decorating and cleaning and tidying, and enjoying a quiet Christmas and New Year!

Happy New Year!

Well, here we are - year, what, three of this blog? I think it is, anyway. Or possibly four. Yes, it is - year four! Who'd a thunk it, eh?

This time last year, I was metaphorically shitting bricks about the reception I would get when I returned to work (quite rightly too, as I discovered). Now? Now the future is stretching ahead of me into some degree of uncertainty. I need to register myself here in Germany, register my car, get myself on a German language course and look at getting a job of some kind. Even a 'Wollen Sie pommes mitzu?' sort of a job would do...

There is much decorating and cleaning of the house yet to be done. That will occupy a lot of my time. At some point this year, I will hopefully become an Aunt. Whether to one baby or two is yet to be ascertained. The next scan date is January 13, so let's just cross everything and hope for the weaker of the two blobs.

Insomnia has not helped me settle life down into some sort of rhythm, but I am going to try and sort that out now that things are moving in terms of getting upstairs sorted out. Tidy up, de-clutter, create space. Space is important. 

Anyway, I only came here to see if I could find an answer for Fimb regarding archiving an old blog and starting again using the same blog!

Bombshells

On Wednesday last, the High Heid Yin, He Who Must Be Obeyed (er, yeah, right) spent the morning at our office. I was trying to get ready to run out to court for the first day of a three-day final hearing in a contested matter, so was stressed anyway.

I was even more stressed when he said there was something he needed to talk to me about but it could wait until lunch time and not to stress about it!

Nothing is more likely to make me stress - even with him bouncing and grinning and holding two thumbs aloft in the corridor outside my room. (Do I work for Paul MacCartney?)

It wasn't bad news, not at all. I mean, it couldn't be, really, could it?

Seems my successor does not want me here next week when she starts work, so I have a week's paid vacation and effectively finish on October 3, not October 10.

Argh! So much to do, so little time, and three hearings this week!

Bombshell number 2 was my dear, darling baby brother telephoning me from Norway, where he and his wife were at a clinic to discuss IVF. They are eligible, they have the cash, and they will be going back. I am going to cover for them in the shop while they are away for a week to ten days. It was supposed to be around 22 October this year.

'Are you free in November? Right at the end, about November 27?'

ARGH!

So, I have already arranged with my landlady to stay on till the end of October. Now I am free to leave as soon as I can be ready to go and the Hippy can get his mitts on a van.

Eek!

So, I have been madly trying to get in touch with him since Friday to no avail. He's had some kind of flu bug and has a sore back from staying in bed for two days, but was going in to work today and will sort things with his boss to come over anywhere between October 10 and 15. I hope to have an exact date tonight - will need to as we need to look at whether to go via tunnel or ferry, and then book the cats on whichever form of transport. Can't just turn up with them, unfortunately!

I am excited and terrified in equal measure, and swinging wildly between the two states. I love him and want to be with him more than anything, but to do that I am giving up something I fought and scrabbled to achieve for years, something on many levels that I adore. Or did adore...this last year has kicked most of the enjoyment out of it for me.

Anyway, Gentle Reader - next stop, Germany!