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.
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