Swim For Gold

Yesterday was quite hectical and being quick I didn´t see the bad leaves but later on the pic!
But I bet SIL will think it was one of her Daughters anyways - mean Auntie, me, huh? ;-)

The horsey book was the hit, the others, aw, well.
And Wee One looooved The Jungle Book and was so disappointed that no one wanted to read RIGHT NOW to her.

Again Niece was very shy, but Wee One SO NOT! She even hugged huge, loud Uncle Ingo :-)

Before that visit we went to Ingo´s parents.
We chatted a bit, then MIL was keen on installing WhatsApp on my cell.
Took a while and FIL got a tad impatient. Because.... Why was I there?

Riiiight....

Yes, MIL said "some medals"... SOME????

FIL started as police officer, later was chief inspector (before Ingo and I were together he even investigated at my parent´s shop, as a trainee stole jewelry - it´s a small world, huh).

He was over forty and other officers, not even twenty went like, "what´s Granpa doin` here?".

"Granpa" is leaving you waaaaay behind in the water, grabbing gold :-)
I mean... what else?

Be it Germany or just our part of Germany, Lower Saxony - gold it is!

And not only in swimming he deserves gold.
The apron said "Chef P" and what can I say. YUM!

After that there was plum cake and whilst we all stood in the 70´s style kitchen suddenly something very warm touched my hand, by golly!!!
It was Frida (not my late Granma - THAT really would´ve freaked me out - but their boxer´s tongue).

Drive back was stressy but all went well.

One question, though, parents might be able to answer:
Back then Niece, yesterday Wee One asked me to go to the loo with them, I suppose for the big business.
Why???

In both places we got offered coffee (somehow I don´t like it anymore), so:

Lion of the day :-)

Off We Go

Certainly. I fell for it.
"A tad" more expensive than tap-water, what I usually drink, but, hey, when did I last see my family?
We need something to drink for the loooong ride (~ 60km), right?

First step will be to learn to work with my stupid Walther in the woods (dark half of the year coming), then parents in law for lunch (hopefully not tongue again! It was tender, but... OMG, my brain said "ewww, nooo!"), then family.
Only shortly as they´re still busy with their new house and Ingo wants to be home early, too, to get a place to park the car near where we live.

I hate wrapping presents, takes too much patience, but for that I did a job OK, no?

Big Niece can read now, so it comes with name tags. The ones with both wrapping papers is for them to share, otherwise (cause Wee one cannot read yet) everyone gets her own paper, too.
Now I can just hope the pressies are fun for them.

I refused to buy a saddle for the wooden horse Niece got for her birthday.
For some whopping €100!
They even sell food buckets with "yummy food" and if that´s not crazy enough:
Hoof picks!!!
Seriously! Those legs are deep into the ground so the kids can play with that thing - it has no hoofs! But there must be people who buy this!
Rant over...

I got books: Myths from Braunschweig and surroundings - also where they live, a real great book!
I bought if for myself and had to go back the next day to buy it for Niece - the cash-out woman said, it´s not for children only, she loved it, too! And a coloring book with funny/interesting Braunschweig-facts (after all this comes from The City of Henry the Lion and Niece is a Lion by zodiac):

For both a book on horse-tales and... since Niece told me on the phone she still remembers having seen the Little Giant Girl on my PC a stick with The Giants - for both. Wee One gets the "The Jungle Book" - when I checked with Bro he said she loves this (phew) and a DVD. One. Because AT HOME I read for the second: Years 6+. Stupid Auntie, me!

Well let´s see how that goes.
I´m curious if FIL really got all his swim-medals and stuff out for me!

Oh, I plain hate driving and will not look onto the road cause otherwise Ingo does not pay the attention he pays when driving by himself.
Wish us luck.
I didn´t have had in mind school holidays had started (traffic)!
Weren´t they JUST over???
How come that as a kid you waited forever for the next holidays (didn´t you, too?) and now I just can´t believe how quick the next one comes!

Crazy, no?

Lion of the day - heading to his Lion-Niece :-)

A Tad (Too) Late

I´m getting back on track, finally - this is the work of one morning!
Clothes I didn´t wear in ages go away.

It felt sooo good.

Also because I was 100% sure I bought my AUD 9,99 Kmart "wedding-dress" also in blue but couldn´t find it - I thought I must´ve lost my mind, which is scary!

But, no, one strap fell off the clothes hanger, making it hanging in the back!

Did you know that the Premier on display at Madame Taussauds is wearing a tuxedo from Kmart?

And yes, I made my peace with this store.
We arrived in Sydney in 1995, went to Kings Cross traveller´s car market(!), bought a car, drove to a shopping mall to get everything for our trip.
It must´ve been Coles or Woolies, we were also looking for an esky. We looked a lot for it and to be faster one of us went left, the other to the right.
I finally asked a young man from the staff.

He just said one word: "Kmart". Now, at school you learn marKEt, so I didn´t know what he meant.
No matter how I asked ("what is it", "where is it"... he just repeated "Kmart", I finally left, Ingo found me with a mad face and asked if I found out anything.
I just snapped "Kmart!!!". Well, Ingo´d been in Australia before and replied "ah, ok, let´s go."
I was about killing him ;-)

Well I got my blue dress, but sadly now too cold to wear it this year - hope next summer will be as great as this one!

Lion of the day.

Thank You, Stranger

Whilst yesterday evening I was at Ingo´s car a guy with a strong foreign accent stopped me.
He said there is a car parked down the road and the side window is wide open, if I wanna go have a look, maybe I know and can contact the owner.

How nice is that?
I thanked him and went to get a look, didn´t know but kept the number plate in mind.
Just wanted to get into our condo when the direct neighbour came out and I asked him.

His answer was no, but he´d seen another car down our road, too, well, what the heck.

What the heck???

(I went and found no such car with window down)

Went three storeys up to ask the neighbours who know everyone in the house, they had no idea, either.
I said, "OK, I call the police then".
C said she´d done that once, too, but no one came (at least she tried to help, too).

Well, I did, the officer took my name (what for???), the address of where the car was parked, which side was open and the number plate and said they send someone.

My, a total stranger passing by cares more than a neighbour.
Isn´t that sad?

(The weather is crazy atm, partly hot, then cold, guess that driver arrived in the hot period)

I said to Ingo that I wish this happens to said nasty neighbour and no one cares, the car gets stolen.
Well, that dude works for VW and sure has an insurance that would fully replace.

Great there are still people who DO care, right.

Ingo later went to have a look - the car was gone.
So... either the car had been stolen.
The owner drove away.
The police was not able to contact the owner and took the car to safety.
I hope for the second...

Lion(s) of the day - I sadly was slack with naming my pics lately, so I have no idea anymore where I got these...

I Never Give Up And Happy Birthday

I think it was about a year ago that I bought an avocado and put the pit with toothpics in a glass of water.
It really grew into a plant but in January it nearly died.
As did my eyes.
So Ingo got an air humidifier and it recovered.
As did my eyes ;-)

Then thanks to the heat and my meds it lost all the leaves.
My therapist said, get rid of it. I tried this, too, it´s a complicated plant.

Well. I did not.

And here goes:

Somehow it´s a "she" to me as in German you say "sie" not "es" (it).

I found a babysitter for her when we´re in Perth, too.

My T :-)
If I keep her alive that long he happily will take care - and he is a hobby-gardener, too!
Wish me luck!!! That I don´t ruin it all again!
I´d so to love to see her growing into a tree.
Which then would be a "he" as trees are male in German.

OH, AND! Happy Birthday, Ingo!!!

Lions of the day :-)

Pizza-Pizza

I came into the kitchen to find Ingo like this, LOL!

We bought this apron in our holiday in Montecatini Terme, Italy, in 2015.

My SIL would tell us off for that, but it´s art, no?
Oh, and (European?) humor :-)

As you likely know how a pizza looks like there is no pic of that.
Was yummy!!

Brrr. Night temps down to 3C, daytime 15C, condo is cold, we´ll have to put on the heating, I guess.
Thursday at first they predicted 25C at daytime and Ingo planned a BBQ, but now it´s already down to 22C.
Summer is over, so sadly.

Lion of the day :-)

Go For It

For a change I know the artist, mural again by ENTE, taken on Berliner Street.

Not a fan of soccer at all here (but of our team in American Football, the former Braunschweig Lions, who sadly changed their name to their actual sponsor New Norker Lions)...
But here is to soccer:

Many a reason I do not like soccer, no, actually just three.
1) Hooligans.
2) All the police needed!!! We all pay for this!
3) Rolling around in the grass, holding their knees just to get up a sec later and be full back in the "game".

Aw, well. Nice mural he did, right?

Taking part again in Sami´s COLOURFULWORLD Monday Murals :-)

There Must Be Something About It

Pic from last Magni-Fest.

13 km from our doorstep this yummy stuff is being produced.

Have you heard of it or tasted it?
It´s a digestif only, no "hard stuff" :-)

We stayed with CRABS, though :-)
Got nothing to do with animals from the ocean (brrrr) it stands for CRAft beer BraunSchweig :-)

Lion of the day, hence:

You Wanna Eat That? - And It Happened That Way

Now, this is literally ages ago (13+ years).

My friend P came into my office with her customer to show what we can do for him.

Unlike her I always had two monitors.
I´d prepared a thing or two and they took place. Me to the left, then her, then the customer - the two of us were young (the customer not, luckily!).
Likely she was stressed, too - her first customer.
Two monitors.

They were.... surprise! Yes, a tad early (Germans, huh) and my peach was still lying by my mouse.
You know, a peach has a "knob" in the middle, like a mouse.

We all looked at the monitors and P grabbed my peach.

Well, I thought she must be nervous and HUNGRY, but, no.

She moved that peach around looking very, very concentrated from one screen to the other, trying to find the cursor.

WHAT WAS I SUPPOSED TO DO????

I had a very hard time not to laugh my head off AND I did not want to embarass her in front of the customer.

I gently poked her in the side and got an annoying look.

She stayed on the job, concentrated - and, really!!!! If a mouse would be that hairy as a peach.... EWWWW!
Finally she realised, saw that I had such a hard time not to laugh, which gave her an even harder time not to laugh cause the customer had no idea of computers and hadn´t even noticed.

She grabbed the mouse, found the cursor, showed what we can do for him, he left in delight and we... kinda rolled on the floor laughing :-)

I´ll never forget that!

Her boss once came to my office and seriously asked where the second mouse for the second monitor is (OMG) - or the second keyboard.... and once used a breadroll as mouse.

(That´s why I´m so slow on non German keyboards - I have to SEARCH! ;-)...)

Ingo once used a mobile phone (you know, the old, thicker ones) as mouse - NOT working!

Did that happen to you, too?

I was lucky SO FAR and always found the right tool ;-)

It really happened, I do not make this up.

Addendum: 22 counts, also, yes? Double, maybe? The pear just got me!

Heeeelp!!!

As you can very clearly see: This is NOT the kitchen but the living room!

I said no but Ingo insisted I have to help taste and came running after me with hot Sauerkraut!! ;-)

He bought the quality-thingy, Fass Kraut:

Please, read the instruction:

Cook ... no heat 10 - 15 minutes it says.

Since ... FOREVER, really forever! Ingo tells everybody how I followed instructions on a Sauerkraut with pineapple that said "heat up for 5 minutes", which I did.
I was 22 (?).

Yes. It crunched away and was plain awful - but how was I supposed to know?
I never was allowed in the kitchen in my family´s place after an eel (a fresh one in pieces) jumped out of the pan and danced and I SCREAMED my head off. Those darn pieces landed right in front of my feet! (I was around 6).

Bro learned how to cook, me... not.

Certainly Ingo cooked this for hours and it does look yummy, no?

The meat was so dry it crumbled, just how I love it, but somehow...
Wrong brand?
Wasn´t very, very sadly not worth the work put in.

Help! ;-)
Please... never follow me with something hot in your hands!

Teachers

Bet you had good and bad teachers, too?

Ingo and my Bro had a German teacher called "Lederstrumpf" (a real mean nickname... leather-sock, don´t ask me why - they said her skin was brown and like old leather).
She taught "British English" - grammar was sooo important.

I had a teacher from ... tadaaa... Great Britain, but he never cared that much about grammar (The last man on the moon, Eugene Cernan has passed away by now, sadly).

First time I met said great teacher was in grade 7...

Well, you start learning English in grade 5 and I was given an "English" name by that stupid teacher back then, "Judy", just like the chimpanzee in Daktari ... I felt like craving bananas all the time ;-)
No, it actually wasn´t funny, my name is Iris and yes, it´s pronounced differently in German, French and English, yet I do identify. Not with "Judy", tough!

So, we did speak some English in grade 7, right?

This teacher, Peter May, came into class, said in German "ok, guys, this is the very last time German is spoken here. You don´t know a word? Describe. Grammar? If not too bad I will not correct you."
And that was it with German!

One pupil said the school books are so boring - Peter May asked our parents to buy "Surprising Stories" and by golly, most read it even at home just to know the end of the story RIGHT NOW!

Language lab: Not the boring school stuff - Rock music, The Stones and alike - FUN!

I bought my first English book when I was in Great Britain aged 12... Charlotte's Web :-)

My French teacher... LOL. He was a small man and threw his keys after pupils who didn´t listen to his teaching. He was "hated".
Out of nowhere he used to say: "All books be put away, paper, pencil on desk. You... and you... up to the chalkboard.

Old and new grammar and vocabulary.

Next year no one wanted to be in his class, so they split up the two teacher´s names in numbers, put them in a hat and we - like in a lottery - picked.
I picked the other one!!!
And I made my friend give me hers and she was happy (and called me nerd - but what the heck, I still speak a tad French)!

Some teachers are great cause they´re not strict - other because they are.
I was lucky to have had both for the right language.

How about you?