T.T.N.B. Family Adventure

For our last day at Ilmesmühle Holger had invited his brother Christian, his French wife Ann and their daughters Natasha (15y) and Jacqueline (11y). Their dog Reglis also came as he is great friends with Moana.

Those are healthy looking cheeks.

Having grown up in America the Leue Family is used to having a Thanksgiving turkey and as they hadn’t come together for a while we made this late lunch/early dinner on Sunday. Our meal was a team effort with Holger being the main co-ordinator of timing and responsible for the most important part of any meal of this kind, the gravy! (Well and the bird of course).

Holger and the bird before it went int the oven.

We had roasted parsnips (a first for the non Kiwis at the table), roast Kumara (another first for the non Kiwis), steamed carrots, princess beans, tasty homemade stuffing, the creamiest of potato mashes known to man kind and a delicious gravy.
It was all very satisfying in deed. The fire was going, board games were being played and all the children went sleighing for the first time! They went for ages before the meal and then went back out until after dark once they had eaten.

Jacqueline, Nick and Tessa sleighing

I had a go at it as well…

…so did Holger…

Speed freak Ben weeeeeeeeee

…weeeeee and CRASH!

Moana and Reglis ran around all day playing either with each other or the children.

Moana and Reglis

They too were grateful for the yummy dinner and enjoyed the left overs very much before falling into a happy coma in front of the fire.

The mill froze over and look at the ice…in Germany it grows upwards….!!

Holger and Ann in the courtyard with the barn we stayed in.

May I just add that I remained unbeaten at ‘Halma’ (Chinese Checkers) last night. Armin…do you feel a challenge coming up?
Oma Anna still beat me seven years ago when she was 89 years old.
Off to sleep one more night at Ilmesmühle before leaving for Heilbronn.
Tanja
xxx

And this is the missing photo of Holger when he came and picked us up from the train station when we arrived last Monday…

This is Holger when he picked us up from the train station.

Unbelievably we have been here at Ilmesmühle for nearly a week now.  We had one outing to a close by town Bad Heresfeld, and other than that we haven’t really been doing much at all, which has been great and very, very relaxing.  Just what we needed. Here are finally some photos of Ilmesmühle…

The main building.

The barn. Cows used to live here a long time ago and now we are staying here.

We have gone for walks most days, one was for an hour and a half.   That day we had really sunny weather, too.  The valley as well as the surrounding villages are so picturesque…

The road went on and on and on

The forest around the Ilmesmühle.

Local Farm House

The children really enjoy playing with Moana, who is a beautiful golden retriever.  Moana is totally devoted and loyal to Holger and she is enjoying the children’s energy, too.  Along the courtyard of the mill runs a narrow creek, which has a dam that has been slowly freezing over in the last few days.  The boys have been particularly taken with the thicker growing ice and are breaking it for Moana, as she likes eating it.

Moana likes jumping after snowballs.

I have had discussions with the boys about not walking on the ice and  hyperthermia in case of falling into the ice, however after two days of playing along the ice, the inevitable did happen and Ben fell into the ice.

I understand that at least he wasn’t trying to walk on it, but it was a case of lost balance as he and Nick were playing.  The boys told me that Nick helped him out of the water and then Ben came screaming towards the house, very upset, cold and slightly blue. I went outside and helped him out of the wet clothes, which was a mission and a half, and then we packed him into a blanket and in front of the fire place, where he slowly defrosted.

His clothes were taken off on the front steps and his shoes were tipped out.  This formed a little puddle on the steps, which was frozen in less than fifteen minutes!!  It was -9C this morning.  The clothes that I had quickly hung over the railing while Ben was undressing were frozen in the shape of the railing  by the time I took them down half an hour later.

Ben told me that he won’t be playing by the creek anymore…it’s good when we learn from our mistakes!  He really liked his hot bath shortly afterwards.

In fact he was lucky to be able to have a hot bath at that particular time as the heating system broke yesterday (Friday!) afternoon and it wasn’t fixed until just after midday today.  The heating guy had only just left when Ben took his plunge.

With the heating system not working the dishwasher didn’t work either, because the cold water pipes of the dishwasher usually are kept at an even temperature by the pipes of the heating system running just below them.  With the heating system not working and the temperature being -9C the pipes simply froze!  That too started working once the heater was going!

So, all is good again, Ben is dry, the heater is hot and we don’t have to do the dishes by hand!

Unfocused, but fun photo of Tessa..

Hanging of the railing.

Good night for now.

Tanja

Dear Blog Readers,

Some of you have noticed the new look at the top of the map and some of you (all Germans!) noted that this is an old map of Europe…in deed it is.  Around 1900-10, or so I am told.

I haven’t checked this with the blog designer (my brother-in-law, Barrie) but I have a strong suspicion that this was done on purpose!!  I do like the colours and I think they really go with the muted tone of the China map we had on there before.

This is just a quick note to re-assure you that this map was not chosen in ignorance (Barrie doesn’t do things in ignorance) but rather for artistic reasons and I suspect to amuse any British readers….?!?

I am delighted that you are looking so closely at the finer details of this blog!!

xxx

Tanja

On Monday we said our sad good byes to the lovely people of Norderstedt.  Birgit, Marek and Jana we will see again in three weeks time when they will come to Munich for Christmas, but Ingrid we won’t see again until we come to Germany next time.  Birgit took all our luggage to the U-Bahn station and Ingrid travelled all the way with us to Hamburg Hauptbahnhof, which was great as I didn’t have to concentrate too much on where we were going….

Back in travelling mode at Hamburg Hauptbahnhof

I meant to take a picture of Ingrid as the train was leaving but everything happened so fast that the train took off before I could even wave.  On Ingrid’s advice we had booked seats with a table and so we had a very pleasant and relaxing three hours in the train…

Great seat with table for games and food.

The children got more and more excited as the landscape turned a gentle white outside.  This was a day of firsts for the boys.  The first time they travelled on a proper train (I am not counting Greenlane to Britomart here), the first time they saw snow live and then when we got to our destination the first time to touch snow and play in it!

Eine Zugfahrt die ist lustig, eine Zugfahrt die ist schön… (German song, don’t worry)

We are allowed some sweets while travelling.

Our lovely friend Holger picked us up at Fulda train station and because I had told him which compartment we were going to be sitting in, he waited right outside our door.  There is a plan on the platform telling you where to stand for which wagon.

Holger was holding up a sign saying ‘TTNB’, just like our blog!  I did take a photo of him, which has since disappeared from the iPad…I think certain younger people were messing around with the photos when they shouldn’t have.

Holger lives in a beautiful old mill and across from the courtyard is the old renovated barn in which we have our very big bedroom with mattresses which feels much like a slumber party.  While the snow melted the next day, there is promise of more in the next few days.  So far they have managed to place a few well targeted snow balls, which seems to have satisfied until now.

Snow!!

Tessa enjoying her first snow in seven years.

I have yet to take some photos of Ilmesmühle (wow Holger just showed me how to make a ‘ü’ on my key board, yeah!) which really is a very stunning place.

Will take photos tomorrow instead of staying in my PJs until late afternoon….

Bye

Tanja