Ok, I am so impressed with myself that I have finally figured this out and truly pissed off that I didn’t figure it out while I had all the China photos on here and I won’t even tell you how I solved the problem, it is soooooooooo embarrassing!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I see if I can find anything else worth while left on here
So this is immediately after the last blog…it says that I can give captions to the photos and that I am supposed to be able to edit them, like rotating them etc, but so far no luck with that.
Anyway, I had originally intended to add the appropriate China photos to the blogs but they are now no longer on my iPad…perhaps in January once we are home again. Sad!
But from now on I should be able to at least put these little midget photos on or I might spend some more time during day light hours to figure out how to get them bigger, like we did before leaving!!
Gute Nacht
Tanja
PS The photos show Tessa’s new boots and the book from the library and just because I can, I will now add a photo of Tessa’s new vest, which looks a lot better on her than the kitchen chair!
The iPad debacle has been sorted….yeah!!!
Birgit took me to my Apple appointment , with an Apple technician, who is called a ‘genius’…no kidding! The appointment is with a ‘genius’ at the ‘genius bar’ inside the Apple Store.
The store was positively heaving with people clearly no economic down turn in there, or perhaps such good marketing that the addiction to yet the latest Apple product supersedes the down turn?!?
Anyway, after stripping off various layers of clothing Birgit and I made our selves comfortable and let the genius, who was called Mario, get to work. He listened to the issues we described, looked at the storage situation and then made the diagnosis that we had to many photos on there. Luckily Marek had already securely stored all our 1668 photos and short videos from China on his PC, so Mario proceeded to delete them (yes, manually one by one! That could be a suggested change for the iPad 4…).
And…da da everything was working just fine after that!!
At this point I would really like to thank Marek who had taken considerable time two nights before to check out the issue and Stefan, Steffi’s husband, who looked at the iPad for us last night. I really appreciate the time you guys have spent with me and the iPad, not to mention the yummy waffles that Steffi made to shorten the wait! Such good service, perhaps we should suggest waffles to enhance the Genius Bar at Apple, too!?!
Thank you so much for your time with me at the Genius Bar, Birgit. I might just have to make this up to you and take you to a real bar without any geniuses.
Mario was very nice though and we did get to meet his wife, too who popped in to give him instructions for later on that evening…!
So, we are back on line and Mario even looked at the ‘photos onto blog’ scenario for me and will give this a shot in a minute…
In other news…my cry for help for warm winter children shoes has been answered! The lovely Pascale in Heilbronn found not one, but two pairs of boys’s shoes in size 35 for us! Thank you so very much, let’s just hope their feet aren’t growing before we get to you, with all the good eating they are doing up here!
And then this morning Birgit took the boys and I to the Kinderflohmarkt (children’s flee market, which is like a massive garage sale in a church hall) and I found a pair of really great girl’s boots in 36, well looked after and all for Euro 3!!!!! That might just be the very best bargain I have ever made. The boots not only fit her but she will be able to wear them in Auckland still for our winter next year. Not that she will need them really, but they do look good, which has to count for something!
Birgit bought a nice padded vest intended for Jana, but it was too short, which she then gifted to Tessa who looks great in it and she loves it. So Tessa was a lucky girl today.
Birgit and I also took the children to the library and we walked out with enormous piles of books. Some in German (yes Karin, I know!) but some in English, as again we were lucky and the library had a reasonable amount of English books there, including “Die drei ???” Anyone German reading this blog remember reading these books when they were young?? I do!
It’s about those three friends, one of whom has a dad who runs a demolition yard, and so they built a secret hut/hide out somewhere on the yard and from that main base they solve detective mysteries. At the end of each chapter are three clues, marked with three ??? and the race is on to see if you as the reader can solve the mystery before the three friends. Apparently Alfred Hitchcock proof read the very first book that was written in this series as the author was a friend of his.
It seems so long ago that I wrote the last blog that I am almost sure to have forgotten something, but I think I will leave it at this as I now will attempt to upload two photos to go with the blog….
Wish me luck!
Cheers
Tanja
Just as I was about to go and shower I remembered that the USA should have worked out their election result and so I went on line to check it out.
Well, isn’t that exciting and it makes the US so much more appealing for having had the guts to reelect Mr. Obama.
I for one and pleased.
On that happy note I shall have that hot shower now.
So long
Tanja
Birgit’s friend and neighbour Steffi, also mother of Max, who is in Ben and Nick’s class asked a few days ago if I might like to join her in a class called drums alive. My wonderful Ingrid agreed to mind my children (plus two other ones, Jana and her friend Nele…who are of course easy because they are eleven and girls) and so off I went to drum on big swiss balls that we set in a huge bucket, a bit like an egg cup, and we learnt a few different choreographies and then drummed to music.
It’s a good little workout and I must say I enjoyed having the music as I hadn’t really done anything to music since the eighties! Lucky me, Steffi organised for me to go for the next three Wednesdays. Very pleased with that, as my other exercise is of course not quite as much as my poor old body is used to from back home.
Ingrid managed to tame the wild children here and as they went to bed a little later than in the last week I am hopeful that Nick might sleep past 4:00am tomorrow!
I will move my Apple appointment from Friday to Saturday or Monday by the way as there is a chance that Steffi’s husband can sort the issue out for me on Friday afternoon without having to completely shut it down, which would mean loosing every setting and App etc on it.
That would be awesome, I will keep you posted.
The children are still enjoying school, Tessa had her first English lesson yesterday when she got to help the other children, which she enjoyed. Her English teacher has asked her to make a presentation on New Zealand, of course in English so she is quite looking forward to this. We are looking things up for her to use, pictures etc.
The boys had their first English lesson today and also got to help others and the children there could ask them questions. They too liked it.
They all get really tired from school and this afternoon was very challenging, but I ended up putting Nick into one room, Tessa into the second and Ben in the third and we had peace for an hour. After that we all went outside with Jana, Nele and Ingrid and the walking and being outside always helps with grumpiness! We found a great little place called “Fossie House’ which is a ten minute walk from here. It’s a lovely wooden house in a small forest area with a great outdoor space and it is staffed each afternoon by four social workers/educators and any primary school child can come by and play from 14:00 until 17:00. Parents can stay, or not, and on our visit today they boys as well as the three girls (Jana and Nele used to go there when they were a bit smaller) had a really good time in the garden with go carts, pulling vehicles, big wooden horses with real saddles available for mounting them, a soccer goal, a sand pit and lots of huge puddles to get dirty and wet in.The normal contribution if the children attend regularly is Euro 2 per month, which of course is crazy cheap.
I better go and have my shower now….
Ciao
Tanja
So, this morning I was at Apple and Nils (from Apple) told me that he has to shut the whole thing down and then re-start it all, a process during which everything will be lost. So he checked when I last backed up and that was in before China as I didn’t have WiFi there for long enough and here it hasn’t let me back up.
So I will need to check with Birgit and Market if I can use their computer for backing up, then putting it all onto my memory stick and then take the iPad back to Apple on Friday morning when I have another appointment at 11:10am.
BIG SIGH! This means until then I still can’t read or write on my emails but I will make sure to ask him to sort the photos on the blog for me, too because the reason I can’t add them is that I can’t move the screen up to scale them to size.
BIG SIGH agian.
So, if you continue to leave comments on the blog I can answer but of course it is not a very private way of communication….just in case you were going to tell me naughty jokes or something….!??!?
Cheers
Tanja
Croissant
Just a quick update on some exciting news.
On Sunday morning we did the German thing and went down to the bakery (which opens from 8:00am till 11:00am to satisfy the German need for fresh rolls for breakfast on Sundays) to get fresh rolls for our breakfast.
They also had three types of croissants, one plain one, one with nut/praline filing and one chocolate one.
Tessa asked if she could have one for breakfast and I started reading all the labels which were on all the shelves. It turned out that the nut and the plain croissants were made with butter but the chocolate one was not. It was made with plant oil and the chocolate on top was dark chocolate and therefore dairy free.
So, very excitedly Nick had his very first croissant ever yesterday. He liked it very much in deed!
That’s it…for us this is very exciting and so worth a blog!!
Bye
Tanja
xxx
First Day at School
When German children start school for the very first time in their lives they are given a big cone to take to school. The cone is filled with things one might need at school like a pencil case, coloured pencils etc. but also things to sweeten their first day at school like chocolate and Gummibears.
Yesterday the children and I walked to the primary school to check it out and Ben suddenly asked me if he was going to get one of those cones as it was going to be his first day in a German school. Smart boy! That hadn’t even occurred to me. Needles to say he didn’t get that.
Tessa, Nick and Ben did however all have their first day today in a German school! Tessa took off at 7:20am with Jana and her friend Teresa on thier bikes and Birgit picked up Nick, Ben and I by car so that she can introduce us to Frau Bender the boys’ teacher.
We met her as she pulled up on her bike and she seemed really nice. She told the boys that they will have lots of fun together and that she didn’t usually look this odd (the bike helmet was still on!). She also told them that she will speak German to them only, unless they had an issue or problem and then they could come to her and ask her to speak to them in English. Her English is very good.
The boys later told me that at some point in the morning she had given the other children work and came over to them and explained the story they were reading and what she wanted them to do.
Maths was easy Nick said and Ben agreed. Their maths teacher was a different person to their class room teacher.
I think they are now looking forward to their English lesson, a subject to shine in!
In the break they played soccer together with other German kids and Ben sat next to Max and Nick net to Alini (the two children who were at their birthday afternoon tea last week), apparently that had all been decided last week in a draw!
Tessa cycled back to Birgit’s house after school and had lunch there and then her and Jana spent time doing their home work of which there was a considerable amount. They have to learn a poem from an old German writer, some of it the local North German dialect and some of the words being that really old German…not easy! Their teacher also made Tessa copy two pages of Jana’s writing to practise her German…he is 63 years old and a bit old school by the sounds of things. Tessa found it really hard to read Jana’s writing because it is all in script not print as it might be in NZ.
When Tessa started reading the poem to me I suddenly remembered the first three or four lines of it and realised that I had to recite the same one in my days…hmmh…
I spent my morning at Pottenbuettel (such a great word and northern sounding) shopping centre where the Apple store is. Very nice guy in there who listened to my issues and had a quick look at the iPad and has now made an appointment for me on Wednesday at 10:10am. If all goes well I will post this and a couple of other blogs that I have written in ‘notes’ half an hour later!
So while at the shopping centre I managed to find a shop called ZARA, very nice and I bought two items, one on sale, always very pleasing!
Then I caught the bus back to be home in time to go and pick the boys up. Sadly the bus stopped in what seemed the middle of nowhere with the driver announcing it was ‘Endstation’ which means the last station. He said another bus would come that will take me where I wanted to go. I stood there for just under twenty minutes when the next one turned up, and once I hoped on I realised I would now be running late to walk to school so had to ring poor Birgit, my knight in shining armour, who was cutting a boy’s hair at her house, asking if she could please drive me up there. She said to call her once I was off the bus as she is literally two minutes away from the stop.
Well, would you believe it, after finding my way here from NZ via China I managed to miss the bus stop! Bugger! I only realised three stations later, so came off and had to call Birgit again to ask her if she could now please pick up the boys for me. She did and waited with them in the car at the supermarket which is just down from our apartment, while I walked briskly back from that bus stop miles away from where I was meant to be. Making up for all those mornings I have not been walking now!!
That was all the excitement for the day and once the children had told me all about their day and we had a brief visit from Ingrid and a quick dinner the kids were all in bed asleep just after six o’clock.
It’s just after 20:00 and might just do the same. I have already had a nice hot bath…
Good night and sleep tight if you are in this part of the world, otherwise have a good day!
Tanja
xx
PS I went to the supermarket again today and bought some more yoghurt. I know New Zealand is proud of its dairy and all, but man the yoghurt here is sooooooo good. ‘Landliebe’ does a chocolate yoghurt, and ‘Ehrman’ a hazelnut one as well as a lemon one, not to mention the pineapple one from ‘Bauer’. They taste just as divine as 21 years ago!!!
Great, now I have talked myself into wanting one, but can’t have any as my teeth have already been brushed…there’s always breakfast!
5:30am it was this morning when Tessa and I woke up, Nick had just woken up a little before us and Ben seems unaffected by the whole time change and sleeps until 6:30 or 7:00am. All good, still heading in the right direction and tomorrow we will need to be up early anyway as I am meeting Birgit at 7:25am on the corner to walk to school with the boys and Tessa will meet with Jana and another friend to bike to school.
The children and I walked the route to the boys’ school this morning, which takes about 15 to 20 minutes and took us through a very pretty and leafy suburb.
A typical north German street.
The school itself is situated in really pretty grounds with lots of trees and wonderful wooden play equipment for them to use in the breaks. We stayed for a bit today and had a play and then we walked back home.
The boys’ school playground
On our way the church bells started ringing like crazy, it was 9:30am and I am guessing this happened to remind people that church service will start in half an hour. Do you know what I did when I heard the bells? I started crying. Just a little bit, but I suddenly realised that you don’t ever hear church bells in NZ, and for me this is a very familiar sound as I grew up very close to a church that rang the time every 15 minutes as well as going crazy on Sunday mornings, like the one we head today.
After this Birgit, Jana and Tessa cycled the way to the school that Tessa will be more familiar with it tomorrow morning. Marek took the boys and me there but unfortunately we couldn’t really see much as this school in contrast to the primary school was all under lock. There was a playground just outside the girls’ school as well however and everyone enjoyed the flying fox in particular.
Marek really liked the flying fox!
In front of the girls’ school.
While the other girls cycled back, Marek took us to the ‘flea market’. Marek visits flea markets a lot as he buys and sells himself and so he knew just were to take us once the boys told him that would like to look for some Playmobile toys. Both spent some of their birthday Euro and I must say, they did so wisely and successfully with Marek’s negotiation help. Ben bought an enormous (but we can take it apart to fit into the suitcase) air plane and control tower and Nick invested in yet more Lego. Both buys were at a very good price and they still have plenty left!
Then we had Italian for lunch as promised but unfortunately they didn’t have the typical dishes that I remember loving in Italian restaurants as a child, like Cannelloni or Lasagne al forno. You know, the cheesy gooyey over baked in a stone oven sort of dish. The pizza was great though and young Ben, bless him, said that my Spaghetti Carbonara was much better than the one he had there.
Thank you to Tante Ingrid who took us all out for lunch.
After that Birgit and Jana came back to our apartement and the children played with all the games in the lounge while Birgit and I had a long chat in the kitchen. A lovely and relaxed Sunday afternoon.
I must say, I am really looking forward to having a break from my lovely children tomorrow morning and I think they are looking forward to a break from me, too, so thank you to the local schools who are taking them in. They are all really excited, let’s hope that lasts!!
Good night
Tanja
