Broken bones, glass and sign times

Eventful would be a good adjective to describe this week. Monday was a bit of a stress because Spaghetti takes aaages to cook and we ended up with only 10 minutes to eat because L had a Krakon lesson (the box drum thing, don’t know what it’s called auf Englisch) Minor stress there, compounded by L telling me how to cook spaghetti and M wanting to also cook spaghetti. Solution involved giving them a mug of warm water into which one piece of spaghetti in many parts was placed to ‘cook’. L seemed genuinely surprised when it remained raw (this is the 7 year old!) Lunch eaten, music played we returned home to find the aunty+kid visiting the Oma next door. Happy afternoon spent there ended up with pretty much the entire extended family in Oma’s small apartment.

Tuesday was not so happy. L managed to break his collar bone playing football, sad times. It’s his first broken bone. He now gets to wear a sort of rucksack strap which he’s quite proud of, but took a while to understand the ‘you have to keep your shoulder still’ thing. On Wednesday I had to pick him up from school (he can’t carry his school rucksack) and after proudly informing me that he had played some football (eek!) he then asked me where the car was. It’s an incredibly short walk, I’d come on foot, L wasn’t impressed. Making it home with only a short diversion over a fence to collect conkers (eek!), he then had a minor tantrum after the dad suggested I took M swimming so L could have some peace to chill on the sofa and watch films. He wanted to go too.... In the end M and I had a great time swimming and L had a great time watching films (aside from sore collar bone ofc)

Thursday was Feiertag, a national holiday to celebrate the reunification of Germany. Thankfully this coincided with a glorious sunny day. After a leisurely breakfast and lots of reading (a tale of 2 cities is starting to make sense) I went for a short cycle ride before coming back in time for roast dinner lunch, mmm. I then went off on another wandern, this time driving up a pass and parking at the top. It is a ski-resort and very bizarre to see in summer time, almost creepy. A lovely walk to 2 mountain tops gave me fantastic views of the alps, although in the foreground was the epic skiresort car park and lots of still skiilifts. Although it was hard work driving up the pass, it was worth it driving down, so much fun (and safe I promise!)

Friday should have been noneventful. The mum went to work very early and came back just after lunchtime which was nice. But there was emergency at work so she had to leave again, oh well. Over the course of the afternoon I ended up with no less than 6 children. Children are good at playing with each other so this was mostly stressfree, aside from when they decided that the train station was a good place to play (they were trying to convince M that his favourite person (his 11yo cousin) was leaving to go to Mannheim) They succeeded in making him cry, oops, but it wasn’t too long before they were back in the garden playing one-handed Kirsche gegessen (a throw and catch game) This evening the mum briefly reappeared to cook and eat before leaving; turns out the emergency involved someone punching someone a robbery (I didn't understand the german word initially) so now she’s spent the entire evening talking to the police. In all this coming and going I got the time of the language course wrong by an hour, so I missed my weekly opportunity to speak to real-life English people, sad times.

An eventful week all round. And I also had one of my more embarrassing moments in life. On Wednesday I went along to the young adults house group, and whilst saying goodbye my bag fell off my shoulder and knocked a wine glass off the table which smashed in 2. Already mildly embarrassing but then I picked up the wine glass pieces and placed them on the table. As I turned away one piece rolled off the table and smashed into smithereens, oopsy! Well at least in church you’re supposed to not be perfect...

More Anecdotes for those who need more procrastination material

Walking on Thursday I left the first mountain and there was a signpost that said 1 ¼ hrs to Riegberg, about 10 minutes later the next signpost said 1 ½ hours to Riegberg (“odd,” thought I, “I must have misread the first one”) then 10 minutes later the next signpost said 1 ¾ hrs to Riegberg. At this point I did double check that I was following the signs correctly and I was indeed heading to Riegberg. The next 2 signposts (also about 10 minutes apart) said 1 hour and 30minutes respectively. From the first sign post it took me about an hour. What went into the mind of those signpost makers I don’t know. On the previous walk I had been able to follow the signpost times as if they were a clock (after multiplying by 2/3 as they’re designed for slow walkers)

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Upon leaving the swimming pool I can't seem to locate where to put my key-band-thing. Eventually the reception lady takes it and tells me that the door through which I left wasn't open for me, rather for those with small children. I then had to collect M (who was standing by the reception desk, too small to be seen) and leave without seeming too rude!

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Another M story; en route to Kindergarten M stops to have a nice chat with the sheep. He then decides he wants his Eisbar hat so starts heading back home. As he has a scooter and I’m on foot I then have to leg it down the road to stop him and persuade him that he can make it all the way to Kindergarten without his Eisbar hat and I’ll bring it with me later. Oh the trials of the 5 minute walk to Kindergarten! At least he is now more practised with cycling, so falls and crashes are much more infrequent. That said he has now mastered the art of turning, so we did have about 5 minutes of him circling at one point in the road, whilst L was having a strop that he wasn’t allowed to cycle (broken collar bone and all that jazz)

Anyhoo I’ve waffled on for long enough. Happy procrastination y’all!