I´m Singing In The Rain

…well., no, I didn´t.
Sunday we again took tram and bus to get to the lake.
Where we met again people from last year and new ones.

Dunno. I have to get forty to start something weird like FKK, but it´s really worth it.
People seem to have more respect of one another on one hand, on the other it´s like a little family and it´s totally ok or even expected to start right away with the casual “du”, not the formal “Sie”. People are very open-minded, too.
And it´s ok to meet new people like that – I only hope I never meet a colleague there. I´m not that mature after all, it seems…

The water was just great and yesterday was no direct sun, very good.
And actually we were really lucky without the sun!
Because… we missed the bus.
And it started raining real bad.
So we waited at the public toilets - yes, we´re romantic, huh? – until the rain was over, still we would have had to wait one hour for the next bus and decided to walk.

The streets were wet and steam rose, that, truly looked romantic, I think.

Now I know those flip-flops, or thongs, as you say, are ok for Perth.
Ingo estimates we walked some good 7 km, partly in the rain, till the next bus-stop where a bus came on a Sunday and then another km home.

We had salad, tomatoes, olives, cheese and all at home, but when I saw El Gaucho, I got so dang hungry for some yummy steak.
Funny enough “our” waiter arrived to start his job exactly when we arrived as well, so Ingo asked, do we have a chance for a seat tonight?
And, yes, we definitively had, went home for a short refreshment and then 15 minutes later were back and ordered two … beers, German, we truly are ;-)
After that “journey” I guess, we deserved this!

When we told our waiter what had happened, he got wide eyes and said, a bit too loud, “wow, holy sh##! Sh##...”, which in German sounds better, btw cause you can stretch the word so it goes through like a “I´m sorry” as well.

The salad still sits in the fridge, but usually on Mondays we go to the city. Hm, let´s see.

This morning was all foggy, more rain is expected, but my, it´s hot and sticky in the office, Ingo mailed this morning it´s “unbearable”, but oh, I still love summer!
I just really could do without mossies. Ingo: none, me 11 bites. Not fair!

Money, Money, Money...

... it´s a rich man´s world. Yep, true.

We´re still suffering enjoying the "heat-wave" and went to the lake.

It´s really hot, too hot to put on a bike-helmet and without I don´t go, so we took tram and bus.

And walked.

It´s kind of a jungle :-)

And, well, we took the cam "secretly", I wanted to test out if it´s good in water at least and since this is an FKK-beach, people might think I wanna take pics of them!
So... shhhht.
Wasn´t worth the trouble, the cam is no good (at least without flash, which it has, but, well... shhht.)

We really met some guy from last year, it´s still funny/weird to me at the FKK, I´m a true "Wessi" (born and grown up in West-Germany, as Ingo is, but his Dad came from former East-Germany, hence the family was into FKK).
We met a new guy, he´s 60, has lost his job and is desperatly looking for a proper one before they give him one like... well, you know. Sad.
Let´s hope Ingo doesn´t have to join in, they yet again threaten to close the whole company down, but that´s another subject altogether.

We´ve learned: Water doesn´t keep you safe from the sun, the first 50 cm he goes through like through air so we didn´t stay forever, nice as it was and took the

home. After some waiting at the

airport, the local one:

After a while we caught a bus and went home, kinda, it was a route through the whole city.

Ingo remembered it´s "Sommerloch" - a little Christopher Streets-day, we could attend.

Yips, I said, let´s go to dm, buy some sunscreen, oh, and I need a hairbrush, too, and my, I´m hungry!
Yep, Ingo said. And a while later remembered,...

we have but two Euros.

See, Money, Money, Money...

You just don´t leave your bag unattended at the "beach" with more money than you really need.

So, we took the

and went home.
Sigh.

BBQ is on the way :-)

A Red CUBIFA V

A Red CUBIFA IV
A Red CUBIFA III
A Red CUBIFA II
A Red CUBIFA I

Can "Y"ou Believe It´s Friday Again?

Actually, what have we seen of Dongara? Not much, that is for sure. But I can tell you the public toilet/shower is worth seeing.

But from the beginning. We had just started our big holiday/journey a few days ago, back in 1999. It was in the late afternoon and we looked for a place to stay over night, a rest-area always will do. And Dongara has a nice picnic-area right beside a little … well, river is too mighty, it´s a creek, I´d say. Idyllic. We thought.

Well, and they have Neighbourhood Watch.

Pic taken in Perth on the way from Wanneroo to the city at a bus station in 2006.

At around 2 in the morning someone knocked at the door. We nearly stood in the water already, Neighbourhood Watch, oh what a great idea!
We quickly moved the Esky, our kitchen and clothes from the front to the back of the car and were escorted to a safe place.
If I remember right it was rather cold, but the sun had been out all day the next day.
We found public toilet/showers for free, for the road-train-drivers, mainly, I suppose. Right?
Funny thing was: The wallpaper had flowers all over! :-)
And the showers were hot, awwww, sooooo good!

We were stuck in Dongara due to flooding, together with the mad road-train-driver beside us. He ran around, swearing about all the time he looses.

He could´ve screamed an angry “go away” at me or he might´ve been happy to get something to do. Sadly I didn´t ask in the first place if he would show me his road train.
And sadly I didn´t tell Ingo, either, cause later, when I did, turned out, Ingo would indeed´ve asked.

Maybe he´d let me in, maybe he´d let me drive 2-3 m, I could say:

I have driven a Road-Train, but noooo.

Yikes, it really sucks to be a shy, anxious person, it still does, I haven´t changed.

Pic taken somewhere on the route, I certainly did not dare to point a camera at our mad man ;-)

Two days later road-trains and 4WD cars were allowed to travel on. Ours:

Since I had parked the car in Dongara, I was the driver in the morning, that was our concept: One person drives in the morning, after lunch the other takes over and has to find a safe place for the night, has to park the car in a way that our heads are a bit higher than the feet and yes, we did fight over this (and no, the Sissy wasn´t me!). This person drives the next morning and so on.

Well. Since I was driving, Ingo took the cam.
The water was still high and very dark/dirty/RED.

I had left a big gap to the caravan in front of us - was it Britz? Must´ve been Britz, cause… the driver got slower and slower, I came nearer and nearer, Ingo started to get nervous cause once our motor extinguished, it´s over, we have no snorkel as the one in front of us!
When I see this passage on the video (I could show if Ingo would cut it all to seperate movies), I still get nervous. Guess the driver finally had a look in the rear mirrow, just in time, like really just in time, he drove on.

Those are the memories I have of Dongara,
I´m thankful for Neighbourhood Watch, for them for taking the time and checking the rest-area and I´m still mad at myself I didn´t ask! And never again will I drive in such a situation behind Britz.

Happy Friday - again!

Summertime

Nope, we didn´t go to Fehmarn, Bro did and wrote me this card (and yes, I still get cards via postcrossing, too, it´s fun!).

Niece loves the sea, the sand... and ice-cream, sadly they´re on the way home already, after just one week.

Pic sponsored by Bro:

Yep.
After a way too long winter with ice rather than snow (I am thankful for that - um, no snow, I mean!), a way too cold spring (nahhh... not thankful), flooding (yikes!), we´re now stuck in a heat-wave.

They warn motorcyclists in the news, in the heat the bitumen might deform and make them fall. Weird weather this year!
Colleague M told me this morning he came by car – yesterday he was… aw, well, let´s just say it´s too hot to have fun in a leather-suit on a motorbike…

A note of mine at FB says it all:
"I´m sitting at teamleader´s PC a few hours ago, he´s got the mouse.
He stares at the screens, from the left to the right one and back. He moves the mouse a bit,
stares. More staring.
Really, I felt the giggling coming up. Mouse... stare.... "... just - what was I going to do again?"
This happened not only once! Guess from lunch-time on it´s just too hot in the office to do brainwork, any brainwork.
But it makes it easier to write test-plans to be tested by.... yourself!
The customer wants it that way! Maybe too hot over there, too!"

I do not... well actually not at all!! complain about the heat!

I suck it all in, think to myself, it could´ve come in better doses, but well... at least it´s here - right?

Oh, summer, I love you, no matter what!
Please, please stay (forever)....

And right now, as I type this, bats are flying over our balcony! Awww! What do the want in the city?
Anyhows, awww...

Monday, Monday

13 years weekend-relationsip, oh, by golly how stupid have we´ve been, how much life-quality did we miss out on?
No time to cry for it - we enjoy being together in this super-great city, der Löwenstadt, the City of Henry The Lion :-)

The very best weather, 33 C, sunny, sunscreen is on and off to the city we went!

Got some family-pics printed out (pic is to come, it´s kinda special).

Back home:

A look into the neighbour-house´s garden and, yep, Moe is all and about, giving me tipps for the flowers on the balcony, we talk about our Moped (HD, built in 1978 - maybe we get a garage now!!!!
Moe is a great neighbour, I guess).
I ask Moe if he goes on holidays this year, too. Yep, kinda, Tehran (he owns a travel agency). But usually he goes to Cuba, it´s so nice, the music, the people, the coffee, the rum...

Awww.. where he goes there? Havana. And then Varadero - funny we never met there yet!

Cuba, such a special place, too! We´ve been there in 2002, 2006 and 2010.
The poeple there live in communism - but they are happy, they live their music, their great weather.

I´m so dang looking forward to Perth, Australia, (yes, I was asked if I go to Perth, Ireland...
ummmm... in November? Are you seriously asking me this??), but Cuba... is one of my old loves as well!

Let´s put it down to one point straight: I love life - right? :-)

And luckily I love very, very much:

I leave it to you whom I mean (you know who is in that T-Shirt, right? ;-)....)

It Was A Friday, Too

Pic: You in Japan. You´ve selled so many Citizen-watches, they sponsored you this journey.
11 years ago today we brought you home.
I drove Bro´s car and was faster than the ambulance, so I went to buy you a cup you can drink from on your own.
But when I came towards the house - the ambulance was still there - the doors of your shop were closed, the rolling grills were down, it was dark.

You were gone.

You wanted to go home, that was your biggest wish.
I hope you sensed at least you were indeed home.

We had not such a good relationship, but Bro wrote me today you now know how important a good relationship to your daughter is, that you do regret it, but together with Mum watch over us.
I´m more the scientific type of guy but this is a nice idea to think of you.

If I didn´t mail Bro today he said, he´d forgotten about it, he´s at the sea with his wife and daughter, the weather is great, just as it was 11 years ago.
But maybe he wouldn´t have forgotten because he wrote that just yesterday an older man was calling his grandchild - a little girl – and his voice sounded like yours, just a bit older.

So much for science, huh?

This Is Not The Time …

… to wonder” by Fury in the Slaughterhouse.
Pic... I really wonder who did this shot, Bro? It was taken on my parent´s balcony...
And I´m wearing jewlery Bro made for me.

This song, "(This is not the) time to wonder", was playing on the radio on the way to work this morning.


Fury In The Slaughterhouse - Time To Wonder (Live) von Schutzengerl1205

Time warp – by golly, if I didn´t have had the luck to be able to travel so many places, you could say I never came far from home.
I lived at my parent´s home in Seesen, had my first car, picked up a friend and we went to… Jolly Joker. That means: Braunschweig!

It was a summer day, we took nothing but some money and the car-keys, also my friend was no one who liked to use handbags.

She was 17 and got in.
I… had to go back to my car to get my license to proof I´m 18! Here I am at least 19 or 20:

Obviously still grumpy about what happened at Jolly Joker ;-)
Can´t help it, the moment a cam is directed at me my face turns into this person!

But, well, so then there I was, in Jolly Joker on the balustrade, they played “time to wonder” way too loud.
Weird how music can have so much power to make a moment that lively, a moment that actually meant not much to nothing!
But I could draw down how it looked like in that place!

Jolly Joker had to close this year, but even if they were still around… I have no interest in visiting such places anymore. I´m “too old” for that and even my “little” Brother joked when Niece is old enough to visit a disco, he can´t join in, he´ll be “embarrassing” by then.
That´s life, huh?
Bro and I about... ??? 12 years ago:

Fury in the Slaughterhouse… are they known overseas? They´re – now that I mentioned not going that far away - from Hannover.
It´s all in a radius under 100 km!
Back then they gave concerts for free, to get started.
I remember we went to Goslar on a summer day to attend.
A second band was there – also playing for free – Bob Geldof and… uhhh, was it the Boomtown Rats?
It must´ve been 1990. Bob Geldof for free!
In a red suit of squares, I´ll never forget that – and he was great!

Luckily, before getting sentimental, the next song was “It´s a beautiful day, I can´t stop myself from smiling” – which sure happened to me then, too :-)

Music, such a powerful thing!

Happy "little Friday", as Thursday is called on a radio-station over here.

Still Your Old Love?

Pic: Unrelated, but beautiful, no? Days are getting shorter, though :-(
Saturday in our bakery… The one where Ingo is „Mr. K.” (he uses my name often cause it´s easier) or we´re greeted with “Ahhh, family K. :-)”
The one that´s right beside the place I lived when moving first to Braunschweig.
Since I didn´t know if I´ll keep my job – actually I come from another field, study-wise (I´m there 13th year now), I went into flat-sharing there for way too long.

One of the reasons I finally moved out… entered the bakery and Ingo, way too loud, exclaimed: “M!”

So M came over, ignored Ingo´s open hand and shook mine first, how weird.
But he topped it even, it´s strange when someone you dislike says something very nice, “still your old love?” and added, “Perth”?

(Pic: Both my loves :-)...)
At first I thought he means us, but this was nice, too!
Why he said that? He´d just returned from his “old love”, China.
Gosh, he must be in his 50s and is – due to his travels to China – still into flat-sharing!

Funny enough via postcrossing this card just reached me.

Sorry to say, Sydney never was my love (the Sydneysiders are super-friendly and helpful, it was just too European-like for me).

Summer has truly returned, so we go the city very often.
Here´s my cress, btw:

In the egg a "speaking bean" is growing.

Yesterday we went to neighbor Moe to get our Aussie-visa (what would´ve happened without him??? It was all by chance he owns a travel agency, we talked about Perth and he knew we need this, we booked online and that agency didn´t mention any visa!).
Spouse: Off to the city now.
Moe (in his sticky, hot office): For an ice-cream?
Spouse: Nah, Schadt´s! (where Moe often goes, too).

This is one "normal" meal we shared. We were so full and didn´t manage to eat it all. Heck, no wonder Germans are getting higher in the range of the most-fattest guys in Europe if this is meant for one person!!!
It was super-yummy, no doubt about that! But, really. For one person?

And I got a letter starting with: "Thanks for the friendly and pleasant talk the other day."
Awwww... And that man had helped ME! A lot! Against wrong info I got from another health-agency!
Life´s good at times, no?
He was so friendly on the phone. Had competence - what a combination these days!

What a great day!

Dance For Joy

Awww, these guys sure went to the shop I went to big time ;-)

My radish isn´t doing that well yet, but, lets see.

A local phenomenon:
When some event has been you read about in the news and that there was little audience.
Over years. And years.
They don´t learn.

So we were quite surprised to find people dancing for joy:

At the wine-festival.

We, instead, had a Schnitzel.
The first one in 20 years. And we shared. And it was way too much. But oh-so-yummy. Yet... way too much. At Schadt´s.

Blurry pic, I need a new cam for Perth!

An awwwwww this morning:

And after a small, shared meal at Schadt´s (yum, too!) we got the "water reserve"-frogs at Penny :-)

Work: Oh, yikes. I´m so tired. Hope I get this "stupid stuff" done tomorrow.
Though... then I have to prepare soccer-season. We have a little game on who wins. Boooring.

Pic taken for teamleader who is a huge fan:

Aww, well, let´s dance for joy, some have fun hobbies, some don´t - depends on from where you´re watching, it right?

Love Me Like There´s No Tomorrow

A Red CUBIFA IV

A Red CUBIFA III
A Red CUBIFA II
A Red CUBIFA I

Can "Y"ou Believe It´s Friday Again?
We ran out of bread for work yesterday. For one day you don´t buy new one, right?
So we took toast we still had.
Like... we toasted it lightly. On Thursday night.

I did that in spring 2006 once before.
Yeah, I mean... tasty is different, right? Ole toasted white-bread, yikes!
I did it on purpose, too!
Why?
We´d just booked a flight to... yep. Perth.
So in my lunch-break I was surfing Perth-news and learned that the ice-cream of the year was ... ta-daaa: Vegemite-Ice-Cream.
My then-teamleader came over and asked what I´m doing there?
What is Vegemite???
He ordered it via amazon that day, called me when it had arrived and asked me to prepare:
Toast, untoasted and toasted for giving it a try – we have no toaster at work.

Yes. I´ve travelled Australia 6 months in '95 and 7 months in '99, but I never tried Vegemite. For a reason, maybe (sorry, guys!)...

So... we met in the office with the ingredients... I brought butter, too.

Toasted, untoasted, both with and without butter...
Ewwwww.
No one wanted to join us.
Back home I had German "Zwiebelbrot", it´s so yummy. Sounds weird, onions in bread, but, well, think of Elsässer Flammkuchen, huh?
I can say... it was "eatable".

We seriously thought something had happened on the way to Germany with that Vegemite maybe?

When we arrived in Perth, Ingo and I, after a night at the airport we went to Maccas right beside Kingsaway Tourist Park.
And - very tired - I saw they had Vegemite in small portions for Brekkie.
I quickly forgot about it.
We bought a glass of Vegemite (proven in pic) and found out: … Nothing was wrong with the one my then-teamleader had ordered.
Guess you have to grow up with it, right from the start, or your tastebuds just refuse! ;-)

Yep, that´s Christmas. Dunno if 2006 was especially hot - we stayed in our cabin (no air-con) anyways, Transperth was tricky those days.
We watched "Back to the Future II" and were not hungry at all, but you have to eat, right?
So, in the ad-break I went to Maccas to get two Cheeseburgers (with cheddar-cheese!!! You lucky guys!!!).
And asked for one sample of Vegemite.
Short version here.

I explained my wish, a sample for my then-teamleader in a land of no Vegemite, and it was granted by the female staff at hand.
The male staff saw it and stated Vegemite is given for brekkie only, so I repeated my story.
He smiled big (poor fella who had to work on Christmas day!) and said, no!, went away and came back with a whole bag full of Vegemite :-)

Which his female, strict teamleader saw… yep, I told the story yet again and no, the guys behind me didn´t get angry in the longer getting queue – there were British tourists among them and I accidentially started a huge discussion on Vegemite vs Marmite – we all had fun :-)

The guy had suggested to make a mobile out of those, which sure we (well Ingo, of course!) did – the sun sadly did his job (argh, this kinda hurts writing, in German the sun is female, the moon is male) – hmmm… will I go over and ask for new samples? ;-)

Though, actually, as I wanted to take a pic of the other 12 (he gave us 25, one was for then-teamleader) I saw Ingo had put an instruction over the vegemite and hence they look brand new (just... they smell!)-
I´ll print out the pics and bring them over in November :-)

Yes. They´ve travelled from Perth to Rhüden, to Braunschweig Bültenweg, Karlstrasse and now to this home! As a mobile - Ingo did a good job, no? :-)



But please ... don´t smile at me and give me a vegemite sandwich ;-)
Oh, great, the song is right there again, no?
Happy Friday, off to the city now!

Not Just Hot Air

Now I only have to take care to remind Ingo to not wear a screwdriver in his backpocket when sitting down :-)

Now that summer is back I really felt the need to see bright colors and couldn´t resist this new home for my sunflowers:

Here I try to go for radish...

And here you can see I didn´t burn down the house:

This pic is from a sec ago.

Sadly Ingo got sick yesterday (I guess it´s stress, work-wise. They again want to throw out people).
So I had to finish the BBQ after Ingo lit it.
I may be over 40 but this was a first time for me!

At first the BBQ stayed cold.
So I sat there, fluttering air in like crazy.
Didn´t work well, so finally I closed the lid. My grilled cheese was at least a wee bit warm, Ingo´s sausage got brown, too.

I let it stay open when I was done.

This morning I couldn´t believe my eyes and I kid you not: the coal was still glowing, yikes, how dangerous is this!
How lucky am I nothing happened!
How can that be? I was done shortly after 6 pm Sunday and 05:30 this morning the coal is still glowing, flickering!
I needed some good amount of water to turn it out.

Seesh.
Now that I did all this I can no longer say I don´t dare cause I´m afraid of the heat anymore, huh?
I really should´ve thought about this earlier.
And maybe not pointing it out here, too...

Maybe all those colors had driven me nuts?

Or it´s time to finally grow up?
Really it´s weird. Guess if I had an accident with loss of memory I might think I´m 18. not 41.
I´d know I can drive a car (which, actually, I can since I´m 14, thanks, Dad), but having no kids I really don´t feel like a 41 year old person!