Summer

Finally summer is back!
28C, sunny (very windy, though).

Ingo finally tried that super-yummy icecream (I had sesame with my cinammon) - yummo!

Don´t you just love summer?

"Window-shopping" in the sun!

Oh, I don´t know.
This year we don´t go on holiday, but I get the feeling somehow next year we might...

What do you think, Lisbon?
Tipps are welcome.

So far we enjoy what we have here.

And that´s not that bad, either...

Or is it?

I just wished summer would last forever!

Or somehow have a lot of money and move to Perth...

So far I might do some time-travel... 15 bucks... Seldom I look forward to a Monday arvo :-)

You cannot walk far in clogs, but...
BUT, right?

X-Mas In July (Kinda)

So yesterday I hopped in the car (which was parked DIRECTLY (!) in front of our house - BINGO (!) and headed off to Bro´s place to look after the kids while the peeps old enough in the village cleaned up the messes the water left in all the houses.

I finally brought part of the Perth-souveniers (from January!) over and the kids - after at least Wee One being shy, were happy about.

You wonder about "#II" in the pic above?

Big One took care her lille Sister is first - how.darn.cute.and.... wise is that?
Full pics for friends are over here again, please feel free to join.

It was wonderful to be part of how they interact - Big Sis took care half of the X-Mas-crackers go to her lille Sis. Amazing. (They´re four years apart).

Wee One took care I don´t get too hungry, doing some cooking straight away!

And then there certainly was the sportive part, right?

Unfortunately there was a minor accident.
But have a Big Sis and the world is just Oh-Kay.
Right?

Big Sis even allowed Wee One to take part in the Aussie-Elsa-hunt - so glad about that!

She´s not even three and throwing the dice is a challenge.
But when she said with a very sad face "I´m ssssad I cannot playyyy", Big Sis gave her the paper-dice (my... not my efford, but I felt proud of her!).

Suddenly another to me unknown Mum rushed in with a boy called M and simply let him there with us.
Hello???
Help???

Grandma was in the kitchen, so I took the challenge and that lille firefighter added easily to the team.
OK.
To be honest... Big One managed it all!! :-)

Later the clay I brought was a hit, too - shared with only minor incidents and when Big One asked what else I brought I said:

It´s enough for today, how about next time..." - she was OK with that!
By golly. Only nearly 7 years old she´s quite an adult, no?

The fart-machines were a very big hit, too - they´re kids after all :-)

By golly - my highest respect to parents!
It´s a tough job!

And Grandma corrected me, btw!

My Mum´d told her once in my life I´d changed a diaper indeed!
I do not remember, but Bro did a big business, Mum wasn´t around and so my Dad helped me up to do the job cause it was too icky for him.

Hm. I would´ve been 6 years old - how come I cannot remeber???
Was it THAT bad, LOL?

I found myself again at 140 km/h with everybody else, which is STRESS and later even managed to help Ingo create a very YUM dinner:

I was so tired I wasn´t even hungry (but it was so yum!).
Sometimes I really do wish we had a dish-washer!!!
So much work after that, gaah.

Next Sat:
First day of school - I´ll be off to the kids again.

Who went so cutely cuddly, kissing me and asking me to stay.

You really have to be tough around near-3-y-o, they just conqueer your body and take it as a bed, too, LOL.
Who was afraid of me an hour ago??

But I admit.
At around 30 years of age I was in pain.
Kids or no kids?

H said: It´s a hell of work.

It is - being an Auntie was the right thing to choose.
I´d brought my kids to school even when over 18 years old cause I´d been afraid something bad might happen...

High respect to all parents - I am aware those two yesterday tried to please me, too!!!

Btw... Wee-one asked me about my (one of 4) scar(s).
Big-One never did.
Funny.

AND! I wore an Elmo-T-shirt - they didn´t know who that is - I was shocked!
But the German version of Sesame Street is crap.
Bro had to watch it by himself, Dad and I left (I grew up with the (translated) original).

They don´t know Elmo!

Short Work Day With Long Way

I´m so naive at times it´s a pain.
On my way to work I thought the guy with his white dog takes another route for a change, like in for seeing something different, but, no, as you can see the park was flooded, the bridge nearly gone.

I had to rush via detour.

Bro called me if I have a day off and can come over to help clean up the mess - their house got more of the dirty water.
But not to worry if I can´t, sorry, no, I´m working and I have an app I waited 6 weeks for.
I felt a bit bad about it, but on the other hand... since January they cannot make room for me visiting for 1-2 hours on one Sunday arvo but now I am to jump?
I would have, though, if it hadn´t been for the app...

09:30 I realised, ahhh, in 10 minutes I have to be at the eye specialist (routine) - more rushing.

I thought (speaking of being naive) these days when they force your pupils open the effect will be over after say 15-30 minutes. Noooo.
3-6 HOURS.

Teamleader S sent me home... I was just no use at the PC ("haha, you look like that comic-cat!").

I (admit I had a burger at Maccas and) came homewards around lunchtime, assuming the water will be gone.
Ha. No....

Even worse.

We went through having such brown water in the apartment twice, in Rhüden (the second time Bro and SIL helped on the first day, too).
Ewww, I´ll never forget that foul smell that brown water brings in....
The second one I even wished for as Ingo´d said back then: "If the water comes in once more I´ll move to Braunschweig!".
It even went into the bathtub!
And hence since 2007 we live together after some stupid 13 years of weekend relationship.

Well, summer, it seems, is taking a longer break, how sad is that.

Shoot. Bro called, desperate.
I´m off to his place now.
To take care of the kids.
Me.
The worst solution... The Wee One didn´t even know anymore who "Auntie Iris" is...
Wish me luck...

There Have To Be Days Like That

My new teamleader S the other day asked me when I start working and she tried early as well and weeee.... surprise, near to no traffic!

So it´s the two of us now in the mornos (well, so far 06:30 was her earliest... but she´s working on it).
So yesterday I joked, "did you oversleep?" :-)

Mind you we chatted over.an.hour!!! (and I found out she´s not 10 but only 3-4 years older than me... crazy)
She said, see title, there have to be days like that, too, and later we worked very concentrated - it was like in the golden times - there is loads of work to do!!!! I´m so happy!!!
Pic btw taken in Welfenhofpassage.

At 08:45 I left for my dentist.

She just took x-rays and I gave a form to my health insurance - the bad stuff will be done next Wed...
When I left after making an app with her secretary she was fetching the post.
That is some funny lady, I tell ya!
She stopped me and gave me the ads. "Please check if there are letters mingled in, if not, can you recycle it, please, the blue bin is to the left, thank you :-)"

She did not have any Mon Cheri, I suppose, LOL.

Since this episode took me over an hour I worked longer.

Colleague M cannot see me, only when we both make an efford, so when around 02:45 I asked colleague A something M was thrown out of his work, exclaiming, "and what are YOU doing here, anyways?!!".
For an outsider this must´ve sounded like mobbing and the moment it was out he realised that, too, so everybody joined in!

Certainly it was just jokes!

We´re just a colorful "young" team, huh?
Recon the boys are all under 30... but you cannot "feel" that.

When I left, after having "insinuating" them that they party once I´m gone, I wished them some happy times, mind you, we all made jokes and I left the office laughing.
Literally laughing. Like with voice!

When after a day full of work you still smile big on your way home, you are a lucky person, huh?

I am now again, too!
I´m sosososo thankful, you have (probably) no idea.

On my way home...

Those two were lucky - no water inside. They joked, "hey, we can enter directly via living-room!".

Having humor, so important.

"There have to be days like that!"

If you care about the salad-thingy, please read the comment to this post - thanks Grace, I am a happy salad now (still a tad afraid of Big´s words not coming true...)

K7 - That Was Then, This Is Now

Or as our "loo-graffiti" says:

"My karma just ran over your dogma.
That was zen this is tao."

Well, Ingo finally was in the mood to help me .mp3 the only old K7 (French abbrivation for cassette, "k-sept") I managed to "rescue" from our travels in 1999.

The war in Kosovo is certainly back.
Old politicians and questionalble "stars" like Inge Meysel are certainly back, the Braunschweig Lions win in American Football, just like these days still (we hardly go anymore - gotten way too expensive with very low service, numbers of peeps visiting went down to 2500-3000 from a former 11 000+!).

1999 we knew we´d buy a 4WD LWB and "conqueer" the Outback - there´s no radio, hence I taped six K7s of our German radio :-)
It was Xmas 1998 - May 1999, only the last one made it.

Ingo got the proper program (and thanks Bro I had the hardware):

And now we can hear the stuff from back then in our cars again and do some mind-time-travel, this one....

... is history now.

As (for now) this:

Floodings have occured. Yesterday morno I had to take a different route to work, the park was flooded - and the cam empty, but here are the news on it.
We´re fine but SIL´s old house... flooded :-(
Again.
As if they don´t have enough to deal with...
Was even on (regional) TV...

Sometimes you wish back the (g)olden days, no?

Awww... imagine.... Sitting in front of that beautiful car shown above, in camping chairs.
An ice-cold Emu in your hand, gas-lamp in front and looking up into that endless, endless dark, clean sky full of blinking stars, the Southern Cross just above your head.

And now we have the music back, that entertained us during driving in the days in the Outback without radio.

I´m so darn "home-sick" now!
And I want my car back!
Oh... and summer?

Gotta Go There Again

Pics taken on the way back from the hosp.
I think this must be Bruchtorwall, where I also found the "Fox-Lane" - but I´m not sure, have to take that route again (making plans for keeping walking/exploring up)!

The door:

This is Bruchtorwall for sure:

It was a deluxe-hotel once, built in 1889. Then the train station in 1960 moved (and thanks to that bad choice we´re not capital city, but Hannover is!) and the hotel lost it´s attractiveness for travelers and closed down in the 70´s.
1989/90 it was restored and used as office-places.
"Since 2017 it´s used as a hotel again", says the sign.
Such a liar, that sign! ;-)
That was the plan, this is reality (still looks like in the article):

Guess I´ll have to focus more on where actually I take pics...
I´m curious, too, what´ll happen to this place.
It seems to be a gem, let´s hope there is enough money to restore it once again.

Uhhhh-la.
Off-topic.
I got a new FB-friend, I was invited.
By MIL.
Are you "friends" with yours?

High Up

I´m so glad to work in 3rd (or rather 4th floor as the first real one is service rooms and strangely not in the counting).
Oh, that conference room... In summer you get grilled in there - no aircon and all the important stuff goes on in there.
Or went - the new boss had the one-to-one-meetings up here, luckily.

In winter you´re likely to freeze your butt off there and in rain you even get a chance of seeing some water inside, I´ve been told.

Oh, well, I´m with the nerds now - they call themselves like that, btw :-)
I really have to think careful about which t-shirt to wear.
Yesterday I got a "all those who were nameless had to die." on my Bones t-shirt.
At least I could argue that the Horta was saved.
Peeps nearly half my age are Trekkies of the original series, even!

Chances are high, too, to run around in partner look.
Colleague A has the same Ampelmännchen t-shirt I do, just a tad bigger.

Guess I fit in there.
So wished I could stay - but they plan to get me to extern as I make more money for the company - they say.
Right now VW is paying for my work, too!

Anyhows, the real thing:

I enjoy as long as it lasts...

Btw: Ingo is home :-)

An Open End

Hopefully I passed this lost gate for a looong time - it´s kept as a symbol and to lead the way to Kennel-Bad - Princess Augusta took up some space, huh.

Ingo: We played cards, had fun, his arm was still inflamed - fever? No idea - weekend. They don´t do much but offer coffee... Ingo said he read along on this blog and I should go for that icecream again... hey! It´s the hubby...

I do listen... when I want to - so glad I can decide, right, not all women have that choice :-(

Back home.
Hm.
Let me show you:

Took him 15 minutes to create this.

I have to add: I never tried ricotta in my life (yes. Can you beliefe that?).

Trying to get a meal made for four to two... aka I eat twice from that... haha....

NEXT time... I´ll have all the "tiny" jobs aka "cut finely" before even considering to start!

What... just what can I say.
British/Aussie dried mushrooms take 4 minutes to be back to yum.
German ones: ONE HOUR.
No wonder it was a crunchy s###, LOL.

Oh.My.Goodness!

Buuuut.
YUM!

The passata-sauce was yum, the fritters, too!
Next time I know I´ll have all the chopping jobs done before starting.
Jamie said, "wait till the fritters are good, otherwise it´s a big mess" - I dared the game and at least it was no mess. Just slightly burned.
I´m kinda a wee bit proud of myself for trying.

Ingo asked me to capture the tango-stuff.. .well, it wasn´t students this time, it was... boring, but if you wanna have a look...



.... other have a look at last pic and keep fingers crossed it´s what I get (an... the my Ingo back home):

An open end... will I keep try to cook once Ingo´s back home?
I have no idea.
It´s all done with hot oil - Ingo will never in his life have that again.
I gag on the smell of hot butter.

Will we find a solution or do I just give up?