leise rieselt der Schnee - for all those lovely people in Germany and Austria or whoever wants to join us!

[Canella]

a new wintery thread in honour of Hupa's first snow of the season!

Hi everyone and welcome NeverBeenThereNeverDoneThat.

I have been trying to stay busy and get my place tidy and put healthier meals on the table but it isn't working. I might re-join the flying tread Linzer. HAve had a bit of work proof reading the most boring stuff too.

Canella, 2 weeks with 1 hand is a long time. I think the Hausarzt should prescribe you a home help. If you tell him you have 3 dc and your in-lawa are away and your dh can't take time off work then you should be able to get one for a few hours a day. Hope it doesn't hurt too much.

Bebe, not sure about the swine flu jab - it hasn't even been in the news and media much over here this winter (unlike UK). Sometimes you get a prescription for a jab then you have to collect it yourself from the pharmacy too or that's what I did last time I had one. We haven't had any flu jabs though. Have you found some accomodation yet?

Bananas, sorry your dd has been feeling down again. Dd had a phase of being stressed and it all came out in headaches when we lived in Berlin. She was stessed about doing well and joing in at school as she's very shy and had selective mutism (when you can't speak even though you want to) for a while so anxiety was a problem. She is OK now but it was tough going and she was exhausted. It sounds good that the school are helping though. Hope the schulpsychologin is of some help.

Just popping in for a minute to answer Bebe's question:

Bebe - Welcome to the thread! My ob/gyn offered me a flu shot last year when I was as did my GP's office this year. They had it right in the office, no need to go to the pharmacy or anything now. They've combined the regular flu shot with the swine flu one so it covers pretty much everything. Don't know if being pregnant is a hindrance, most likely not.

That's all for now, lots to do and no motivation to do it, but hanging around here won't help.

Hi bebemoohatessnot
I only joined here today but am living in munich and also pregnant. Just in case you don't notice it, I posted a reply to the thread you started! If you need any questions answered give me a shout!

Hi everyone else
I only joined mumsnet today. I've lived in munich for the last 18 months. It's nice to see there are other mums in germany on here too!
xxx

Thanks so much ladies. :)
Hi Tallpoppies :) I did miss your post. I'm very sorry. We should get together when I finally get over there. :)
Our contact found was 1000euro/month with a garden...but it was in the middle of nowhere :( I really felt I'd like to be in a city/town so Moo and I can go/walk to shops during the day and explore while dh is working. We're getting nervous abt finding things now and so we're wondering if we should just take it, tho the furniture was rather naff and layout was far from ideal (the 'second bedroom' was the living room?!)
We've found a few things ourselves, but as everything is in German we're finding it hard to nail out details of these places... Dunno.

why couldn't I have lived in Germany 5yrs ago instead of France?

I used this site

www.immobilienscout24.de/de/finden/wohnen/index.jsp;jsessionid=F0B72897A248F09F9828C286E412755D.worker1

when looking for somewhere to live in conjunction with the google automatic translation to english and found it a lot easier.

If you are stuck pm me and I can type in the search details for you and email you the results

Thanks. Some of those places look so lovely...and then I see the commission...OMG

bebe, it's very painful to hand over the comission on top of a deposit and the first months rent, you're looking at over 5k in one go sometimes. We've had to move so many times in the past few years and it takes ages to recover financially.

Sorry I can't remember if you already mentioned it - but is the employer offering any help with that side of things? Especially for Munich area they must know how difficult it is to find somewhere.

Canella, hope you're managing with your 1 hand. Did you think about getting a homehelp? I had one once when I was ill and once after giving birth to dd and she came to just do things like wash the floors, take the rubbish out and cook a meal, think she did the washing and ironing. Once i had one for 8 hours a day and once for 4 just to keep the house up and running.

Just reviewed the state ofthe flat and the jobs for today and I just don't get it - where does it all come from? I'm not catching up with the washing as I have no dryer so there is a huge back log in the bathroom, kitchen is a tip again you'd thin we'd had a wild party or something and I'm getting some work sent from Berlin to proof read and after lunch I start my taxi job chauffering 2 dc here and there.

Hi tallpoppies and welcome.
Are you in Munich for good? How do you like it? I love the accent down there, have you picked it up? I learned German in Schwabenland and have been told I have abit of an accent when I speak German and now live in the north!

hi tallpoppies...when are you due? How come you ended up in Munich?

oh admylin...I hear you re the houswork. Did less of it over christmas because the children were around and the place is a tip! Plus you have two extra jobs of proofreading and taxi driver. Good luck with making a start to it all. Good to hear your dd is now better. It´s hard. DD went to school okay this morning, no tears though I had to take her into the class and reassure her. She did not want to go to Religion (last hour of the day) so I told the teacher that, and let´s see how it goes from there.

bebe...you´ll have an interseting experience comparing the health systems then! Hope baby enjoys the German food but not so much that it decides to come out and have a look before you are ready. argh, commissions are a nightmare.

Linzer...how did you find teaching dd2 class? was it very different? my dds have a native english teacher who goes in once a week...is that what you are? or are you doing it voluntarily? I have offered to come in and help with English but neither teacher has taken me up on the offer. Thank goodness in a a way because I am slightly terrified of a class full of little ones. I taught english years ago and found it very demanding.

Right off to sort some paperwork . DC3 kindergarten has still not given us a Bestatigung which I asked for 2 weeks before Christmas and have been hassling them about since. Until we get that our FBH isn´t coming through, and we need it after Christmas....

That's bad of them bananas, they must know everyone needs those forms. Is there a secretary or a leiterin at the kindergarten where you could go to their office and stage a sit-in until you get the paper?!

Actually, taxiing the dc around isn't that musch of a chore except for the time it takes up, I shouldn't moan about it! It is getting better, for example today dd is going to her friend's house after school on the bus. She lives quite far away but the bus is direct. I just have to collect her later.

This weekend dd has arranged to go swimming with a friend. They're 11 but it's the first time she'll be going without an adult. Should be fine, I'm too nervous. On Sunday ds is out all afternoon at a table tennis event also alone so they are slowly getting more independant.

What a pain about the paperwork, bananas. I'm sure we got our Bestätigung on the same day, or by the next day at the latest, from both the Kindergarten and school when we were asked to provide it a couple of years ago.

admylin I'm finally getting back on top of the housework again now that the DC have gone back to school, but it's a slow process! The fly thread definitely helps as it's embarrassing to post the same list day after day. OTOH I can only get things done because I don't have any work atm; the house usually descends into chaos as soon as any work arrives.

I've definitely picked up the accent since I've been here and have even had German friends laugh at me (I remember one woman in Germany years ago saying that DH - before he was DH - had an awful accent and that's made me a bit paranoid about speaking German to Germans, apart from my German friends here in Austria!). OTOH most Austrians think I'm German, so I'm probably somewhere between the two accents.

Yesterday's English lesson went fine; the fact that I've been helping out with DD1's class for over two years definitely helped. Luckily I was more of a classroom assistant when I first started, but I'm much more confident now about teaching the class on my own - DD2's teacher said yesterday that she's happy to leave everything up to me, including deciding what to teach. Both teachers asked me if I could help with English so I'm doing it voluntarily; they have a "Native Speakerin" in the Volksschule that our neighbours' DD goes to, but not at our school.

Forgot to say hi and welcome to tallpoppies. Is it your first DC?

Hello everyone, hope you're having a good day. The rain has suddenly broke and there's SUN. :)

We've located a few apartments which are cheap so the commission is not too bad, they're unfurnished (but we'll just buy cheap Ikea) Dh has emailed relevant people so hopefully we'll be able to sort one of them out. :) Things would be way less stressful if we had a place to go.

So none wants to rent for 6m :(

Hi all

Bananas we ended up in moving to munich 18 months ago with my husband's job, previously we had only been seeing him on weekends as he was working in switzerland and we were in the uk - this position came up and we decided to make the move together. He's on a local contract so we could stay here permanently but it's unlikely this will happen due to cost of living etc - I think we'll probably be here another 18 months before going back to uk.

It's frustrating learning german and then coming across words in "bayrisch", I'm looking at them thinking "what the hell?" - I don't think my german is good enough to have an accent though admylin, probably just sound like a british person speaking german badly! Is it just here in bavaria or do all germans correct you or look at you blankly if you get just one word wrong in a sentence? I find it baffling that you know you have said the right thing, or enough to be understood anyway, but you would swear you have just asked for something in hungarian if you mispronounce it! I went to ikea today and said "nicht sauerrahm bitte", technically I should have said "ohne" I know but honestly -she should have been able to understand what I meant! She wouldn't give me the damn meal until I repeated "ja, ohne sauerrahm" Frustrating!!!

Linzertorte - I'm not sure what a dc is so I don't know if it's my first one or not!! (smile)

DC= Dear child :)

Ah I see!!

No I have a 7 year old daughter and two step-sons (7 and 6) who live with us too!

Oh! full house! Witht them so close together in age do you find it difficult? or do they get along?

Sorry tallpoppies, I should have just asked whether it was your first! At least the older three will already be quite independent when the baby arrives and with any luck maybe even interested in helping out.

I sometimes wish I'd learned Germany in Austria as I felt like I had to relearn about half my German when I moved here, not to mention the sometimes incomprehensible accent! I don't remember being corrected too much in Germany - DH sometimes used to get blank looks if he used Austrian words, though. ("without cream" would be "ohne Schlag" here, probably one of my most used phrases as my favourite type of coffee often comes with cream.) How frustrating that the woman at Ikea didn't (want to) understand you - she was probably just being petty.

bebe Sorry to hear you're having problems finding somewhere to rent. You'd think that with the amount of commission charged, landlords/estate agents would be happy to have new tenants every six months!

lol yeah if I was getting that much commission I'd be doing 1month rents...and then I'd be rich and build my house out of money and then I'd take over the world! HAHAHAhahaha.
Hmmm the move to Germany may be permanent if I can learn German well enough to be a estate agent

Lol at becoming an estate agent in Germany! Not sure if I could do it as they must lie through their teeth half the time! Like the ones who showed me this place, they said the Warm miete included everything except electricity but didn't tell me that the hot water was heated by the expensive electricity that I would be paying extra for!

Can any of you tell me if you've heard or read about the Tierfutter scandal and are we allowed to eat eggs etc? Noticed in Lidl yesterday that they didn't have any on the shelf but it was Friday night so maybe sold out?

ah the lying by omission...I used to trick my sisters that way (low grade teasing)...to think that professionals do that too, especially when other people's livelihoods are involved is not a nice thought.

I've not heard anything more here in Wales abt the egg scandal.

My PIL mentioned something last weekend about eggs at Lidl, but as far as I know we're not affected here and I haven't heard much more about it. Sorry, not much help!

Whereabouts in Wales are you from, bebe?

We're in Cardiff :) We bought a house here 3 years ago when dh was working on a long rolling contract and we thought we'd not need to be anywhere else in a while...then the contract ended and he was working in the East during the week and we (Moo and I) were still here in Cardiff. This move to Munich area means I'll have a 'regular' husband again :) rather than a 'weekend' one. (which is what I need during pregnancy -at least early on- as I never fair too well with sickness etc)

Hope you're not suffering from too much rain at the moment... have just spoken to my mum, who was complaining about how wet it is there (they're in Aberystwyth) and that rain and gales are forecast for the rest of the month. I can imagine you're really looking forward to having your DH back full-time, anyway; it must be hard work having to cope with a toddler(?) and morning sickness on your own.