Frühlingserwachen - spring finally seems to have arrived in Germany and Austria...

[LinzerTorte]

... or at least I hope so.

For everyone in Germany and Austria, and anyone else who would like to chat!

I have the same problem. Pins will go in but the walls are some how soft and abit of powdery stuff crumbles out and the posters just fall off the walls. I've seen those power strips by tesa here but no blu tack yet.

lol- just been shopping and was tempted by the new milka ones too!

Just washed our car last week -dc (and I) love sitting in it while its done. That was over a year since it was last done, it was so so dirty! But now we no longer recognise it instantly.

Thanks for all the post re teaching English. I decided not to do it in the end. It put me in a bit of a "will I ever get a job here?" whinge mood yesterday but feel better today.

jenny- yanbu. I´d buy replacement lambs straight away, just in case she shouts at you again and you have to eat them again.

Right, self control cuppa taking effect. I am off to clean the house. DD´s class has to write a short story about their dream house. DD´s story ended with "Meine Traumwohnung ist sauber"

xpost hupa. I bought some blu tac here in Austria. I shall have a look at what it is called and post. I´ll have to go to the shop as ours is out of the packet. It is white in colour though but does the same thing.

Lol at the clean house! My dd was asked by the child psycologist, where she is having her dyslexia and selective mutism testing, what her greatest wish would be and she said to live in a real house (ie not a flat) near her school with her family!

I noticed when I linked to the British shop in Vienna the other day that they now have Cadbury's creme eggs in stock, and am keeping my fingers crossed that DH will have to go past at some point.

hupa I've seen something similar to Blu Tack here (yellow or white, I think) but I can't remember what it was called. I haven't tried it out as we brought back a couple of packets of Blu Tack from the UK and never seem to use them, although I always missed it when we didn't have any! I've just checked and we have an unopened packet upstairs - I'd be happy to send you some if you like.

admylin Our car gets washed whenever we're at my ILs as it's much easier to do it there. As we never drove my old car to my ILs, it would end up ridiculously dirty until DH could no longer cope with the sight of it and took it to the car wash - probably only a couple of times a year, though.

x posts bananas - you now have a choice of Austrian or British Blu Tack, hupa.

Just popping into take a peek at all the posts! Oh my goodness, I'll never catch up. Hi to the new people on the list.

There's something here called UHU patafix that's pretty much the same as blu tak, I think.

Gotta go clean my house now! Parent teacher meeting with ds15's dragon lady French teacher and guests coming tomorrow.

Actually, have just realised what you probably meant by post bananas. I'd still be happy to send some if it turns out you can't get it in Germany once you know the name.

Mmmm Cadbury's creme eggs...all this talk make sme regret not buying that bag of eggs this morning!

How many eggs do you all get for the dc? My family in UK don't really do anything for Easter so they don't get anything from that end. I used to make them an easter basket when they were small with a rabbit and a few eggs. We've also been on an easter egg hunt a few times but they're past that now.

Ooh, the teacher isn't coming to your house though is she westvan? Sorry I missed a trip into town this week. Must try and organise myself more next week then we can meet.

The DC each get a basket with three or four coloured eggs ("real" ones) plus far too many sweets and some presents as well. I think I may have complained on this thread last year about all the presents at Easter, and I'm constantly complaining about all the sweets foisted on the DC, so I'm biting my tongue!

I'd prefer it if they just got one large chocolate egg and no presents - DD1 has already said she'd like to go to Bratislava at the weekend ("you know, that place you like going to Mummy") and I'm wondering whether you can get them at M&S. It's probably too late to get them used to the idea of no presents, though.

Yes I remember Linzer. Soem of ds's friends get huge presents. They do start to expect them too if you give in one year you can bet they'll remember!

I think I'll try and get one big egg or rabbit. Dd doesn't like chocolate much so I got her a caramel rabbit once but the thought of all that sugar on her teeth ...I might offer to take her shopping for a new top or something instead.

It all started off fairly innocently, as my ILs wanted to give the DDs a bike and a scooter for Easter IIRC, which we would have bought them anyway. I just wish we'd never said they were Easter presents, as it's set a precedent!

All this talk of Easter eggs is giving me cravings, so I'm off to console myself with a hobnob.

Ad - Nooo, the teacher's not coming to our house, thank goodness, but it's still a mess and I've been procrastinating for too long.

YES, we should make a date for next week! I was feeling a bit iffy this week anyway but I should be OK soon.

Thanks for all the offers and info about blu tac. Now that I know what I´m meant to be looking for I´m sure I´ll find some.

We still do an egg hunt. They get a few real eggs and then a fair amount of chocölate. I used to help them to eat it up when they weren´t around, but dd has now caught onto to this and hides any chocolate that she gets given. They tend to get one small present eg. a book, but I know some parents go over the top and Easter is nearly a repeat of Christmas.

Ds lost his first tooth a few weeks ago and was really pleased with the 1 euro the tooth fairy left. A few days later he came home saying the tooth fairy had left Emma (a girl from kiga) 10 euros and why hadn´t he got the same. It would make life a lot easier if parents could agree generally what is fair, so I don´t have to make up ridiculous stories to explain the discrepencies.

I'm off to clear the debris in dd's room as she has a friend coming with her straight from school. I'm doing potato wedges and salad for lunch so should be seen as not too foreign!

They're doing a power point presentation for science next week. They have new smart boards instead of black boards or white boards. There is a box on the wall where you put your usb stick in and then your power point presentation starts on the board, all very high tech.

Westvan, ever been to Saskatoon in Canada? Dh has an assistant professor job application for there. He wants to send it tonight.

Morning

Admylin have you seen the "A Quarter of" website - you can order cream eggs on line :) I have to pick the neighbor's kids up from KiGa and feed them lunch and am not sure what to feed them - what do you serve with the potato wedges (ketchup?) - last time I gave them pasta they would only eat it plain, which seems a bit unsatisfactory... I have given them sandwiches and fruit many times and that always goes down well but I am out of bread and low on fruit - maybe I just have to leave now and go to the supermarket on the way (sigh). I am a bit tired of next door using me as child care atm - I have taken and fetched next door's DD to and from KiGa every day this week as the younger one has been ill, but he is better today and she offered to take mine this morning - and when she picked them up casually asked me to pick hers up and keep them til 2.30 as her mum, who usually has them, will be out til 2.30 - how was she planning to cover those 2 hours if I had said no??? It is not the first time this has happened so I am a bit

hupla you can by a white version of blu tac here - Kaufland has it in the stationary isle, though I see you have had lots of blu tac advice!

bananas :o at your daughter's dream house being clean! Fast forward 20 years and she will write "my dream house is selfcleaning I am feeling wiped out at the moment and am doing even less house work than usual, so I expect my DD feels the same as yours!

On the subject of Easter - My kids tend to get Easter presents from my mother in the UK, but she generally sends clothes so not that exciting, especially to DS. I give them a Playmobile toy-inside egg and a small nest of choc, plus some coloured real eggs in the middle of the table, on the breakfast table on Easter day, and MIL does a full on egg hunt in her garden with far too much (generally low quality) choc at some point later in the easter holidays...

buy not by

I put ketchup and a sour cream dip on the table with wedges 2and1ontheway and salad.

It can be difficult when people take you for granted can't it? We had neighbours in Berlin who didn't really ask but they would put their dc out in the garden and tell them not to come back in! So they ended up in our flat most of the time or if they needed the loo they'd come up to us because their mum or dad wasn't opening the door! They'd also always end up eating with us - which didn't bother me really as we always have enough to eat but made me wonder what on earth their parents must be doing/thinking.

I must try potato wedges next time the DC have friends over - I'm getting fed up of serving plain pasta (I do serve tomato or bolognese sauce with it, but visitors never seem to want the sauce). Pizza has gone down well recently too, but anything more adventurous generally doesn't get eaten.

Oh yes, I'd forgotten about the Playmobil eggs - DH has bought them already. ?20 for those eggs alone! As if we didn't already have enough Playmobil.

And on the subject of dream houses, DD1 announced on the way home from school today that she wants to live in a Wohnung. It turns out it's because she wants more neighbours - neighbours above us, neighbours below us and lots of neighbours next door is apparently her dream.

Great excitement here as the Spar sticker album has just arrived. We already have three almost full Billa albums; these supermarkets certainly know what they're doing.

Are those to stick your treue punkte in Linzer?

I'm always handing mine to some stranger in the shop - I don't collect but might as well go to someone who does!

Lol at your dd wanting to live in a flat! I guess she'd get to pick the neighbours too though in her ideal world!

No, these are animal stickers to collect. I don't know a single child here who isn't collecting either Spar or Billa stickers (you get a packet of 5 every time you spend ?10 and can buy extra packets for 50 cents each). Billa started their Aktion first, which meant we had to shop there and had to spend at least ?10. We weren't going to collect the Spar ones too, but ended up with loads of packets at the weekend (a middle-aged couple handed us at least 10) so DH ordered the album and the DDs are sticking them in and crossing off items on the list as I write.

Very clever werbe trick!

Dd has had a Harry Potter sticker album and she enjoyed buying the little packets of stickers but then they stopped selling them and she'd have to send in an order to finish her album to the publishers.