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!

Wow, so much to catch up on. I´m glad it sounds like everyone had a good Easter.

We had a great time in London. It was really hot, so I had to go out and buy new summer clothes as i didn´t take any with us.

I´m not too bothered about the wedding, but will be turning on to see what the dress looks like. Dh bought loads of tacky Kate and William mugs in London and has been handing them out to friends. They´ve all seemed really pleased, but I think they´re just being polite.

admylin - I can understand why your dh is fuming - that´s awful.

Linzer and Canella - good luck with the running. I´ve just started going on my cross trainer again. It´s funny it always remains completely unused throughout the winter, but as soon as we get a bit of sun I manage to motivate myself to get back on it. I think it´s the thought of swimming at the locl Freibad in the summer that gives me the kick I need.

No, weather is not better, we woke up again to snow today! There are no bank holidays for Easter as it's supposed to be a secular society, though we get Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. [chmm]

The Royal Wedding is everywhere here! On every news programme and every channel and every detail is being discussed. Beginning to feel slightly homesick now! My Dad was in the RAF and based at Lossiemouth when Charles and Diana got married. They landed at the base to go to Balmoral and Dad was in the honour guard. They stood right in front of us for a photo and I remember her being very tall and wearing a white dress! I was only 8! [cgrin]

oh, yes good luck with the running! I need to shift my tummy so I have more than 3 things to wear! Hope 2and1 is ok.

That's great hupa, I bet you got some nicer stuff than over here too. I always find clothes I like in UK but I really struggle to find nice styles in Germany. Don't even ask about shoes!

You're all very motivated for the getting fit action. I know I wouldn't keep it up - too easily side tracked. Keep thinking I need a dog then I'd have to go out.

Has anyone ever used a reference manager programme? Dh is on his way home with a manuscript where all the references have to be changed to numbers and then listed at the back in the order they are shown in the paper. It's got about 150 references though and I think he should wait and try a reference manager. Would be worth it surely?

Canella I've heard that the music on the NHS podcasts isn't that great either, but they're supposed to be very motivational otherwise. Bluefin is also supposed to be good; it allows you to listen to your own music, but I think you have to pay for it. I'm planning on going running straight after the school run, so at around 8 am - before I have time to change my mind or get sucked into MN!

hupa Glad to hear you enjoyed London; I'm really looking forward to going back in August. I never expect it to be hot in the UK and am always surprised when it is; also, it's often 3° or 4° warmer in London than where my parents live.

jenny I've hardly heard anything about the royal wedding here, although that's probably because I rarely watch any Austrian TV or read any Austrian newspapers, and only a couple of people have mentioned it to me. I'd like to be able to watch it with an English commentary, though!

admylin Sorry, no idea about reference manager programmes - I'd never heard of them before.
I can hardly ever find clothes I like here (occasionally in H&M, but I'm starting to feel a bit old whenever I go in there now, and I find M&S has got quite frumpy too); I've bought a few things online recently, but from UK sites that either don't ship to Austria or charge expensive rates to do so.

bananas Hope the new job is still going well - any plans for tomorrow? [cgrin]

Have you planned the route for your running Linzer? I often think - evenif I don't run, a brisk walk would do me good but the easiest route would be straight into the forest past the graveyard at the end of the street! I don't feel comfy in the forest alone somehow.

Wow jenny, so you were really close to the royal couple back then? Closest I've ever been was a drive past the palace in a taxi going to the station when I was about 19 and once when I was about 7 the queen drove through the lake district and we were made to stand on the roundabout with school and wave paper union jacks. I didn't see her, just her car! Just watched the news and they were interviewing those crazy people camping already to get a good view along the route in London. Alot of them were Americans - they seem to love this sort of thing.

There's a nice park near to where we live so I thought I could start off there, but it's not really big enough for a 5 km route. The only place I can think of otherwise is along the river, where we sometimes go for bike rides; I'm also not entirely sure about running there by myself, but I think I'm more worried about all the dogs off leads than anything else (I feel safer on a bike somehow)!

Agree about the dogs. The forest near us is full of them. Actually cycling is sort of a good exercise isn't it? Must get my bike sorted (or new one bought).

Dh had an email to say why hasn't he sent his hard copy of his application to Canada. I went to the post office with it and sent it registered - but that's no help as I lost the slip so can't trace it. Now had to get another copy ready and send it all again. There were loads of his publications in it. I'll save the Einschreiben slips this time.

oh, all this running and exercise talk is inspiring...go, go go! I´d love to start running again, and I shall let you know if I can join you once I get into some routine with work. I also need to lose my winter Speck! But, more importantly, get fit.

hope you get the application all sorted admylin. Good sign that Canadians are chasing the application. I am a great fan of reference managers. I used Endnote in a previous life, but it is quite time consuming to enter all the information into the programme initially. Once it is there, however, it makes the changing of styles so much easier- takes a few minutes once you have redefined the new style. I also found it quite useful in keeping track of what I had read, put notes on papers and books into it.

canella- good luck for your exam. I am sure you will be fine! Just hope you get an exercise to do with kitchens! Are you doing structural changes too? Does sound expensive!

hupa- good to hear you had a good time away!

jenny- hope you get nice weather soon. And that when it comes, it stays.

2and1- hope you are well, and sometimes able to have some MN time.

bebe - good to hear about baby. Has the trip made you re-think when you will go back to the Uk for good? How is life now that the weather is better?

banana- you are right about the atmosphere of a workplace being so important. I have to keep reminding myself that the job is only till the end of the year, because I could imagine working there for longer.

We were talking about the wedding at work today. I will be at work, but will have a look at some point.

I am off to do an internet clothes shop. It´s normally a disaster but I am getting repeats (same trousers, different colour) of what I got in Bratislava recently....from Marks and Spencer. Well, what better way to celebrate the end of my 30s?

You know, an internet clothes shop sounds great, but I've never really dared as things look great on the rack, then funny on me! You can celebrate the end of your 30s any way you like! I'm in denial about the end of mine, mainly because I have a small baby! Feels like something I should have done in my 20s.

I went for a lovely massage which has helped with the shoulder pains I get from nursing. Drove home in the snow though. Apparently it's supposed to be in the 60s next week. (I'm at that stage where I don't really understand either temperature system anymore, except the extremes!)

Hope you are all having a lovely evening. Off to pick up the dcs from pre-school in a moment, then teaching German again tonight. We're doing the weather and travel! [cgrin]

just a quick question - which channel should i use to tape the wedding tomorrow? Was shocked that its on 4 channels!! wonder who'll have the best coverage?

Just the four Canella? [cwink] Every terrestrial channel here! [cgrin] NBC alone has sent 250 journalists to London to cover it! They can barely contain themselves when talking about it, it's so funny!

Sorry about the over-use of exclamation marks. Can barely type after this morning's massage.

I'm obviously no help on the TV channels, Canella - we only have two here (and hardly ever watch them either). Have just decided after reading your post that recording the wedding would be a good idea, but I have no idea how to do it! DH wasn't much help; he said we'd have to connect our old DVD player (can't do it on the new one) but I've tried that and it doesn't seem to be working properly - plus we don't have any DVDs that I could record on anyway. I've promised the DDs I'll walk to school to pick them up today so will be out from about 10.40 to 11.15 am UK time, which means missing the most interesting bit!

How annoying about your DH's application, admylin. Maybe it will turn up eventually (some things that my parents have sent have taken 3-4 weeks to get here), but that's not much help as obviously you need to resend the application asap.

Jenny Glad the massage helped; I used to find that one half of my body would fall asleep as DD1 would nurse for hours on end.
I remember my old primary school teacher telling us that 60°F is mild, but other than that have no idea about the Fahrenheit system - hope the snow disappears soon, anyway.

bananas Happy birthday, hope you have a lovely day! Are you planning on doing anything special at the weekend? It's our wedding anniversary on Sunday and DH has decided that to celebrate, we should go to M&S. Who said romance is dead?

i've picked ZDF - will be annoyed if the coverage is crap! the DVD recorder we've got records it onto a hard drive so no need for DVD - handy for dd to record DSDS every sat night since we can just delete it once she's watched it.

Bananas - happy birthday! hope you have a great day! is it your 40th?

Linzer - happy anniversary for sunday - LOL that your dh's idea of romance is a day trip to M&S! Hope you get some other more romantic time too.

Well i'm becoming more gutted by the minute to be missing the wedding live today - didnt realise how much i wanted to see it! But i want to nip to Ikea on the way to my IL's and it doesnt work to wait till 12 noon our time till i've seen her in her dress.

Hope you all have a good weekend and enjoy all the Willkat mayhem!

sorry forgot to type - jenny - that massage sounded great but i am shocked that you've still got snow. The winter here is so definitely gone that the thought of snow at the moment seems weird. If its going to be in the 60's next week then thats a lot of snow to melt (is 60 not about 15 in celcius? remember as a child thinking it was a bit warmer if it was in the 70's )

No proper royal wedding coverage here yet - a dubbed American programme on ORF1 (well, that makes a change ) and a feature about all the food being prepared for the wedding on ORF2. Oh well, I suppose that means I'll have to get on with some housework. Now watching a barman trying to prepare an appropriate royal wedding cocktail - I wish they could have subtitles rather than talking over the voices. Latest useful 'translation': "Gin ist very British". I want an English commentary so that I can play MN royal wedding bingo!

Aha, have discovered I can watch live on the BBC website so the TV has gone off. It's still all recorded stuff at the moment though, so I really am going to get on with some housework now.

It's just starting here, on ZDF and RTL and I think BBC world news, maybe CNN so I'll flicking through to one or the other when I get fed up of listening to German!

Bananas, dh has endnote at work but for this manuscript it's not worth it as we had a look last night and by the time he gets used to how it works and tries it all out, he might as well just do the changes by hand! He didn't bother last night as he fell asleep on the sofa!

Canella, what are you getting at Ikea? Have a nice day out and the good thing about recording the wedding is that you can pause it to go to the loo, get a drink or eat without missing the main moment which will probably happen to me!

Oh, I give up - the BBC site isn't working and the coverage here consists of three or four Austrians wittering on in the studio, with occasional pictures from London which they don't seem to have much to say about. And no one can pronounce The Mall properly. The British ambassador to Vienna has just appeared - I hope he manages to quietly correct them.

I'm getting abit fed up of the wittering too! Think the evening zusammenfassung might be just as good and shorter! Anyway, we'll enjoy the prawn cocktail crisps and cucumber sandwiches later.

It's starting to get a bit more interesting now that we're seeing more pictures from the abbey and less of the studio witterers. Not that the commentators have much idea who anyone is - apart from Mr Bean. Mr Bean is apparently a close friend of Prince Charles. Mr Bean was also at Diana's funeral. I wonder if they think that's his real name.

Luckily the British ambassador (to Austria, not Vienna of course) is still on hand to point out all the politicians etc. who the Austrians don't recognise. His German is surprisingly good - although I suppose it would have to be to get the job, so I don't know why I'm surprised.

Ds2 woke up conveniently at 2am so I could get up and watch the coverage while feeding him! I thought she looked stunning and he seemed so delighted with her. I went to bed before the end of the service so I didn't see the kiss on the balcony live but all the coverage is still on! It is snowing and settling again here and there has a been a total snowfall record for the season this year! By the end of next week it is supposed to be in the seventies now!
Hope the IKEA trip was successful.
Have a lovely anniversary Linzer!

Thanks for the birthday wishes. Yes, I turned 40. DC and I had a picnic with neighbours yesterday afternoon which was lovely as she cooked and made a cake. We celebrated last weekend (dh has to work this weekend) by dh taking a whole weekend off and we went to Brno on Saturday and Graz on Sunday. Lovely weather, dc chillled out. Inspecting for overnight changes from 30s to 40s I found many more grey hairs. Not sure whether to dye or not to dye. Anybody got that dilemma, resolved it recently or got strong views on it? Well, not going to dye yet, but going to cut it lots and hope the grey is less visible. Tough being 40

Happy anniversary Linzer! Love your dh´s choice of destination. Hope you had a nice day out in Bratislava.

admylin - agree endnote is not worth it for one paper, only if use is systematically. How is your asthma now?

jenny..how considerate of ds! Good to hear the massage helped. I remember having those tense shoulders, in spite of piles of pillows etc. Hope the snow goes and stays away.

I watched the BBC special moments of the wedding clips last night. Awwwww, very touching. But I think they should have denied entry to a few wearers of dreadful outfits!!!! I gather Kate is known for her fascinators but no need to honour her weak spot quite so loyally!

Hope you are all having a nice weekend. I am off to do a mad tidy up of the flat before picking up dh later on. Looking forward to having him back home.

Hi Everyone!

Haven't caught up on the last week's posts sorry, though I see from a quick scan that there are lots of people going running (good luck - I started a couch to 5k programme just before I got pregnant, but promptly gave it up then - I'd only done 3 or 4 weeks, I will get back to it... one day!) I also see bananas had a birthday - belated happy birthday! Also sorry the snow continues Jenny, really hope the good weather comes around soon!

Just posting quickly to say Henry was born "as scheduled" by c-section on Tuesday 26th, at 8.33am, weighing 3850g, and all is well, we came home yesterday. I was in the same room at the hospital as with my older son, birth weight almost the same (Henry 20g heavier), time of birth almost the same (3 minutes different) and they are really similar looking babies and seem so far to have rather similar new baby habits - quite settled but feeding and filling his nappy every 2-3 hours, day and night (bliss in comparison to dd as a newborn, who just did not accept she could sleep anywhere but on the breast until she was about 3 months old, and even then continued to wake very frequently). My milk came in on the second night which was excellent as he was rather unsettled in hospital after he got over the first sleep 10 hours post birth - obviously unsettledness was just hunger! First 48 hours after a c-section are always unpleasant (this is my 3rd) but I knew that and am recovering well now he is 5 days old, just have to remember to take things slowly!

My older 2 are pleased with their new brother but dd (5.5) is a bit over excited - I had expected ds (3.5) to be the more difficult one but so far he is interested but not overly so and carrying on more as usual, where dd is obsessed with new baby and wants to do everything for him, and is getting a bit frustrated and has already had one tantrum when I asked her to just give me a tiny bit of room to get him onto the breast for a feed - she is rarely more than a couple of cm from him, and is desperate to change his nappies, hold him, and would really like me not to be able to breast feed as she would rather give him bottles herself! It is sweet but wearing and I am hoping the novelty wears off very soon and she starts to ignore him a bit more!

Back to catch up soon - midwife due in half an hour or so for her first visit.