Schenk ein den Wein - as autumn comes to Germany and Austria

[LinzerTorte]

Der Nebel steigt, es fällt das Laub;
schenk ein den Wein, den holden!
Wir wollen uns den grauen Tag
vergolden, ja vergolden!

A thread for all those living in Germany and Austria, and anyone else who would like to chat.

Always good to have an excuse to open some , and this poem seemed quite appropriate!

X-post, Linzer, Silken & Admylin.

Shortened forms of English names (generally mispronounced) do get my goat, I have to admit. Each to their own though. In their own language it really doesn't seem as bad!

part time schooling

arrrgggghh

and homework
and one very cross seven year old,

& a biscuit, *Aschenputtel!

It'll get better as he gets older Aschenputtel. Ds turned up today just after 11am but has gone to revise for a physic test and skype with his friends in his room. You'll get there eventually too!

Later that sounds as if you're really suffering - hope the antibiotics help and you feel better soon. When I had those sore hard bits I remember sitting in a hot bath and slowly massaging the area which eased it abit.

Aw later - sounds like youre having a fab time with the GP's but a nightmare with the feeding. It is not the end of the world if you give up BF - he'll be fine with FF and you need to not be in so much pain. I've got no practical advice to give you - just wanted to say I gave up BF ds1 after a few weeks and once I made the decision I felt better than the days I spent crying because it was so painful. And he is absolutely fine. So glad your parents are there to help you.

linzer - havent heard of dc round here with shortened English names - that would be weird. Esp if it involves the "a" sound!

aschen - some days are better/worse than others!

Oh Later, you poor thing; that sounds like a nightmare. I hope the antibiotics kick in quickly and that you're feeling better soon. At least it sounds like you're having a lovely time with your parents; I'm sure your DS is thoroughly enjoying being spoilt.

admylin I felt like I had to tell my parents that the only time I spend any money is when I'm back in the UK (Internet shopping and M&S in Bratislava don't count ) so that I wouldn't be judged too harshly, but hiding my shopping is usually the easiest option!
My DC also have a problem with saying "take off" for some reason; they quite often ask me to take something "down".

Canella I think Cathy was the worst example I've come across - it was the combination of the shortened name, the mispronounced a and the fact that no one can pronounce th properly either. I was quite surprised to discover after several months that she wasn't actually called Kessie. I also know a couple of Geralds (my age) who have shortened their name to Gary. You can guess how it's pronounced.

Hi Aschenputtel - gefällig?

DD2 and DS have some half-Irish friends here today; DD2 and the older one are speaking English together, which sounds very sweet (I'm not used to hearing DD2 speak English to children other than DD1 and DS) but DS and the younger sister know each other from KiGa so are speaking German.

Later poor you! It is very unfair how hard bf has been for you, but nobody could say you haven't given it your best shot!

I have forgotten what else I just read! Oh shortened and English names - there is a Colin at DS1's KiGa, who is 100% German, and has a little brother called David, pronounced Dahvid - but is that legitimately German, not sure with biblical ones? I used to feel really strongly about giving the child the full name not just the abbreviation, but I couldn't care less now :) All my kids have short first names which don't naturally shorten (which I lengthen or use nicknames for, oops and long middle names. DH didn't want to give the kids English names as he said they'd sound East German! (Is that - not racist but... something ist?) even though I am English. We struggled so much to find boys names that fit all our many criteria that we agreed on Henry for DS2 though! The other 2 have names that are the same (but slightly different pronunciation of course) in both languages.

On the dialect discussion that was going on a bit before - I am highly impressed by one of dd's German friends (she is only 6) who speaks fairly full on Bayrish to dd but switches to High German for me - how does she know to do this? It must be an instinctive thing I think, the way very young bilingual children swap without knowing they are doing it, but my German is unfortunately very British sounding (as in my accent is terrible) so I am somehow impressed she automatically thinks this means to speak High German! The headmaster who oversees DD's school as well as the other grundschule in the area interviewed dd before she started and was highly impressed by the fact she spoke to him in Hoch Deutsche, as he said most of the local children just carry on speaking dialect even to him, but said not one word about the fact she came out and told me about her interview in English! I found that funny she does have friends who speak only dialect and she can understand them fine (and has to tell me what they have said). DS reports back on his dialect speaking friends "Do you know what K says instead of ich" etc. - atm he just thinks they can't talk properly!

I had a relatively new American friend here today, well it's the 3rd time we've met up, does that make us friends? Hard to say! Anyway it is nice to know an English speaker locally now - she lives a couple of villages away, there are very few native speakers out our way! DS1 appears to have fallen in love with her 2.5 year old dd "I think I love E, because she is very pretty and she thinks that I am funny" - that'd be a fairly normal boy reason for liking a girl then, even though he is 4! He is usually a very boy-ish boy who fairly much ignores girls! The mum is also married to a German and also has a baby boy very close in age to my youngest, pity dd is left out, but the only other English family we see semi regularly have a dd her age, so not so bad!

Baby DS2 slept better than he has in about a month last night - only 2 night wakings, and up for the day about 5.30, but chatted to himself in his cot for a bit before I needed to go to him, fingers crossed and touch wood etc. that it will go on this way, as it was ridiculously bad for a relatively long stretch - he has learnt lots of new things over the last month though, so I think it was a development spurt - he is now sitting securely with no need for a cushion behind him in case of tumbles, and clapping, which is so sweet :) I love this age, if only the sleep stays manageable! He still won't touch a bottle, but this will be OK as long as he can be put to bed at 6.30pm and not be expected to wake until 1am or so, means teaching my evening class is more tolerable and maybe DH and I will one day be able to go out for a meal or something together :)

Glad the nits are banished and speech therapy over - loads of kids here (I mean locally to us) seem to have speech therapy, I am sure it is more common here than in the UK!

BTW am I the only one who likes school being half day? Means we can still do stuff in the afternoons... Homework and associated procrastination is not so great, but it does have the advantage of meaning we really have a good grasp of what they are doing at school, UK mums often seem to have almost no real clue what their kids are doing from 9am to 3pm!

Peace

at last

till my Mother arrives tomorrow,

tadjenny9 My job is in Logistics and I do solution design. It's a sort of industrial engineering and I love it; global travel and project based so I'm always learning fun new facts. I decide where warehouses should be and how transport networks should fit together. I can't remember how the night feeds stopped. We didn't try any of the "just offer water" stuff though. I think it just peters out- 3 months to 6 months or so was horrible though and it wasn't at all linear progress. Loads of backwards steps and just hard to get through. You do sound a ways out of Munich, but I think compared to the chance of living with MIL... I'd have been in any old rickety shack to avoid that!

Linzertorte I realise that quad-language thing for DD looks a bit poncy in retrospect! I'm not at all a linguist and only on very basic level German/ Dutch/ Japanese. DH is German native then English/ Dutch at much better level than mine. DD has had all 4 blasted at her though with 5 days a week Dutch for 8 months in KG there and now 3-days a week nanny is Hungarian and only speaks that with her (she's even brought over some Hungarian kids books to read to her). That was not ideal but I didn't want her to just sit in silence all day so I encouraged that. We've moved to 3-days for nanny and 2-days for TagesOma each week as TO is German-speaking. I don't really know what to do next. Nanny is great and gets on so well with DD that I don't want to change her. DD also comes back from the TO days really quite overstimulated as the TO has a lot of kids- 5 days of that would be too much for her now. I think we'll just keep on it for another 6 months and see how it goes. Oida is certainly a sort of teenage "dude" speak, my FIL uses it for joke chatter.

admylin I think M&S is getting bumped another week- DH informs me it is Vienna-BILs birthday this Sunday. Argh! I want to get in the foodhall! Amsterdam is a terrific city- walkable centre, lots of nooks and crannies, Dutch food is a bit dull (cheese) but nice and they have loads of tasty Indonesian/ Suriname food due to their old colonies. Clothes are a bit weird in Holland- they are all basically scruffs, good examples are desigual, didi and cora kemperman; shapeless multicolour oddities! Leaving Schiphol, one of the top 3 connected airports in Europe was also a bit hard. All trips from here now seem to be more stops/ more effort. Austria I still feel I'm getting to know the place. I knew the food a bit already from MIL/ what DH likes to make- Marillenknoedel etc.. We've done some tourista-type things here like Carnuntum, Rust, Vienna centre but I still have too many "where on earth do I do my dry cleaning/ get hair cut" sort of challenges so I know I'm still in the settling in phase. I do think of it as home though. Oh and rather than Brit week/ American week, Holland has "hamsteren" week which just means store-week and everything is on bulk buys deals for 3 or more packs of things (they have a reputation as cheap-asses and there is a saying that copper wire was invented by two Dutchmen fighting over a penny)

canella DH says Austrian dialect would make it "I-woas-netta" for your Ich weiss nicht. I still get baffled when the neices drop bits of words like "Noch mal" being sort of "No-mal". My German is not up for that at all. I've never tried X-country skiing- is it loads different to downhill? I'm a slightly reluctant but competent skier and wondered if trying different mode- x-country or boarding would make it more fun for me.

I hear what you are all saying about books though- I'm on LibraryThing and have regular creditcard bashing amazon orders to top up.

hupa Hi there. What on earth is the German post rule that makes square envelopes more expensive!

silkenladder The 4 languages is being actively cut to three and, if we could come up with a good solution for it (make our nanny speak German!) it will be two. No plans to hothouse poor little DD (I swear there are no miniature 1/8ths size violins in this house or Latin for the under-2s!)

I laughed at the long/ short name conversation. My DD is just "Kate" on all paperwork DH/I both loved the name but weren't prepared to fight it out in the detail over which spelling to use. She has a German middle name though so she can swap it if she hates it later or gets pissed off that no-one here can spell or pronounce it.

LaterAlligator Mastitis is horrible and sorry that you're giving up BF before you want to.

Oh dear, this is it's going to be an epic post! Must do small and more often...

That sounds like a really interesting job C4ro! I am actually in the States and just teach German once a week in a sort of Volkshochschule set-up. 5moreminutes lives near Munich but we have children of a very similar age!

Linzer and silken - that's what the lace-up shoes thing means! I was taking it to mean taking care to get dressed and looking presentable which I found a bit depressing at the time (and still do, really). I still don't really fit into my old clothes very well and have worn through the knees on several pairs of jeans this year already. Keeping my shoes on means that dd refuses to take hers off though! Swings and roundabouts, hey?

So sorry that you have mastitis so bad that you need to stop bfing Later. Glad you have your parents there for support at the moment though.

I don't really mind half day school so much as the 9-11 on a Wednesday being a pain in the bum! Luckily we don't live too far away (she'd get the big yellow school bus otherwise!) but I still don't get much done!

Dh and I were wandering round Fuschlsee near Salzburg once and came across a Forester - my goodness I struggled to understand his accent!

I hope you are all having a lovely evening, better sign off before this gets really epic!

I also interpret the lace-up shoes thing as making sure that you're dressed and presentable Jenny - I always used to dread an unexpected knock at the door as I would inevitably be in my oldiest, scruffiest clothes. I more or less gave up wearing trousers a few years ago as they would go baggy round the knees within a few weeks thanks to the amount of time I spent on the floor with the DC; skirts/dresses are far more forgiving (of baby weight too!).

C4ro Not poncey at all - if your DD is/was being exposed to all those languages anyway, then why not make the most of it? Plus you can almost count Austrian German and Hochdeutsch as two languages if/when your DD can switch between the two. My dad started off speaking Welsh to DD1 but gave up after a while as he didn't feel like he saw her often enough, but he still tries to teach the DC a bit of Welsh whenever we're over.
Love your DD's name btw - it's not one of those that I think of as a shortened version, i.e. that she really ought to have Katherine etc. as a full name (and as someone mentioned further up, it's only non-native speakers giving their DC abbreviated English names that bothers me). I'm sure she won't have problems with how people pronounce it; my English friend here has the same name and she's never complained. Most people probably know how to spell it since the royal wedding and at least it's not one of those names with an a that Austrians are bound to pronounce "wrongly"!

5more Interesting that English names sound East German - all the East Germans I knew had quite traditional German names, although that was many years ago and I didn't know any children. DH also banned me from giving the DC English names, but only because he thought they'd be mangled by Austrians and they would be constantly having to spell them. I sometimes wish I'd argued my case a bit more strongly, esp. as I now know three girls with a name I'd have loved to give the DDs - and I very often have to spell out DD1's name anyway, as there are a few different ways of spelling it.

Hope you have a lovely time with your mum, Aschenputtel.

Well, after all that complaining yesterday about the lack of British weeks here, guess what I opened the Lidl leaflet to find? Admittedly, there's not a huge amount I want apart from Cheddar (the baked beans are only slightly cheaper than at Billa) and I'm not overly impressed with them calling crisps "chips" in British week, but I expect I'll find myself stocking up on a few things.
Was interested to see they have Curly Wurlys for the first time - not that I or the DC like them, but perhaps next time they'll have more Cadbury's chocolate... Fruit & Nut would be ideal. Hope I haven't talked up M&S too much btw C4ro - the food department is really quite small, although we usually find plenty to buy there!

Have just got my mammogram out of the way, which was fairly quick and painless, but I bumped into a friend there and we spent quite a while chatting afterwards, so it took up about a quarter of the morning in the end. Have been informed that I need to go every year now that I'm of advancing years over 40.

The thing I find interesting about names here is the love of hyphenated first names. I don´t have a problem when the names flow together eg. Lisa-Marie etc, but often it seems like the parents have just chosen 2 random names that don´t go together at all. There´s a little boy at school called Dus tin- J oy (I´ve left spaces in case he ever googles his name - I can´t imagine there are many around). Mind you dh did say that his parents are East German as if that explained everything. I also know a Magda-Lena, but really can´t see the need for the hyphen.

Later Sorry you´re having such a painful time with breastfeeding, but glad to hear you´re having such a great time with your parents.

Linzer I´m always impressed at how organised you seem to be at making doctors appointments. I´m terrible at putting things off. I really need to find a new Frauenarzt and have been putting it off for ages. One of the problems is that my last 3 Frauenärzte have all died, so I kind of feel like a bringer of doom for whoever I choose next.

Later I´m another on who enjoys the half days. I really like the fact the dc get lots of time to play with their friends or do activities.

Well I went to Lidl this morning, but didn´t buy anything. They used to do really great salt and vinegar chipsticks during the English week, but haven´t had them the last couple of times. I was tempted by the Millionare´s shortbread, but knew I´d have eaten the lot by this afternoon, so managed to resist.

Okay

I have tided
cleaned

moved rooms

what else have I have forgotton

I will not fall out with ds this pm
I will not
I think he is bored and tired at the same time
oh well

Oh Ialso avoid the Doctors
but I am up to my sixth dentist appointment tomorrow..

hupa Isn't Joy a... girl's name? There was a girl in DD2's ballet class called Joy, pron. Choi. I'm not one to speak about names that you would normally associate with 50 year old women, though, seeing as my RL name has been called old-fashioned and dated on here. Oh, and awful. I think it might even have been called hideous once. I should probably avoid the baby name threads.

How unfortunate about your last three Frauenärzte... I'm not really very organised about doctor's appointments as I've been putting off the optician's and dentist's for ages, but the Überweisung from my gynae for the mammogram was only valid for a month so I thought I'd better bite the bullet. Vorsorgeuntersuchung pt I on Monday, but that's mainly because I wanted to ask the doctor about the pain in my knee from running (not sure that really falls within the scope of Vorsorgeuntersuchungen, but I'd never get round to making an appointment about it otherwise).

I normally love millionaire's shortbread, but wasn't that impressed with the last lot I bought from Lidl so am not sure I'll go for it again. Then again, maybe it was just a bad batch...

Cinders Bored and tired sounds horribly familiar - not a good combination.

The week's last two English lessons are now out of the way, the house is relatively clean and tidy... but can hear crying and screaming, so had better go and investigate.

tadjennyp what do you mean, you get things done when your dd is at school? Your baby lets you get things done? Mine usually won't sleep in the mornings, except in the buggy during our morning walk, he has a nice big nap once both big kids are home though . I am working on getting him down for a nap while dd does her homework (i.e. now, and for the moment he is asleep) instead of later in the afternoon.

Linzer well done on getting your drs apts out of the way - what age are we supposed to start having mammograms then? I am 36 and nobody has ever suggested having one :?

C4ro I have often thought it would be nice to expose the children to another language while they are young enough to pick them up effortlessly rather than it be work - MIL is Croatian by birth though she has lived in Germany since her late teens, she still speaks Croatian with her siblings but we have asked her to speak Croatian to the kids but she won't - she didn't to her own kids either, think it's a generational thing.

Need to go and pick DS1 up in a min and dd has been procrastinating badly over her homework so still has tons to do (main problem is they had a very detailed large mandela to colour as craft homework, and she has already spent 45 mins on it and not finished, and she has another worksheet too) and ds2 is asleep in his cot argh.

BTW dd came home with a little workbook and a note saying I could pay ?5.50 for it - dd says 8 of them have been given it and if I pay for it she will be able to use it when she has finished the work in class, instead of "just sitting there". Obviously I am going to pay for it, but is that normal German procedure - seems like a fine for being able to do the class work easily? There are 3 girls in her class who can already read fluently, according to dd, and 2 boys, herself, and 2 other girls who can read but have to sound a lot of the words out. The others "all need cow gummi to pull the letters out" ... DD's explanation obviously....

lol

just let

ds
bake a choc cake in mug

twas a choc volcano
tastes okay

but I think I prefer my fruitcake ....

till later

5more Not sure about in Germany, but here they recommend that you go for your first mammogram between 35 and 40 and then every year to 1.5 years once you've turned 40. The doctor told me last time that the tissue is too dense to be able to see very much at my age (was 38 then) but did stress the importance of going annually at this visit - although I've heard varying opinions about the benefits (or otherwise) of screening at an earlyish age.

We were also told that we could (should?) buy a notebook for the children to write/draw in if they finished their work early, although the choice of Heft was left up to us and I doubt we spent much more than 50 cents on one - ?5.50 seems like a bit of a rip-off. I was also quite surprised when another mother told me that her DS takes a book into school and sits there reading if he finishes early; there just doesn't seem to be any provision for children who might need (or even want) to be stretched a bit more - everyone seems to be expected to work at exactly the same pace. Not great if you have a child who struggles to keep up, either.

Cinders I keep meaning to try the chocolate cake in a mug, but I'm a bit sceptical of anything that looks so quick and easy.

Even though my three are older now, I still can't get very much done with them around - I get the odd 5-10 minutes when they play nicely together, i.e. without trying to kill each other, but it rarely lasts much longer than that. Which means I must make the most of a rare few child-free hours this afternoon while the DC are all at friends' houses.

It's not a notebook Linzer it's a little workbook in the English sense - as in there are activities on each page, read the word and join a line linking it to the right picture, that kind of thing - all literacy stuff. I guess for that ?5.50 is OK though no bargain! I guess she could take English reading books in too... It's just in the UK even the weakest teacher would at least give them extra worksheets, and that would be complained about because it is extra work not different, more challenging work - UK primary teachers are essentially teaching 3 or 4 classes within each class at some times of the day.

The next door neighbour girl is struggling and I can see that is worse than finishing early and having some time to occupy, as long as they are allowed to do something else. I think tbh in the UK her dd might be getting extra help, maybe some TA time, but of course here there is no such thing!

DD finally finished procrastinating over her homework, but not til we'd had a break to fetch DS1 and she'd had a tantrum because I wouldn't rub out and underline some words she had circled when she was meant to underline... She is bright enough and lucky to have no specific problems to overcome (as far as we know so far) but I don't think will be a great intellectual star as she lacks focus!

Ah, I see - in that case ?5.50 is a little more reasonable, although it still seems like a bit of a cop-out on the part of the teacher. I had the same teacher for the last three years of primary school so he was teaching three different year groups, but I never remember having to get a book out to read/notebook to doodle in because I'd finished early.

They do have LRS (Lese-Rechtschreib-Schwäche) classes at school for the children who are struggling, but DD1 didn't start going to them until her third year. Otherwise, the main approach here seems to be to put children who are struggling back into a lower year, which must be quite demotivating - it happened to a boy in DD2's class this week. Although DD1 did say recently that she wanted to repeat the 3rd year so that she would get all 1s... I find this emphasis on grades a bit over-the-top too.

tadjennyp Oops! I think I made you into a sort of siamese twin in my last post with 5more minutes! Where in the States are you?

5moreminutes I have to admit to getting very upset when DD dropped the morning nap. I loved having a bit of time both halves of the day to get things done in. Presumably with more than one kid, any hope of some time to yourself goes out of the window anyway!

Linzertorte So far no-one has pronounced DD name particularly weirdly except MIL seems to find it a bit hard and the T.Oma did try spelling it Ciate or something that looked very odd (upside down from the other side of the table when we did the first meeting with her). The royal wedding, for good or bad, has probably helped with that though. I'm sure M+S will be great, be nice just to browse it all- but Brit friends warn me their underwear is no longer the must-buy that it used to be.
I'm still waiting to get a MutterKind pass. The kinderartz said she would arrange it but it keeps failing to appear each time we go. Suppose I could work out how to get one myself but it's not making the top of the list of things to do by a long way.

hupa I didn't note any particular leaning on Brit food in the Lidl here. We get oceans of junk mail that I mostly just bin. I used to look through it but we're really close to SCS Voensendorf here and presumably that is why I sometimes can't open the postbox for all the flyers. We have a Joy that's a man at work- I think he is Scandinavian parents. Mind you, Coen is a common name in Holland and it is pronounced exactly the same as the extremely politically incorrect word used historically for black people. It took me a while for me to get over that hurdle.

C4ro Well, I must admit I was ridiculously excited when the new M&S opened - it seemed huge compared with the old one next to the airport, which didn't have food, a cafe or children's clothes at the time. I still get my underwear there btw and hadn't noticed that it's gone downhill!
Good luck with the Mutter-Kind-Pass; we were told we couldn't have one for DD1 as she was 18 months when we moved to Austria, so she just has an Impfpass.
Lidl doesn't usually have British food btw, just a British week once every ... well, it feels like every three or four years but is probably once a year and I've missed most of them. Apart from the Cheddar though (which is more for DH and the DC than for me), they don't have a great deal that I feel like I have to rush out and buy next week.

DH has just come back from an information evening at one of the Gymnasien here, but wasn't particularly impressed with it and didn't feel it would be right for DD1. Her dyslexia tutor had already said more or less the same thing, and that a kleines zierliches Mädchen like DD1 would just feel lost in such a big school (it has eight 1. Klassen). We've got an information evening at school next week with representatives from all three secondary schools, so that should be interesting - we've booked a babysitter so that both DH and I can go.

Have to go and pick up our friends from England at the airport tomorrow morning so am feeling slightly nervous about the drive, although at least the sat nav can direct me straight to the Parkhaus I want to park in! Am just a bit worried about what I'll do if it's full (which DH mentioned was a possibility) and that, knowing me, I'll end up in a long-stay car park miles from the terminal that costs a minimum of ?20!

My M&S jealousy is getting a little out of hand here - especially when Linzer mentioned that there used to be one in Frankfurt - that's just down the road from me!

The thread is moving so fast it takes me ages to catch up, but it's always nice to have lots to read.

After my bf nightmare (thank you for all the sympathy!) things improved really quickly. After days of absolute agony, DS cleared both blockages in one feed and the pain disappeared soon after. Once they had cleared the infection started to go as well. It hasn't disapeared entirely but feeding is a lot less painful and we are getting there slowly. As an added bonus, the antibiotics seem to have sorted out my wisdom tooth too - result!

Big wave to everyone - the hunger monster is roaring so I have to dash.

Hope everyone is well :)

Woo hoo Later so glad to hear that - so do you think you'll keep going with bf a bit longer? My older 2 had tongue ties (dd's in England wasn't spotted by hosp or midwife, only by HV when she was already 2 weeks old, and as she was already back up to and past her hefty 9.1lb birth weight I decided to just leave it) and they were both incredibly sicky babies (happy but just bringing loads back after every feed, so much so it seemed pointless dressing them beyond a vest or wearing a top until I left the house as I changed my tops and their clothes so often...) so I always wondered about the latch, but they were greedy little creatures so gained well despite that and aside from a bit of discomfort I never had any problems myself. I have found Henry just ridiculously easy to feed by contrast, although once he slept through the night (so no feeds overnight instead of 2 minimum) and I got rock hard breasts that seemed not to be going down after feeding, and felt feverish and wondered if I was getting mastitus... I wasn't I assume as it sorted itself out. Considerately he has never slept through since... I realise reading your story that I have been so lucky never to have problems like yours, it is pure bad luck! :(

I took all 3 of my kids swimming today - found a pool we have never been to before, which is out of our Geminde area and I didn't know about til somebody else mentioned - just a school pool open at certain times, but a lovely big, recently refurbished one, good changing rooms incl family ones, only 90cm in the shallow end so both the older ones can stand, a few people so as not to feel odd there but not at all busy, significantly warmer and less grotty than the public one we have previously used, and a lovely friendly Badmeister . I had a sinking feeling when I thought he was coming over to tell me I couldn't be sole adult in charge of 3 small children, but he was just asking whether the baby liked the water, and do a friendly chat! I do find the situation with indoor pools here funny though - they are either the expensive all singing all dancing complexes with many slides and 3 or 4 or more separate pools, saunas and cafes etc. or they are school pools open restricted hours but so cheap they surely can't break even and must be open to the public for policy reasons - nothing like the bog standard council pools you get in the UK. Is that a rural Bavarian thing or wider spread?

Linzer I hope you find the right school to suit dd, it is a minefield by the sound of it!

Ooh the pool sounds like a good find, 5more! Did your DC enjoy it? Do you think you'll go there on a regular basis now?

I'll definitely keep breastfeeding while it's going well - I really enjoy the snuggliness so it seems a shame to give up while it's working. I was hoping to bf for 6 months so I will see how it goes. He has a bottle in the evenings now (as it was just too painful before) and he seems happy with that. It also means DH can feed him too as he is a bit clingy at the moment and just wants me, but this way he will let DH cuddle him for a bit and make him realise that daddy is nice too :)

C4ro Your job sounds really interesting! Have you been working in that field for long?

Linzer Have a lovely time with your friends. Hope the driving goes ok.

Cinders Chocolate cake in a mug sounds interesting! I'm tempted to google the recipe and have a go.