Die Kaffeestube - German and Austrian cyber Kaffee und Kuchen

[admylin]

Kaffeeklatsch for anyone in a German speaking country or interested in German, Kommt herein und setz euch!

Gator you'll think you'r ein paradise when you hit the shops! Take plenty of empty bags/cases! I remember buying so much for the dc I could never fit it al lin! Hope th edres sfits.
I'll wait a while to post the dvds then.

Just had a lovely call back from a repair service. The woman said she remembered me from when we used to live in a different part of Hannover and my ds was at his old school with her dd in the same class! Small world and I think I'll get an honest quote from her! So far she said the pump would cost 183? that's without the work and Anfahrt so looks like dh was wrong and I was right!!!

I shouldn't type with the keyboard balanced on several different notebooks and paper piles should I?

hello! In the middle of school holidays but the dc are busy so thought i'd sneak in some MNetting. Linzer - the dc have 2 weeks off now then they finish on the 31st July for their summer holidays. Still seems really late to me but August is quite often a hot month so they still get to enjoy the summer. And the weather is good at the moment so I dont feel like they miss out. Altho I think we're going to change our Playmobil plans for Friday as its forecast rain there then - think we'll go one day next week instead - Playmobil land isnt so much fun in the rain.

gator - aw too cute that he's started saying mama . Have fun in the UK - shame I'm not there at the same time. But the thought of going to the beach even in the rain would excite me too - feel very landlocked here sometimes. Will kep my fingers crossed that the weather is good for the wedding tho.

admylin - that sounds like a lot of money to pay to repair an old dishwasher. Think i wouldnt bother and just carry on handwashing if your happy to. Did giggle at your spelling mistakes! Was like my ipod typing is sometimes.

Linzer - no worry about the DVD's. But when I clicked on threads I'm on I only saw the first few words of what you've typed and spent the next few seconds worried that you'd sent me DVD's and I'd forgotten to tell you that they'd come. Glad I'm not going mad after all. Feel like there's loads of bank Holidays at the moment. Sadly dh was on call Monday just gone and is working next thursday too. well thats mostly to get out of grilling sausages at ds2's Sommerfest. I'm on dishwashing duty for 3 hours but its the last kindergarten fest for us so I'm not complaing too much.

tadjenny - seems crazy to think you're going skiing when its 25 degrees here and nearly June. Hope you have a fab time. Wow your dd's school holidays are long - must be a nightmare for people who both work to sort out childcare.

ds2 has a friend here to play - until recently he said this boy was his arch enemy but they are the only 2 from the village who are going to school in September and they'll be in the same class so when ds2 asked if he could play here today then I said yes. Its going ok at the moment but the wee boy can be really violent sometimes - have seen him whack other dc on so many occasions so I'm keeping an eye on them. Its a sad situation cause I've seen his mum smack him pretty hard when he's been a bit naughty so its obvious where he gets it from. Hoping that the more they play together then maybe he'll be less aggressive to ds2. Cause otherwise I'm dreading them being in the same class together in September.

Ploom hope the holidays are going smoothly! Sounds like it'll be good for your ds to meet some of the other dc in his new class and not be stuck with the local one if he's abit violent.

Pouring rain here, yesterday too. dd had a hockey match and came back soaked to the skin! Have found a cheaper offer to check my washing machine and the repair man thinks it could be fixable. Going to get an appointment today. Have got used to washing up now though and I don't really mis sthe machine.

How did the dishwasher appointment go, admylin? We've had far too much rain here recently too; DD1 went on a class trip on Monday, which was a walking tour of our Landeshauptstadt (St Pölten), and it poured with rain all morning.

Ploom Hope you're surviving the holidays! Is the Sommerfest on a bank holiday then? Ours isn't until the last week of June, so hopefully the weather will have improved by then. I hope the playdate went well in the end; DS sometimes used to hit friends when they came to play and I felt awful about it, but thankfully he seems to have grown out of that phase now (although he'll still hit his sisters and vice versa; I'm really struggling to know what to do about their constant squabbling and the way it often becomes physical).

Gator Hope you're having a lovely time in the UK.

Our summer holiday plans are slowly coming together; five weeks accounted for, so that just leaves four weeks at home which is more than enough for my sanity should be just about manageable. We've decided to have a mini-Deutschlandreise towards the end of August and have just booked a night at the Playmobil Inn, as they so quaintly call it. We're then going up to visit a friend near Hannover for a couple of days and are hoping to come back via Mannheim/Heidelberg, possibly visiting a friend in the area and almost definitely stocking up on good cheap wine.

Linzer the Handwerker found the machine to be un-fixable! He'd quoted 50? for coming and checking it but as I'd already emptied all the water out and unscrewed the bits and cleaned the visable part of the pump wheel thingy he didn't have to do much. He did notice that my oven door doesn't close properly so he's coming back with some new part for the door hinges!

My 2 have had phases of hitting each other but it didn't last long. I don't get where it comes from, we never hit them and we don't even shout or speak to them in the way they sometimes speak. dd has a phase of rolling her eyes and stomping off saying 'Mein Gott...' at the moment. No idea where she's picked that up!

Great that you're organised again - feel very bad as I haven't got anything planned again. Dh has had some feed back from a job in Denmark that he applied for ages ago. Also one in Berlin but no interview yet. I'd like to go to France to visit a couple of friends but with my 'mein gott' moody dd and teenage ds who doesn't want to go to France in case he has to kiss someone (faire les bises) - there's no point.

Hello! Just back from a week in the UK, plus 8 hour drive (11 with generous breaks) and overnight ferry from Rotterdam to Hull each end!

admylin your dishwasher saga began before we left, glad it is finally resolved - will you get a new one or just rid of the old?

My older 2 fight a bit but not excessively IMO - we had a bonus system (points linked to spending money) going on holiday and dd lost her bonus for threatening to break DS1's nose ... but usually is it more little token pushes and shoves, and they play together and defend each other far more than they fight. I remember horribly frustrating very physical fights with my 24 months younger sister as I was older and big for my age and she was small for her age, and so absolutely everything physical was blamed on me, meaning that if she leapt off the sofa at me utterly unprovoked, or in response to me disagreeing with her about something verbally, landed on my back with her legs around me and quite literally yanked large clumps of my hair out and scratched my face, and I pushed her off onto the floor, I would be sent to my room without dinner with lectures about "not knowing your own strength"while she got cuddles and chocolate biscuits and hot chocolate on the sofa... not bitter at all there! Still I am glad my 2 with the 24 month age gap are very evenly matched size and strength wise - in fact though the older is a few cm taller she is lighter and the younger is almost certainly physically stronger, so to a controlled extent they can fight it out! so far neither are agressive or nasty to the youngest, but as he is a lot younger that will need watching - but I know that the littlest can be the tormentor, shielded by parental defensiveness!

Gator hope you are having fun in the UK! We had overall a mostly good week there, though DH complained a lot about the cold, and my mother clearly lives on another planet and their village Jubilee celebration was somewhere between comically ridiculous and torturous, depending on your point of view - lots of the locals knew to bring rucksacks loaded with booze, which I assume would have helped - it started at 1pm and there were no refreshments til 4.30, and even then only the children got orange squash - we got an amount of tuna sandwiches that is probably single handedly responsible for destroying the marine environment, but no liquid... and we had to stay the whole time as my mother informed my she would be "bereft" if we didn't (her word...). Aside from that the weather was terrible, the traffic equally so, England seems ridiculously crowded... but I loved going to Sainsburys and having an employee come and not only pack my shopping but put it on the conveyor belt for me just because I had the baby in one arm, and she chatted in a friendly way all the while - that would never happen here, here I'd get disapproving looks for not leaving the squirmy, climby, loud baby with a handy relative while I did the shop! I got excited just looking at the clothes in the supermarket, and we spent loads in the town centre. We also did all the things the kids wanted to - rock pooling, donkey rides, writing names on the beach, riding my niece's pony, DS1 went fishing with my father, dd ate a Yorkshire pudding, DH had a breakfast burger from a burger van, I had fish and chips and a sort of curry (on the ferry) met up with friends (though not as many as on previous visits as we didn't travel about), spent time with my sisters and the kids cousins... Lovely just to be somewhere everyone speaks British English. But somehow still very glad to be back in my own home, and the kids were so happy to have thier friends on tap again when we got back!

Just a few days holiday left here, then break up for the summer at the very end of July. Better go!

Hello, just wanting to say hi to everyone, been busy lately, sounds like you are all enjoying the summer at the moment! Will post longer later, just didn't want to lose you again!

thatis glad you had a good trip and experienced the jubilee first hand! I watche dit on BBC and the dc thought it was the craziest thing they've ever seen and told me off for singing the anthem at the appropriate times!

So did you get yourself anything nice on the shopping trip? Bet the car was full going back!

We're going to lok at dishwashers at the weekend. I have to get rid ofthe old one so a Schrotthändler is coming to get it next week but first I have to get it out of the Einbauküche. I'm scared to take the plinth off the bottom of the row of cupboards as I think a huge family of spiders surely lives behind there. Can't get the machine out without taking the plinth off first though.

By the way did the dress fit after all? Remember you saying they were buying a dress rather than let dd go for it in UK?

Hi everyone. Just a quick post to keep you all on my I'm on list. I'm afraid I haven't read much of the thread recently, but I see that some of you are on holiday, so I hope you enjoy the rest of that.

We still don't have the internet connected and Deutsche Telekom can't tell us when they might get around to doing so. Aarrgh! On the upside, being in the new house is great. In particular I'm amazed by how evenly the oven seems to bake things (DH reminded me that we used to bake my portion of cheese-topped food on the right side of our old oven and his on the left, so that my cheese was brown and his stayed pale, so maybe it's an extreme comparison!)

Lol at the cheese! Good luck with Deutsche Telekom. Hope you are all having great holidays too.

What was the dress scenario admylin ? I may have been going on about a dress but my sieve like memory may have let that go... There was a dress for DD being flower girl scenario, but that was MIL and the wedding happened a bit over a month ago - SIL (as she is now) and MIL took DD shopping and picked out an acceptable dress for that :) DD was a splendid flower girl and the night before the wedding randomly decided all by herself that she wanted to learn a poem, so we googled and found a wedding poem for kids and the Bavarian tradition of making kids learn and recite poems in front of the class came in handy, as all on her own she went and told the band she had a poem to say for SIL, and they stood her up on a chair with a microphone at the reception and she recited it - I put a video of it on fb :o She's in as almost as many of the official wedding photos as the bride and more than the groom (the other flower girl was not very smiley) :o

Silken yay for oven but big boo hiss to Telekom - they messed us about for literally 6 months when our village finally got broadband access and we switched to them - but get compensation from them, we got line rental refunds and a free "dongle" and various one off credits to the bill as compensation and all sorts - ended up not paying anything for the phone for almost a year!

Who is in the UK atm? Is it Linzor and Gator? Hope you're having fun? I am actually glad to be home, but it's more an own-house and freedom not to socialise thing, I'll always miss people around me just speaking English, and the beach, and the cheap and chearful beach side cafes, and the shops, and Sunday opening, and Indian food, and fish and chips... though I did find England somehow very crowded - the roads especially. I decided to drive 12km to Sainsburys the 2nd day - 12km = max 12 minutes, right? Not in north Yorkshire... 45 mins later I arrived, with DS2 asleep and DH texting to see if I was OK as I wasn't back yet!

I''ve had to put my Cadburys choc in the freezer to stop myself eating it all at once though, and still it calls me, I could dip it in my tea, and the frozen quality would actually be an advantage, no need to let it defrost in the fridge or cupboard at all is there?... :o

Ooh, whereabouts in North Yorkshire were you, that is? We lived in Tadcaster (hence my username) before we moved here. We're flying over in less than 3 weeks now. Can't wait to actually be there, though the journey itself is giving me nightmares.

Hope you are all having great friday evenings!

Filey Jenny - no point going to the UK if you don't stay on the beach . My parents live about half an hour's drive from there - we stayed in a caravan just a (steep) few mins walk down to the beach - my mother was huffy about us not staying with them initially, but it made the stay less tense and fraught! Was cold though, esp in the early mornings - have had a look at prices of holiday flats for next time, but it probably will be in 2 years I guess, will be much easier once DC3 is 3, won't need the big buggy and hopefully he won't be such a nightmare to get to sleep on the ferry, or we could look again at flying...

Good luck with your journey and hope your stay is worth it Jenny !

thatis could be that my mind is a sieve .. I thought there was a dress being bought for your dd in UK for a wedding and you thought it wouldn't fit/your dd would have liked to chose it herself.

Filey sounds great. I'd love to go to that sort of place, walks on the beach, fish and chips, seaside cafes sound like a perfect holiday and a caravan would suit me too. We've stayed in a luxury caravan before, loved it and I love sea air. I'm looking for something like that but at Cuxhaven as it's easy to get to for us but it's usually fully booked when I want to go.

Jenny have you got direct flights? Are you dreading the in flight entertainment of small dc or the jetlag most?

We've just dropped dd off at her friend's birthday party and been and bought a dishwasher, to be delivered on Thursday. We got an AEG machine, never had any of their stuff but the woman in the shop seemed to think if we weren't going to splashi out on a Siemens then the AEG was our best and slightly cheaper option.

Lovely new dishwasher, admylin. Hope they deliver on time.

Not direct, no. Here to San Francisco about one and a half hours, hour's layover then 6 hours to Philadelphia (no in-flight entertainment as internal ) 3 hours there then a 7 hour flight to Manchester. Phew. It sounds bad every time I write it. Then because our parents live 4 hours drive apart, lots of driving too. Will need a holiday when we get back!

The coast sounds lovely thatis, I'm sure we'll get to the beach at some point. Have good weekends!

That sounds like a long journey, Jenny - am sure it will be worth it, though. It's going to take us the best part of a day (24 hours) to get back in August, as our flight doesn't land until midnight so we're staying overnight at the airport. That should be fun, trying to find the hotel in the dark (apparently it's not the easiest place to find, although it's in the middle of the airport!) with three very tired children and no sense of direction.

Good news on the dishwasher, admylin. We have an AEG washing machine and are very happy with it.

Thatis Glad you had a good trip back, but I know what you meaning about it being good to be back in your own place. It sounds like you miss the same things as I do, although I do prefer the cafes here (even if they don't have a view of the sea).

silken Hope you get the Internet sorted soon.

We've had rain yet again today; DH was hoping to take the DC to one of the football public viewings either yesterday or today, but it's been too cold and wet. I went out for a meal with a couple of friends last night; we were sitting outside to start with as it was actually quite warm for a while, but then had to rush inside with our food once the rain started.

Still, I can't complain too much - the area where my parents live has been hit by very bad flooding (it's the top headline on the BBC UK news website atm, in fact). They live about a mile from the town and uphill so will probably be OK, but I'll phone them later to see how things are.

Hello, All! I'm still here, had rubbish Internet connexion since I last wrote: MN just takes too long to load. Back on the start of a new month of Internet, and hopefully we will have moved by the time it gets slow again! It still gets slow at the end of the day though, annoying! Three weeks and counting, can not wait! Feel like I am in limbo a bit, just waiting to get into the new place, unpack, out our things out, I am still in boxes here, living with the basics!
Hope dresses fit and dishwashers bring joy and clean dishes! :)

Wow jenny that's going to be a long trip. I see why you're dreading it now.

Linzer did you get in touch with your parents? Looks like that area has had some really bad flooding. What a summer so far eh?

NoHun you'll be so used to living with the basics soon that you won't need half of what you unpack! Hope the next 3 weeks fly by.

Dd ended up camping in her friend's allotment at the weekend. She loved it even though she has huge mossie bites on her neck and cheek.

admylin we've just gone back to using a dishwasher again after having one in the flat that left a film of something on everything. I can't say I'm particularly happy to have one again because of the running out of clean stuff problem, though.

Thatis one of my teenage ex-boyf's family liked to drive to Filey on Sundays, so I have memories of eating fish and chips in gale force winds there! I know Bridlington and Hornsea better, though (am a Humbersider rather than a Yorkshirewoman!)

I would just like to say Maths homework plus DD = extreme frustration for all around ARGH!!!

Why on her "long" school days (12.15 finish instead of 11.20) does she have so much homework - 3 A4 maths worksheets densely packed with sums, Ethics (which is writing and drawing and she likes and did first, oops), and a sheet of spellings (words with Qu) and an A4 joined up handwriting practice page. She's cone the Ethics and is half way through the maths, and she's been home for 2 hours 15 minutes, it's so frustrating, I'm sure some kids can do the maths sheets in 10 mins each but even done briskly 6 worksheets each taking 20 mins would be a solid 2 hours homework, and DD makes so many mistakes (which appear to be due to not thinking rather than not being able to do it) that I keep having to make her rub loads out and start again... About an hour and a half in I lew my top at her for writing 14-7 -7 = 14, I know I shouldn't and I can't blame her for taking longer to click with maths, don't mind she isn't brilliant at it, but it is so frustrating when she sometimes just stops reading the questions!!! She brought home a maths test for me to sign today on which the teacher had written "fein hast du gemacht" so she isn't even actually that bad at maths...

She is still going to be doing homework at 5pm at this rate, seriously. The randomness of it annoys me too, one day she'll only have 20 mins homework, the next 5 or 6 worksheets that take her 3 hours plus... Unlike a lot of people I'm perfectly happy for with the school day finishing at lunch time, but I wish the homework was more sensible, say a limit of 2 tasks Mon-Thur and 3 over the weekend, rather than this crazy system where sometimes they have such a lot...

Did I say ARGH?

Roll on summer holidays and no homework! It's only going to get worse in 2nd class though isn't it? :(

That journey does sound crazy Jenny... I'm not sure I'd bother with small kids tbh! Our journey took 24 hours but was totally different as 11 of them were on the ferry with a nice plus cabin!

thatis if that's all homework to be handed in tomorrow then it's too much. You should maybe speak to some of the other parents and try to get the teacher to coordinate the subjects better. Dd was always given alot of homework in Berlin but some was to be handed in the next week or given on Monday to be handed in by Thursday.

Hope your dd got through as much as she could manage.

Silken I agree, I'm quite used to washing up now and everything is always tidy and put away in the cupboard! Only downfall is standing in the kitchen for ages after dinner getting it all out of the way so I guess the dishwasher will be a time saver for me in that aspect. Must remember to buy the powder etc in preparation of Thursdays delivery!

My dd came home with a torn sport t-shirt today. The new sport teacher made up a silly game using pegs and one had ripped her top on the back. Haven't got out of her what the game was exactly but something to do with cathcing people with pegs, sounds silly to me.

Two more lessons taught today, nine to go. Not that I'm counting or anything. I had to be quite strict with one boy today who refused to go and wash his hands after eating an apple (we had to wait for him to finish before I could start the lesson); I'm wondering how he'll take to being told what to do when he starts school in September. A friend (one of the boy's mums) has just brought DS home as they all went to another boy's house and she said es geht schon zu, with one boy kicking another, etc. I said yes, that's more or less what it's like the whole time unless we're sitting at the table; if I turn my back on them for a second, they're jumping all over each other, hitting, etc. I get so frustrated about how disobedient they are; thank goodness it won't be my problem for much longer.

admylin Sounds like a bit of a strange game! Yes, I did speak to my parents - they haven't been affected apart from their garden being waterlogged, but the doctor's surgery and supermarket near to them (further down the hill) are under a lot of water. This is definitely the worst summer we've had (here too) for ages.

Thatis That sounds like a ridiculous amount of homework. The DDs never get more than one page (A4) of maths and about the same of German per day, plus occasionally have to finish colouring in a picture for RE or work on a project for Werken, but usually have a week to do so. I remember DD1 taking hours over her homework in the 1. Klasse, but that was because she was struggling generally; I know that other children were whizzing through it in 15-20 minutes. Revising for Schularbeiten is the time-consuming thing now, but at least we've now got them all out of the way for this school year.

NoHun It's amazing how little you actually need; I often wish we could start from scratch and make a real effort not to accumulate stuff. As it is, I seem to be constantly decluttering but the house never looks any less cluttered (despite taking a car full of things to a charity shop in Vienna at the weekend).