Friede, Freude, Eierkuchen : German Corner 3 - life goes on

[SSSandy2]

Other thread was getting a bit full. Alles wie gehabt :
"Deutsch or English
Native speakers, expats, anyone
From Brezeln to Bier

Please don't ask if you join in, everyone is welcome "

hmm I really don't go for those Torten with the fertigen Tortenboden and then all the fruit and the Glasur on the top. I don't know just no bite to it. Mind you trifle is a lot mushier and less attractive to look at and I hate trifle with a vengeance.

Admylin, why not pack the dc's summer cases now and be done with it? When are you flying again? I always pack about 3 weeks before we go on holiday, then in the middle of the night before we're flying, I get worried I've forgotten something and unpack and repack it all! What a joke. Dh thinks it's hilarious. I even write lists for my suitcases. I think deep down I quite enjoy the whole business even.

I have excel holiday packing lists

Have not started packing yet, will do some washing and ironing tomorrow and pack then. Otherwise DD will wear half of what I want to take.

That's my problem, if I get it all packed they will need some of it for sure before we go. It's for 3 weeks so if I don't want to have to wash clothes too often over there I'll be taking most of dd's stuff anyway - she's due a big shop for new clothes, growing too fast and doing silly things like going off pink and refusing to wear any of her clothes if they have pink on them

I'm stuck at the moment, I know I have to be doing something like packing books atleast but I don't know where to start. I sent the dc out to play this evening and I ended up just sitting on the floor in front of the shoe and coat cupboard, just looking at it not knowing what to do - I think I need locked up.

Have you booked anywhere yet SSSandy?

This is last-minute-panic house admylin. Last thing I heard it is Capetown in August. Time will tell. Dh is continuing his world tour. Is overseas almost all the time. What a farce that I am stuck here and HE is bouncing around the world. The injustice of it. Anyway he is off to Johannesberg next week (hence the idea), Singapore, Sydney, Auckland back via Miami. He is travelling an awful lot. Find it too much myself but he seems on the whole to take it in his stride.

We are back in house viewing mode (boredom emoticon). It looks very much like we are buying this house in Zehlendorf. It's nice enough but the idea of it is making me feel so depressed. I just don't see the point. Actually I should be posting this on AIBU, shouldn't I?!

Arghh.

Just start packing one room up. I don't know what do you need least? Pack up the dc's stuff maybe. They don't need much now till you go on holiday, toys, books etc really do they?

I know, I want to start with the books - we've got a long wall lined with books on shelves and I coule pack hem and then take th eshelves to bits too but there are loads of h's files on one end and his papers and where do I put them when I tak ethe shelves away ? He won't bother sorting his stuff until the last minute and he won't need all teh thousands of papers he's printed on strokes as he's going over to a different area of research .... I could also pack the winter clothes along with the books I suppose.

Your h is really travelling alot at the moment, is he collecting miles atleast (do they still do that?)! He won't want to go any further than the Nordsee when he goes on holiday!

Will you get a garden atleast? Try and see the positive side of it, you can go shopping and choose all new decorations maybe and go to a garden centre and plan your garden (finks will help!) Buying isn't for ever - you can sell and move on if you ever get h talked into moving to somewhere nicer than Berlin.

Did you hear the American firework show just now? We could just see it from our flat, they've been celebrating infront of Brandenburger gate all day for their 4th of July yesterday and their new embassy building.

I missed the whole thing, just heard about it on the radio last night driving home but I am honestly feeling too ill with this virus thing (can't seem to knock it), couldn't have faced it. I see today they have the deutsch-franzosisches Volksfest in full swing too. Wonder what they are going to do with the old American embassy in Zehlendorf now? It's a very big building.

I think pack all the books you can and dismantle the shelves and then pile all h's folders and papers on top of the packed boxes. I would pack away all the winter clothing and the toys/dc's books. If they want soemthing to read, you just get something from the local library till you go away maybe. And all they need to play with till you go away would be say bikes. Maybe you can stop cooking too and just have bread/salad/fruit type stuff now. Pack all the kitchen equipment away too except for a few things to eat off and drink out of. Be a bit rigorous. I think the problem is actually making a start, you know?

Not that I know much about it tbh! Well the house is nice, it's a big garden, sloping down to the street at the front, so wouldn't know what if anything to do with that, it's private, high trees all round blocking out the view, nice flat lawn at the back, has a (small) indoor pool at the back of the garden and the back gate leads you straight out into the forest. It's nothing about the house/garden/setting I dislike admylin, I know I sound like I need a boot up the behind. I just feel I can't face putting down roots because I will never feel at home here. And if I don't want to be here after 8 years, it's not going to change is it?

Also of course the whole school thing drags me down so much. Maybe it shouldn't, I don't know but it does. I think really what is going to have to happen is that dd and I are going to leave and it wouldn't be fair to have lumbered dh with a house in those circumstances. I don't know, I'd love the house someplace else. We'll probably be living in an awful shack or something dismal if we do leave too but at least I wouldn't feel this depressed and I could go out to work and so on too

I know h's boss used to have a girlfriend and they lived together in a huge villa in Wilmersdorf area but she left him because he only worked and was 'boring' so he moved his mother in with him and split the villa into 2 flats! She cooks for him and I bet she does his washing. Men always manage with that sort of thing, if he didn't get his mum he would get a housekeeper I bet. Just try to enjoy the peace and privacy of it all, it probably won't make you suddenly fall in love with Berlin life but it might make it ertragabr for a while.

Typical man!

I know I should buck myself up and look on the bright side, etc, try and make it work but I just don't feel at all like that. I feel so glum. The house does have a nice look to it, dd could be happy living there I'd imagine, dh probably too but I just feel I would be transporting all my disatisfaction to a new home. I don't know what the answer is really. I just want to leave

I can see what you mean though, if dd gets used to living in a place like that it'll be hard to match it if you do have to leave for the school situation or whatever - especially if you end up in the UK. In the UK I imagine you'd be lucky to get a place half the size of what you'd get in Berlin. We had guests from Scotland recently, a scientist friend about a year further on in his career than h and the wife was so amazed at the standard of our flat and life. She said all the housing they had looked at was small, cramped and badly decorated - she loved our big bathroom and spent hours in there causing a row with her h nearly every day!

Don't suppose you know about wirtschaftswissenschaft do you? www.mumsnet.com/Talk/9/561888

yes, I know, I think accommodation here is generally of a much higher standard but it's all a bit "golden cage" in the end, isn't it? Don't mind me I know I sound pathetic and other people would love to have only the problems I have to contend with.

Just feeling very flat and depressed about it today

Surprised your h wants to buy a house , he never seems to be in one place for long enough to enjoy it! Do you think he'll turn into the type to potter in the garden or throw big garden parties? Actually you could throw parties - I had a friend in south Germany who had a huge garden (she needed a gardner it was so big) and she always threw garden parties, bbqs any occasion she had a party because she was frustrated at being stuck at home trotz being highly qualified - her h used to come home from work between 7 and 8pm and just get sent straight down into the cellar to get more drinks or get an apron shoved in his hand and sent to the grill dienst! It was so funny (evil house wife laugh) but I felt sorry for him in a way. No peace and quiet Feierabend after work for him.

heck no, know nothing at all about it and I'm afraid I didn't understand that sentence (grammatically sounds alright but I don't understand the content). I might say tools USED to determine (but actually it makes no difference) and I don't understand what she means with the univariate time.

Find it so hard to correct things I don't understand. She really needs a fellow wirtschaftswissenschaftler to correct that IYAM

dh isn't big on peace and quiet. I'm the one that's into that really. He'll never potter about in a garden but he would love lots of garden parties and grills and people round all weekend

Thanks anyway, she'll have plenty to correct from what I've already done so she could do that and then get it checked again by a colleague.

I have to go and get some stamps now at the automat as dd is meant to take stamps with her tomorrow - she's promised to write to me atleast once!

oh yes D-Day tomorrow. Hope dd (and you) get a good night's sleep and all goes well. Try not to worry too much.

well had a big discussion last night on not buying a house and postponing the whole thing for another year. A lot can happen in a year, can't it? Feel less stressed about it now.

On another topic, I've been reading on the French threads how people find life in France simpler than in the UK and I wondered if you found life here in Germany simpler too? If so, in what way?

So is it called off? Sounded nice but if your heart isn't in it - you might find a better place or convince your h to move! Is that an option or is he tied to Berlin only?

I'm worried about my future kitchen, haven't heard from the vormieter if they want to leave their kitchen in (was a nice one, no idea how much they want for it either) but if not the Makler also hasn't answered as I asked him for a Grundriß of the flat with measurements so I can order something if needed. Packing my first load of books and things today after I've been to the library with ds.

my heart isn't in it because I don't want to live here, I don't have any issues with a particular house IYSWIM, I'm actually not all that fussy about accommodation and that type of thing so long as it's private and I have enough space, I've never been that fussed about how/where I live.

Don't worry about the kitchen. If they have removed it, look for a nice one when you get there. They are delivered quite quickly I think and you can get nice ones for under 2,000. It's a pain to have to invest that money in a rented flat but if you have to , you have to. Just forget it. You told them you'd like the kitchen, did you (Makler I mean) so they know they don't HAVE to remove it.

Yes, she seemed quite pleased when I said if you want to leave your kitchen I'll buy it from you. Also know that her h is in the sort of job that does full relocation packages so she'll be helped with all sorts of things and would probably be better for her to just leave it. She might stil get in touch, I got the Makler to give her my number. She's moving to Stuttgart, feel really sorry for her, the swabians are really grumpy, moany, naggy and mean in the majority.

wonder why

Why the swabians are so unfriendly? They're so busy working and saving money to pay for their houses and watching that the neighbours haven't got a better car/pool/fence/tree...maybe.