A short but warm season greeting on the eve of the Christmas eve from all the Three of us. We did not manage to greet all we wanted personally or with regular mail. And as I am not a fan of X-Mas (or season) greeting mass mailings, we did not use this communication method, either. Instead we post here a small greeting: Have lovely, joyful, peaceful and relaxing holidays!
It has been a while since I last published photo impressions of “My Berlin”. These pictures were taken on my way home when passing one of the big christmas markets (near Alexanderplatz).
Nadja likes fruits, best bananas. Sometimes also apples, peaches or mango. Now, in (pre-)christmas time, we bought some oranges. Nice mellow Navelina oranges from Spain. Usually juicy and sweet. Nadjas first contact with this fruit – which was not that sweet after all – we recorded. Enjoy!
If you have a good internet connection, here is a high resolution version (after the break):
Probably it is not really fair to post about that topic here. Especially if you have a little child as well. We don’t want to show off with Nadja. Well… maybe… a little bit. ;-) Many parents just can hardly believe it. So that’s why here is the proof: Nadja is a late riser, especially on weekends. Usally she doesn’t wake up before 8:30 am, sometimes not before 9 am. Or, like today, she even sleeps till 9:30 am. Maybe she would have been sleeping even longer but we got a bit nervous. So we made some quick shoots with the camera and then woke her up softly.
That was a great weekend! Of course we missed Nadja, but knowing that her Grandparents taking care for her gave us the opportunity to enjoy again the hospitality of the Hotel Haferland. A wounderful hotel, family owned with warm hearts. Lovely designed, with nice wellness area, friendly “Haferland ghosts” (the employees) and good food. Excellent food, to be honest. Breakfast as well as dinner menu. Mostly regional recipes, the ingredients from the area, produced organically and prepared very artfully. To cut it short: A perfect weekend to take a deep breath. Well, the bill is nearly as high as for one week holiday in Turkey – only that the weekend at the Haferland provides us more recovery ;-)
Our Grandparents – what would we do without them? Both families help us a lot and make daily live much easier for us. Monday for instance is “Grandma-and-Grandpa-Day”, they collect Nadja at the kindergarten and take care for her in the afternoon. Lea, my 9-years-old nice, is usually also joining (or making? ;-) ) the party. This way Christiane can start relaxed in her working week, organizing her schedule without time pressure. Same applies if Nadja is ill and can or shall not go to the kindergarten. Just one call in the early morning and: “Of course, bring her to us, we nurse her!”.
Christiane’s parents (and brothers and sisters) cross half of Berlin just to see Nadja, to collect her at the kindergarten and to spend the afternoon with her. Or they stay overnight to take Nadja to bed while Christiane and me are going out. My parents live “just around the corner”, half way between our home and the kindergarten. And because both have retired already they can spend a lot of time with her.
Since last friday the “test” was successful – Nadja slept the first night at my parents home – today is premiere: Christiane and me will spend the weekend at the Baltic Sea. First holidays without Nadja. I am used to it from my business trips where I am away two or three days from home. For Christiane it is the first time she is separated from Nadja for 2 days and nights. I hope she can relax as much as Nadja who gets pampered by her Grandparents…
We got some new babies! All right, not exactly “we” but friends of us gave birth to two little ones. Now (nearly) all friends of us are parents, some even with two children.
Of course we already made our “inaugural visits” to the two new babies. All are well, only the parents looked a bit tired. Dirk, the fresh (first time) daddy offered a trade: Some hours of sleep from Nadja in exchange to some hair from his daughter (she was born with full hair).
Nadja could indeed donate one or two hours of daily sleep. It is unbelievable how many hours she sleeps. Looks like the kindergarten is really “exhausting” for her, although she obviously loves it. Probably comparable to our work. We regenerate on the weekend, and so does Nadja. Last sunday she woke up around 9.30 am (after being asleep on Saturday at 7 pm). Allright, maybe she was awake earlier but she made her self felt only at this time. And Christiane said that when she opened the door to Nadjas room, Nadja was cuddling her frog (her favourite soft toy) and let herself fall down into the pillow again – typical signs for “just woke up”. Really unbelievable, isn’t it?
Yesterday we enjoyed a lovely day in the garden with beautiful weather. We had to use the sunny day to finish our wood-protection-treatment for the blockhouse and the wood terrace. However there was enough time to relax in the warm sunshine afterwards.
Today we stayed at home. The sky is grey today so it’s a perfect day to get some things done. Fix some loose screws, drill a small hole, remove the unneeded ISDN-modem including the well-laid cable, install the new analogue modem instead.
And for some reason I do not know I got the idea of making a cake today. As we did not consider that idea when doing the weekend-shopping I had to look after a recipe fitting to our “reserves”. Additionally I had to do some “creative” baking. Who said only cooking recipes can be variated? Well, for some reasons (I know) it is a kind of chocolate cake. Let’s see how it taste… ;-)
The time goes by so quickly, it’s October already. Time to share some new pictures of Nadja…
So, this was my “crash-free” driving history. After some smaller (rear-end) collisions in my wilder times as a young guy ;-) I managed to stay crash-free for several years. Until last Thursday, 23rd September. Then it hit me. Well, this time I was unblameable. I was just returning from the Kindergarten where I left Nadja. I was driving on side streets when somebody took my right of way. He simply misjudged the braking power on wet cobbled roads – or was simply sleeping.
It was an OPEL Astra stationwagon. Quite new. From Hoyerswerda, a small city in the region of Brandenburg Saxonia with not the best reputation. A petty bourgeois’ car at its best. Did I mentioned that I hate OPEL? And in most cases does not like Opel drivers? Then the surprise: The driver was mid-twenty, maybe nearly thirty, not older. Wearing a mohawk haircut and a bit “anarchic-styled” clothes. The solution: he has been driving his parents (in their car) to the Berlin airport where they were departure for their two-week-holidays. And this guy was already very close to home, he told me that he usually drives another street which he missed that morning. Well, another evidence for the “sleeping theory”.
To cut a long story short, here are the results: He is guilty, has to pay a high fine, the car (company car) got damaged for around 9.500 EUR (which means “beyond repair” based on economic calculation of the leasing company), I suffered from a whiplash injury and my wife and me spent a lot of time to handle all crash-related issues. Well, and as special bonus guess which car I got from car rental as replacement? RIGHT: An OPEL ASTRA station wagon. And yes, after driving it myself for some days I still hate Opel… ;-)
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