So much food!

Rock and Roll Fairy or worms

(this was the best picture I could get of this great outfit the Mouse wore as she wouldn't stop dancing).

Our favourite place.

Puzzles and knitwear. Looks like a good winter.

What a weekend. Let me just start by saying Herr Fitz went to the soccer on Friday night and has been grounded ever since and isn't allowed to go out with M again as I think he is a bad influence. Or, he could just start wearing a watch and remembering that riding a bike takes balance. Luckily he did "man up" his words not mine and I got all the cooking done for our lunch guests on Saturday. It was a wonderful day. Frau M came to visit and brought her now world renowned vegan vanilla slice (even better than the one you can buy at the bakery at Sawtell) and M and H came with Australian red wine and vegemite. The wine was so good. I forgot how beefy Australian red wine could taste...it was wonderful and drinking a couple of glasses in the middle of the day is so lovely. Luckily there was more for everyone else as Herr Fitz couldn't face it...I think that is penance enough and he is no longer grounded. The day ended 4 million calories later with a quick walk around the sports park as it had stopped raining and the Monkey wanted to ride her bike and I wanted to make room for more vanilla slice.

Sunday saw MORE cake as we went to a birthday party, though we sensibly ate soup first and said no to beer. How very grown up and responsible of us. 10 out of 10 for parenting there as we even took the kids to the park in the afternoon all wrapped up in their jackets and wet weather pants. I have developed a very warped sense of warm and cold as last week it was 10oC and I thought it was warm and was waxing lyrical about the warmer weather. This week we are back to the slow slide into winter with most days 1-5oC.

Our poor Bear has a double ear infection. Here is where we get "needs improvement" on our parenting report as we only took him to the doctor as he couldn't hear us on Monday morning. We even tried the would you like a chocolate sentence and he didn't answer. The Monkey on the other hand has perfect hearing as she was yelling "I'll have a chocolate, I can hear you, I'll have a chocolate" over and over again. It gets worse as it was last week he woke up in the night saying he could hear a banging noise. We told him it was the shutters outside and told him to go back to sleep (which he did after about an hour). The upside of this tale is that the shutters won't bang in the wind as I stuffed paper in the locks and that the Bear did get antibiotics as his ears were "uberhaupt nicht in Odernung" (and that was after looking in his 'good' ear). Bless his very practical winter socks the Bear didn't complain and only missed the first hour of kindergarten.

Whilst my German is not fantastic as was seen when I told the bike shop guy I had a slippery wheel instead of a flat tyre (luckily he took pity on me and fixed it on the spot for only 3euros for the valve) I did managed to get us to the doctor only being helped once by another cyclist who saw me looking at my map, understand what was wrong, buy us a hot chocolate and cake as a reward at the bakery, get the medicine and understand how to mix it up as it comes as a powder.

Herr Fitz has started his quest to work in a field that requires travelling to different countries whilst not using aeroplanes by catching the train from Germany to London. It should be an interesting trip home next June.

A huge thank you to all the lovely folk who have said they enjoy reading this littl' old blog, I really enjoy living and writing it. I am a very lucky person indeed. I also love that most of these people are just as bad with technology as I am and have had to tell me via email/facebook as no-one, including me really knows how to comment. xxoo