To the doctors with a little Tour de France thrown in.

The Mouse has had a cold for the last three weeks and decided yesterday to get really sick, complain about her ear and spike a fairly high temperature. So I decided to take her seriously and rang up the doctor to see if we could get an appointment in the afternoon or the next day. This is how it went:

12 30pm ring up doctor's office and babble my way through what was wrong and the possibility of an appointment.

12 31pm Receptionists listens thoughtfully, repeats questions when I obviously give the wrong answers. Asks where we live and then says they are open till 1pm so come now.

12 33  I helpfully try to explain that we are coming by bike and may not make it by 1pm

12 34 Blind optimism on the part of the receptionist and I am corralling kids into a code red situation. Grab your helmets and shoes, luckily part of psyching myself up to call the doctor consisted of finding all the health insurance paperwork and we are off.

The next 16 minutes are a blur of unlocking bikes, remembering not to ride too fast for the kids, admiring the power of nature whilst avoiding the fallen down trees from the crazy storm on Monday, pausing briefly to pick up the Monkey and dust her off as she only learnt yesterday that you can't ride through thick gravel while looking at the flooded creek, applying no first aid except for the sentence "I will buy you an appleschorle drink if you get back on your bike champ", answering the follow up question of; "A bottle of my very own or do I have to share?", and realising that my bike seat still hadn't dried properly from that storm on Monday.

12 50pm Having left the peloton far behind we pull into the driveway, all wipe sweat off their brows, race through the door of the doctor's office to be met by the receptionist clapping, the doctor grinning and the other receptionist saying "sie haben es geschaft". The winners wreath was presented to us, we popped fake champagne bottles open and went straight in for our appointment.

13 02 Ear infection confirmed and we were on our to the shop for the promised drink as the doctor's shut up shop for lunch break.

13 15 We began the much slower ride back home taking the time to look at the destruction caused by the storm.

PS schorle is the german word for 'Shandy' or more universally 'spritzer'. Appleschorle is the kids' favourite and, I am pretty sure the only reason they joined us on our trip here. At 25 Euro cents a bottle how could I say no. Also no photos as in my hurry I forgot my phone.

Rules to Bike Riding

Normally, there are a few generally accepted social conventions that I do like to uphold but I find, when I am solely relying on my bicycle as my form of transport I throw a few of these out the window. Ok, so not really caring how your hair looks as it will look windblown or rain effected is ok. Arriving a bit sweaty and forgetting to take a moment to regain composure before entering a government or medical building, not too bad. Forgetting to ride on the right hand side of the road, not so easy to gloss over with 2 smaller riders following your lead; not life threatening and it has only happened twice so far so I can live with that. The most alarming thing by far is arriving somewhere with a wet bottom. It rained (let's not mention how many times I have done this), I have no bike seat cover and my bike seat plastic cover is broken. Ergo it looks dry but after 5 minutes riding you realise that water is being absorbed and you have no other option but to carry on and hope the rest of the cycling city realises that you are a newbie to the biking cause and not incontinent. If you add walking into these said offices babbling as you would in Australia and giving way too much irrelevant information then that is the daily double.

There is always room for one more bike, especially when it is mine and bright yellow.

Gruen, gruen, gruen sind alle...

It is so green! Actually it is so green it makes my eyes hurt and my heart sing with joy as it is quite overwhelming to eyes so used to the Australian landscape.

 

Things just grow in peoples back yards and the grass is soft to sit on and did I mention it is all so green? And you can eat the berries. I am still afraid everything that grows is poisonous but I am working through it. It is a difficult mind shift to make that not all berries are poisonous. Actually most are delicious, though it did take me quite a few attempts to be in agreement that Johannisbeeren are tasty.

An attempt to get a family photo in all the green for the Mouse's kindergarten hook. She is taking the idea of a "school" photo very seriously. I unfortunately didn't make it in the allotted 10 seconds and I think I may have bumped the camera in my hurry.

 Of course for it to be so green a fair amount of rain is necessary. I can't complain as we have had some lovely European (code for lovely but not super hot) summer days but we have also had a lot of rainy days. Actually every day we have gone to a certain friend's house it has rained. Maybe they could be used as drought breakers if they moved to Australia. This is the view from our window at about 9am.

 Nothing, but nothing will make rain gear look attractive, unless you are under the age of 10 then everything looks adorable. It is especially difficult when one has left one's raincoat at a friend's house and is forced to wear 9 year old son's rain jacket.

Then right next to all that green is the city centre with it's own fair share of green to compliment the beautiful architecture. Even though this is my fifth time in Germany, everyday still feels like living in the pages of a story book. Even if I am having a day where everything is difficult because it is difficult for the whole family to get into a routine and get into the swing of life in a different place, as soon as I look out the window or ride my bike up the street I am transported into another world and my imagination is full of fairy tale stories and I reset and start all over again.

Sometimes adding some deep fried potato really helps reset everyone's mood. And of course the threat that the next to whinge will end up in one of those cages on the church always comes in handy. Add apple sauce on the side, and the fact that drinks were forgotten and a massive detour to the supermarket was required, all was forgotten and a lovely stroll was had around the city. It is funny the kids don't remember much of this from last time so it is like starting all over again

Let's hope Germany win the world cup tonight. Luckily the German flag is easy to face paint as it is all the rage at Kindergarten.

Next chapter 2014

Although adventures have been happening to BearMonkeyMouse between then and now for some reason blogging about life in Australia isn't what this blog is about. Of course we could talk about all the amazing things we have done in the last few years like firming up fantastic friendships in our most amazing hillside community, the kids at school, trips to the beach, exchange student adventures, numerous trips across a large chunk of Australia to visit our much loved family and becoming pet owners to the best dog and the most productive and crazy chickens in the world. This blog, or our very own chapter book is all about our adventures in Germany. Now, as we are back in Germany again after being away for 3 years a new chapter begins. I am calling it a new chapter because as we all know sequels, as the Muppets recently said are never as good as the first movie but let's hope this adventure is just a continuation of the last.

At airport with what seems like a lot of luggage but as we have had to buy shoes and underpants for certain family members I think we may have packed a bit to lightly.

 Nearly, Nearly there, no more aeroplanes, just one final train leg.

And we made it. Picked up from the train station by parts of our wonderful German family and brought to our new house.