Summer Holidays

Solar Powered Summer 2018

Even before the school holidays started we were enjoying the fabulous summer that might have ended any day reverting back to the expected summer of drizzly rain and low 20 degrees C temps.

But it didn't end, it just got better and better and better. So we lapped it up.The pool in the garden got used a lot and whilst I couldn't colonise it and have lots of gatherings as is my want as it is a shared pool we still managed some good poolside fun. This has meant that the recording of the summer has fallen by the wayside as I don't like to waste a minute indoors and with the evening twilight lasting untill 10 30pm I haven't wanted to get the computer cranked up. Add the fact I share this computer with 3 kids now means I need to share a lot of our adventures all at once. 

With one week of school left before then hoidays that included Wandertag (class excursion day) for the Bear (bike ride and pool day) and the Monkey (a treasure hunt around the ornamental lake) who are at Gymnasium we, ok I decided that we didn't need to rest but instead enjoy the outdoors and company of friends.

For some unknown reason a trip across the border to the Netherlands has become a tradition of mine. Normally it is a ladies trip but this year my first visit was expanded to an all Australian extraganza as all 5 of us went with Possum Boy and his grown ups. We dealt with the logistics of day trip bag packing as only one can when one lives on the 2nd floor, grabbed our SchoenerTag Ticket (which is for our area of Germany but extends just over the border) and off we went. The Bear wasn't initally impressed at being forced to go as the promise of market food and a pub lunch isn't appealing to a 13 year old but then... 

the witty conversation and summer party atmosphere we brought with us, cheese shops with many tasting opportunities and the BEST RETRO GAMING/COMPUTER SHOP IN THE UNIVERSE changed his mind.

Luckily the gaming shop was next door to a lolly shop and around the corner from a pub where we rested our tired legs after much marketing and I discovered that my kids can play chess. As the Bear said with his mock 13 year old sarcasm, "Mum I went to chess club at school for a year so I didn't have to run around at lunch time, of course I can play!" A picnic on the train on the way home with a beer (for the grown ups due to liberal views on drinking on public transport), fizzy drink for the kids, cheese and dip rounded off the day. Guess who spilt beetroot dip on the floor...Me ekk!  

The next day we grabbed a SchoenerTag Ticket again and headed out to the lake with Frau Z, Herr R, their boys and a very big bag of frisbees. Having always lived on the coast the thing I miss most when we are in Germany is putting my feet in the water. I know there are lakes about but we have never managed to explored them with the exception of the visit to "Die Schoenste See der Welt" I took years ago with already mentioned Frau Z and her girl gang. It was an old quarry and not gorgeous but a whole lot of fun. So having checked that the promised lake was actually a lake we could swim in we set out on our short train journey and stroll to the lake. As an Australian who doesn't live in Bondi I forget that beaches and lakes can get crowded. So we, with what seemed like the rest of the population of North Rhein Westphalian found the lake which luckily had a Disc golf course (that is the professional name for frisbee course) adjoining it.   

Herr R had checked the water quality website and we were good to swim! It was cool but beautiful!  

We were all then given a crash course in Disc Golf. Luckily Herr R was a very patient teacher as he had left handers, right handers and the Mouse who managed to land hers in the tree. We played a few baskets whilst marvelling at his very practised abilities and Herr F braved what we dubbed...

"The Basket of Doom". Note, in photo below you can't feel the stinging nettles lightly threatening your ankles and central nervous system, the basket is just out of shot, and the frisbee had rolled down that hill away from the basket twice already.