Imran's birthday

My boy is was 15 years old yesterday. Rare pictures, as it is almost impossible taking a picture of him.

Foraging blackberries

We went foraging for blackberries today which was not really a planned thing but just spontanous  -we  (Imran, Ruby and me) went for a walk with the dog, just across the road from us, and the berries were  tempting. It's not a 'done' thing really here in the UK, but foraging for berries, fungi etc is quite common were I grew up in East Germany - so this reminded me of my childhood. Yep, it's easier to buy them in the supermarket, and not that expensive either, but foraging is so much more fun LOL. Even my 14 year old teenage son had fun! Imran is now trying to make the berries into a smoothie, and I might freeze some for later use.



-- Post From My iPhone

Thorpe Park

And here are, as promised, some impressions from our trip to Thorpe Park (an amusement park here in the UK) last Sunday. The weather was just perfect - around 25 d C, not a cloud in sight.

DD Ruby (with sunglasses) and her best friend Natasha in the queue

And off we go

DH Nafees came along as well, though he wouldn't get on any rides!

Ruby and Natasha waiting for Detonator

Oh, not sure if this was a good idea.

No, not a good idea at all!

Ruby, Nafees and Natasha

Looked like a lot of fun, but I really didn't want to get myself soaking wet

We loved the Fiftees style make up of this part of the park. And the great Fiftees music - it just really made the place instead of the usual load blast of chart

songs.

Natasha and Ruby didn't mind getting wet.

DS Dan (in white T-shirt) and DS Imran

And that's me!

The Park was really busy, so long waiting times at the rides- here are my 3 'boys' taking a rest.

Nafees was in charge of the video camera.

Natasha on the 'Merry go round' which was really more suitable for younger children as it was a very gentle ride.

Ruby on the same ride, being a bit embarrased to be sitting in the teacup with a bunch of 3 year olds.

Again I have to say we really liked the diffenrent styles of decorations around the park, all themed. Really creative. Here we are in front of the ride 'SAW' (like the movie), and the put up this old and battered American Police car.

A pigeon caught flying away from the 'dinner table'. Though it looks pretty dirty here, I have to say that all the catering facilities were clean and there was something for every taste e.g. grill, chicken, pizza, Burger King. Even this dirty table here was cleaned up very quickly by the staff while we sat on the next table.

Nothing better for the boys than to round up the day at the amusement centre.

Hot day on the Thames

I took my daughter Ruby and her friend Natasha down to the Thames today, lovely cool breeze on a hot day ( well, hot for us anyway!, abt 27C). It's not a long walk from us, maybe 20 mins, but not a very pleasant walk unfortunately - lots of boy rasers on motorbikes (we had to jump into the hedges a few times), and lots of flytipping which is a great shame. It was lovely down by the water tough, despite some rubbish which always gets washed up, can't avoid it. We had fun looking for shells and stones, and Bonnie had great fun in the mud. We had to hose her down when we came back home, no way we could have let her in the house like that.




-- Post From My iPhone

My new car

So, here it is - my new car. Meet Mr. Vauxhall Astra Estate. It's lovely to drive - I am a complete convert to Automatic ever since I've had my first Automatic car 5 years ago. And I suppose as we had quite good experience with the Corsa and never any trouble, we decided to go for Vauxhall (or Opel as it is also known) again. The boot is nice and big to get Bonnie in, and the children love the 5-door car - well, now we can go on holiday with the car and all 3 children. The only problem for me at the moment is getting used to the much bigger car when parking. Yes, you may all laugh... I've never been a very profilic parker LOL. Actually, I've never learnt to reverse park in my time, and simply never did it. The few times I attempted it myself it just went wrong, so I just never did it. As I always had very small cars, it never was a problem. Maybe I will take a few lessons with an driving instructor.

(Nearly) finish - Giraffe

I have been stitching like a mad woman last week on the giraffe. And it is finished - well, apart from the backstitching. Whenever I come to the end of a project I always stitch like mad!

I haven't been blogging a lot in the last two weeks, indeed, I haven't been online a lot. I am still at home, but say my Consultant in the hospital last week, and they are happy with my progress and discharged me from their care. The Consultant was very happy with his handiwork LOL. Tomorrow I'm going to see my GP to get a 'Return to work' Certificate for next Monday, but than I'm on annual leave for 9 days - so my time at home is coming to an end. In an strange way, I am looking even forward going back to work. It's just a shame that work takes too much of the time of the day... so there won't be that much time left for cross stitching and blogging and Internet groups.

The other news is that I bought myself a new car- a Vauxhall Astra Estate.  I started to get slight problems with my old Vauxhall Corsa - nothing major, it's been a good car. However, it is now 8 years old, and I thought I'm going to see a car dealer to see how much money they could offer me for it. And the offer was good (I did my research before!) so I decided to go for a bigger car which we need really with 3 children and now also the dog - that's why the Estate car. I can pick it up on Saturday - can't wait!! It's an Automatic again , I do have a manual licence, but since I've driven my first Automatic some years ago there is no going back for me - for me at least, a sooo much more enjoyable drive. Here is the link to my new car, pictures will follow on Saturday.

Cross Stitch up-date Lilliput Lane and car trouble

Voila - here is my progress on Lilliput Lane from last week. I can really see the house emerging now, and the chart is so easy to work from - it is fun to work on this piece. I don't like the 14ct Aida though, and should have changed to at least 16 ct. The top half of the chart is finished (pages 1+2), now page 3 and 4 to go, and a whole lot of backstitching, which I don't mind on this picture, as I think it will enhance it a lot.

I didn't write a lot last week.. somehow the days are just slipping by. On Wednesday, I tried to drive my car again for the first time since my OP. And the car didn't start.... I had battery trouble just before Christmas, so I knew it must be that. I hadn't moved the car for 4 weeks, and after all, the car is 8 years old. I've had it for nearly 5 years and never changed the battery. My friend Rachel came to jump-start me which we managed after about 10 mins of charging! Than we went straight to Halfords (car parts retailer) who also offer a service to fit the new battery. Done that... all went fine, apart from the fact that after fitting the new battery, the car did start, but didn't drive any more Aaaarrgggg! The guy from Halfords looked again and just said : 'Well. the battery is fine, there must be something else wrong with the car." So there I was, stuck in Halford's car park. Luckily,  Rachel was still with me and we than called the RAC. We had to wait for 2.5 hours! The RAC man than told us that, when fitting the battery, this 'messes' up the internal computer of the car - so that's what happened.. He managed to re-set it with his on-board computer unit (he told me sometimes they can't reset it and I would need to go to Vauxhall directly...). And when the car still didn't work, the RAC man looked further, and found that Halfords had also ripped an air pipe out whilst fitting the battery. Great! He fixed it within a few minutes, and I was finally able to drive away. Good service, Halfords (NOT!) Not only did they rip parts apart whilst fitting, but they should have told me that fitting the battery can result in the car's computer being messed up.

Lazy Saturday and my first walk

Weekend is here - not that it makes a difference to me at the moment. I had a bit of a scare last night when I realised that my scar is bleeding. Not badly, but... I hope this is not a setback, it's now 12 days after the surgery. I didn't lift anything heavy or anything like that, basically all I did was sitting here on my desk with the laptop, and sitting in the armchair stitching. All that sitting must have done it LOL.

The weather is really mild here at the moment, around 11 degree C,and nice winter sunshine. After some 'gentle' persuation on my part Nafees agreed to go out with me to walk Bonnie. I am really missing walking the dog, not to mention the look Bonnie gives me every time I walk past the closet with the 'dog-walking' stuff, her leads etc. But she is much too strong unforunately for me to walk her by myself. If there is no-one else around, it's fine, but if another dog appears on the scene...different story, than I won't be able to hold her in my current past-OP state. Here are a few impressions:

Nafees with Bonnie Honey outside our house, making a dash for it.

Across the road from us.

SNOW SNOW SNOW

Certainly, since I've lived in the UK I've never seeen snow like that here. And there I was telling my mum in Germany only yesterday that she should send some snow over and I'm missing it here - there it came promptly. It appears that there will be no trains tomorrow, so who knows how I can get into work. The kids love it and I rather enjoy it as well ;-)

The first signs of spring?

It's suppose to be really cold again from tomorrow onwards and beginning of next week, even snow. Would be nice to have some snow though, and it is still winter anyway! February from tomorrow onwards. I can't believe how quick the time is passing. We went to Gravesend today to get new school blazers for the boys. I hadn't realised that they did indeed grow in the past year. Danial's blazer is up from size 32 to 36 and Imran up from 30 to 34 (since September 2007). School Uniform is so expensive though, they cost me £35 each, plus £6 for the tie.

Happy New Year everyone. Nafees went to Central London Trafalgar Square while I prefer to stay in with the children. I was 'on call' as well, and I'm not too good with large crowds like that. I went to bed around 1am, and Nafees was back around 3:30 hrs. There were plenty of trains running during the night. Unfortunately, we have a flat tyre on the care, so he had to take a taxi from the station. Got to sort out the tyre at the weekend.

This is my beautiful Secret Santa package from the 'Friendly Stitcher's' Yahoo Group. It was so lovely to receive a stitching related gift. The beautiful colours unfortunately don't come out on this picture. The purple set will be ideal for Lavender , me thinks.

Merry Christmas Everyone. Hope you all have a wonderful holiday season, whereever in the world you are.

I've put my turkey in, yes, it is turkey this year after last year's disaster with the goose which really didn't taste nice. I'm sure it must have been me and I did something wrong rather than something wrong with the product, but I really don't want to take that chance again. So we went to West Ham yesterday to get meat. We finished work at 1 pm, than I dashed home and quickly tiedied the house up. Then I picked Nafees up from West Ham, and back home, we wrapped the presents. The children don't believe in Father Christmas any more anyway, so I placed the presents under the tree (I personally don't feel it is such a big deal to believe in this anonoumus figure of 'Father Christmas'... ? Sorry, I don't mean to be a scrooge or something, I love the season etc).

We bought the children a PC for Christmas, so at least my laptop will be all mine now! :-))

Anyway, here is some progress from the last two weeks: Nearly finished Spring Queen, but than it suddenly came to me what to stitch for Rachel - a towel with a little Poodle, so I quickly finished that last weekend. I forgot to take a picture, but will ask Rachel.

The days just seem to pass so quickly, only 1 1/2 weeks left for Christmas. We have put the Christmas tree up, but the big lights for the patio window don't work... I remember now that I wanted to get a new set last year in the sales after Christmas. Of course, I didn't, thinking that Christmas is a looong time away. Well, here we are ;-(( Anyway, I have the pressies for the children ready. Mum's parcel arrived - she sends me a parcel with lots of German sweets every year, and boy, do we love it. I've put the children's bags away, but keep having to sneak at 'my' sweets bag *sssht*
What I like most about the season is the lights in the window, and I always like to get my cross stitch out for Christmas. I think one of my memories as a child is that I had some sort of kit been given, and I was stitching under the tree... long time ago. Usually, I would stitch Christmas stuff now, but this year I just keep to my usual rotation, as I finally want to finish something!

Bonnie has made her home with me upstairs. Well, as I guessed before, I think the boys must have encouraged her to come upstairs, and now she follows me around whereever I go in the house. I'm so glad I've made 'my' area upstairs. I think the main point was that Nafees is forever hogging the TV downstairs. Even though I can only get the 5 national channels upstairs, I don't mind. And I told him, my christmas wish is a new satellite dish so that I can receive German TV upstairs. I've looked it up online, it will be about £275 including installation. That would be just wonderful.

I have now seriously started to write on my autobiography. I've got a great book which helps me to outline the chapters and do research. My main aim is to write for my children, tell them about my ancestors, and how/where I grew up. I don't want to do indepth geneology, but just go 2 generations back, talk about my grandparens (they have all passed away, so my children will never meet them), talk about my parents and how it was for me growing up in East Germany. I will try to avoid 'Ostalgie'. , which is a term used in Germany for nostalgic feeling for life in East Germany. I just want to try to tell my children and possible future grandchildren, or, indeed, anyone who would like to know how life was for me and my family. Obviously, this country (East Germany) does not exist any more now, so I just want to write my experiences.

I have come up with so far 11 different chapters and brainstorm on each of them before I can put subheadings onto each chapter,:
1. Family
2. school/ early childhood
3. Teenager
4. apprenticeship/1st job
5. Berlin / Bautransporte
6. Wall came down / Bauer
7. move to England / met Nafees
8. Danial / Imran / markets
9. back to Germany / Ruby
10. back to England / Walthamstow / Elmec
11. Met. Police / Dartford

And while brainstorming some facts about my maternal grandparents, I have already discovered some amazing stuff. My maternal grandma Helene was born in Poland in 1912, and came to Germany with her parents aged 1. They were parts of the so-called 'Schnitter' (= 'cutter') from Poland. These were seasonal workers from Poland who came to the German countryside every summer. The background is that in 1820, serfdom was ablished in Germany, and thus over the next few decades, agricultural workers bonded to the landowners were now free and moved away; big scale landowners suffered serious shortage of workers. Around 1870-1880, seasonal workers from Poland came to work on the fields, coming every year from spring to autumn. Some of those workers decided to stay in Germany, but apparently, it was not that easy and they were 'state-less'. The only possiblity of obtaining German nationality was to marry a fellow German. Again, this was not easy, and permission had to be obtained which was a long process, and often not granted. Now, this is were it gets interesting. Apparently, my grandmother was very secretive about her wedding date. And my mother eventually found out why: because my grandma officially married 2 days before my aunt Elfi was born. Well, having a child out of wedlock in 1931 was obviously very much frowned upon. But as my litle research into the polish 'Schnitter' shows, in her case it was due to the difficulties with the Polish paperwork and licence to get married to a German man.

Every week I promise myself that I'll try to write on my blog every day, and every week the same - I don't. Last week was half-term for the children, and this means for me that I did not need to pick Ruby up from school at 3, so I was working up to 4pm every day, getting home about 5 to 6pm. Than Bonnie walking, and it is already so dark, the clocks went back last weekend. Dan and Imran walked Bonnie some days, which, yes it is one task less for me, but I do enjoy my daily walks with Bonnie. Nature has something for me to see at every season. It's not as enjoyable in the dark though. And I walk past the new housing development every day. So far there are 300 houses/flats, and apparently up to 1500 are due to be build .... but I keep thinking that maybe they won't continue, now with the big downturn in the housing market. Out of the houses which are already there, quite a few are still standing empty.

On Saturday, it was just raining the whole day, heavy rain. I got so dripping wet when we walked. Dropped the boys off at Bluewater (they wanted to watch the new James Bond, but didn't get in, they were not believed that they are over 12;- how annoying for teenagers! )) Bluewater was sooo busy, I could hardly get parking. What credit crunch is all I can say! I just quickly dropped into WH Smith to get myself magazines (dogs, gardening, writers) and 2 books. Oh, and the car was due to MOT, on Friday - needed a new tyre, well, but it least it's ok now for another year. My car is now 7 years old, and has never ever given me any grief, it's the best car I ever had, small and perfect.

Today the weather was lovely and I had a long and relaxed walk with Bonnie. the fields are very wet everywhere, and many of the trees are now empy, though some are still very colourful. Ever now and again I still see an ink cap, but very few and between.

Bonnie has chewed another Sky remote control. Nafees had a stern word with her, and now she appears to be really scared of him, well, she watches him with caution. And the latest thing she does - she comes upstairs. That dog was never allowed upstairs with her previous owner, and we just kept it like that, she never even attempted because she didn't even know what it is. I guess the boys must have been tempting her upstairs during the half-term, and there she was yesterday, coming sheepishly upstairs. I sat in the boys room, watching X Factor, and she came in and just stretched herself out in front of us on the carpet. I didn't had the heart to tell her off and to tell her to go downstairs. I got a funny feeling I will live to regret this.

Nafees is finally back from Pakistan and now I realise how much I've actually missed him. I had to pick him up from Heathrow which is about 60 miles from here, all the way around the M25. As it was Saturday afternoon, the motorway was clear. Only problem was, when we came back, it was already quite dark, and I hate driving in the dark as I can't see very well. That's only if there are no street lights, driving in cities is fine. Anyway, as it was so dark and I tried hard just to stay in my lane, I missed the turn-off for the M25 at one stage, and found myself in the wrong lane and ended up on the M20 towards Maidstone. I got off the next junction, and found familiar sounding town and village names, so I found my way home via country lanes.

Nafees brought beautiful clothes for Ruby, and Jeans for the boys. a lot of fashion jewellery and bangles for Ruby, 2 Asian dresses for me, watches for the children and lots of stuff for the house (bedlinen, kitchen utensils), and food which his mum cooked and they had it canned.



I haven't shown pictures of the cats for a while, and I thought those are quite cute. There is Honey (or is it Candy?) getting all comfy on my Frederick the Literate (which I had stretched out on my bed as I was about to frame it). And here are 3 of our cates all stretched out on my bed.

Here are the gifts I received so far from my birthday groups...Thank you sooo much ladies, this truly made my day, especially as someone who is not likely to receive stitching related gifts from the family:

Birthday Club 4 (Counted Cross Stitch Group)

Taryn
Head Chart ‘Spring’ – Ruth Sanderson
Cross-Stitch & Needlework Magazine

Nickie
Chart ‘Cat Hair’ by My Big Toe Cross Stitch Designs
Stoney Creek ‘Land of Enchantment’
2x Sampler Threads from The Gentle Art ‘Blueberry’ and ‘Antique Rose’

Lizzie
Lanarte Kit with 2 cats, sitting on a postbox

Bliss
Mirabilia Chart ‘Bliss fairy’
+ matching Mill Hill bead packs x3

Birthday Threads Friendly Stitchers

Jackie
1x DMC, 1x DMC Mouline Colour variations
1x Caron Waterlilies colour No. 118 Opal

Tineke
5x Dragon Floss Hand Dyed Thread, colours: 25 Rippling Rosebud, 210 Emerald Isle, 48 Impule, 54 Gingerbread Man, 36 Beautiful Berry

Maureen
2x Caron Waterlilies, Colours: 038 Morning Mist and 017 Blue Lavender

And here comes a present I received from Sabine in Germany - Thanks Sabine and a big hug from across the Channel. Isn't it beautiful, it's already on my hallway wall.



It's gonna be a quite day. Nafees is not here, and I will take the children to a nice Indian Restaurant just out of town (Green Spice in Darenth)