Flashback Friday

It has been a while since I played Flashback Friday with Tia...

So clicking through some older folders on my computer I found these photos, taken with my phone a few years ago during our stay in Augsburg, Germany. I usually carry my digital camera with me but sometimes it gets left behind and I am forced to capture an interesting moment with much more basic phone camera.

I find these four pictures very characteristic of our German experience (clockwise from top left):
- very determined Madame Chancellor
- "No ball playing" sign in front of the grocery store
- one of the local breweries
- whimsical decor in a bathroom of a Biergarten

Still here

image: www.mega1063.com

What a week this has been!

The moving van (rather a small truck) has been booked weeks in advance but the orders got mixed up and we ended up with a much smaller cargo space than expected. We somehow managed to load it up, stuffing smaller items in every available spot and leaving lots of things behind - some we donated to a nearby second hand shop, some we left outside the house for passers-by (a common practice in Germany, like a free garage sale - those items that people still find useful will be taken within hours, even faster if you do it on a weekend...).

Our backs hurt from carrying boxes and boxes and boxes (I couldn't believe how much stuff a family of four accumulates in three years) and our hands are raw from cleaning, scrubbing, washing. Today, after a week of non stop action, the completely empty flat (we had to take out the entire kitchen and leave nothing but bare walls) has finally been given back to the owner. The release papers have been signed and tomorrow morning we leave our friendes, who have kindly let us stay at their place for these last crazy days, and drive towards France.


To be continued...
À suivre...

Urban beauty

Lichens aren't flowers but they are enough to cheer me up on a cold and gloomy winter day. I found this rather Mediterranean looking wall close to my house and was amazed by the contrast of vivid yellow green lichen against the dark background...

Spring is coming... but not just yet.

Spring is coming, says this sign in a flower shop near my home. They offer a bouquet of 10 tulips for only 1.95 Euros (how could I resist, I bought one of the pale pink on far left).

But half an hour later, on my way through town, I captured this wintry sight by the water.

Oh, well, it would be a bit too much to expect winter to leave just when it's starting to have fun...

Ghost of a bicycle

Inspite of the frosty weather there are still some keen cyclists braving the cold every day (my husband included).

This picture was taken a few days ago in front of our house. The bicycle of our neighbour (the house has nine appartments) had left a print in the morning frost - it has been since erased by some fresh snow but the true cyclists don't realy notice it. The only problem, according to my husband, is unfreezing the lock every morning with a cigarette lighter...

And here is a charming treasury from brownbagvintage that warmed up my day - thank you, Michelle, for the feature!

Tulips

Picture: leapinggazelle

Yesterday, while grocery shopping before yet another bank holiday (you have to love Bavaria, from all the German regions they probably have the most public holidays), I bought myself my first bouquet of flowers in the new year.

As soon as I walked in the shop, I noticed that Christmas chocolates and glittering holiday decorations have disappeared from the most prominent shelves at the entrance - instead there were big buckets on the floor, filled with delicious bouquets of tulips in all colours of the rainbow! I love tulips and I don't remember seeing them in shops this early in winter. They were like a ray of sunshine on a cold and icy Tuesday so I came home with a bunch of 10 mauve tulips (costing less than 3 euros).

Last days

I went shopping for groceries today, trying to avoid the big crowds tomorrow, when shops close early again in the preparation of New Year's celebrations. Three days of closed shops makes people stock up like it's 1999 again, filling their carts with amounts of food that would feed an army...

Bavarian still life

picture: ada.photo

Our last New Year in Bavaria is rainy and cold, hopefully some fireworks will cheer up the atmosphere tomorrow night. I'm not a big fan of loud explosions, it is real torture for animals and small children, but over here people seem to prefer more silent rocket fireworks that only make hissing sounds and leave colourful trails in the night sky.

*** Have a happy New Year 2010,

I'm looking forward to seeing all of you there! ***

Quiet days

It's was bank holiday today in Germany and the streets have been empty for almost four days now, ever since the shops closed early in the afternoon on Thursday.

Christmas day was cold and cloudy so we decided to take the children to the Augsburg Zoo, one of the few establishments that never close their doors. The park was emptier than usual but still lively enough so the animals weren't completely bored - some of them didn't even notice the damp weather.

I like Augsburg Zoo - although not very large, it is well designed so the animals have spacious and very dynamic living areas with nice, easy-on-the-stroller paths running through the park (not to mention their lovely restaurant-biergarten where we always have lunch after the long walk).

And here is all that was left of our Christmas gift wrapping. I did it in a bit of a hurry, trying to hide it from the children. I wanted them to distribute the presents and since they can't read yet I drew our "portraits" on small paper cards and glued them to the parcels...

In the meantime, in the land of Etsy, Loddelina got featured in three lovely treasuries, one of them making it to the Front Page! Thank you so much, Jackie, Aldona and Rhiannon!

Snowy Saturday

Last night brought us a thin layer of snow (hardly two cm, half an inch) which made everything look so clean and calm. Except for the poor black coat that somebody hung out to air in our backyard and then forgot about. It looked so sad and abandoned it the shiny snow...

Weeks before Christmas are usually very busy and filled with all sorts of celebrations. On Thursday I had a meeting at my son's Kindergarten, a weekly workshop for mothers for whom German is a second language. Apart from myself and a Russian mother, all the others ladies are Turkish.

Each week one of us brings some home baked goodies to enjoy with our coffee but this week, being our last date before the New year, the Turkish ladies organized a real feast (they called it breakfast but it was more like lunch and dinner all rolled into one). In a few minutes the small table in the meeting room was covered with tupperware pots in all shapes and sizes, full of yummy dishes: peppers and aubergines filled with rice, vegetables on toast, little croissants with vegetable filling, potato salad, goat cheese and olives, not to mention the cheese cake and sweet almond slices we had for dessert!

Friday was the day I met with my other group of mothers, my friends since we came to Augsburg 3 years ago. A good opportunity to show off my new Peskycatdesigns messenger bag! I love my new bag, so practical and elegant at the same time!

And I haven't even showed you what a cute package I've received from Fallon, the creative force behind Etsy's shop Olive. I've won her 50's Birdcage Pillow in a recent giveaway and I just love the little sticker with mini clothespin she's put on top of the parcel!

I'm back!

Herz Jesu church, Augsburg

We came home last night, it was just after midnight when we stopped in front of the house - the ground was covered with first frozen snow and the air was icy cold. We had to carry two sleeping children inside, wrapping them up in blankets so the cold wouldn't wake them up (not a simple task in the age of safety belts and special car seats. When I was a child, the car safety ment you made sure you didn't run out of gas in the middle of nowhere and everybody had to learn how to change a flat tyre...).

The house was in the same state of chaos we left it ten days ago. We always pack in such a rush, me stuffing all the essentials in suitcases and the children pulling them out again behind my back. They call it "helping", I call them my "non-assistants".

Today, after sending Gaston to kindergarten in the back seat of his father's bicycle, Lily and I set off to clean the mess. For the next three hours we were vacuuming, dusting, arranging the toys back in their boxes, the books back on their shelves, unpacking the suitcases and even managing to cook a simple lunch. It took Lily five minutes to fall asleep in the stroller afterwards and as soon as we were back in the house I sat down with a glass of latte macchiato and rewarded myself with some yummy home made cookies my mother gave me before we left. Phew!

While I was away I made some sketches for new handbags and bought some new fabric I'm itching to try - I will soon post pictures of my work in progress!

And another thing: my Sales Fairy has been busy again, bringing me another Treasury West feature - this time it was Maria from HeartshapedCreations that sellected my decorative heart for her Christmas inspired sellection. This makes it a third feature for my Open your heart ornament in one week...

Thank you, Maria!

Bloggers ornament exchange 2009 - update

My ornament exchange partner Donna of Brynwood Needleworks has already received her ornament (wow, that was fast, five working days from Germany to Florida!) so this post won't spoil the surprise. I can't wait to get her handmade creation...

I was glad to take part in this exchange (you can see more participants HERE), it was great fun designing a simple, but elegant christmas ornament. I wanted to make more of them and offer them in my shop in sets of two, that is why I asked my blog readers to help me decide which messages to put on (thanks for your help, the winners were joy and peace).

But I have been so distracted lately, the news that has been official for some time has only now reached the top of my mental to-do list: early next year we are moving to France!

I will tell you more details when I start the serious preparations for our move; at the moment I am dealing with the boring stuff, like cancelling all sorts of contracts and notifying everybody about our departure. The day after tomorrow we leave for a 10-day visit to Slovenia and in the second half of December we will try to enjoy our last Christmas season in Augsburg.

Moving with the whole family is a stressful business but I am looking forward to making a home on a more permanent location and settling down with my husband - five years, four appartments, three countries and two children later it is the right time...

The Christmas market

Augsburg, Rathausplatz, via Augsburger Christkindlesmarkt

Today I spent the evening at Augsburg's Christkindlesmarkt - the Christmas market with Gaston and Lily. Days are getting so short now that there is no point in going to the playground after four since it gets dark before we manage to get the children dressed and actually leave the house...

Augsburg's Christkindlesmarkt has a 500-year history and each year they try to think of new ways to decorate the city. The city centre, which is closed for traffic all year round, turns into a river of lights and little wooden stands where they sell pretty handmade christmas ornaments, toys and little gifts, with every fifth stand or so offering refreshments. The air smells of sausages and sweet&spicy Glühwein, warm wine that also comes in alcohol-free version for children.

Gloomy November

Augsburg, November

Tomorrow is my birthday and eventhough I'm not one of those women who deny these personal celebrations and hate being reminded of getting yet another year older, I never realy liked the season I was born into (sorry, mom, but you know how it is, being born on December 22nd yourself...).

I've always wanted to have my birthday in the summer, when the weather is sunny and warm and one can have a picnic outside and the day just seems to go on forever. Instead, my birthdays have been mostly gloomy, rainy days, sometimes covered in first snow, turning into slush under your feet. Once in my twenties I came up with the idea of celebrating half-birthdays, having a party in May instead of November, or to move to the Southern Hemisphere and enjoy the reversed seasons...

I came sooooo close to this last idea when my husband's job sent him to South Africa for half a year and we moved to Cape Town in June 2006. As much as I regretted leaving the European summer behind, I was looking forward to finaly having my birthday party outdoors the following November (South Africans love the barbecue, or braai, as they call it). But, because of some problems with our visa extentions, we were obliged to leave a few weeks sooner than we had planned and so we flew out on my very birthday - with all the packing and the new baby (Gaston was 10 weeks old when we left South Africa) there was no time for any kind of celebration.

Well, there is always the next birthday...

A windy day

Yesterday's windy day reminded me of my dog Žuža, a lovely Bernese Mountain Dog lady, who is no longer with us. Being a dog with thick winter coat she used to love going out on a cold, windy and slightly damp day, when she would sit up straight on the top of a small hill behind the house, lift her nose to the wind and happily sniff the far away smells it brought with it.

For Žuža, sniffing the lamp posts and house corners was like reading the printed edition of a local newspaper - one gets fed up with the same stories being written over and over again. But raising her nose against the wind was like connecting to internet - she could get a quick sniff of what was going on miles and miles away, but only for a brief time, which made the news so much more interesting.

I miss my dog, she passed away just a few days after my son was born so my children never had a chance to meet her. Since the babies came there wasn't much time or opportunity for a hairy addition to our family - but I've been a dog and cat person all my life so as soon as the children are big enough to understand the basic dos and don'ts of the animal kingdom, we will try to introduce a pet into their lives...

La vache!

Fancy a cow-tastic holiday?

I saw this set of luggage in one of the town shops yesterday and just had to take a picture...

Winter wonderland

Last Thursday, exactly a week ago, the weather in Bavaria suddenly turned extremely warm for this time of year. During the day the sun became almost unbearable, my children and I waited until late afternoon to go play in the sandbox and even then we were all in our sandals or barefoot.

Well, it has cooled down a bit since then...

I'm off to look for my hat and gloves!

Augsburg, this evenig

My chillout zone

The thing I love most about living in Germany is biergartens. These simple Bavarian restaurants that offer drinks and food around lunch hour and in the evening, always include a garden, where, thanks to new gas heaters, one can eat well into the cold season.

My favourite Augsburg biergarten is Kolperhütte, just 10 minutes away from our house, a nice stroll through the park along the bicycle path, no cars or motocycles, only dog walkers and mothers with strollers. The biergarten opens around noon, just in time for me to stop for a latte machiatto after Lily has finally fallen asleep in her pram. I like to sit in one of their striped lounge chairs and slowly sip my coffee while I read some magazines (OK, they are glossy gossip magazines, but I like to put my brain on standby every once in a while...).

Sometimes, when I don't feel like cooking on a Saturday and the weather is too nice to stay inside, we take the whole family to eat at the biergarten - during the summer they had live music playing every afternoon, in football (soccer) season they switch on the big screen TV and beer bills go sky-high...

Handyducks

This morning, as I was stroller walking with Lily, we bumped into these two handyducks, sitting on top of a street lighting pole fuse box.

The twins looked a bit startled, perhaps it wasn't their coffee break yet and the boss wasn't supposed to know.

So we let them in peace and walked away...

Holidays

A view from my kitchen window

(taken last Spring, before the nature woke up completely

- and before I had time to wash the windows...)

I've decided to put my Etsy shop on vacation mode for the next two weeks.

First I thought it might not be wise since I've only opened it a short while ago and can't afford to miss any potential customers. But the thought of taking everything with me in case I an interested buyer comes along, packing the handbags, the tags, the wrapping materials (and still forgeting some), perhaps being late with sendidg the item because I haven't checked my emails often enough, ending up with a negative evaluation ...

OK, it is not a very likely scenario but I don't want to start my business that way.

So for the next two weeks I will be getting some new items ready to put on the web (I guess it makes sense to launch them after the Summer break so more people can see them) and also working on the old ones (I have to think of some catchier tags...).

Have a great weekend, everyone!