Weekend

The two best german teams played this weekend - the Braunschweig Lions against the Hamburg Blue Devils, 34:14 - it was thrilling and tough and so much fun!
In the pregame show old US cars came in and afterwards Harley Davidson bikes - but I think none of them was as loud as ours is ;-)
And Kelvin Love made his 100th touchdown for the team - the news say, A Whole Lotta Love - cute pics, too (ok, maybe football-players don´t want to be refered to as cute, but, hey, take a look).
Though - I wonder. The years before they played "Love is in the air" a lot for him. Not so this season. A new guy making the programme? Has he a lack of the english language?

On Sunday we went to the Okerkabana again - for the last time, I guess. 3 € for a drink is too much, really! On the way home we came to the marketplace where they sold wine. We tried one and it came in glasses with lions on it - Ingo bought them and we had a nice chat with the girl who ran the store.

So it´s Monday again. I feel sad and miss Ingo.
I talked to my brother this morning and he made sure I step by for a visit on Friday. I really dislike being far away from the people I love but can not change it at the moment...

Alone at work

The August is holiday time for my customer - the factories run on the lowest level and the offices are empty, too. Friday in general most of them don´t work (4 working days a week). My colleague is on holiday (took off yesterday to a Robin Williams concert in Berlin... well...). I´m responsible alone now for our working range. As well as my other colleague - it´s just the two of us left here. Plus two of my customers in the other area here.
Ah well. It´s great - good to concentrate on the job. I´m developing an application styleguide at the moment and have to correct another styleguide - and the customer wants to work with it rather yesterday (I hope those poeple nagging me go on holiday soon ;-)...)
Still it´s strange with the rooms so empty and quiet.
We´re a good team here and have a laugh or two regularly - miss that a bit.

Good thing being alone in the office: I can listen online to the sea (to the right, the sound-image).

Great?

So I went to the botanical gardens yesterday evening to see the "giant" water lily.
Yes, it was blooming this time. The lilies themselves are really huge, but the blossom is disappointingly small (- though beautyful!). Plus there were so many people in the not so cool, little tropican house. Phew.

I could hardly get a look upon and everybody was taking pictures, flashing around. The bigger people at last - I wasn´t able to - would have been a free hand shot.

But it was nice to see that the people took the offer to stroll around the garden in the evening for cooling down a bit. The garden is run by students and volunteers, so usually it closes at 6pm in summer.

Damage

Today they got it in the regional news with pic: On highway 39 the damage caused by trucks due to heat and bad material. They have to make the whole 3km new.

La "Tour d' Allemagne"

My customer supports the "Tour d' Allemagne". (Why do they name it french? Even if the "tour de France" is famous - call it german or english... mon dieu, qu' est-ce qu' il ya?)

I just wonder why those professional cycle races take place in the heat of the summer?

Is that healthy? With the ozone being so high experts advise not to do any sportive activities but in the early morning and late evening hours. When I go on my push bike these days I go real slow - like any unprofessional cyclist does here.

Wouldn´t autumn or spring be better?

Blossomed

On Tuesday - nothing. But when I came home yesterday I found one of my sunflowers had come to full beauty!



I´m really curious how the others will look like - they are all of different types of seed.

My herbs can not cope with the heat:



So I try to eat them up - here is my salat with a little bit of sage (tastes like medicine...) and lemon gras - very fresh:



Great. Look at that. Here I am, hungry and with my ol´ crispbread and some unyummy cheese looking at this fine salat...

BTW: The newspaper said in the botanical garden a huge water lily blossoms. The bloom only opens in the evening and so yesterday and today the botanical garden is open ´till 10 pm. Yesterday the lily was closed, friends told me, so I try again today.

There is thunder at the moment but the heat stays on.

Important?

Yesterday on my way back home from work a car in front of me on the highway suddenly slowed down - break-lights went on, no warning lights and it went straight on the emergency lane.

Yeah.

Big emergency.

Cellphone was ringing. How important can you be???

It was dangerous what that man was doing, just slowing down that fast without giving any signs and just for that...

I forgot my cellphone last Sunday at Ingo´s place and he even had to e-mail me this. Seems I´m not important at all... ;-)
Though I don´t have a "regular" phone at home. In an emergency no one could reach me via any phone... well emergencies won´t happen!
The cellphone belongs to my brother anyway. He doesn´t need it, he has another one. The one I "owned" before was a gift from Ingo. He gave it to me when I got my trainee-job where I had to drive to in Ingo´s old car. (Thanks again for borrowing the vehicle and for giving me the phone!)

I have trouble getting rid of the account I have on the phone anyway. I really wonder - what do poeple talk on cellphones all the time? Most people I know don´t use cellphones much but I see others in supermarkets, e.g. standing in front of the frozen pizzas asking which one to buy. Is there a way more stupid to get rid of your money?

Or am I just old-fashioned?

60km/h

That´s how fast you are allowed to go on one part of the highway on my route to Ingo´s place - and you wouldn´t want to go faster.
The trucks have damaged the highway so much due to the heat. Very deep lane grooves are the result. The bitumen wasn´t of good quality, I guess.

As well as my decor - see what happened:



Yesterday evening when I went to bed I had 28 °C inside, 25 °C outside.

Still I don´t want to complain but it starts getting hard... Good thing: It´s even too hot for most of the birds! Usually they wake me up with their chirrupying - not this morning...

But I think I´m a little stricken, too. I climbed the stairs to my office (fifth floor) three times already this morning. 1: I arrived. 2: I realised I don´t have anything to drink. 3: I don´t have anything to eat.

Phew.

But there are good things in summer like raspberries:



I didn´t have any for ages!

And see this man enjoying his roastbeef in his garden :-)



Summer is great!

Row 6

October the 7th, tribune west, block left, row 6, places 11 and 12. That´s what I got. One row higher than our usual seats. Don´t talk about the price. But remember when we started to go to the games I paid 5,00 DM (!) for a free seat...

Btw: My plants did just fine. On Thursday last week I gave them more earth that holds more water plus I put filled water-bottles upside down in the earth and it worked out just fine.

My shopping didn´t work out the way I planned. I was so sure I had crispbread here at work and just brought some cheese. No crispbread, I´m hungry and the bakery is not open yet. And it´s 32 °C in the office.

German Bowl

Yay! The German Bowl in American Football will be held in my town! And chances aren´t too bad "our" team will be in there, too!

Right after work I will (go and buy food for the week, see how my plants are doing and then) hop on my bike and drive very slowly to town and see if I get two good seats for the big event in Oktober :-)

Man it is so hot, not a bit of a breeze - nearly too hot to work. And temperatures are to rise! The ozone is high and sport is not recommended.

Little aches and pains

I guess those really are first signs of me getting old...

We went to donate blood on Friday. There weren´t many people, due to the heat, I guess. Actually I was fine.

But when we came home I suddenly got extremely tired! I think I have never been that tired before. Guess my body took all the power to generate new blood.

I hate to say that but when I was younger I was able to go for a ride on the push bike after donating...

Hold me...

A song from Herbert Grönemeyer (Halt mich) is just running on the radio. I bought the whole cd those days (13 Years ago) because it showed what I felt and feel.
°I could loose myself in you... it is great you are there... tell me something.. I always wanna be with you... hold me so I can sleep.."

What should I feel now?

Buh!

Saturday evening we had another bbq. Ingo put the plates inside. This morning when we got up I had to discover he put the plates on the stove. I took them, put them into the sink - and immediatedly a strange noise emerged. I ran away.

1995 - Conway National Park, East-Australia, Qld. We had had roast potatoes and since there were possums taking everything away we put the pan into the car, right in front.

For an exeption we put up our tent - we usually slept in the car but planned to stay longer.

Next morning: Ingo went to take a shower (a cold one since the solar system had been damaged...). I thought, ok do the washing up. I took the pan... and there was a brown and really heary spider under it. Right beside the ventilation slot!

Buh!

I thought - ha,ha, Ingo, great fun... I thought it was a toy. Then it moved. I got a shock! We usually slept in the car! I turned around - old people and alternative people (who would discuss first what to do) around me - I screamed for Ingo! He unterstood it was a real emergency and run by, got the spider somehow out of the car - I was no help, I was too scared!

So. Back to today: When there was "something" in the sink here... I just ran away - read about it in Ingo´s blog (with pic).

Ingo there referes to the insect in the car in 1995... Can you believe this: We slept in the car and certainly got up with the sun. Ingo said: Don´t look to the window - certainly I did! There was something huge - huge even without my glasses!! I bumped over Ingo, getting outside... He tried to get the thing - insect - out of the car with his tripod. I could hear the insect bumping into the metal even from outside!

Whoa. I am sorry for the really tiny bat I caused pain. It lost it´s way, but sure is fine now...

I could tell heaps of storys about insects in Australia...

Tiny

A very, very tiny piece of dirt ended our moped-tour today - luckily it went into Ingo´s eye on the way to his grandmother.

It was nearly to hot to have fun anyway. This is why we didn´t wear leather jackets but cord:




See Ingo wearing blue socks and sandals (click to enlarge)?




It was so hot is was as if someone is blowing hot air in your face with a hairdryer.

I wore a more casual card-jacket - we wanted Ingo´s Grandmother take a picture, but, well, the tiny piece of dirt interfered...

I was the one who had to get it out - difficult task for me... Ingo had to force me to poke around in his eye with a wet Q-Tip.

I guess Q-Tips now should belong to our Moped-kit...

Pleasure

It´s not even lunch time and so much already happened. I´ve been to the (my private) hairdresser and paid only half the usual price and got heaps of tips how to treat my hair better :-)

Next we´ve been at the butcher. We had an arrangement: Ingo pays for drinking stuff, me for eating stuff.

I live in the city (higher rent) and have to drive to work 40km.
Ingo lives in a village and has 750 m to work.

Ingo is a fair man:

New arrangement:

Ingo pays drinking and special stuff (barbie included).
Now the shock we knew would come:



Will be so yummy! :-)

Most expensive was the beef with 20,66€, and most yummy it´ll be, too.

Meet Joe Black

... was on TV yesterday night when I wanted to work (which hence I couldn´t - Brad Pitt was on TV).
I just loved the scene where Anthony Hopkins said, "I achieved anything I wanted to" - I hope I can say that some day, too.
To that "What a wonderful world" was playing.

"Have you had enough good memories? - Farewell, sister"

Qantas

The tickets are there!



Oh man - I look foreward so much to get to Perth again! Holding the tickets in my hands makes it feel way more real :-)

But I think it will be a shock. They will have temperatures then (in December) like we have here now - but we pop in there being used to our winter-temperatures then - which will be below 10 °C...

Baby thermometer

Ages ago I brought a baby Thermometer to work - I took it ´cause it was cheap. Everybody was joking. Well - one of my colleagues comes daily - at least once - to borrow it and now even my customer asked me if he could take it to check the temperature...

No one apologizes for the jokes, though... ;-)

Well, I just love this pic of the icebear who didn´t watch for ice :-)

Don´t say, nahhh, I know now that it´s hot at your place.

To me it´s great ´cause we don´t have summers like this garantueed here! And it won´t last forever...
Even the news say last time it was that hot (36,5 °C) was in 1890!

Yesterday I even had to rescue my computer. Usually it stands under the small table - it got darn hot so I pulled it out there and let the honeywell-fan cool it down, working around it...

Giant leap

Today in 1969 Neil Armstrong landed on the Moon with his legendary words, "that´s one small step for a man, one giant leap for mankind".

Will you believe my spouse was watching this life?! And he thought it was a comic, he told me :-) He didn´t get it why his parents dragged him out of bed for this...

She gives in

"35 °C.... I go home now" - my colleague is on the way... :-)

While talking to the custumer on the phone I heard someone say, "I don´t know how I´m gonna finish my work in time - but I go home now!"

And while I´m typing two other colleagues leave - I am nearly alone now in the office!

My drinking-water has nearly bathing temperature.

But, well in 15 minutes I´m off here, too - a regular working-day is over then for me.

Hehe :-)

One of my customers just kind of faintly shouted "haaah, it´s sooo hot!"
A man like a tree sounding like a little baby :-)

Heart-rending...

Mineral water

The production of mineral water is running the highest in the factories (well, I always take water from the tab - especially in my town it is stated as good and healthy water). Farmers are afraid of loosing nearly half of their crop, the danger of fire is very high, electric generators that use water for cooling can not work at full capacity, many people suffer, due to the heat.

Do I have to feel bad because I enjoy the heat so much?

Ok, a fan or aircon would be a good idea at work, but it´s ok, too, without it.

We had a winter cold, dark and especially long enough.

Probably we get thunderstorm and a little rain in the evening and temperatures are to "drop" from 36 to 29 °C for tomorrow.

Time

... goes by and some things don´t change.

I have been told it will hurt less after a while, that you´re usually over it after two years.
It still hurts and I still can not understand it or really realize it, will that ever change...
Maybe it´s because there have been times I haven´t seen my family for some longer months.

This ring is really special to me:




My father was a goldsmith (among other things) and he was a very traditional man. Formerly you reached the age of consent at 21, not 18. So on my 21st birthday my father came with three golden bracelets and wanted me to chose one of them. I was 21 and he still didn´t get it that I don´t like the color of gold! We got in a fight because I didn´t want to have anything that expensive yet ugly!
It was a real fight and finally I gave in and chose the least ugliest one. That was in January.
I wore it next time for christmas and for him only. I did it to please him honestly (but never wore it since then, I still think it´s ugly).

To my thirtieth birthday he came up with that ring shown above. It was made of white gold - he had learned, it suited us both. It was gold but looked like silver.
He asked my Mom to engrave the date of my thirtieth birthday, not of the day I was born, in cursive letters. The "1" can be read as a "7" and he died of cancer exactly that day when it was the sevenths month of the year. I always have both dates with me, am always reminded of him that way.

I used to wear the ring always, my brother said that´s what it was made for.
September, a day at the stadion, a eurobowl game, luckily - means it costs extra so there weren´t too many people and the rows in front of us were empty.
Suddenly I saw the stone, a real carat, was gone! I was on my knees, searching, the sun already going down. I couldn´t find it!
Finally I sat down, desperate. When suddenly I saw something blinking - the stone!
Seemed to be like a last blink from my father... this really happened!
Turned out the ring was of bad material, the company who sold it had shut down. In the end my brother ordered new material and made the ring himself, he is a goldsmith, too (and an optometrist).
I do trust in his good work but I never wear the ring in the stadion, though.
In the middle you can see my brothers´ stamp, a crown (our name translated is emperor):




I hope my family doesn´t call me at work today. I send an e-mail and hope they understand the sign. I sure would have to fight hard against tears. Two years ago a colleague gave me a white rose on this day. She thought she helps me with that gesture but made it even worse.

I hope research in the fight against cancer will be successfull soon.

Hottest day

... of the year so far is expected, they said in the news this morning. And advised people not to do any sporting activities. There have been reported even deaths due to the heat, older people who could not cope. I sure am sorry for them, or rather for their loved ones.

But I love heat! 25 °C this morning in my apartment!

And I woke 30 seconds before the alarm-clock did it´s job, wondering when it will be time to get up. I really do wonder where this precision comes from...

Ah, I wish I could sit somewhere outside in the shadow, have a light breeze, something yummy to drink, a good book, the sea to watch at and listen to and Ingo right beside me.

Ok. Back to work now!

Beauty

What is there to say? Nature is beautiful. Summer is just great - the best time of the year. Here is the proof - taken in the Botanical Gardens here in my town on Sunday:





They also had a smelliebox. It took a while, but stuff like that slowly comes to Germany, too :-)



I visited myself:



And WA:



This is how poppy seed looks like in the beginning:



And two more lions were captured:



A manhole cover (what a word! Is that the translation for Gullydeckel???)...

And this cup Ingo bought for me:



Wow. My colleagues went to the canteen to have a "Currywurst". We have over 30 C° and they have huge hot sausages with French fries. I dunno... They give some work to their stomaches here ;-)

Two more

Well, Ingos´ words, you can buy as many as you like as long as you don´t bring them in my place...

I had to! No kidding. When I went to Wal Mart yesterday evening a couple was in front of me. The man grabbed a trolley and there they went, holding hands. I felt so lonely. I missed Ingo so much, watching them.

When I feel too sick to have a Pizza you can tell I´m really not fine. When I saw the shoes I thought, well. 9€ a pair - go along with them. They didn´t really make up for me. I always see that happy, loving couple, holding hands when I wear the shoes. Well. Somehow a nice thought, hm?

The heat is on

Wow. These stickers are running down my window due to the temperatures (no complaint!!)...



Here you see the new "sailing boats" - to the left of the mirror everything´s fine - to the right the sails slipped down. Phew.



More? The photo-carousel



is straddled and the stuff I glued on the door comes down bit by bit:



Ah. Well. :-) I just loooooooove summer - go ahead, heat. I can fix it. That´s worth it. I think I´m gonna leave the stickers (first pic) that way. They gonna freeze and in winter I can still have a look at ´em and say, yes, what a summer... Started icy cold and was just great then!

:-) Hehe.

Home

So we spent last weekend in my place.
Sounds stupid, but it was really good to be home. After all the last weekends - and long weekends mostly - spent at Ingo´s place I had the feeling I´m on the run all the time, living out of the bag.
I´ve been in my place usually only from Tuesday evening until Friday morning.

Our apartments are so different - mine is full of light, it´s bright - but very small, it´s a one-room apartment.
Ingo´s is bigger, but dark - it was a mill before becoming an apartment house. Small windows don´t make it look friendly letting in only little light. The thick walls keep the warmth out. It´s not pleasantly cool but cold.

With places so different it´s not easy for me feeling home at Ingo´s place - especially in summer when outside the sun is shining.

Anyhow I will not feel too good this evening, either. I´m missing Ingo already.

Definitively nice!

I just got an e-mail from the Kingsway Tourist Park. I don´t know, well, I had the pics from the park from 1999 here and mailed them over when making the accomodation requiry.

The new owner is very sincere - she mailed back, since we´ve been there before and since we stay longer we get a discount plus the linen for free - and she thinks I will be pleasantly surprised with the improvements that have been made in the Park.

I am really happy - in these times it´s nice to see that some people trust in others even though they don´t know them, give them a bonus just like that - we will not disappoint her.

This makes my start in the weekend even better :-)

Progress

I ordered a cabin in the Kingsway Caravan Park - I´m curious, there are new owners, things will have changed...

This is a pic from 1999, I hope it still is that way (a place we call home), the new owners have been helpful, so far, too:



This was just before we left, just before christmas (hence the headdress) - our car is absolutedly clean :-)



Usually he looked like this:



Why ever we left on December the 07th, I cannot recall. We could have "made it" into the year 2k in Perth... Big party, I bet. This time it will not work out again with New Year's eve in Perth. It´s Peak season and with Qantas flights still available in January only go till Singapore. Plus it´s really expensive.

But, well. I look forward so much to going to Perth again! While here it will be cold, grey, rainy, windy, nasty... we will have heat, sun, beach and a town we feel quite home in :-) Yet there will be so much new to see. We were always busy when we´ve been there:

We had to buy a car that fits our needs (took us two or three weeks), We came back to extend our visa. We came back to sell the car (five weeks!) and I was checking out the architectural offices for a job (today I must say I am glad it didn´t work out - not because I don´t like Perth but because the IT-business fits much better to me)

Maybe we even see our car still running around. O.K. maybe not - it was built in 1984. But the new owner said he wants to have it as a second car. It was in a very good shape when we gave it away. Why I would be happy to see it again? Well, it was our home for half a year. We slept in it, we drove around in it all day long and saw the most beautiful landscapes. We prepared our breakfast and lunch in it and when the weather was bad we even had our supper inside. In the evenings it gave us protection against wind... well it was our home.

---

Ingo just e-mailed he can take off at two - I´ll be on my way short after, we´re at my place this weekend. Ingo didn´t know if he can come to my place due to his eye - it´s worse when it´s warm and I live in an oven, literally. So I packed my stuff, too, to be prepared. And I certainly closed all the windows in case we spend the weekend at his place and there will be thunder or something.
Well... it´s a sunny, hot day ( but I have a fan, the Honeywell, at home for cooling).

So , nice weekend everyone :-)

Woman

Yes, I am one... I bought shoes yesterday :-)
As long as I don´t store them at Ingos´ place I can buy as many as I like (his words). They were cheap, come in my favorite color and I can run in them, yet they fit to skirts. What more would you want?

Breaking Boundaries

Inheritance
Being optimistic

What is the title I should use?
Blogging makes me think more carefully about issues of life.
I got a lot from my father. The eye-color, figure, the stomach (once my father had to get up very early and made breakfast on his own. He used the pan my mum was about to clean - she had put some detergent in it. He fried eggs in it, thought, hm, tastes strange, ate it up and started the day. Got sick, puked it out and simply went on. I am the same - though I think my taste buds are better. My Mom and my brother have a lot of problems due to a sensitive stomach)... there are bad things I inherited, too. I bump only smoothly into something and you see the bruise immediaty. Plus... My father and me were always realistic.. or you could say pessimistic. Our glas was always half empty - my Moms´ and brothers´ always half full.
Ages ago I broke my arm, went to the wrong hospital, got infected with a virus and ended up with an inflammated bone. The doctor came and wanted me to sign a document that said I understand I could lose the function of my right hand - which is the hand I work with. I signed and called my Mom, crying. She was rather harsh, telling me TO THINK POSITIVE or it will not work out for me.
For the first time in my life I did, tried hard to think positive and I don´t know if I moved some molecules - I woke up just fine after surgery.

My glas is half full now. I bought the honeywell (see "Optimistic") - AND we have a great summer so far after all! :-)
Murphy and his negative infuences are out!

My apartment was like an oven yesterday - I kept the windows close over the long weekend being at Ingos´ place. Without the fan it would have been hard... (again, no complaint against the heat!)

Nice people

I went to Wal Mart yesterday, bought food for the week. On the way out I saw the BBQ-model I have at home. Season is over (for buying BBQs) and Ingos´ has nearly broken down. The staff were so friendly to sell the exhibit one to me:-) 6,90 € and Ingo and I have another exact thing ...

4 Meme

Rodney has tagged me, hmm, let´s see with what I can come up.... It starts tough for me (hence this took me some time...):

4 Jobs You Have Had In Your Life:

Not easy. I studied and became a graduated engineer in arts and science and wanted to work in an architectural office. I wasn´t able to get a steady job there, worked only as a trainee - does that count? (I´m happy I didn´t get stuck there...)

I am now working as a web developer, the fifth year now.

I kind of have to cheat, I´m afraid... When I was at school I jobbed in a food factory, does that count, too?

And I made some little money those days spreading ads.

4 Movies You Could Watch Over And Over:

Not quite a movie but I love the making of Queens´ "One Vision"
Philadelphia
Cast Away
Forrest Gump

Ok, I´m a Tom Hanks Fan...

4 Places You Have Lived:

Seesen
Rhueden
Hildesheim
Braunschweig

(Germany)

4 TV Shows You Love To Watch:

That´s tough, too. I love some series, but TV shows... hmm. Problem is, at my place I don´t have the Discovery Channel...

Myth Busters
Globe Trekker
Construction Project
Virtual History

4 Places You Have Been On Vacation:

Australia (twice, once 6, next 7 months, traveling)
Cuba (twice, every time 3 weeks)
Jamaica (once, 3 weeks)
Isla Margerita (Venezuela, once, 3 weeks)

4 Websites You Visit Daily (or often):

(I don´t have internet access from home, but here at work and at Ingos´ place)

Rodney´s Blog ;-)
Karen´s blog (though she doesn´t blog daily)
HappyNews.com
Waschsalon

4 Of Your Favorite Foods:

Pizza
Pie
Steak
Ragout Fin

4 Places You Would Rather Be Right Now:

At Ingos´ place
In Perth
At my familys´ place
On the Moped
After reading Dee´s blog I have to change it as follows:
Carnarvon

4 Favourite Bands/Singers:

Queen
Norah Jones
Joshua Kadison
Benny Benassi

4 People To Tag:

Ingo´s blog (to encourage him to blog... ;-) ...)
Heathers´ blog
Natalijas´ blog
Krissys´ blog

I don´t know if they gonna know exactly who I am - I´m a constant reader, but not a constant commenter...

Design

At the designsponge i found a link to the inhabit-company.

Wow, if I lived together with Ingo and therefore knew I would be in that place for longer I would use Wall Flats:



They have really cool stuff there - I think I will "take" some of the ideas presented there (once I have the time for it...), this e.g. is a great way to present pictures, I think:



Hmm, I´m in the design-stuff at the moment - I order a ceramic-ring, I hope I still get the one I want, they have cool stuff at zebra.

Dinner in the sky

At the Shopblogger I just found this: Dinner in the sky.

Crazy! I would not want to have a dinner at a height of 50 metres! But, well, I don´t have some 8650€ for it anyhow ;-)

In some places people starve, in other places there is obviously money for something like that. Bon Appetit!

Headline

Ingo kept complaining he cannot differ the single posts with the titles in black. They are orange and larger now.
@Ingo: I hope you like it that way...

sore muscles

The walking-tour on Friday was ok due to funny colleagues. It was some 10 km only, but downhill. And we had to go really fast. The sky was dark it was rumbling all the time and we didn´t want to get wet. We were in two teams - us taking the easy route and the "professionals" who took a steep way.
We arrived dry, the others... well had to walk through the rain for over thirty minutes.
Food was good as well as the chats.

But... I have sore muscles still! I thought I was really fit, but no... Since I couldn´t walk we went on a small tour with the push-bikes on Saturday. I guess that´s why I´m still not recovered.

And on top I have to add that my ankle hurts again. I didn´t do my special exercise for a few days. This is the bill for it.

Queen

I went to town yesterday to buy a memory stick. I went to Media Markt - very friendly people there!
Well.
They also have DVDs and stuff. On the way to the cashpoint with my new memory stick in hand I turned around, went aaaaall the way back and upstairs.
I came down later with a DVD for my Mom (it´s her birthday in September) and "Under Review 1973 - 1980", "Magic Moments" and "A night at the opera" (no birthday on my side) from / about Queen.
I couldn´t get home quick enough!

"Seaside Rendevouz" and things like that I didn´t even know of before!
Freddie Mercury was a genius, without question and I am really sad he had to die so early - and so senselessly...
They called him charismatic and unique - so true!
There was a longer interview with the guitarist, Brian May , who looked as young as ever (my english teachers´ name was Peter May and he seems to have no age at all) - he sings "Love of my life" for Freddie, as he said, at his gigs. It´s touching.

Here is a pic of my boyfriend - with a little fantasy he looks a bit like Freddie (the shirt is a little old-fashioned and he doesn´t wear a beard anymore now - well, and he cannot sing - as far as I know ;-) But he is a genius in his stuff!).



Well, on one evening I couldn´t go through three DVDs, unfortunately I dont´t come home tonight before midnight, so I´ll take the stuff to Ingo´s place or go through it next week.

Freddie Mercury - wow.

Event

Our company has an event today. Usually (two times a year) it´s with the partners and ends around 8 in the evening. Not this time. Without partners and we will be back at around midnight. On a Friday!
I like to see were I go to. We go for a walk in the forrest. Downhill.

I took Monday off. Otherwise there would be a whole day missing for Ingo and me.

La Linea

Still know this little guy, Monsieur Linea?
TV5 now has put 56 little films of him here. Just go over "choisir un épisode" and see him in his many adventures. I like it :-)

At work?

Last Friday I went to see my family. That was the plan at least. Could I know that even my Mom will get hooked in front of the tube???
Germany was playing and they got the telly down to the sales room.

They wanted to make me watch, too, but, nahhhh... I just took a pic. Customers were not to come, work was set aside for that time:



From left to right: One of the shop assistants, my Mom and my brother.

I went outside to get some cherries - don´t they look yummy?

Big Farmer

That´s what the yogurt is called, that I bought. Once the ads didn´t lie... it was huge. I feel sick.
At least it wasn´t sweet.
Why did I buy two of them? Tomorrow I will be sick again... Maybe I find someone who wants to eat it.

My heart

...sure did hurt yesterday. Missing Ingo. Seeing this pic I took when we´ve been in the botanical garden last time made me feel better:



I love nature.

Age

Yesterday it wasn´t windy, so we went on another tour with the moped. It was great, but I was also glad, when we were back safely. The older I get the more afraid I become of falling. Despite I was always quite skillful when something happened.

Once I even must have turned a somersault over the handle bar of my push-bike. I was speeding to catch the next lights. I saw two older kids on the pavement, when I was right beside them something suddenly stopped me cold. I thought it was a larger dog. The next moment I stood on my feet facing the other direction and had the left handle bar in my right hand. It all went very fast and I´m really astonished what reflexes can do!

It was no dog, but a little boy. He stood between his larger siblings and started running with no reason. I think I probably safed the kiddos´ life - he will hopefully never run without looking before. A car could have told him the lesson and that wouldn´t have ended with only some smaller bruises...

Anyway, I hope I get rid of this fear of falling soon. Being cautious is good but being chicken only reduces the fun in life!
Plus, Ingo is a very good and safe driver and I absolutely trust him.

Back "home"

After a long weekend I´m back in normal life now. I hope my sunflowers made it - it was hot and sunny all the time.

I dunno... when we have more days together than usual, I miss Ingo even more and feel really terrible.

Killer me

I´m trying to "kill" time. I´m still at Ingos´ place, I´m supposed to do research, but the subject is so complex and complicated that it´s really everything but fun.

Plus, I´m freezing. Outside we have around 30°C but inside it´s only 21. Anyhow I´m wearing a sleeveless shirt and a skirt (yah, my own fault, my own lazyness, I know. If there is no wind coming up I need to change anyhow since we go on a tour with the moped).
In order to get the warmth in here I have the window wide open. But with that I can´t concentrate. The traffic is awful, you wouldn´t believe we´re in a village here!
Allowed is a speed of 50km/h - they race at 70 and more past the window and I´m in the first floor. This house is one of the first in the village.

Ingo had the idea to grab an old baby carriage with a life-size doll and a lot of red fluid and drag this on the road when such a driver is racing here. If he hits the carriage he might think he killed a real baby and probably will stop racing.
They could control this area and even make money with it. But here won´t happen a thing about it. First a real accident has to come true.
Chances are not too bad. A primary school is nearby. The kids are advised to use the new lights - but for some it´s a detour and I´m pretty sure those cross the road elsewhere.
Plus, as far as I know it, kids are allowed to be outside also after school and might run around here at any time... There is a pitch right across the street.

(BTW: I don´t understand why they build the new school at the place they did, anyhow - this area is known to get flooded from time to time. And they chose an area behind the pitch field, so that´s waaay at the end of the village. It´s a lone place there, only two houses are on that road and not near the school and we´re right beside the highway - a paradise for grown-ups who ... well, I´m glad in this case that I don´t have kids! I would not let them go there alone!)

But it´s just like what happened some time ago: A woman went to the police. She said her ex-boyfriend is stalking her, threatening her. The police did: Nothing. The woman was killed by the ex-boyfriend and the police went to catch that man. Not the right order of doing things I guess.

Ingo will hopefully be here in an hour and then time will just fly by again because we´ll have fun. Why can´t it be the other way round? Boring times fly by and time stretches when you enjoy yourself?
You wouldn´t need to be a time-killer anymore. Time is such a precious thing!

BBQ-potatos

Yesterday evening we had yet another bbq; we put potatos in the coals - pics are to be found in Ingo´s blog - I hope he blogs more often now...

Though it doesn´t look like it, it was yummy! And we tried to eat as few coals as possible. We often had potatos like this on our journeys through Australia. But there the sun sets way earlier so mostly we ate in the dark - I don´t know how much coal we gobbled down as well...
Yuckiest thing to eat there were mosquitos. It was in Coral Bay, Western Australia. We had Baked Beans with Corned Beef. The Mosquitos were very agressive so we put on Bushman insect repellent (please turn on the sound, if you click the link - internet is really wonderful...). Too tough for the mosquitos so they attacked the beans. Beans have skin, too.
´Til we realized it we had eaten some of the mosquitos, yuck!

Strange thing yesterday evening was this: It was a Monday so actually I shouldn´t have been in Ingos place at all. Ingo prefers to be alone on "normal" Mondays so visitors are not likely to show up.
But anyhow his parents suddenly were there.
I haven´t seen them for years and it was a strange situation since they tried to act as if this gathering was one of the most normal things.

But good to see they are fit - they were on their bikes, riding along.

xmas in Perth

I think I have it! I went directly via Qantas and I haven´t found anything less expensive elsewhere yet.
Presumably we leave on the first of December and go back on the 28th of December. In January flights with Qantas are available only to Singapore, no further since it´s peak.
No New Year's eve in Perth again. But, well. It´s not possible for me to plan a year in advance with the holiday stuff.

When I have the flight for sure, I book the cabin. I made a phone call at the Kingsway Tourist Park and they have cabins left. We want to go there again, because we know the environment: A Transperth bus-station is right in front, the Kingsway shopping center is right around the corner - and Chicken Treat as well :-)

I am so happy :-)

Now I have to plan what to do in Perth. I´m excited :-)