Change Of Blog-Title? An Era Ends

 

Sad... or for two people happy news:

 

 

"Fertig haben" means "we´re done" and relates to a very powerful speech of soccer-coach Giovanni Trapattoni from 1998...  you can see it here, if you like. But you need to understand German with a heavy Italian accent 🤣

No, I have to put it in here, I can always laugh my head off!

He is good (no soccer-fan here, but he speaks of .. yells of being a TEAM!)

The "subtitles" are total nonesense as they just give away what he says, no the German "translation"... if you understand German this is like really funny, and so sweet.

See the camera-guy grinning in the end, LOL.

 

This is a classic!!!

 

 

Since I was 14 years old I ordered a "Ten without ham" - no idea of the real name of this pizza anymore, I loved it except for warm ham (I love it now).

So many memories of also having the pizza inside with family and friends...

 

When I still lived in my hometown or came for a visit I often ordered this.

When Family visited...
 

(Pic: our former apartment)

My Bro knew the phone number by heart and once even my Mum called them and ordered a "Ten without ham" - #10 was something different since who knows when but they answered, "can get cold, right, goes to Braunschweig, right?"

(it´s a 60km-drive plus search for a parking space, that takes a while)

 

When I came in personally to get it they always gave me proud smiles. 

Not really Italian, though Nico is Italian, but they made it for the German gusto.

And I grew up with it:

 

 

Hmmm.... so sad I didn´t have it in ages.

I could always eat only one half.

 

Bro said in these last days there was always a long queue, offered anyways to get me one, but how get it to Braunschweig - he has too much to do. 

 

I wrote a postcard to Da Nico, saying thank you.

 

Do you have some of those, too?

Restaurants from your early years and you nearly cry upon such news?

 

Nico never learned proper German to speak but understood.

Reckon they now go back to beautiful Italy (his wife is German).

 

They must´ve earned either a lot of money or look super-young and are old...

I didn´t expect retirement so soon. 

 

I will never again have a Ten without ham. 

I think I keep the title in honor of them, my hometown and family....

 

Still a sad thought. 

 

 (Pic from internet)

 

Also no more cherries from my family´s garden as Bro had to cut down both cherry-trees... with which I join River´s Art and Dinner Date: Fruit... 

Fading memories....

Henry 🦁

Yes, Baby...

Two Tens Without Ham

And Someone made her first steps by herself yesterday!

So I went to Bro´s place yesterday to get... two pair of glasses.
And "ordered" a third one cause it looked so great!

The sales-"girls" P and S were there, it was like back then, hugs and coffee, nice.
Gotta get them the cute crocs for their... ? Grankids, I suppose.

I then ordered "two tens without ham" cause Bro wanted one also.
When I went to get them Nico´s wife said, they go to Braunschweig? - I told her that this time only one half goes, the rest is for now.
Till next time, she said, with a proud smile.
We shared one pizza, cause there was left-over soup for Bro, so I took a whole ten without ham home! One half tonight, the other tomorrow, yum!

Little Niece later looked rather sceptical at the croc in the wardrobe.
Bummer, just the other day they saw a DVD with a mean dino... what were the chances, huh?

The juggling-toy was not the big hit (yet), either... (full pics/video for friends again here)

Whilst the big Niece was shy for a short while the wee one is all smiles.

She can communicate well, too - take pics of me and show me, was a clear instruction!
I got the cutest Sis-pic :-)

She also can "roll" the dice and understands pretty much already - she´s one year four months only!

On how tall are you? little Niece threw up her hands to show,. so dang cute!

And then... she got up. Fell again, got up. And there they were: The very first steps by herself, and I have it on cam/video - wow!
She was so proud of herself! Awww :-)

Big Niece offered to help with showing the taken pics and tried to use the cam like a smartphone. Ha, nooo, "old fashioned" cam, but she got that quickly, too.

Despite the cold weather we went for a walk and Little Niece really fell asleep!

Later we played games, had fun and yikes! It was late already!

Niece refused again to say good-bye (in hope I stay? Haven´t we´ve been through that successfully?)
But lille Niece waved "good-bye" happily for the entire time I got dressed (winter-clothes - ummm.... anyhows, huh? ;-)...)

I managed to get home with the last light, nightblind-me.
And even found a place to park the car in our quarter, yay!

This is my loot, btw, one bifocal, one for reading/computer only:

See the crown with his initials Bro stamped in there, great idea, love it (our last name is translated "Emperor").

Was so good to see them all!

Fire Danger Today...

You know how it is. You see something, again and again and always think: Gotta take a pic - but you just don´t until...
it´s too late.
As with the huge "ads" for safe driving where exploited cars from bad accidents were integrated.
We never took a pic - and suddenly there were no more.

Fire danger was always on "extreme" around Derby in 1995... this is finally when I took a pic before the signs disappeared altogether.

But now we´re not in Australia, we´re in Germany.
And we have a problem:

Ingo´s wedding-ring is too large.
Talked to Bro this week and plan was to come over tomorrow around 10 and he´ll take care of it and also do the long overdue engravings (our fault, we never showed up so far).
Bonus: Great weather predicted!

Bonus?
As said, we´re in Germany.
We have regulated near to everything.

We have "Brenntag", also known as "Verordnung über die Beseitigung von pflanzlichen Abfällen durch Verbrennen außerhalb von Abfallbeseitigungsanlagen" an "order" for when and how to get rid of plant remains.

And on short notice, aka yesterday, the city informed this will be Saturday, the last time this year.
Reason why last time? No idea....

Bro has to take care of two gardens. Amongst a huge branch of our old family cherry-tree:

(He did this himself, with the help of one man!)

So, tomorrow....

Ok, that was somewhere on the route in 1995, but the outcome is the same.
We won´t go see Bro tomorrow, how sad.
I also was already looking forward to bring home a... see blog-title!

Awww, well.
But, oh, by golly...

For the sake of our old Holden... who also took us to....

... Windorah...

Germans, Windorah... here it´s in the news, that stupid German guy who got lost, made heaps of people search for him and was brought to Windorah.
Pic in the news: A jungle.
Outch.

The Real Thing, Ways And Flapping Around

First things first: This is the real thing, the re-name-giver of this blog. Some things changed since I asked for advice for the new title, but here it is, a hot half "Ten Without Ham", looks much yummier than cold, right? Tastes way better, too.

Why I do know this? At work we don´t even have a microwave, so I had the other half (brekkie and lunch) cold (due to having the other piece of the yummiest Döner for dinner the night before).

Oh, work btw, wanna join me, now that the days are getting longer? No worries, I really, really have my eyes on the road and just click randomly, plus, I´m not speeding anyways...

Just after village Dibbesdorf at around 05:45:

After village Lehre, I know... but I love pics against the sun!:

After I left the highway, direct way to Wolfsburg:

On the way to my office, 4th floor:

Inside no pics are allowed. Despite we´re just IT! But, if customer Volkswagen says so, he says so, right?

Way back to the highway:

Ahhhh, all green!
And on the highway, this is also why I am thankful I´m allowed to start - and end early - little traffic!
Stop and go 2 hours later!

I´m not just allowed to start that early, I´m also allowed to work at least 30 minutes extra every day and have one day per month off on that :-)

Best teamleader ever, I tell ya!

Well guess summer is really on it´s way, got a postcrossing-card from 200-something km away:

We all feel hungry for summer over here!

So more dramatic the situation in the east of Germany and beyond!
They experience the worst flooding partially since the last - not kidding - 400 years.
2002 was a very bad flooding down there, some villages literally wiped off the map, rebuilt again and now... it´s sad, but frankly... you cannot change nature (rivers in this case) and expect being safe.
Nature is stronger than us.

To top it off for those people: Very likely they will have to fight a plague of mossies. And I mean plague... Imagine that. You lost your home, all the stinking mud and being pricked like crazy on top by them.

Lucky us. River Oker is going back again.

The flapping around?
We had to rebook the flight to Perth to make more time, our fault in the first place.
It was confusing and didn´t work.

Last week we got the wrong flight again via "paper-"mail.
A phone call later we got the right flight.
But no confirmation via paper. So I e-mailed them.
What did I get? Wrong flight again. I asked back.

Yesterday I got another e-mail with a document from the travel agency, "Dear Mr. S...." . Flight is on 7th!

Yah 07.07., not 07.11.
The moment I already hang in line another e-mail arrives, confirming 07.11., having a link, saying you can print out the data.
Good thing I got an agent on the phone, he confirmed it´s an e-ticket and valid at the airport to get your real ticket. Why can´t they describe that properly in the e-mail? Why paper the first time (with wrong data) - he didn´t know.
Furthermore disturbing: The link shows the always actual data... ummm... what does that mean??? Can it change?

Let´s hope for the best!

Some funny/weird things to end with, first the weird one: Remember that weird, closed shop we pass every Monday on the way back home? Eww, another weird thing put in:

And I got a new T-Shirt.

I ordered it 2 weeks ago and forgot to take the bill on Monday. No worries the guys know us by now.
Anyhows the sales guy put a washing instruction in the bag just yet again.
Me: "I throw the paper away then."
He: "???!!!!!!"
Me: " The receipt I forgot at home!!!"
He: "Oh, sure! :-)"

Ok, summer, now come along, I wanna wear this new T-Shirt! 20.5 C is not enough!

No more baby-steps!

Brought The Lot

Last Sat Ingo had to work. Eek. First time!
So I got up and was about to drive to my Mum.

Hmmm, what to wear???
Yes, I do care about that!
The orange Sweater? I grabbed it. It said:



"avec toi", "with you". I never saw it before, though I wore that one more than once! Well, so it was it! :-)



Fits to my glasses, too, no? :-)

Well. My Mum is still in a lot of pain with her back, it was hard to see.
But she tried to keep a good mood.

And, my there are coincidences, it´s weird at times!

That week on Tuesday Ingo and I went to the city (Monday we were still too groggy from the journey back from Cuba) and bought a ... hmmm, what do you call that "bucket"? We call it Sektkühler, to cool sparkling wine. We saw it by strolling around.



Now, I haven´t seen my family since Christmas, hence my Mum had a (very belated) B-Day-Pressie for me! She told me on the phone already, saying hmmm, I have to drive to Goslar to get it, hope you like it!

I´m a very bad liar, so I very much hoped I´ll like it!!!

And I did!

It was champagne glasses!
But not some glasses, no!

At my Bro´s civil marriage the town gave sparkling wine in glasses that had the town´s emblem. Since Seesen is near Braunschweig, it has the Lion, too.
I loved them and said, wow, how cool is that?!

Mum heard me saying it and later went to ask if you can buy them.
Nope.

Mum is clever. (Without internet) she found out where the next glaziery is, aaaand, voilà:






She ordered three for me, cause I´m known to be clumsy... Heck, I don´t wanna know what they cost!!!

For in case I didn´t like them, she bought a steak-pan that is suitable for induction field as well. And gave it to me on top!

Ingo made use of it immediately:



I got furthermore some fancy soap and strawberries.

Oh, Mum!!! :-)

(Certainly I got a Pizza as well, yummmm)

See this car?



My Mum does this.
Bro can do it, too.
(the main-door is to the right)

I got my father´s genes, not a chance to park a car like that!

My... aren´t those glasses (and the thought behind it) just beautiful?

Addendum... if you wonder why there is no pic of my Mum... she refuses to let me take one! And I understand.

Live To Ride - So Fashionable

Ride To Live!



So, today we decided to go to our old place and take a ride on the Moped - the only one, I suppose, season is over now, I guess.

Some impressions, turn on the sound:







Other... my dear Bro is so fashionable, what do you think?
(Clicking to enlarge is really worth it!)



Nah, he collects all glasses from the 70´s and 80´s and sends them to some artist who actually even pays for them:



This is how the guy really looks like :-)



Addendum: My Bro is an Optometrist and those glasses are old ones that have not been sold. Spectacle frames they are, really.
Old glasses with spectacle-lenses that are given back to him always go to Africa where someone (looks like he made a time-warp-jump from the old times and looks a bit weird) and can at least see a bit better...

And you can probably guess it. I came home with another 10 without ham!!! 4 days in a row, yum!

Not YET Again

... said Ingo.

Oh, but... I have to share. Just yet again. Because it´s so-so-so yummy:



Y.U.M.

Sadly, certainly, that was yesterday night. The second half. Had the first on Sat. Hmmm... "Memories".... my tastebuds just scream for more (and luckily I can´t fulfill that. My, I might weigh a ton! Though, no. I "survived" living in that (yummy) place for 18 years without going for a ton ;-)...)

Have today off work, yay! 25 C outside, sunny. Maybe go back "home" for a trip on the moped. Maybe just relax.

Traditional

Yesterday we went to our old place. Ingo´s parents had messed up their computer and I was in for just a visit - and a 10 without ham, for sure. Had one half yesterday and look forward to the other half tonight - YUM!

My Bro and his soon-to-be-wife really do live beautifully in the country - they even have a garden. I went home with yummy tomatoes and some sunflowers - some are over 2,80 m tall!



Well, people now contact me due to plans considering the wedding, one friend was about renting a horse-carriage for them but I just talked to my Mom and she said, naaah. All very traditional: My Bro has a friend as a chauffeur and the Bride will be taken to church by her Father.
My. I never knew my Bro was so deep into traditions - or is it maybe her?

Anyhows. I got a new - a real chain - for my King-Frog and Ingo makes me an easy-to-use closure again - see the man at work (the King is high above) :-)