Berlinfusion

Insomnia

It's past 3am and I cannot sleep.

I have tried. I went to bed at about 1.30am, read a little and turned out the light. And just lay there, mind whirring.

It didn't help that I was cold. I can't sleep when my feet are cold - I think I need bed-socks; nice, soft cashmere ones.

Anyway, after an hour or so of lying there I decided to get up and try to download some of the stuff whizzing around in my head. I can't see the point of just staying in bed, getting more frustrated when sleep avoids me. Better to get up and divert myself another way. It's no warmer downstairs, by the way, so I have a pair of (normal) socks on and a blanket over my knees. My hands are cold now.

One of the reasons for the whizzy head is that I've been trying to write a commissioned article about living through the earthquake in Japan. Naturally this has raised a lot of ghosts; emotions and feelings buried for a while have come to the surface. Add to this the frustration of wondering how much information to put into the article and then the frustration of having to remove a lot of it as I've gone over the 1,000 word count quite considerably. It has to be sent off this week - the earlier the better, in my opinion. Hopefully I shall finish that tonight so it will be removed from my mental to-do list.

Other items on this sleep-preventing list include:

• A couple of other articles to finish this week
• Collate all the research / write my book
• Study for my graphic design course, dreadfully behind on that.
• Learn German
• A never-ending and mountainous pile of ironing
• Rhiannon starts school tomorrow and we will find out if they really are going to teach in German and if so, how will she cope?
• If she doesn't cope, what shall we do? There are three other recommended schools here, one doesn't appeal and the other two follow the International Baccalaureate programme. Need to sort that out before she heads into Secondary school; which impacts on where she will go to school in the UK after we leave here; which impacts on where we may end up living... argh!
• Clean the house
• Tidy the house properly. Put remaining crap away - yes, there are still unpacked items with no home yet. Most of them are in the spare room; many are here, awaiting 'filing'
• Clear out the spare room
• Make spare room attractive ready for Mum's arrival
• Mum's coming to stay next week for a fortnight
• What to do to entertain Mum?
• Plan what to do with the garden. See above...! Mum's going to help, yay!
• Knit. I can't knit much beyond purl and knit scarves, but I really, really want to be able to do it neatly and effortlessly. One day perhaps I can knit my own bedsocks...
• Rhiannon's birthday. Every year this catches me out. Why? Well, it seems to appear too rapidly after school starts. We're so geared up to the start of the new school term that suddenly we tune in to her constant comments about her "party" in October. What party?
• Where to hold Rhiannon's party? I swore a while back that I would never, ever hold her party at home again. But when you are new to a country, you have no idea where or even if there are any places for a kid's party. She wants a Harry Potter party. At home. Oh my god.

Well, that's where I'm at right now. I've downloaded some of the crap in my brain, but I'm nowhere nearer sleep. And I haven't resolved anything. So I shall sign off here and go back to removing 200 words from my Japanese earthquake article.

Goodnight / good morning!

 

Back from Holiday!

Hello again!

Well, I've returned from our 'holiday' in the UK. Five weeks we were there, hence the alphabet soup you were forced to read while I was away.

I put the word 'holiday' in quotes as, to be frank, it's never really a proper break for me. I like my holidays to be a little more exotic than England and to include hotel breakfasts and pampering opportunities. Besides, Tim was working for the first three weeks of the trip. Still, I had a great time catching up with adorable friends, visiting much-loved familiar places and enjoying British food.

We drove to the UK. It was an extremely long journey. On the outward trip we took it easy and stayed in a hotel on the German / Dutch border. What a fabulous find that was! Completely dog-friendly. Kita was able to sleep in our room and come with us to the restaurant for dinner and breakfast. She also saw rabbits for the first time...

On our return to Berlin last week,  we drove all the way in one very long day. We left my Mum's home at 0730, caught the Eurotunnel train and then motored through France, Belgium, Holland and Germany, arriving in Berlin 14 hours later.

Rhiannon has declared she never, ever wants to travel by car to the UK again.

Where we stay there is little or no internet connection so I've had a very relaxing time away from the computer. It's something I force myself to accept as it is the only way for me to properly switch off and it gives my brain time to think and ponder. I was very tense before this break; very. Now I am less so. Not entirely happy-go-lucky, but better placed to think clearly about life, the universe and everything.

There is still a week left of Rhiannon's summer holiday. Roll on term time! I have a few articles to write this week so need to knuckle down to work. Juggling writing and a chatty, entertainment-hungry child is nigh on impossible so I anticipate a lot of late night scribblings this week. That's OK as I seem to have developed rampant insomnia.

I'll be back in a few days once my dreadline has passed. Then I'll fill you in on some of our UK adventures.

Hope's Nose, Torquay

Zzzzzz

Yay! The last letter of the alphabet has arrived. All I need to do now is schedule them all and go and catch some zzzzzz's myself. I reckon I should be in bed by 4am. Oh joy!

Zeitgeist.

Well it's a wonderful word and I had to use it in here somewhere. Embrace the word.

Zeitgeist - "The spirit of the times / the trend of thought and feeling in a period"

 

That's all.

Normal blogging will recommence in a few days.

Thank you!

 

 

Why?

Why did I start this? It's 3am and I haven't even started to schedule these 26 posts...

Yes.

When in a new place, say "yes" to every invitation you can possibly attend.

Sometimes it doesn't work out.

Sometimes it does, with interesting consequences.

Often it's wonderful.

Perhaps you may regret it.

But say "yes" anyway.

 

X marks the spot

eXpat.

(Sorry!) We are expats. We hope to be serial expats and move somewhere other than back to the UK after our posting here ends in four years. I doubt this will happen, but it would be great if it did.

Rhiannon is an expat child who has lived overseas for more than half her life.

I am writing a book about expat life.

Watch this space!

 

 

What begins with W?

Wild Boar.

These creatures are fairly common here. I haven't encountered one yet, but our arrival notes (hints and tips and information) said to make sure they can't get into your garden as they make a dreadful mess of it. No kidding!

Yes, I'd like to see one: no I don't want to see one too closely, thank you very much. I hear they are rather dangerous!

Writing.

It's what I do. A lot. Word counts are the bane of my life as I tend to write too much as you have undoubtedly noticed!

And lets not mention deadlines. Or dreadlines as I refer to them...

 

V for...

Visa Card.

What a strange and awkward discovery it was to find that very, very few stores here accept any kind of credit card.

When we first arrived we had no bank account here - and that took an inordinate amount of time to open too. So we had to buy a lot of stuff, mostly electrical equipment.

And it all had to be paid for in cash as the shops don't take Visa. They do take something called an EC card, which thankfully we now have. But for quite a while, shopping for essentials was nigh on impossible.

Ummm...

Running out of ideas for the post titles now...

Unpacking.

Such a long, laborious job. And I still haven't really finished.

We had 107 boxes shipped from Tokyo. It was like Fort Knox for a while and took ages to clear.

 

T-t-t-tired

Tired.

I'm very tired now. I'm writing this post at 2.30am the night before we head off to the UK for the first time in two years.

Why am I doing this? Well, to keep Berlinfusion going while I'm away for a start. It was also planned as a way of downloading some random thoughts but as usual, my time-management got away from me so I'm reduced to plodding on at silly-o'clock.

I can't blog while I'm in the UK because a) I can't get internet anywhere I'll be staying. Yes, there are still homes in Britain with no computer! And b) I want to get on with writing my book so don't need the distraction of the interweb.

Tea.

I need tea. Lots of tea. Making it is easy with one of these fabulous inventions.

I'm going to get another cup now...

S'not far now!

School.

An ongoing story... Read more here:

Rhiannon's opinion on her new school.

School Uniform - typically the company I ordered this from now ships internationally. Better late than never. But the post shows the incredible power of social media and the wonderful kindness of someone I've never met apart from online.

And Rhiannon has left one of them at school over the summer holidays. Grrr!

The latest news on a bombshell dropped by the school.

 

 

 

Arrrr

Rules.

There's a saying: "In Germany everything is forbidden until it is permitted".

Read this post for further details!

 

Queue

Quiet.

It's not that quiet here really. Sorry to keep harping back to Japan, but we were lucky enough to live in a tiny cul-de-sac and it was incredibly peaceful.

Not here though. It's not actually noisy. Well, apart from the building work going on next door I mentioned in my 'N' post. But it is different from what we're used to.

We've had more thunderstorms in the past couple of months than in our entire four and a half years in Tokyo. I love thunderstorms! Fireworks are set off from time to time. I don't like fireworks.

And OMG, we're back in a football-loving country. Ugh. Apparently the Women's World Cup tournament was held here which meant groups of drunken revellers could be heard making their way home late at night.

Again, something to get used to.

"I'll have a 'P' please, Bob"

Public Holidays.

Japan had squillions of public holidays - but at least the shops never closed.

I truly cannot get used to everything closing on Sundays and public holidays. I have never lived anywhere where I can't buy an emergency pint of milk on these days. It means that Saturdays are usually spent dashing around doing compulsory shopping-type activities (as opposed to happy Carole-type shopping).

Easter was a revelation. I've never 'done' Easter so to see so many Easter-related traditions around was unusual. Plastic eggs were hung on trees, shops and malls had eggstravgant yellow displays everywhere. Including real bunnies!

Christmas will be fascinating.

Pollen.

There's far too much of this sneaky allergen around. My newly developed hayfever season has lasted a long time.

At one point in early summer, everything was coated with a layer of yellow. Atchoo!