Berlinfusion

The Magic Bus

What a difference a simple discovery makes.

I've a few events I need to find my way to in the coming months. So I've been looking online for help as there's precious little to be had in real life. And help I found! In the form of a clever website called the BVG Journey Planner. Just put in the street address where you live, add your destination which can be as simple as a place of interest such as a museum, and search. A detailed list comes up telling you which bus to catch, which station to disembark and underground train connections. It's amazing! It even tells you how long it takes to walk to the bus stop.

I really don't like travelling by train, so managed to find simple bus connections to most places I need to visit. Not only that, but often I can stay on one bus for the entire journey. This makes travelling around Berlin so much simpler and I wish I'd found this website a lot sooner. It would have made my isolation less depressing and much easier to deal with.

I was extolling these website virtues to our neighbours last week and they called a certain bus 'The Magic Bus' as it seems to take you everywhere of importance.

So this past week I climbed aboard the Magic Bus. And it was fantastic!

I'd decided to take a trip to Galeries Lafayette. Just to see what it was like.

My BVG website instructions were to catch the Magic Bus from the end of my road and get off at Checkpoint Charlie. Yes, that's right! Checkpoint Charlie; that familiar name from the Cold War, the crossing point between East and West Berlin.

It was a strange sight, that's for sure. The original shack was destroyed but there's a replica in it's place with fake soldiers yawning for the tourists.

I took some photos with my phone (and then spent nearly two days trying to find the cable so I could transfer them onto my PC.)

Apparently this is the Last Kremlin Flag...

The famous sign as seen from the "West".

And the same sign as seen from the "East".

Unfortunately, the pictures I took of the checkpoint hut didn't come out, but I was amused to see that the first building in the "American Sector" was... McDonalds, of course!

So after this rather unexpected trip back in time, I walked up the long, straight road to Galeries Lafayette.

Checkpoint Charlie was the best experience of the day. Galeries Lafayette was a disappointment, so I retraced my steps back to the Magic Bus and headed home.

I felt infinitely better about our new home for having found my way around all by myself. Having a feeling of independence certainly makes life a lot easier.

 

Dawn Chorus

We all got up at 5am yesterday.

Tim and Rhiannon have gone to the UK for half term and their flight left at silly-o'clock. I am staying here to look after the pets.

It was COLD. About 2 degrees C at that time of day. Frost decorated cars left on the street and some of the fallen autumn leaves.

We've put some bird feeders outside "my" window - the one nearest my computer looking out over my Japanese garden.

I stared out of the window into the darkness, hugging my morning cuppa and enjoying the peace and quiet of an empty house. It took a long while to get light but I could hear a few birds singing.

As soon as the sun peeked over the horizon birds came into the garden. Most visitors were Great Tits, Coal Tits, Blackbirds and Jays.

But then I was thrilled to see a beautiful Crested Tit taking a drink from my granite bowl.

On the big tree, a Lesser Spotted Woodpecker arrived for breakfast.

And the pièce de résistance, a very smart Hawfinch paid a visit! I've wanted to see one of these ever since I was a child looking through my Dad's bird books.

Aren't they gorgeous? Nature is wonderful.

Unfortunately my camera didn't have a battery in it, so these photos come courtesy of Wikipedia.

And I don't think any of these were the "screecher" from the other night...

 

 

 

Things that go Screech in the Night

Late last night a blood-curdling screech ripping through the dark outside couldn't fail to grab my attention.

At first I thought it was a cat fight, but when the loud, eerie shriek repeated, I realised it was not a cat, but some other creature. Unfortunately I've heard enough cat fights, thanks to bruiser Raymi, to recognise the awful racket they produce.

It wasn't a fox. Again, I've heard plenty of fox serenades in my life. Although Tim did see his first ever fox earlier in the evening! There are plenty around; I've even seen one walk casually down the road in broad daylight.

There are supposed to be raccoons here too, but I've not seen them and I don't know what noise they make. And I didn't think it could have been a wild boar. At least, I sincerely hoped it wasn't!

So what on earth was it?

I went out in the garden to see if I could see anything. My dressing gown and slippers weren't the ideal attire for nature-spotting at 11.30pm in temperatures of 4 degrees C.

It screamed again. Now I was able to pinpoint the location: high up in our tall beech tree. It must be a bird.

What birds make such a noise at night? Owls!

But it wasn't a "twit-twoo" sound. Barn owl? They are also known as Screech Owls, and for good reason. But again, this wasn't a Barn Owl sound - it was too loud and deep, and a different format altogether.

It sounded like a steroid-enhanced Barn Owl trying to make a noise like an Long Eared Owl.

But it definitely was not a Barn Owl.

Perhaps it was a banshee?

I hope I hear it again tonight.

Scheiße!

While in the kitchen earlier I semi-noticed a large truck parked outside. As I'm not firing on all cylinders at the moment, I paid no more attention to it and carried on with my day.

All was calm. I was sorting out some papers and the dog was snoozing on the sofa when there was a loud, gurgling sound from the downstairs toilet; a place I'd just visited...

Kita sounded the alarm as she knew there was nobody else in the house and it certainly sounded like someone was flushing the toilet.

So I went to have a look.

The floor and walls were awash!

I approached the bowl to see what was going on down there. No, I have no idea what I was expecting to see, to be honest, but I got an eyeful of the worst sort.

Just as I drew close the noise happened again and the toilet erupted like a fountain of evilness.
Right in my face.

EEEEEWWW!

So the lorry outside was doing some sort of drain or sewage cleaning. The only swear word I know in German is "Scheiße" but thought it a bit pointless to shout that at the sewage workers.

The now house stinks to high heaven so all the doors and windows are open. It's cold.

I've washed the floor, walls and mats and disposed of the drowned toilet paper.

I have had a long soak in the bath.

It was bad. But would it have been worse if it had happened while I was sitting on the toilet?

 

Karaoke Party for Kids

My ears are bleeding. Bleeding, I tell you!

Saturday was Rhiannon's 10th birthday party. She wanted a karaoke party. As I will do anything to avoid having a party at home I agreed to this request.

Now this was easy to organise last year in Japan; basically because someone else organised it for me... but also because Japan is, of course, the home of karaoke. This year it wasn't so easy.

Somehow I managed to do it though. From extensive Google searches I discovered a venue called Green Mango. Heartened by an English language website I entered into email discussions with them.

There was an initial major panic when they told me they couldn't confirm until two weeks before the event, but it all went ahead as planned.

Green Mango is an excellent venue that I can highly recommend. I can imagine an adults night out would be an absolute scream. It's very large and there is plenty of seating around tables, a good sized stage, many thousands of songs to choose from and the event is led by a DJ / compere. For kid's parties they lay on food and a cake too. Everything was taken care of; all Tim and I had to do was welcome the guests and sit back.

It only dawned on me on Saturday morning that we were to be there for four hours. Four whole hours of listening to children attempt to sing along to songs they don't really know. I know this from last year's party.

Four hours!

But we survived. However, I'm only just returning to 'normal' today after a weekend of drifting around in a daze.

And if I ever hear certain songs again I shall not be responsible for my actions.

I often joke that my sole reason for becoming a 'stay at home mum' was so I could influence Rhiannon's taste in music. All these years have been utterly wasted though. I'm devastated. Rather than a penchant for rock, punk, and other good music, Rhiannon is showing a scary tendency towards candy pop. Where she has picked this up I do not know. I suspect school and the bus journey where they listen to Kiss FM (Berlin's version, not the UK).

Her taste now is so middle of the road she's in danger of being run down. JLo, and, god help me, those freaks Jedward, feature in her musical life. It's so depressing.

The karaoke was the backing track only with lyrics, which makes it hard for anyone to sing - without the accompanying vocals to sing along to. Add nine and ten year olds with little rhythm and tone to the mix and the result is frankly dreadful. Caterwauling doesn't quite cover the pain we had to endure.

And the hysterics when they realised what they were singing! They're at an age when they're beginning to understand about relationships and so on. Some of the lyrics were fairly explicit. And some even had swear words in! Oh, the horror on their faces when they saw "f***" or "s*x" appear on the screen. Yes, the words were starred out, but they knew what they meant.

It was funny. For a while.

But the thing with kids is that they do like to repeat themselves. This meant the same song was tortured again and again. And again. And the songs were bad enough to start with.

I never, ever want to hear this again:

Bruno Mars - "The Lazy Song". Rather worryingly, it seems to be the school "song"...

 

There are more, but my ears are rebelling due to having to look for this one. I am aurally exhausted.

The kids had a great time though, and that's what it's all about.

And it's all over now. Until next year.

 

This Year's Birthday Cake

Today got off to an early start thanks to the birthday girl. She set her alarm clock for 6am so she could open her presents before going to school.

Oh joy.

We gave her a couple of gifts to open and made her wait until after school to open the others. Apparently she's got a "good school day" today - two hours of art then auditions for the Christmas play, Wind in the Willows.

I saw her off to school and walked the dog. Rather than go back to bed as I dearly wished, I set about dealing with her birthday cake.

Oh dear. I'd forgotten to plan ahead and check my ingredients.

I'd forgotten to take any more butter out of the freezer so "only" had an 8oz block with which to make the butter icing. Never mind, I'd also misjudged the amount of icing sugar required too as there was barely enough to make this amount.

I set the mixer whizzing away making a very soft butter-cream. I decided on pink icing... but discovered somebody had used most of my red food colouring making slime. When I tipped in the colour the mixer did one of those kick-back moves and red splashed onto my new, cream jumper.

No, I wasn't wearing an apron because it was hanging on the back door and had been trapped when that door had been used... and locked... I couldn't find the key. Luckily, the finish on my jumper repelled the colour and I managed to remove it with kitchen roll. Phew!

How about yellow? No, that's almost empty too. I tipped it in anyway which had no effect on the colour (cheap colours) but a disastrous effect on the consistency. The icing was nowhere near stiff enough to stay on the cake let alone pipe.

Hmm. I switched off the mixer to ponder the dilemma.

Just in time to hear the phone ringing. It rang off just as I got to it but recognised the number and called back.

It was Mum, calling for a chat and to tell me she'd booked her flights over to us for Christmas. While recounting to her my morning so far I had a brainwave.

Add cocoa powder! This would make the mixture stiffer and, even though the effect wouldn't be as attractive, at least I could complete the job.

Fishing around in cupboards, I found my piping syringe and started. It's a small contraption so needs filling far too often.

The doorbell rang - postman.

Started again. I managed to get the top of the cake done... and then the syringe broke. Briefly I considered making a piping bag, but realised I had no greasproof paper or sensible clingfilm.

So I gave up and am now sitting here with a well-deserved cuppa.

The kitchen looks like an explosion in a cake factory. I'll clear it up in a moment. After another cup of tea.

Here's the cake. I'm not hugely impressed with it, but I will make sure I double check all my ingredients next time.

 

Baking Maths

I am not particularly good at maths. It took me three attempts to pass my 'O' level. Which makes it rather ironic that I spent a good part of my career working in banking.

Anyway, I don't believe I'm alone in this but there are few mathematical subjects that are actually relevant in everyday life. I've never needed to use trigonometry, for example, and what on earth were matrices all about? Even mathematicians can't really tell me that, by the way.

Algebra, on the other hand, rather scarily, does have a place in the life of a mum... it's the only way to work out the ingredients required for birthday cakes.

I first discovered this during the run-up to Rhiannon's first birthday. I needed to work out the ingredients for a rather elaborate caterpillar cake made from Swiss Rolls. The maths took me all morning, but it was successful. And I was ridiculously pleased with my problem solving skill dredged up from mental filing cabinets last investigated decades ago.

Almost a decade has passed since my first foray into bakery maths and the time has come around again. Rhiannon's 10th birthday is tomorrow and I needed to make cakes to send into school and a birthday cake for, well because you have to, really.

Don't get me wrong, I like baking. As a child I spent every Saturday baking - bread, cakes, biscuits etc. In later years, this has dropped off as nobody seems to eat cake much now. Birthdays are different though. I'm not brilliant at decorating the cake, but it's fun.

Bakery maths involves a pen and paper (I can never find a calculator), a ruler (to measure the tins) and the recipe (a standard sponge cake). Then find out which size round tin the recipe applies to and extrapolate that to the non-standard tin. Easy! Hah!!

The school cakes are a traybake (chocolate dominoes) and the main birthday cake is a giant cupcake for which I'd bought a tin some time back.

So I needed to know the area of a circle, the area of a rectangle and and and... argh!

After much brainwork, I worked out that I'd need 11 eggs (!) and bake three cakes.

I've used four packs of butter, two boxes of icing sugar and, of course, the 11 eggs. And the main cake isn't yet iced; that's a job for tomorrow. I'm exhausted!

If it turns out OK, I'll post a picture of the birthday cake.

For now, here's one I made earlier... as in about three years ago.

 

 

 

Making Changes

My "New Year" starts in September, not January. It must be a fall back to those long-distant school days. Although I loathed school, and my school-days certainly weren't the best days of my life, I still have fond memories of buying a new pencil case each new school year and filling it with fresh goodies.

It seems to be a universal phenomenon; various glossy magazines ran articles about this during September. I always thought it was just me!

So when Rhiannon starts back to school in September, I go into overdrive trying to "sort out my life". It's this time of year that I start new projects, try new things and so on.

My New Year / New Me was slightly postponed this year as Mum came to stay for a fortnight just a week into the new term. It was also delayed a little due to my mood.

It's no secret to my friends that I've found this move unsettling and difficult for various reasons. I found myself on the verge of plunging into depression and resolved to buck myself up before it became fully-fledged. While this attitude (sometimes) works for me, I do realise that it's not a solution for others. Also, I recognised the signs that are relevant to me and was able to catch it in time... I hope.

So. What have I done about it?

Social Media
While we were away in the UK during the summer I was mostly internet-free. I did have my lovely new iPad and 3G to play with but the 3G didn't always work. This meant I was able to break my addiction to social media. I haven't been anywhere near as active on Twitter as I was before the summer. I will get back into that at some point as I find it immensely useful and informative, but the 24/7 habit has been broken.

Facebook remains, for now. It's a great way of keeping in touch with people even though the new layout is irritating and I'm sure certain people have access to my updates even though I think I've made it private.

Forums
I was a member of a few forums - fabulous time-wasting places - but have now whittled them down to occasional peeps at one or two. That was actually very easy to do. I worked behind the scenes for a couple; one work-related one and a parenting one.

Unfortunately, when you have to be on there all the time for work reasons, you see a side of people you really dislike: bitchiness, dishonesty and favouritism. For a long time I've wanted to 'get out', but a misguided sense of loyalty prevailed. Anyway, I have now properly left their clutches and the sense of relief I feel is amazing.

There is a downside to leaving these places though. I no longer have a support network of people living in my computer. Perhaps I have cut of my nose to spite my face, but I truly do not think so.

Work
I can no longer call myself a freelance writer. I have resigned from my two regular jobs.

With the fixed monthly deadlines and several articles to complete each month, it was time to call it a day on this career. For now, anyway. I want to concentrate on trying to settle into my new life. There was so much I missed out on in Japan by having this work that I regret not doing this sooner. Blame the money. Not that it was much, anyway.

I felt quite nervous about telling the employers I'd written my last pieces for them, but I need not have worried. One, the longest running employer, didn't even bother to respond to my email. Nice. The other one was very kind and gracious. I know which one I'll be going back to if I get the opportunity.

There are more changes I've made, but this post is long enough already.

For the first time in eight years, I do not have a deadline to work towards. This is most unsettling, but also extremely freeing.

Procrastination now has a different meaning; it's something I can do without guilt!

Yes, of course I still faff around. But without the accompanying guilt that I should be writing something it becomes almost pleasurable to do some housework. Note, I said almost! I'm still not fully domesticated.

Now, how does the vacuum cleaner work?

 

Autumn is Falling

Autumn is a second spring when every leaf is a flower.  ~ Albert Camus

It's so pretty here at the moment.

Autumn is possibly my favourite season; the weather is getting cooler (although we seem to be having an unseasonal heatwave at the moment) and the colours of the trees are incredible.

Obviously, it helps that throughout September and into October too, the weather has been gorgeous. Sunny and warm with a chilly start and no rain. Remember though, I'm still acclimatised to Tokyo weather, so a chilly start for me may well be warm for many people.

A couple of cold nights a few weeks ago set the leaves on the trees on their colour-changing route. It's stunning. Sunlight beams through translucent leaves, making them glow and shine. What a lovely way to start the day.

Our street is lined with oak trees of various types with deeply cut and very attractive leaves. Some are turning gold, others are glowing ruby and another species hasn't quite changed yet so is still green. It's delightful.  The acorns produced by these unusual oaks are enormous! When they fall, they crash to the ground with a resounding crack.

As they are so large, we are convinced they will damage the car if they fall on it so it's kept cosily shut in the garage at all times. I'm nervous when in the front garden as I think these things will hurt like hell if they fall on my head.

Out in the back garden, our huge beech tree has been depositing vast amounts of beech mast over a wide area. The prickly casings and sharp seeds make it hard for Kita to walk across the lawn, poor girl. We try to keep them cleared up as much as possible, but it's a never-ending chore.

My favourite of all Autumn's treasures are conkers. I've always lived near a Horse Chestnut tree; apart from in Tokyo where they didn't grow at all. I've missed conkers. Their dark, glossy coolness fits perfectly into the hand and are irresistible. Each morning on the dog walk I can't help collect another handful.

They sit in a bowl on the windowsill, going dull and bullet-like, to be refreshed by newly gathered ones each day.

I shall plant some in my garden.

I've Seen It All Now...

...well, nearly all.

We were in the car on our way to a shopping mall a few miles away.

The trip takes us alongside an exhibition centre; a large, grey, nondescript building that has little to see or admire. Normally.

As we approached the traffic lights I spotted something very unusual. I did a double, or triple-take, and blurted out "There's a topless woman crossing the road!"

We couldn't help but drive slowly past as we were making a turn right by her and the traffic was heavy. And moving quite slowly.

The blonde woman was wearing a see-through black negligee around her waist, leaving her very ample and well-proportioned (natural) boobs bouncing out in front of her.

Tim assures me she was wearing a black g-string too, but I can't say I noticed that as her posing to all the traffic was rather distracting.

I wonder how many accidents she caused?

She was actually quite attractive, and not in any way unhinged, as I first thought.

As it turned out there was a big erotica festival called Venus being held at the exhibition centre. I guess she was indulging her exhibitionist side.

I have to admire her confidence! And, rather reluctantly, her figure.

Rhiannon was, and this is the only way I can describe her reaction, gobsmacked.

She didn't know whether to laugh, cover her eyes, stare or scream. Actually she did all four in a very short space of time.

This certainly perked up a dull journey on a very hot day!