Berlinfusion

Just when you think it's safe to make plans...

We’re halfway through our four year posting in Berlin.

Our basic plans at the beginning of our stay here were: Rhiannon would finish her primary and middle schooling here and be ready to join a good senior school when we moved back to the UK.

There was no way the employers would allow us do another back-to-back posting (after moving directly from Tokyo to Berlin), so this plan was pretty concrete.

Concrete crumbles under pressure…

Unfortunately, as reported yesterday, the schools here have not been at all good for Rhiannon (understatement!). She attended two schools in Berlin in less than two years and there is no way that she would be able to get into a school in the UK without a lot of extra tuition to get her up to speed with the British curriculum.

As well as all the issues mentioned in the last post (and more I've not detailed) one of the reasons for going the boarding school route was the worldwide economic climate. This has far-reaching tentacles and Tim’s job was in the balance for a while and we may have been moved back to the UK with no notice. The latter months of last year were very worrying and we felt we had to make a decision to secure our daughter’s healthy future.

Anyway, now she’s in a lovely British boarding school and is doing very well. And Tim's job is safe - for now.

Plans change again!

Amidst all the preparation for this dramatic change of family circumstances, a very unusual and unexpected job opportunity came up for my husband in February. It was unusual because you don’t leave a posting early except under exceptional circumstances.

It was suggested he apply for this job. He had nothing to lose by going for it and everything to gain: a promotion and a chance to escape from Berlin. It’s no secret that we don’t like it here.

But it was a very long shot. And as the weeks passed after the interviews, hope slowly disappeared.

Until Friday 8th March…

We are on the move again!

We are moving to Pretoria, South Africa! Normally we have a year’s notice but this time we’re moving in July! There’s an awful lot to do in a relatively short time.

It’s hard to make plans when life can turn on its head in a few moments. But I am tremendously pleased that we managed to get Rhiannon’s schooling sorted out before this happened. Stability for her is paramount.

Right now I’m not planning further ahead than July. But the days until then are absolutely jam-packed with ‘to do’ lists. It’s quite exhausting.

I may create a new personal blog for South Africa, I haven't decided yet. Currently, Expat Child keeps me more than fully occupied, but I do miss the freedom to write from a purely personal point of view. I do have a little area in the website, unimaginatively called Carole's Blog where I do update occasionally, but I tend to keep it fairly anodyne.

I'll let you know if another blog appears! Perhaps if I think of a spectacular name it will be a reality - what do you think? Any name suggestions for me? So far I've had Japanory and Berlinfusion... what's next?

All change!

Hi! I’m back for a bit of an update for anyone who still reads this blog! (If you’ve wondered where I’ve gone, please take a look here ExpatChild)

Sadly, Rhiannon’s schooling in Berlin turned out to be a total disaster on so many levels.I won’t go into the full, gory details here, but from an academic and personal point of view, school here has been very damaging for her.

Her education suffered greatly due to a number of factors, including a culture here of negativity and criticism with no tempering praise. Her confidence and self-belief has been shattered by this.

Being put up a year was not a good move. Switching curriculums from the British curriculum to the International Baccalaureate wasn’t a good idea either, and unfortunately we discovered this the hard way.

Academically, it wasn’t much of a problem until she moved to Middle School. A few lessons pushed her beyond her limits, but others taught subjects she covered many years ago. Teachers gave no leeway or assistance in subjects where she’d missed out on over a year’s worth of teaching and the pressure mounted. She was expected ‘to know’ and was heavily criticised for not understanding certain things she’d never learned.

On the personal side, she was battling hard to be accepted into a difficult peer group who were older than her. While she has absolutely no problem making friends – at school - the mothers of these friends were unwilling to allow their child to meet her outside of school.

More than once I have heard this killer comment, “There’s no point being friends with her, she'll be leaving soon.”

“Soon?” We’re here for four and a half years! And it’s not just from parents; I’ve had it said to me by teachers too. Unacceptable. The children also picked up on it and repeated it to Rhiannon.

This ‘outlook’ (inlook?) is possibly more prevalent here in Berlin as it’s come up several times. Other parents of expat children say they’ve experienced the same closed-mindedness too. Since writing this post here http://expatchild.com/my-expat-kid/, many, many people have contacted me telling me similar tales, and most of them are expats living in Germany. You have been warned!

In some international schools, the pupil turnover is high, so they are used to the comings and goings of friendships. Here, however, there are actually many more 'locals' than other nationalities in the international schools and it made life pretty tough for her.

On top of all this (and more), there was a spectacular lack of support with regard to some nasty bullying from a disturbed individual.

While on the surface she coped remarkably well, leading to my previous optimistic posts, it all came to a head during October 2012.

We had a decision to make. One thing was clear; she could not remain in that school.

But where now? There was only one other option here in Berlin and we’d heard many poor reports about that school too. Plus, the bullying was not only taking place within school, but online and over the phone too - changing schools again wouldn't solve this.

Rhiannon wanted to go to boarding school in the UK. And we agreed that this would be the best thing for her for many reasons.

I cried for four days solid. I did research, asked advice from a mum of boarders here and pulled out all the stops to extricate her from the damaging environment.

In December 2012 Rhiannon and I flew to the UK for a day (not recommended!) to visit a prep school and fell in love with the place; the teachers were amazing and the children even more so.

That school then pulled out all the stops and offered Rhiannon a place from January 2013. Due to circumstances beyond our control, we couldn’t sort everything out in that short a time, so she started there after the Easter holidays in April.

It’s been a roller-coaster of a journey, but she’s doing remarkably well there. Her education is finally on a stable footing, the children are charming, and educational support is high.

In fact, Rhiannon came out with this, very telling, comment, “Everyone is really friendly and nice. Even the boys are nice and kind. It’s not normal!” I explained that yes, that should be normal – what she’d experienced at the school in Berlin was a long way from normal.

Her confidence and self-belief have rocketed back and her future is looking much brighter than it was last autumn.

We're extremely proud of her and so relieved she's now somewhere stable, encouraging, safe and healthy.

 

I’ll come back with another post in a day or so to fill you in on other news!

Catching Up - Starting School

Goodness knows where this past month or so has gone! Just wanted to post to let you know I'm still around, really. It's all been a whirl of school starting and all that entails.

Rhiannon returned to school at the end of August; early compared to UK schools and late  compared to the German system.

She has started secondary school - or middle school as it's called in this system. It's a bridge between Primary and High School, according to the parent information. She's a year ahead of the UK system, so in English terms she's in Year 7 where by age, she should be in Year 6. Confused? Me too! She is in a class with older kids and is dealing with it with her usual aplomb.

During the first weeks of September my Facebook timeline was full of photographs of my friends' children all togged up in their fresh new school uniforms. And very gorgeous they looked too.

However, it was wonderful for us not to have to spend the latter part of the summer holidays searching for elusive and expensive items of school uniform. I always thought I was pro-uniform, but it turns out I'm not. It makes life so much easier for us - she can wear whatever she wants.

I do have a photo of her on her first day back, but it's not good quality so I won't display it here. Her outfit for the first day back was considered carefully, even though it didn't look it! Purple t-shirt, black kilt worn over leggings and neon pink and black over the knee socks with skulls on. 'Pixie boots' and a pork-pie hat completed the ensemble. The hat has a great badge on it stating "I follow my own dress code". Excellent!

There are no dress rules at all. Well, not many... it turns out they don't like black lipstick and eyeliner on Grade 6's... applied AFTER she left the house, I should add - I had no idea.

Anyway, her school day starts and ends a little later, yay! It also entails having a different teacher for each subject and moving around to various classrooms. It's taken a few weeks to settle into the system and quite a while for her to find her way around. It's a large campus and she gets lost. She's obviously inherited my non-existent sense of direction.

All seems to be going very well indeed.

In other news: I've been working very hard on my new website - Your Expat Child. If you're so inclined, I'd be very grateful if you could join my new page on Facebook.

I'm also attempting to get a little further with my graphic design course. Both of these projects are taking priority right now, hence the lack of updates here.

Must try harder!

 

Very Proud Parents

School has finished now and the summer holidays are here.

Rhiannon graduated from primary school and is looking forward to starting secondary school in a few weeks.

So far, so normal.

However, Rhiannon was placed a year above her age group in this school, so is actually moving to secondary school a whole year ahead of her British educational system peers.

Not only that, the International Baccalaureate is a very different way of learning from that which she is used to. It seems to suit her down to the ground and I hope we can find a school running this system wherever we move next.

She's done very well indeed, especially as she's only been in this school for six months.

We were under the impression that the graduation ceremony was just for show, but we discovered that not all students actually graduated. Some had to redo the whole grade again. How upsetting for them.

We are so pleased with her!

Receiving her Graduation Certificate

After the ceremony, they put on a play: Rhiannon played the lead, something which surprised us as she's not particularly confident in front of an audience. And she had to sing too! Incredible how her confidence has risen now she's in the right school for her.

Triumphant!

And yes, that is the real BB gun we brought back from Poland... oops!

It was a great production and the whole afternoon was very enjoyable.

 

Patriotism and Internationalism

Since arriving in Berlin I seem to have become more patriotic.

Not in a 'Britain is the best country in the world' way, but more, 'Britain has more going for it than I thought over the last few decades.' way.

Perhaps absence does, indeed, make the heart grow fonder. I usually prefer 'out of sight, out of mind', to be frank.

Actually, I think it's more because I'm missing the easiness of life there. The language, the familiarity, the food - how I miss the food! Don't get me wrong, I'm not homesick at all - mainly because I don't like our home over there - but there are aspects of British life I do miss.

Like the food... did I mention the food? I'm looking forward to a full English breakfast (at any time of day) and fish and chips. And clotted cream. And understanding what's on the labels.

We've also had a few problems getting TV programmes since the leaves came out on the trees! The TV just stopped working as the dish couldn't get a signal through the canopy! So Tim relocated the satellite dish to the end of the garden pointing through a slim gap in the woodland and now we can watch all sorts of British television. There's not much on, is there?! We mostly use it to catch up on old programmes that we've missed over the past six years. And quintessentially British programmes such as the Antiques Roadshow.

This patriotic feeling has intensified over recent weeks due to a number of external influences: mainly all the Britain 2012 stuff. With all the Union Flags on display in every online shopping site it's been hard to miss. It's rather a pretty flag, don't you think?

Then came the Queen's Diamond Jubilee. I make no apology for being a staunch royalist so avidly watched all the events over the Jubilee weekend. It was wonderful, although I heartily agree with all the criticism of the appalling BBC coverage.

We also went to a Jubilee party where we had mountains of strawberries, mini scones, a gigantic cake and champagne. That was a very good day.

Meanwhile, Rhiannon's school were planning their annual International Day and I had volunteered to help out on the British stall. I thought there would be a few of us, but no, just two; me and a very nice lady. Over the past few weeks we've been working our Union Jack socks off getting things to display on our stall. Neither of us had ever done this before so had no idea what to expect. We were told to bring our country's special food and wear our country's cultural clothing. Umm... what is Britain's cultural clothing?

I bought hundreds of sweets - Lovehearts and special, tongue-colouring Jubilee sweets. I also spent hours and hours writing a recipe booklet of typically British recipes; created bunting out of pictures of British icons, wrote quizzes, creating a slide show of beautiful photographs of Britain and goodness knows what else. We got some posters from the British Embassy. The other lady baked a ton of Victoria Sponge and a hundredweight of scones and provided flags and bunting.

The Visit Britain poster campaign

Apparently we were also expected to provide Pimm's.

As Pimm's is a British speciality (and one that locals seem to think we always drink) it is naturally impossible to find over here. But we had a breakthrough and found a posh store that sold it. For 20 euros a bottle! We bought one each and diluted it a lot.

International Day was last Saturday. It's a day to celebrate all the nationalities who attend the school. There are a LOT! Thankfully the torrential rain of the previous week  dissipated and the day went well.It was a bit windy and most of our stuff had to be tied down.

So many nationalities had stalls: Canada made maple syrup pancakes (next to our stall, drool!); Mongolia with amazing outfits; Pakistan handed out the most wonderful food and had a fabulously designed stand. Korea gave colourful displays of dancing and drumming and Israel even brought their own beach! And one of my favourite sights of the day was a tiny child playing in the sand in front of their stand, oblivious to her surroundings.

It was exhausting though. And the Pimm's didn't last very long.

So what did I wear? Well, I was in the frame of mind to be rebellious so dressed as a punk. This caused a few raised eyebrows and several comments. What they couldn't quite work out was if I was dressed up or if I normally looked like that. The answer is it was my normal clothing, with added safety pins. Rhiannon also wanted to wear something similar and looked far better than me.

And finally, in the spirit of patriotism, and as a total afterthought, I should mention that other, typically English event... England losing the football on penalties, yet again.

And that is all I shall say on the matter otherwise I shall launch into a mad, anti-football rant. I loathe the game, but Tim's been watching it so I haven't been able to avoid it.

 

Olympic Stadiums

What is the plural of stadium?

I had this dilemma / argument many moons ago when talking about octopuses... as you do. I learned that octopus is a Greek word so doesn't take the 'i' ending, unlike 'cacti'.

However, cactus is a Latin word derived from Greek so... I'll stop now before my brain explodes!

Therefore, I believe the plural of stadium is 'stadiums' because the word is Greek. If it was Latin, then the plural would be 'stadia'. Or stadii?

 

Anyway...

 

I've learned far more about stadiums in the past couple of months than I ever needed to know. I've even been to visit the one here in Berlin. This is not normal for me. So what's been going on?

Rhiannon is in her final few weeks of primary school. By age, she should have another year to go, but she was placed up a year in her new school so is finishing primary school at the begining of July.

The school she attends now runs the International Baccalaureate curriculum and, at the end of the Primary Years Programme, the students create and run an 'exhibition'.

This is a Big Event for the students and is the culmination of nearly two months of very hard work. And the subject was sports events, and Olympics, and all sorts of other subjects within the heading.

I have to admit to being more than a little puzzled about the whole system, but as far as I can tell, the children had a big brainstorming session back in May and discussed all potential topics for study. Then, as individuals, they chose a handful of subjects that interested them. At some point, these subjects were whittled down and disseminated amongst the three classes in her grade.

The upshot of all this was Rhiannon working on Olympic Stadiums and the architecture thereof. She was placed in a group with three other girls and left to get on with it. Suddenly having to do hours and hours of research and work at home was somewhat of a shock.

About a month ago I was volunteered to take the group on a fact finding trip to the Berlin Olympic Stadium. I found out about my volunteer status two days before the trip!

Unfortunately, the day we went was when the efficient German road workmen decided to work on both sides of the main road at the same time. We were stuck in traffic for ages.

This gave me the chance to listen in to the discussions of the group: they were very keen and impressively intent on their respective projects. One was studying the ancient Olympics, and another was working on the politics of the Olympic games. I can't recall the other topic.

Finally, we reached the stadium and yet more time was wasted organising payments and getting hold of audio tour handsets. I felt anxious at my role in this excursion; somehow I had to keep four girls together while allowing them to explore their own interests, which were diverse, to say the least. My anxieties were realised very quickly as one was very intense and had to listen and read every single word she found and wouldn't move until she was done. Another couple wandered off to look at something else, while the fourth needed to take photos of absolutely everything.

After a bit of a false start, we made it through the first, extremely long, stop on the audio tour, only to find - after a very long walk in the freezing cold - that the next stop was closed for maintenance. Cue some quite dramatic angst from the girls who couldn't work out how to continue.

We'd been there an hour already and were fairly short of time thanks to the traffic jame and having to return to school by lunchtime. So I took charge and ushered them back to the start and inside the main stadium. I was very cold and very bored. Actually, everyone wsa cold and the bitter wind whistling through the stands didn't help.

My trained eye quickly spotted a restaurant so suggested a stop for hot chocolate and a chance to look at their copious notes in the warm. They could also listen to the rest of the audio tour and each could pick out information relevant to their different subjects.

This went down well, sort of. The intense one was very disturbed by the change of plan but I had to overrule her. We just didn't have time to explore the entire, massive area.

I took a couple of photos and, after we'd revived with hot drinks, I drove them back to school. Each one politely and genuinely thanked me for taking them, which was lovely and made it worthwhile. It was just a shame it couldn't have been longer and warmer.

The exhibition was held last night.

The past two months has been a tough and rather stressful time for many reasons - think of GCSE studying but with a ten year old... But she did it and I'm very proud of her. Tension has been building for a week now but it all came together yesterday.

During the day they had their stands out and presented their findings to the whole school and parents visited in the evening. All the students had put an amazing amount of time and effort into their projects.

Although I didn't realise at the time, independent assessors were circulating and interviewing the students too. As yet, I don't know the outcome of the assessments so we've all got our fingers very tightly crossed for the results.

And I can safely say that we are ALL very glad it's all over!

 

A Berlin Bear

 

School Uniform Not Required

I don't know why this school's no uniform policy seems so unusual to me - it's more common that I thought. And thinking back, my primary school didn't have a uniform either. Perhaps school uniform is a relatively modern, typically British thing?

After initial reservations about this, I'm rapidly and happily coming around to the idea. No more tricky school items to hunt down, no more overpriced and under-stocked single-distributor to deal with, no more

However, Rhiannon's wardrobe didn't really hold enough suitable clothes so we had to have a sort through and a shopping trip.

On our visit to the school, I made a point of checking out what the other girls were wearing so Rhiannon could fit in, if she so wished. Outfits were basically jeans, boots and jumpers. For most kids this would be fine, but Rhiannon doesn't really wear jeans, preferring the comfort and ease of leggings. She also, like so many other children, refuses to wear jumpers. She doesn't seem to feel the cold but she does feel the scratchy wool.

She'd obviously spotted some fashionable girls whom she wanted to emulate because when asked what she wanted to wear to school she promptly announced, "jeans and Converse."

When I was her age I wasn't on the ball with fashion at all. We were very poor so Mum made all my clothes. I vividly recall with utter horror the two bilious yellow trouser suits she made out of hideous 70's floral curtain material. My clothes were patched when needed - not with a piece of matching material  but with something bright and contrasting. Mind you, it was the 70's, so I guess that was fairly trendy. Even worse was Mum's solution to my growth spurts; she'd insert a wide band of contrasting material into the hems of my trousers.

I wasn't allowed to wear jeans either (Mum's rule) and didn't get my first pair until I was 14 years old and bought them with saved pocket money. Mind you, school rules didn't allow girls to wear trousers to school, let alone jeans.

Anyway, on Saturday we went to the Stern Centre in Potsdam to restock Rhiannon's wardrobe with clothes suitablele for her new school life. Jeans were the hardest things to buy for her, just because she's not used to the style. I spent far too long and far too many arguments in changing rooms with her and her newly discovered pre-teen attitude. But she's pretty cool with great style and I didn't need to veto any of her choices apart from short sleeved tops.

I'm shocked at the price of Converse hi-tops now though. They appear to be a lot more expensive here than in the US or UK. Personally, I find them very uncomfortable and I did try to warn her how hard they are to put on and take off but she wasn't having it so Tim gave in and bought her a pair.

When she returned home from school yesterday I asked her if they were comfortable.

"Oh yes, but they take AGES to take off and put on."

I did say "I told you so". After the hassle of the jean-buying excursion I felt justified.

Saying Goodbye

Rhiannon had left her PE kit and indoor shoes at her old school. We weren't really expecting her not to go back so hadn't bothered to collect everything.

As she finished school today at 1.45pm we decided it would be a good idea to drive over there and collect them while at the same time giving her a chance to say goodbye to her friends.

I let her teacher know we'd be around and received a message back saying,

"Sorry to hear that Rhiannon is leaving. She was a popular member of the class.
There was a stunned silence for about 10 minutes when I told the class, punctuated by a few genuine tears. It was very heart-warming actually.
The children would love to see her tomorrow for a final goodbye.
I hope she will be happy at her new school."

Tears? Oh dear.

Admittedly, it was a surprise to us that Rhiannon was able to start school immediately after her trial - and she'd started some subjects she really, really wanted to avoid missing, but I had assumed she'd told her classmates what she was doing. Apparently not. They had no idea she was changing schools. Oh dear, again...

Her classroom was empty as it was PE day but some of her classmates (boys) were next door. She handed out cards, received a couple in return and stood around bashfully for a few minutes. So I rescued her and we headed back out.

Then she decided we must go to the PE room to see the others and scooted off around the corner before remembering I had no idea where that was and came back to get me.

Loud music was coming from the room but it went silent as soon as Rhiannon went in. Everyone stared at her before her name was squealed out and she was bombarded by girls all hugging her. A couple cried. I mouthed an apology to the teacher for disrupting the class.

I began to feel a little choked up myself. I hadn't realised she was so loved by her school friends - we'd had no indication of it outside of school. And I don't think she realised it until today either. Even a couple of boys were doing that strange male thing of obviously wanting to hug her but fear of peer ridicule  held them back.

Rhiannon held it together though. No tears. Yet...

She said her final goodbyes to them and we left the PE room.

Then, "I must say goodbye to my babies!"

"Who?"

She meant the Year 1 children.

"And I need to say thank you to my German teacher too."

The quick visit was obviously going to take longer than I thought.

The German teacher was first. He was holding a class with some younger kids who, once again, all mobbed Rhiannon as soon as she entered the room. At one point she had three hanging off each arm!

Some lovely, kind words were said to her and about her.

I got something in my eye...

Rhiannon was still holding up!

Next was her "babies". The teacher there gave Rhiannon some quiet words of advice,

"No boyfriends until after your degree. If I ever see you with a cigarette in you mouth, even if you're 40, I will remove it. And if you drink too much alcohol, make sure you haven't got to go to work in the morning."

Fair advice, I thought!

I chatted with her while Rhiannon spoke to her "babies". But I noticed one pretty little girl was looking very upset indeed. Rhiannon hugged her. I pointed out to the teacher that there may be a problem in a moment and sure enough, both girls burst into floods of tears.

Teacher went to the rescue, I extricated a sobbing Rhiannon and we headed off the grounds for cuddles in the car. Rhiannon told me some of the touching things her "babies" said to her and I got something in both eyes.

The amount of love my daughter received in that visit was humbling and delightful.

If I hadn't been so sure that Rhiannon was determined to move schools, that experience would have had me doubting the upheaval.

A New Chapter

Rhiannon had a couple of trial days at her potential new school on Monday and Tuesday. It seems most international schools in Germany do this as a way to gauge the suitability of the child to the school, and the school to the child. Well, this is what they told me, anyway. The school will also asses her German language skills so they can allocate her to the correct class.

Although the school is only three kilometres away, it starts at 8am. And we haven't been able to sort out a bus yet, so this means I have to do the dreaded school run again.

Monday morning hadn't even dawned when we got up. And it was still dark when we set off. Ugh!

However, we were cheered by the first snow of the winter; it was quite a heavy fall of small flakes and for a short time, the world was dusted white. Sadly, it had all gone by lunchtime.

Rhiannon was delivered safely into the hands of the Admissions Officer and I left her to get on with her first day.

She has changed schools a few times and has shown absolutely no nervousness about it... until now. I guess it must be her age; she hadn't slept well the previous night and was rather troubled. But when the chips were down and she was actually at the school, she pulled herself together and got on with it.

At the end of the school day I went to collect her.

It was make or break time now; did she have a good day or not? If not, what on earth would we do?!

Anxiously I waited by the gates. She came bouncing out of the school gates with a massive grin on her face and the words, "That was the best day of my entire life!" Yes, she's a little dramatic...

She didn't stop talking about her day all the way home and once back was eager to show me her new workbooks - proper exercise books and a big folder. And then she insisted on doing her homework straightaway! Who was this child?

I couldn't quite believe what I was hearing. And then she said, "Mum, I have to interview you for my homework."

It turned out that the very first lesson of the day in her brand new school was about puberty! And for her homework she had to do a 'generational study' which entailed asking me about my puberty. That was interesting...!

What a massive relief, though. So far, so good.

Organisation wasn't quite over yet though. While we were sure she (and the school) would pass the trial days, it wasn't yet officially confirmed. And this meant having contingency plans in place.

We planned that she would return to her 'old' school for the rest of this week before starting at the new one at the end of January. Or even next week if at all possible. But Rhiannon was absolutely adamant, to the point of tears, that she wasn't going back there. A problem...

Tuesday would be spent sorting this out. I promised her I'd do my best to get her settled as soon as possible.

I spoke to the school and they were equally as pleased with Rhiannon and suggested she just remain there from now on. Fantastic! Then I had to pull out all the stops to let her old school and bus company know.

It was fun passing that news on to her at the end of the school day yesterday.

While I was there, I saw the timetable for their extra-curricular activities... and to my delight spotted that Aikido was amongst them! Let's hope there is space for her when they start again in February. They were all very interesting too, I can see Rhiannon signing herself up for many of them.

All in all, changing schools has (so far) been a resounding success.

There are a few aspects that don't suit me as well, though. The main one bothering me at the moment is the early start and end of the school day.

I really hate getting up at 6.30am and doing a school run. In the dark. I also loathe having to do a return school run at 2.45pm. I've lost a heck of a lot of my day - she used to be collected by bus at 8am and was delivered home at 5pm. And on Fridays she will finish school at 1.45pm! That's crazy! But it will be better for her and I suppose I will just have to find a way of rearranging my days somehow.

I'm still waiting for contact with the bus company and hope the cost isn't too high for us to take this option up.

And there is the sartorial aspect too - more about that another day.

 

School Visit Number 2

Continued from School Visit Number 1

School B's visit was scheduled for 2pm, so there was time for a spot of lunch. Unfortunately, I developed a pounding headache but had to continue. In fact, we were all so impressed with School A it was tempting to cancel our visit to the other school. But we didn't.

Our main reasons for continuing with the visit were that Rhiannon knows three children at this school and it follows a curriculum we are accustomed to. And it's good to have a back up.

The very long, low and frankly ugly, building was situated in a cul de sac with another school backing onto it; there was a shared playground. Just down the road was a brothel... (more about that another time!)

We were greeted by the Admissions Officer and swiftly taken to meet the Head of School. In his office we were told all about the number of different nationalities attending the school... in great, statistical detail. It was rather impressive. We had fewer questions about the curriculum with this school but more about changes the school is going through. Changes we've heard about via other parents of kids in this school. Questions were answered satisfactorily, but overall, I felt we'd been "politicalised" - the language was all 'spin' and little substance.

This school is absolutely full and we had been told there would be no spaces until September.

A tour of the school commenced. Every time a classroom door was opened, Rhiannon anxiously peered in to see if she could spot her friends. Eventually she was rewarded; and in rather spectacular way.

She stood open-mouthed and incredulous, staring at a boy near the back of the room. "Is that N?", she asked the teacher.

It was indeed "N". And at that moment he spotted her and nearly fell off his chair in astonishment! He exclaimed "That's Rhiannon! I know her from my last school!" Yes indeed, he was one of the children who left her current school at the beginning of the summer holidays. Not only that, but N was a lad who Rhiannon rather 'liked'...

Rather flushed, she peered into the next room and spotted the other children we know, plus an additional girl she knows from riding.

From the friendship side of things, School B was winning hands down.

Now we were in a bit of a quandary.

My head was no better and Tim and Rhiannon were also drained. So we went home to think about the options.

An hour later the Admissions Officer from School B called. Once again, Rhiannon's native English status was in demand and she was offered a place. To do this, the school increased the maximum class size. Interesting! She wanted to arrange Rhiannon's trial days there and then, but it was all too much so I said we'd think about it and I would call them in the morning.

When we'd all revived a little we had a discussion.

Rhiannon chose School A... thank goodness!

While she didn't exactly have the final word on the matter, it is important that she is happy at school. And she chose the one that Tim and I agreed on anyway, so everyone is happy.

I was initially a bit anxious that School A had an educational system that will be hard to continue if and when we move back to the UK. But I think it will work out OK in the end. Unlike many parents and all schools, I am not one of those people who think education is the most important thing in a child's life, although it would be good if she learns something. Her happiness is most important and she can always go back to education in later years. I've learned more since I left school than I ever did while I was there.

A happy ending (I hope!). I called School B and let them know we didn't want the place. Rhiannon will do her trial at School A next week and we'll take it from there.

And no more school uniform to find!

 

 

School Visit Number 1

Yesterday was surprisingly exhausting. We all found the experience totally draining but positive and extremely interesting.

We had appointments to visit two schools with a view to Rhiannon join one of them; School A and School B.

Both had their own 'pros' and 'cons' for us, but to go into them too deeply will expose more information than I’m comfortable with.

I will just detail School A in this post, with another entry for School B tomorrow.

School A is closest to home and situated in a fairly quiet, mostly residential area. The large building - or set of buildings - is strangely unimposing. Rhiannon liked the look of the school from the outside because it “looked like a proper school”. This wouldn’t necessarily be a ‘pro’ from me though.

The warm, funny and friendly Admissions Officer met us for a long, informative chat. We had more questions here than at School B because the curriculum is very different from the one we’re familiar with. Lessons seem to be research and project based, and student led, which I think will suit Rhiannon’s style of working. Lots of talk about public speaking and PowerPoint presentations, both of which are no problem at all for Rhiannon.

Then we were shown around. The set-up was impressive and vibrant. There was a huge library, several properly set-up science labs (Rhiannon’s face lit up like a beacon at this!) and a sunny canteen. School dinners are provided and included in the fees. To our surprise we discovered that two of the standard PE lessons are Judo and dance. What a novel idea. And another massive ‘pro’ for our list.

Like all German schools, there is no school uniform. For some time now, this has puzzled me but it was cleared up today: historically, uniform on German school-children has negative connotations... the Hitler Youth. Now that makes perfect sense.

And other aspects seem lax compared to what we're used to. For example, nail varnish can be worn as long as it's not chipped and untidy.

We were introduced to the teachers, all of whom were lively and welcoming. The music teacher instantly offered Rhiannon a place in the school choir and the woman would be Rhiannon’s teacher was very excited at the prospect of having a native English speaking girl join her class.

Initially we were under the impression that Rhiannon would skip a year in this system, going into a grade above, but it’s not that straightforward. We – using the English system – are used to year groups going by the child’s age on 31^st August (before the school year starts). So Rhiannon, who was ten in October last year, is one of the eldest children in her current Year 5. In School A the age groups go through a calendar year so she would be one of the youngest in her new year.

In September this year, she will move to secondary education, which will be a year sooner that she would in the English curriculum. This is good. I think…

Rhiannon was immediately offered a place at this over-subscribed school, with open arms and much enthusiasm - a native-English girl seemed much in demand.

It was arranged that she will do a couple of days trial next week so she can be evaluated for her skills and so on. And they've even said she can start straight away after that if we want.

We will think on this.

Then it was time to leave for lunch before heading to the next school, keeping an open mind as it's good to have a Plan B.

Changing Schools

We have made the decision to take Rhiannon out of her current school. Naturally, this decision hasn't been an easy one to make and has periodically kept me awake at night.

Thankfully, Rhiannon is happy and confident enough to change schools mid-year and her maturity about this makes it all so much simpler.

Why are we changing schools?

Ersatzschule

Back in July last year, we heard from another parent that the school was applying to become an "Ersatzschule" to receive more funding from the German government. This meant that many, if not most of the classes would be taught in German.

We found out about this major change of status too late to do anything about it and decided to continue sending Rhiannon there for the new term while we evaluated the possibilities.

In September the new School Head held a meeting about the Ersatzschule changes. I made notes.

It seems as though the process of change will be slow and won't be completed until 2019. However, the language of tuition will change, but in a staggered way, year group by year group. Ultimately, this would have little immediate effect on Rhiannon but she would need to be fluent in German - both spoken and written - within a year or two. As she is the only native English speaker in her year, and possibly in the whole of the primary school, this would be a tall order.

As yet, the school don't know how many subjects, or which ones, would be taught in German. Information is scarce, and the impartation of this information is pitifully atrocious.

Another reason we were reluctant to change schools last term was that Rhiannon was extremely happy there. But that has slowly changed over the past term.

Class Size

She is in a class of only ten children, when they are all there. While this was fine initially, over time problems have arisen as they only can with ten year olds. And with such a small class, there is nobody else to turn to when friends inevitably fall out. Also, those children have been there for their entire school life and are rather cliquey, not accepting of outsiders who have been to other schools in other countries. And quite frankly, a couple of her classmates are downright peculiar. I feel she needs more variety with her friends. Or more friends, full stop. Sleepovers have dried up completely. It's sad to see her all alone at weekends.

English Language

Another aspect of the small and national school population is that Rhiannon is actually losing her English skills. She's beginning to construct sentences in a similar way to a German speaking English and her vocabulary is diminishing.

English lessons (or Literacy as they're called nowadays) seem to be very basic as you'd expect for students of English as a Second Language. This may not be an accurate assessment, however, as it was vehemently denied at the Parent's Evening last term.

Lack of Learning

Other lessons aren't grabbing her attention at all. For example, her science lesson last week covered exceedingly elementary aspects that Rhiannon learned in Reception year. The only lessons she enjoys are French and German because she's learning new stuff.

Rhiannon never gets homework (which is fabulous, in a way) and we've never seen her school work, so we don't know for sure. But she doesn't seem to be learning anything at all.

The library is minuscule and contains very childish books - apparently.

She's bored.

After School Activities

She badly misses after school activities. For example, she would dearly love to find an Aikido class to join here to continue her favourite sport and reach her black belt. Unfortunately, the current school day is too long for her to do this. It finishes at 4pm and often she doesn't get home until 5pm. After leaving the house at 8am, that's a very long day. And no Aikido classes for children occur in the evening. German schools start very early and finish early, leaving plenty of time for other activities.

The school is too far away from home for her to participate in any of their after school options. Mind you, there aren't many to choose from anyway, and certainly nothing she's interested in.

There's more, but I've rambled on more than long enough already.

We cancelled the contract with the school at the end of December. Rhiannon will remain there until a place is confirmed at another school which may be as soon as the end of this month.

Today we are visiting two international schools. Both are very different from each other. We've already agreed amongst us all which one she will attend but are keeping our options open until we've seen both.

I've been filling in forms galore and sincerely hope the rest of her school days here will be happy and productive.

Wish us luck!

A Christmas Roundup

It's been a busy couple of weeks. So busy, in fact, that I don't feel I've shared enough of my mundane life with you all.

Let me rectify that now...

We've been to Christmas parties: one for the kids where Santa appeared with presents. I think this is possibly the last year Rhiannon will go to this particular party. She was one of the oldest there and was all 'pre-teenage' angst beforehand, worrying what to wear and so on. Once there she had a good time though.

Another party was at Tim's office where we had a wonderful "small world moment". We bumped into someone we both worked with in Vienna about 11 years ago! The amazing coincidence is that he no longer works for the establishment and was just visiting a friend here for the weekend.

Last week - Tuesday 13th December - Rhiannon had her school's Christmas Show. We've attended a number of these over the years; usually a deadly dull concert showcasing the dubious talents of the school's orchestra and choir.

This one, however, was different. Well it would be - it's a different school in a different country!

They put on a production of "The Wind in the Willows". It was held in a very posh place called Konzerthaus in Gendarmenmarkt.

Beautiful building, isn't it? The school had hired a smaller hall inside and the play took place there.

It was an ambitious production and the kids performed extremely well indeed, with no errors that I could spot. I have to admit I've never read the book and don't know the story. And I have to admit that I'm still none the wiser as to the plot...

Rhiannon played, "Sally, the Jailer's Daughter". Just a few lines, but a part nonetheless.

She soldiered on despite suffering from a nasty bug of some description. She'd spent the previous weekend with a temperature and a dreadful cough. Which she is still suffering from, unfortunately.

School finished on Wednesday 14th so Thursday was spent lazing around the house, recharging our batteries for a short time. Or rather, Rhiannon recharged her batteries while I spun around the house frantically tidying up and cleaning ready for our Very Important Visitor...

Later that evening, we collected Mum from the airport. She's spending three weeks with us and came bearing gifts of tea bags, magazines and other lovely goodies.

The following day, Tim and I had a function to attend, so we press-ganged Mum to babysit for the afternoon. I enjoyed getting all dressed up for a change and wore a gorgeous sparkly Vivienne Westwood top and a pair of palazzo pants. To my surprise, nobody else had bothered to put their glad rags on. The very different culture in this country is going to take some getting used to.

Never mind. I didn't care that I was overdressed and I got to talk to people, something that is lacking somewhat in my day to day life. Our host informed us we had to "sing for our supper" and produced song sheets. We all gathered in front of the real fire and sung Carols with alternating verses in English and German.

The food was wonderful. Not particularly Christmassy, but very "British" with a fantastic bread and butter pudding for dessert.

The rest of the time has been mostly spent travelling into town to finish the Christmas shopping. Much of our enjoyment has come from admiring all the incredible Christmas decorations available here. They really are beautiful - and sometimes bizarre - a Christmas gherkin bauble anyone?

Unfortunately, the weather hasn't been good - and there is absolutely no sign of any decent snow, a few flakes spun around a couple of times, but mainly it's been raining. So it's been pretty unpleasant out there.

Rhiannon's cough has been very bad so I've not wanted her to spend much time outside. She gets tired very easily. But Mum needs entertaining so I've found it a bit stressful keeping everyone happy and occupied.

Then poor Mum got ill and we have had to spend the past couple of days indoors. Of course, this coincided with Rhiannon finally getting a little better and wanting to go out! (It's OK - Mum's feeling much better now.)

We've still got a Christmas Market to visit - a "Must Do" for Mum; all the wrapping to do, food-shopping to finish - we still haven't got a meat to have on Christmas Day!

Thankfully, Tim has got some time off next week so hopefully we can explore Germany a bit more and have some day trips out and about.

I'm exhausted already!

 

The School Photograph Game

Every parent of school age children gets these sweet, posed photographs (they are far better than the horrific results I had as a kid - but that's because Rhiannon is more photogenic than me).

A set of varying sized photos can be purchased to ensure friends and family are all included in sharing the parental joy of "see how gorgeous my child is this year". They arrive in time to be included in Christmas cards.

Previous years have found me counting up how many of x size I need, how many of y and discovering the company providing them didn't have a series or set that perfectly fitted my needs. If I chose set 1 I would not have enough of the 'right' size photos for this side of the family but if I chose set 2, I wouldn't have the photos for that side. There were about 12 combinations to choose from. Yes, I am fully aware that I over-think this...

They were also extremely expensive and I always seemed to end up with about 20 passport-sized photos I didn't need. What a waste.

This year - being in a new school and country - it's a little different.

To start with we nearly didn't get them. Rhiannon left them on the school bus a couple of days ago. She was distraught. I calmed her down and said we'd get them back in the morning. But the normal school bus didn't turn up yesterday. It was an anxious time! Anyway, we got them today.

There are several actual photos, not just a proof print and measurements. Some are stickers of the entire class (of nine children) which are to be stuck in the enclosed cardboard 'photo album' of "Meine Schule". Of course, Rhiannon really wants this album. There are also photos of the school building! Mind you, it's a really beautiful place, so I can understand that.

Strangely, there is one black and white photo of Rhiannon and one sepia one. According to her, this represents a photo each from WW1 and WW2...

The order form is all in German. I can work out a bit of German if I can see it written but painstakingly typed all the text into Google Translate just to be sure.

There were only two combinations to buy: the WW1 & WW2 photos, or the rest. Or I can just order the whole lot for just 20 Euros. This is about half what we paid in the past so I'm very happy.

I'm more happy that I no longer have to over-think which set to buy. If there aren't enough for everyone, tough.

 

 

Mischief Managed

Goodness, I left quite a gap between posts there, sorry.

An update to my insomnia post: I didn't bother to go to bed in the end and stayed up to complete the earthquake article. It was a disturbing subject to write about so I though it best to get it out of my head as soon as possible. The attempt was successful, but not to be repeated.

After that, I dozed on the sofa for an hour before the others woke up. They are sort of used to my foibles now so finding me there didn't raise many questions.

The best bit about last week was that school started. Oh yes! The school bus caught us out on Monday by arriving 10 minutes early but all in all, it went well. Apart from Rhiannon losing one of her school jumpers already. Yes, one of the ones that took so much trouble to find and finally got to me via the power of social media. Hopefully it will turn up soon.

Rhiannon had an absolutely brilliant time back at school. There are only 8 children in her class. I'm not sure if this is a good thing or a bad thing, but she's happy and that's all that matters.

Here, they start learning French in Year 5 - she's already bored with the lessons as she's learned the language for about two years. What a shame she can't concentrate on German instead.

As yet the language changes don't appear to have started. We have a meeting next week in order to find out more. As far as I can discover, the school wants to change its status to an "Ersatzschule" but I don't know what that means. I intend to find out next week.

Other news: I finished the ironing! Yes, celebrate! It didn't stay finished long.

Café Breakfast: We were invited to meet Rhiannon's best friend's mother and step-father at a cafe for breakfast one morning, after a sleepover. How civilised! This is something I could really get used to. We made tentative plans for future meetings and language-lesson exchanges.

Birthday Party: I am having great difficulty organising Rhiannon's birthday party. I thought I'd cracked it when I discovered a website advertising karaoke parties for kids. It was fairly close to us, all organised for the customer with entertainment and food provided, not a bad price, and the website was in English - always good at the start of a posting. Sadly, upon talking to them, they need a minimum of 30 children. With only 8 in her class, this would prove impossible (and too costly, regardless). Not only that, but they couldn't confirm availability until two weeks before the event. Gah!

So I'm back to the drawing board on this, with less time to sort it out. And I cannot find anything here in Berlin at all.

Mum's visit: Yikes! She arrives tomorrow. The bedroom is nice now, but I haven't tidied anywhere else. My procrastination levels have reached an all-time low this past week. Still, she doesn't get here until tomorrow night so there's still tomorrow.

Finally, I went to the cinema for the first time in 12 years. A family trip to see Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows #2. It was very good and I managed to not cry (properly).  Nice cinema... we had nachos and salsa which probably annoyed the other customers. You could even buy beer there (I didn't - but only because I didn't realise until we were sat down).

So, my life / work is a little more "managed" than it was last week. Now, if only I can find somewhere for Rhiannon's party...

 

 

 

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!

 

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.

 

 

 

School's Out for Summer!

End of term means visiting the school to watch the end of term assembly.

And Report Time.

The assembly was OK. Not on a par with the productions put on at the school in Tokyo, but there are far fewer people here. I was also a little perturbed that a certain level of strictness wasn't carried out so children and teachers chatted throughout the presentations. Somewhat disrespectful, in my opinion.

Yes, I have very high expectations of schools!

Prize-giving commenced, with certificates of merit given for various achievements. I was as proud as punch when Rhiannon's name was called for the Best Non-Native German Language award! She's only been learning it for two months and had very little confidence in her abilities, saying she had found Japanese easier to learn. This recognition boosted her morale significantly. Clever girl!

School finished directly after so we drove home in high spirits listening to loud music.

Then it was time to read her report.

Very good indeed, I'm happy to say. 'A's across the board apart from a couple of 'B's - for science and geography. But to my horror a 'C' for PE. How on earth can anyone get a 'C' for PE? (Yes, I can get a little bit "Tiger Mother" sometimes. Especially with the only two subjects dear to my heart - English and PE.). I shall attempt to instill some competitive spirit into her this summer.

The rest of the day was spent frantically doing laundry and packing ready for our trip to the UK tomorrow.

Regarding my post yesterday on the changes due to happen at the school, I've come to a decision.

As it's too late to talk to anyone at school about the changes, and with us going away for a while, I've decided Rhiannon will go back to the school in the new term as normal. We'll see how it goes and take it in stages. I have other schools bookmarked, but on the whole I'm not impressed with any of them. You may probably gather, I do not like schools very much. (One day I'll spill the beans on the horrible experiences we had in Tokyo!!)

With Rhiannon's newly commended language skills I have confidence that she will cope well. And if class sizes remain extremely low, there will be plenty of assistance for her.

It's pretty much all I can do for now.

 

 

A Whale Boat and School Bombshells

An end of year school trip was announced last week. Yes, very little notice again, but thankfully we were able to go.

The trip was a family cruise on the Tegeler See, a massive body of water in the Charlottenburg district to celebrate the end of term and thank the class teacher.

It was a beautiful day - I got a little sunburned - and the kids had an absolute whale of a time on a whale of a boat.

Meet Moby Dick!

The cruise lasted about an hour and the scenery was wonderful.

Unfortunately neither Tim nor I could understand the German commentary. And very little of the other parents conversations either as all were conducted in German. Occasionally someone would say something in English, but on the whole, we were left out. Need to get some language skills soon.

After the cruise, we were supposed to go somewhere near our home for dinner but ended up wandering through the lake area looking for a place to eat. We ended up at an Indian restaurant.

Then someone sensible brought up the fact that most children won't want spicy Indian food, so we all traipsed back to our cars to return to the original venue.

After an accidental six mile detour we arrived and tried to find everyone at this place called Ku'damm Beach. Eventually, by following the shrieks of children we climbed down a load of steps to discover a burger restaurant on a little sandy beach by one of our local lakes.

What a find! I think we will be returning there on a hot day. All the children splashed around in the lake while us parents talked. Or rather, they talked and I tried to join in, but my German wasn't up to it.

Luckily someone translated a few very important and extremely worrying points for me.

The school we carefully selected for Rhiannon because it was the only school to offer the English curriculum is changing to a German curriculum next term! Some lessons will only be conducted in German.

This is horrifying, to be frank. Rhiannon will drop far behind in these classes as everyone else is a native German speaker. Nobody actually knows which classes will be held in German either.

The communication is appalling at this school. The fact that I only found this out tonight shocked the other people there. And with only half a day left of term I have no way of discussing any of this with the head teacher.

Also, the class has only ten children in it, and five of these are leaving. Mostly because of this change of curriculum. And the turnover of teachers is worryingly high too.

When I told Rhiannon what was planned, she freaked out, understandably. However, when I suggested moving schools she freaked out even more. She really does love it there, even though she's only been there a couple of months. We have no time to do anything right now. And, as I say, she adores the school. I guess it will be a massive incentive to learn German though!

I hate school stuff.

I just don't know what to do for the best now.

 

Meeting Mums

Last night I was excited to have a chance at last to meet some parents and teachers from school.

A few weeks ago, Rhiannon brought a letter home from school inviting parents to join a focus group to discuss improving communication amongst the school community, additional activities for the children and website development.

Perfect! I signed up straightaway and marked the date on my calendar.

The meeting was at a Japanese sushi restaurant. I felt that was a sign that it would be a good night out.

So yesterday evening I found something not-too-shabby to wear, called a cab and went off with high hopes of a great night out and perhaps making new friends.

The restaurant (more like a cafe, actually) was suspiciously empty.

Nobody spoke English. Then along came the lady owner who managed some heavily accented English. After some effort, I discovered the meeting was held the previous evening...

No, I had not got the date wrong. The school had changed the date and I wasn't informed.

I was very upset and more than a little angry.

The owner called a taxi to take me all the way back home again. While waiting for it we chatted - sort of. Her daughter attends the same school and she kindly invited us all over for a meal one day so her daughter can meet and make friends with Rhiannon.

She is Russian and the sushi chef is... Vietnamese. There were crab-sticks in the sushi display. Authentic Japanese this was not.

I returned home 25 euros worse off thanks to the cab fares - I believe I've mentioned before that there is no public transport nearby.

First thing this morning I called the school to find out what had happened. The headteachers were in a meeting so I spoke to the receptionist/administrator.

Apparently an email was sent out to all interested parties to advise of the date change - not received.

I was not on the list on 'interested parties' anyway as the tear-off slip didn't reach the organisers -  Rhiannon definitely handed it in to her teacher.

I queried other missed emails. Basically I've heard nothing from the school at all apart from replies to mails I've originated. The admin lady agreed to look into it and send me something as a test. After a couple of hours I did receive a calendar of events. Very useful with just one week of school left.

"To discuss improving communication amongst the school community" was certainly a fitting subject for this cocked-up meeting.

It's 2.15pm and I still have not heard from either of the head teachers...

 

 

 

School Residential Trip

School started last Tuesday with Rhiannon heading off on a residential trip to the north of Germany somewhere near the Polish border.

For four days and three nights. Three whole nights!

She's been away before, but only ever for one night at a time. To be frank, she doesn't really do too well away from the comfort of her own home (and mum!). She gets over-excited then over-tired swiftly followed by over-emotional and over-wrought.

But she was incredibly excited about the trip, albeit tinged with a little nervousness and a lot of bravery considering all the changes she's been through recently. For example, I'm still having to reassure her that there will not be an earthquake here...

However, by Wednesday she realised that she'd be away for another couple of nights and I received an incoherent phone call from her. Sobbing her heart out, she told me she wanted to come home. I can't say it was unexpected, but it was upsetting for this mum nonetheless.

Her mobile phone reception wasn't good so we resorted to texting - me with reassurances and advice to speak to a teacher, Rhiannon with vague, almost monosyllabic comments. As far as I could gather it was purely homesickness and nothing more worrying. (This turned out to be correct, by the way).

Finally it all went quiet on the phone front. I pondered contacting the teachers, but decided they were aware of the problem and knew how to deal with it. 

Apron strings need to be loosened sometime and now was as good a time as any.

Thankfully I was right and when Rhiannon called later that evening she was much perkier and stated "Well, I must give it a go". Good girl!

On Friday she texted me to say she was on the bus heading back to school and was very tired. For her to admit she is tired means she's about to drop. The bus arrived at school an hour earlier than expected and the next message I received was "when are you coming to collect me?" 

What!? I'd not expected that. I thought she'd be coming back on the bus as usual - oops, assumptions again!

Time for mum to be brave now and drive the 12km to school - a particularly complicated journey involving massive roundabouts (my personal nemeses) and the potential to accidentally get onto an autobahn of massive size.

To my relief I made it without incident although I will admit to being very shaky at the end of it.

It was fabulous to see my girl again and instantly noticed in her a new maturity hidden under the dark circles of tiredness. All in all she'd had an absolutely brilliant time, although not all the promised activities happened for various reasons.

She arrived home to a fabulously enthusiastic welcome from Kita; Tim arrived home from work and we went out for a celebratory meal at the trattoria.

Rhiannon slept for 12 hours and is still tired this morning. She's gone riding now. What a busy week for her.

 

The Organised Mum

The organised mum has a calendar. This calendar may be colour coded with different shades for weekends, appointments noted for each member of the family, including pets, and kept scrupulously up to date.

On this calendar she writes down when school holidays start and end, when sports day is and when her darling child is due to go away on a residential trip. She will also have noted when public holidays are and when her beloved husband has planned leave or business trips.

She will also know when June starts.

I am not this mum.

I am this mum...

I don't even have a proper calendar because, for once, I wasn't sent 30 of the things as Christmas presents last year. So each month I use Word to generate a calendar and pin it up by my desk. This is what I did today. After some searching I found the school holiday chart and a separate planner I hadn't noticed on the website until now.

Although I knew half term was sometime in June I hadn't realised that a) June starts on Wednesday and b) half term starts on Thursday. To say I was somewhat dumbstruck would be a lie - I was not struck dumb, I was struck with expletives.

Tim has tomorrow off. Therefore, I have Tuesday and Wednesday to complete one of my numerous projects before I am thrust into the unenviable task being Rhiannon's entertainment manager.

Not only that, but Rhiannon's residential trip starts on her first day back at school and, because I couldn't attend the meeting about it as she was ill, I have no idea what I'm supposed to do or pack. An email has been hurriedly sent to school asking for further information ASAP.

And as luck would have it, the week of her residential trip is the same week Tim has planned to go away on business. I don't know if this is good or bad luck at the moment.

It looks like I'm going to have to drive here much sooner than I'd hoped. Not least because it turns out that sports day is also in June...

This has all quite ruined my Sunday.

Send calendars please!

Assumptions

Yeah, I know the cheesy phrase about assumptions. Let's ignore it.

Tim and I had a discussion earlier; both of us have made assumptions today which may not have a great outcome.

 

Assumption 1 - mine:
Rhiannon was still off sick today. I won't bore you with the details - see the previous post for the gory details; let's just say I am enjoying a late night bit of quiet time. On Monday, I asked the school to cancel the school bus for today as the man I spoke to on Monday morning didn't understand me. This was done.

Rhiannon is going back to school tomorrow. Therefore I assume that the bus will turn up as normal because it hasn't been specifically cancelled.

Tim thinks it will not turn up and what will I do if it doesn't? Apparently I should have phoned them today to confirm. I was a little busy and this didn't even cross my mind.

If the bus isn't here by 0810 I will phone up and hope for the best. If it doesn't come... I guess I may drive, but it's more likely I will chicken out (yes, I'm a wimp) and Rhiannon will have another day off.

We will see what happens in the morning.

 

Assumption 2 - Tim's:
His first words when he returned from work were, "Rhiannon has a sleepover on Saturday, hasn't she?"

"Erm... no."

"Well, haven't you phoned her to arrange one?" (The "her" is the mum of the girl who came her last weekend). "We've been invited out but can't go if Rhiannon's here."

All this in front of Rhiannon, by the way...

"I can't just phone someone I've only briefly met twice and ask her if Rhiannon can come for a sleepover on Saturday! It's just not done."

Or am I wrong? I don't know, but if feels rather rude to me. If I knew her better, fair enough. But I don't.

 

All this may change as the week goes on.

As we have no babysitter, my chances of meeting anyone new are somewhere between limited to impossible.

Of course, it's different for Tim, he meets new people at work and Rhiannon meets people at school.

I don't get the chance to meet or interact with anyone at school due to the bus service, which I still think is a wonderful invention. Without fluent language skills, I can't join any clubs or groups. Even if there were any nearby.

Such is the life of a trailing spouse.

What a Difference a New School Makes

I am amazed at how quickly and well Rhiannon has settled into her new school routine. I'm immensely proud of her newly found confidence and she is thrilled with the school. Whilst I agree it's still early days, she seems to have got off to a great start.

Rhiannon's School Day. (Obviously not actually written by Rhiannon, but I did "interview" her last night!)

"I get up at 6.30am and go downstairs with Kita to make my breakfast. Of course, I don't wake Mum up - she doesn't do mornings. So I wake up Dad instead; after all, he has to get to work early too.

Dad takes Mum a cup of tea at 7.30am and hassles her until she growls and gets up. He leaves at 7.45am so I need Mum to open the gate for me because I just cannot work out how to use keys.

Mum gets up and starts yelling at me to get dressed. Well, I didn't want to spill breakfast on my lovely new school dress, did I? I really enjoy getting ready as s l o w l y as possible because it really winds Mum up. I can almost see her blood pressure rising as I decide what trinket to take to school today to play with. Mum says I shouldn't take my stuff into school because I always lose it. Well, I don't mean to lose it, I just forget about it because I'm having so much fun.

Yesterday was brilliant! I got up especially early as I wanted to pierce my ears.

Mum thought I was cleaning my teeth properly for a change but really I was trying to force an earring into my ear lobe. It didn't go through the skin though, and it hurt quite a bit too, so I stopped. Made my ear all red and it's got a little dent in it now. It's a bit sore; perhaps that wasn't such a good idea after all.

By 8am Mum has gone a funny colour. Well, I can't remember where I put my school shoes, can I?

Mum goes outside to open the front gate for me. The school bus arrives at 8.05am. Mum thinks this door-to-door bus idea is the best thing ever. She says it's great because she doesn't have to do the school run any more, but I think it's also because she gets Rhiannon-free time from 8.05 until about 4.45pm. Poor Mum, I wonder if she misses me?

There are seven other children on my bus. They are really interesting, a great mix of nationalities and religions. We had a really cool theological conversation the other day between a Christian, a Muslim and a Jew. I learned a lot.

This school is so much better than my old school in Tokyo. Although I do miss my friends there, I certainly don't miss the bullying. Everyone here is so nice. Our school is 'all-in-one', primary and secondary schools all on one campus, right the way up to 18 year olds. I've got three very special best friends and am having a sleepover this weekend.

Because it's summer now, we do most of our lessons outside! And our playtimes are longer than my previous school. One thing I am having a bit of trouble getting used to is the sheer amount of space at the school. There's a forest (but we're not allowed to go into the bit where the teachers can't see us), two playgrounds with climbing walls and frames, a slide and all sorts of other apparatus. And grass. So much real grass. It's weird - there was only fake plastic grass in Tokyo; or tarmac which really hurts when you fall over on it. I fall over quite a lot. And with all this space and playgrounds, I have had a lot of accidents. Not bad ones, but I usually end up with several new, big bruises every day.

Red squirrels are everywhere, foxes live in the forest - someone said they saw a dead rabbit outside the fox-hole with it's insides all over the ground. Eew! There are also some wild boar, but apparently most of them have been killed because they are dangerous. I think there may be two left. [UPDATE! I saw a wild boar in the forest today! We were really scared and didn't know what to do, but luckily it wandered away]

All that running around out in the fresh air makes me really hungry. Luckily we have this fabulous cafeteria at school. We can buy snacks and get a cooked lunch too. The waffles are the best things ever.

Lessons? Oh, they're OK I suppose. Because I started here in May, there are some subjects I have already done in my old school. That's OK because it makes me look clever. I do German lessons too, but find them really difficult - German is a lot harder for me than Japanese. Mum says this is because I started learning Japanese when I was just five which made it easier. Now I'm nine and a half and nearly grown up I suppose my brain doesn't work as well any more. Like Mum's...

At home time, it's back on the bus again. Mum's looking out the window for me so she can let me in.

I wonder if she's been standing there all day?"

Why is it so Difficult to Find...?

I have been searching for weeks for a simple bottle-green jumper or cardigan for Rhiannon's school uniform. And have come up with nothing.

Unlike the school in Tokyo, this one in Berlin is pretty flexible about uniform. For example, I can choose from five different colours of socks! Items can be ordered from Marks and Spencers or Next... as long as the colours are correct. Bottle green seems to be one of those colours that is interpreted in many ways though.

All the jumpers and cardigans in her size are out of stock. Everywhere. And I believe I have actually tried everywhere. If there is one in stock, the company doesn't deliver overseas. If she was aged 4, no problem. Ditto aged 16. But nothing in a size 9-10. I've scoured every shop I can find here (not many) and still nothing.
Incidentally, C&A is here. Do you remember them? They don't sell them either.

She's only got about eight weeks of school before the summer holidays start so I thought I might get away without this unavailable piece of uniform. Especially as the past couple of weeks has been wonderfully warm and sunny.

However, school started today (hooray!) and the temperature plummeted to 4 degrees C. Brrr. And it rained. So I sent her in wearing the cotton dress for summer term and an old grey fleece.

All I want is a bottle green v-necked jumper or cardigan. Very frustrating.

 

8pm Update! Thanks to a lovely lady who has offered to forward the parcel on, I have been able to place an order with one of the companies who don't ship overseas. Rhiannon will now be warm. Social networking is a fabulous invention. I've never met this kind person in real life, yet she is prepared to do this for me.

 

 

Newsflash: Unpacking is Finished!

Phew, I am glad this long weekend is over (almost). I am exhausted and frazzled beyond belief.

All the unpacking, bar some pictures and the garden stuff, has been done. Now it's just a case of rearranging things and finding somewhere to put it all. This is the bit that will evolve over time. Quite a lot of time, I suspect.

I can be regularly seen gazing in horror around a cluttered room wailing "Where is it all going to go?"

The basement is full of empty boxes awaiting collection, which pleases Tim. My back is not so thrilled.

While not a public holiday in Germany, Tim does have Monday off. I expect we shall go to Ikea. There is no storage in the bathroom at all. This needs to be rectified as soon as possible. I also still don't have a printer - hopefully he will be as generous to me as he has been to Rhiannon so I can finally finish my office area. I also wish to buy houseplants. Lots of them. I deserve it.

A major plus point: Rhiannon goes to school tomorrow. You cannot imagine what a relief this is to me. She has been almost constantly at home - wherever 'home' is - from 9th March. Much as I love her, this is far too long to have a demanding, stroppy child around. And boy, has she been stroppy.

Mostly she is "bored". There should be no such word, she has plenty to do now all her things are unpacked. However, she is used to being taken out on regular jollies with Tim. In Tokyo we were close to Disney and Disney Sea, aquariums, play areas, amusement parks and whatever. Not here though. She is going to have to get used to basic, rural activities of the sort I was happy to enjoy as a kid. Deep down, she is desperately missing Japan and its familiarity. As am I.

I think a lot of the problem is the whole change of environment. It's making her feel disconnected and unsettled. This is taking the form of of veering between argumentative behaviour and tears. All understandable, of course, and I've done my best to be understanding. I feel much the same, to be honest. She played on PowerPoint today and made a presentation about Japan to show to school. I thought it would be about what she missed and so on, but it was all about the earthquake of March 11th. It's a shame that's her abiding memory of the lovely country. I shall endeavour to remind her of the rest of it soon.

Anyway, as I said, today I managed to finally finish the unpacking. All the clothes are out of their boxes and into wardrobes. Apart from the mountain that needs ironing. After a while I got fed up with sorting out the 'to iron' from the 'creases will drop out soon, I hope' and just bunged everything into the wardrobe. I'll deal with them later... sometime, maybe.

Yes, I have had to commandeer another room's wardrobe space. Mainly for coats, but I may free up some space by putting in other stuff at some point. You know, those clothes-that-don't-fit-now-but-will-do-someday...?

In other news (at last!) - Kita saw her first squirrel. It's amazing how her hunting instincts kicked in instantly and nearly tore my arm out of its socket trying to climb the tree. She is very strong. The beautiful red squirrel sat in the branch chittering at us. Very cute.

The day ended with an accident though. Rhiannon was swinging on her beloved tree swing when there was a thump followed by some very loud screaming - the swing had broken and she'd crashed to the ground. Thankfully she was only bruised and very shaken and was soon made better by some reviving hot chocolate.

Of course, the swing should have been checked when we first arrived, but hindsight is always a pain in the butt - literally so for poor Rhiannon.

 

Bringing You Up-To-Date

I'm now going to round up the past couple of weeks now so I can start blogging in real time. It's confusing my readers to have all this retrospective stuff going on and it's frustrating to me too.

My Japanory blog is still missing two years worth of memories, but it feels very wrong for me to write trivial stuff on there now with all the devastation of the earthquake still horribly fresh in everyone's minds. I will update it when the time feels right.

So here are some of the events and thoughts and randomness over the past couple of weeks to date:

The school holidays have started and I'm counting the days until she returns. Rhiannon hasn't really been to school since 9th March. She was off sick when the earthquake hit in Japan and her school was closed down, opening for a few days just before we moved here.

Trying to keep her entertained with none of our "stuff" is nigh on impossible. We can't cook - no scales, ingredients, cookware; we can't paint, draw or make things; we don't have any TV apart from German terrestrial and a few over-watched DVDs. The garden does keep her occupied for a while. We've tried exploring the streets, but this soon wanes for her as she doesn't share my interest in the beautiful architecture and well-tended gardens. We've tried a bit of gardening but the soil is so uncultivated I can barely dig an inch. I need to pull up about a thousand oak and beech seedlings very soon.

We now have a trampoline in the garden which gives Rhiannon another reason to play outside. She still wants company sometimes; the only drawback of being an only child, in my opinion. If she had a sibling they'd be forever falling out over nothing anyway. Besides, I find it fun to bounce too - yes the trampoline is strong enough to take my weight! So does the swing, but the seat is a little small for me...

And, of course, there is the still unsuccessful search for a post office.

We've also had to wait in for various people. A group of three visited to assess the possibility of putting up a dog-proof fence. One of them used to work in Tokyo and I was under "orders" to give him a hug from an old friend. He was happy to take it.

There was much excitement one day with the planned delivery of one set of our baggage - the items we sent by plane. Unfortunately, after waiting in, I was called to say they'd cancelled and would deliver the next day instead. Disappointing. But it arrived in good time the next day and occupied me and Rhiannon for the day. Most of it was Rhiannon's stuff anyway, with my main joy being reserved for the arrival of my computer. No longer did I have to write on my minuscule laptop with the Korean keyboard.

Another day, while we were walking Kita, someone left a note in the letterbox. I fed the many-lettered word into Babelfish - Schornsteinreinigung... it was a chimney sweep! I wasn't even aware we had a chimney. She came back today. I had to help her open the loft hatch as she was a little too short and I can't find a pole. Rhiannon had an image of a chimney sweep from "Horrible Histories" and "Mary Poppins"... so this girl blew that image out the window. She was gorgeous and I could see the cogs in Rhiannon's brain finally realigning from her polarised view of female / male jobs.

We're transforming one of the basement rooms into a den for Rhiannon in the hope that we can keep all her crap belongings away from our living area. It would be so nice to live in a clutter-free home (although I have more "clutter" to come, it is tasteful clutter. Honestly!) She chose vibrant orange and turquoise paint for a couple of walls and painted a huge sun on the turquoise one. We still need to get a carpet though as the room is still not cosy enough to tempt her to stay down there yet. The plans look fabulous though. I hope they come to fruition soon.

Yet more shopping to do. Which is a pain in the butt, because we only have Saturdays in which to do anything like this what with shops closing on Sundays and all over Easter.

Another waiting-in time was for Rhiannon's new school uniform to be delivered. Thankfully that arrived in good time and it all fits. All I need to find now is a jumper and some shoes.

So, this coming Saturday will be spent shopping.

Before that though, a major event is happening today. Our heavy baggage is due to arrive!

Finally, we will see all our possessions again, albeit in 107 boxes to start with. We haven't seen it since the efficient packers scooped it all up on 1st March.

I do hope my precious Imari porcelain has survived its long sea voyage. The thought of having all my own cooking utensils back fills me with rather worrying pleasure. It will be nice to have more than two changes of clothing too. And my books. Oh how I have missed my books! Goodness knows where they are all going to go though. I had a painful cull before we moved but there was still 4 large, full bookcases to send. I only have three smaller bookcases here. Hmmm.

Today will be exciting, yet stressful as we desperately try to find space for everything. And a bit like Christmas in many ways. Especially as I packed a few little unopened presents for myself in there.

German Lessons

Not the language kind of lessons, they will have to come later. I failed my German O level with an ungraded mark. Not something I would normally admit to if it wasn't for the fact that I believe my entire class got ungraded marks too (obviously our teacher was not good!). I can do numbers and recognise a few words, but as for speaking it... not a hope yet. Besides, my mouth comes out with Japanese and, for some peculiar reason, some Spanish. I also still bow in Japanese style to everyone. They must think I'm bonkers here!

I digress.

No, the lessons I'm referring to are my talks to Rhiannon's new school about how the earthquake felt in Tokyo.

And a lesson on how to order a taxi...

Friday 15th April. I am due to do my first talk at 10am to the littlies - Key Stage 1 (for those without kids, that's 5 to 7-ish year olds). Then I'm booked to do another presentation for the Key Stage 2s (8-11 year olds) at 11am. Rhiannon wants to help me present the talks.

That's OK. Rhiannon's used to public speaking too. And I'm well used to talking to children about stuff and with the Japan earthquake still very fresh in my mind I have no worries about any of this.

What I am worried about is getting to the school. I will have to take a taxi at 9.15am to ensure I arrive in time. After seeing Rhiannon off on the magical school bus I then have to get the dog walked, me changed and off to school. It's the end of term and school finishes at noon so I will go back on the bus with Rhiannon. It's too expensive for two taxi journeys.

So I phone to order a cab for 9.15am. But it only took me to a recorded message. I recognised some numbers "Press 1 for something and press 9 for something else".

I pressed 1. As you do. Or as I really shouldn't have done as the next message made me swear.

"Your taxi number 88734 will be with you in 4 minutes".

Oops, how embarrassing. (Incidentally, they automatically know your address from your phone number).

What could I do? Well, all I could do really. Get the dog ready for her walk and stride out of the house... where the taxi was waiting for me. I just had to play the dumb foreign woman that I am and apologise. The driver was unimpressed to say the least.

Anyway, I know what to do now. I'll phone again when I am ready to leave and hope I haven't been blacklisted.

The dog gets her walk. Thankfully it's no longer raining. I changed quickly and phone the taxi number again. I pressed 1, hung up and walked out the door to see three cabs pulling up! Fervently hoping it wasn't the same driver I got into the first car and showed him the map.

He sighed, "that's a long way". Yeah, but isn't that what you do? It wasn't the same driver but they don't seem to be happy people. However, he cheered up immensely when I tipped him at my destination.

So, deep breath and into the school. People were milling around everywhere and it was obviously a mufti day. The fashions were very "German" if that makes sense? Very cool, slightly punky for most ages. And very different from Japanese fashion. It turned out that the mufti day was part of their ongoing fund raising campaign for Japan. To date they had raised an impressive 4,500 euros.

Rhiannon found me as soon as I got into the building. She was running errands for her teacher. I briefed her quickly on what sort of things I was going to say and how she could help.

Then it was time for the first talk. I hovered on the edge of the assembly while the head gave a talk about Easter bunnies and spring, reminded the kids why they were having a non-uniform day and then introduced me and Rhiannon. At the same time, she pressed a button on the screen show and up popped a photo of a Japanese temple surrounded by cherry trees in bloom.

A lump appeared in my throat and to my surprise my eyes started leaking a little. Not a great start, but I was so moved by the beauty of the familiar photo I couldn't help it.

Anyway, the show must go on and all that. In a slightly quavery voice, I talked about what happened to us that day (pretty much what I wrote here). I added actions, included Rhiannon with "what happened next" questions and even got a big laugh out of explaining that it was like trying to walk on jelly.

The children were mesmerised. It was quite daunting actually as they'd been fidgeting and whispering until we spoke. I thanked them for their fund raising work and finished to a loud round of applause.

Phew!

The headmistress was impressed and amazed by Rhiannon's confidence and public speaking too. Then it was time for an awards ceremony. I was very pleased to see the children being rewarded for their efforts in such a way. I think it's vital for confidence and gives the children something to aim for. Rhiannon's already planning which certificate to aim for first.

A quick half cup of coffee then it was in to talk to the older children. This included Rhiannon's year group and we did a slightly different talk. Basically I was just winging it - I hadn't made prompts, I just talked. The reaction was exactly the same. I was rather pleased with it all.

During this awards ceremony Rhiannon received a certificate for Student of the Week; for being there only two days and settling in quickly and "making cool new friends" as well as presenting these assemblies. Proud Mum and proud child.

As Rhiannon went back to her class with strict instructions to find me so I wouldn't miss the bus with her, the head of school said to me, "So, are you ready to talk to the seniors now?".

"Yes, of course"... I was still very jetlagged.

Seniors? Oh my god. That means teenagers. They are a complete unknown to me and a notoriously unreceptive group. Now I was nervous as hell.

I had no idea what I said to them, to be honest. Wittering on about walking on jelly wasn't going to work, that's for sure. I may have got a little ranty about how many people had died and were displaced yet were now forgotten in favour of media reporting on the Fukushima nuclear crisis.

But I truly can't remember. To their credit they remained quiet during my ramble and applauded at the end.

I was very pleased it was over. The two head teacher's hugged me and suggested I should give talks on a regular basis, perhaps come into school and teach as a volunteer. No, but thank you for your kind offer...

Rhiannon was waiting for me at the gate, the bus was already there. It was a long drive back but enabled me to see where some of the other children lived.

We had a quiet afternoon, with occasional shudders from me as I relived the terrors of talking to about 80 teenagers.

Lessons learned.

Same as Yesterday

Thursday 14th April

I'm aware that I write too much. A big thank you if you manage to plough through it all, but I'll attempt to keep my word count down a little. At the moment I'm just trying to cram in as much as possible so I can get up to date and blog in real time. This is a short post, but be warned - tomorrow's is long!

Today was mostly the same as yesterday; without the mastiff-meeting, car-collection and the jolly janitor but still with the jetlag symptoms, rain and depression.

Tim went into work for the first time. This is always the worst time for a "trailing spouse". While I embrace solitude, it does hit me when, for the first time in weeks, I'm alone and in a foreign country. He's collected by a neighbouring colleague who will show him how the bus and metro system work. He left before 8am and didn't return until well past 6pm. A long day.

I try to catch up with my social networking. It's weird having a different timeline of people and I feel very far away from the usual information streams. Especially those about how Japan is faring. I finish unpacking and storing stuff away.

Then I go out in a vain search of a post office. There may be something called a Postfiliale, but it's not open, shows no opening times and appears to be someone's house. I'll have to look another day and time. I don't want to close my business but with no postal service I cannot do it. Fingers crossed I find one soon.

In the evening Tim drives us to Ikea. We have to get a double duvet as we've only been lent two old, single, feather-filled ones for our bed. I'm allergic to the feathers. But Tim forgot to get the measurements, so we just got one for Rhiannon and will head back another day. We get a few other things and head home.

Just before bedtime, I remembered that I'm due in school tomorrow to give my two talks to the kids! I read a few blogs and articles for up-to-date information, make a few notes and go to bed.

I had a bizarre dream about earthquakes. I never remember my dreams, but this one was an epic. Not a nightmare, although the subject matter was. It was more like watching a movie. Quite disturbing but it means I awake in a "talk about earthquakes" state of mind.

Although a bit nervous about getting a cab, I'm looking forward to talking to people. And I love public speaking.

Jet Lag, Giant Dogs and a Janitor

Wednesday 13th April

I awoke at 5am again after spending most of the night in the bathroom.

No, I wasn't ill, I have a peculiar jet lag symptom - needing to pee every hour or so. Actually, my jet lag is very similar to being pregnant... headache, tiredness, insomnia (yes, they do go together), fuzzy headedness, irritability and nausea. And needing to pee all the time. And eat a lot.

I think the nausea part is still my jishin yoi - earthquake sickness - making its presence felt.

While waiting for everyone else to wake up I was treated to almost two full hours of cuddles from a scarily affectionate Raymi-cat. Most unusual.

I have a pleasant day ahead as Rhiannon is going to be at school all day. She hasn't been to school properly since the Tohoku earthquake on 11th March.

Her instructions are to be standing outside the house a 8.05am to be collected by the minibus. However, it's pouring with rain so we hover in the porch looking out for it before fumbling with the damn keys to let her out of the gate when it arrives. I'm so proud of her confidence. I couldn't have done that at her age. She will be delivered back to the gate at around 4.30pm. Bliss!

Tim goes off car-hunting and I'm all alone at long last. I like solitude. Very much indeed.

I don my coat and wish I hadn't sent my wellies off on the boat and head off for my first dog walk in Germany. I'm a little nervous as I've already seen numerous dogs walking along the pavement off-leash. In Japan, dogs are never off-leash unless they are in a dog run.

Besides, the dogs in Japan wear dresses and are generally the size of guinea pigs. The dogs here are not. They are huge.

Kita and I set off. No idea where we are going but I've seen a lake on the map so I head for that. Kita is understandably skittish after her ordeal and I hope a nice long walk, albeit in the pouring rain, will help. We found our way down to the lake and the first thing we saw as we turned a muddy corner was the biggest mastiff type dog I've ever seen. And it was not on a lead. And I couldn't see the owner. Oh. My. God! Kita obviously thought the same too and didn't know what to make of it. Luckily there was a gate in the way of their meeting. I waited for the owner to show.

Shiba Inus are unusual dogs - very primitive and more like cats in many respects. For example, Kita doesn't go in for butt-sniffing but prefers to sniff the other dog's nose. Our vet in Japan told us that Shibas quite often do not like squashed-nose dogs and I wonder if this is the reason. If a dog tries to sniff Kita's butt she tends to sit down. And if that means sitting on the other dog's head, so be it. Embarrassingly she once peed on a dog who had the temerity to stick its head where she didn't want it. I prayed she wouldn't do this again...

She didn't. It was worse and she showed an aggression I've never seen in her before. No attack, but a full on Shiba scream and bared teeth showed her antipathy. Mercifully the mastiff was very well trained and friendly and just trotted off. I am quite pleased I didn't understand what its owner said to me.

Our walk continued with no further incident apart from a brief, non-contact meeting with an enormous German Shepherd and we returned home absolutely sodden.

Just as I was changing out my wet clothes, Tim phoned. The car was much further away than he expected so he'd be away for some time. Meanwhile, someone was coming to fix a leak in the bathroom, a faulty radiator thermostat. At 10am. It was 10am now so I hurried to get dressed.

The janitor arrived. A charming Polish gentleman who will be a wonderful person to get to know properly. He did his work, told me his life story and, as he was leaving asked, "where is your television? You cannot have no television if you have a child".  Hah! Ours is on the boat. Bless him, he promised to find one for us and deliver it as soon as he could. He came back with one a couple of days later.

Tim eventually and triumphantly returned with our new car and our liaison chappie.

We'd better get some food in, so, following our guide, Tim drove us to our nearest store. 'Kaisers' is the name of a chain of shops that apparently are of good quality.

But it's not within walking distance of our home.

And this is when a slight depression hit me. Nothing is nearby. We're living in a beautiful leafy suburb of Berlin, but there is nothing here, no shops, not even a train station. All shops close on Sundays, many close on Saturday afternoons too. I can no longer pop across the road for milk or food.

And where is everything else? I need a nearby post office if I'm to keep running my business. A vet, dentist, doctor... where are they?

The thought of driving here terrifies me. It's all on the wrong side of the road and I've never driven that way before. Besides, I'm not yet allowed to drive here for insurance reasons so will have to rely on Tim for that. And he will be at work.

I start comparing Berlin to Tokyo and this is not a good thing. I have moments of "I don't want to be here". I must snap out of that but am finding it hard.

The Busy Day Continues - Dustbins & School

Still Tuesday 12th April 2011 - this may take three posts as so much happened.

So, we had lunch and continued unpacking while Rhiannon ran amok in the expanse of garden.

Suddenly the door buzzer sounded - an unpleasant noise making us jump out of our skin. I lean to look out of the window and see dustmen asking for our wheelie bin which is behind a locked gate. I try to tell them that no, we don't have any rubbish, but they don't understand.

Quick, where are the keys? There's a box full to the brim of random keys in the kitchen and Tim has put his set somewhere 'safe'. Luckily, Tim found his keys and dealt with the men. I hadn't realised we even had wheelie bins...

Getting in and out of this house is a major palaver. There's a high gate to the front garden that can only be opened with a key - from both inside and out. Then there's the key to get in the front door. If the front door shuts behind us and we don't have our key... that's it, we're stuck. Oh, and there's yet another key for the rickety fence-mounted mailbox. Upon opening it, I was thrilled to find two "New Home" cards from very thoughtful and lovely friends.

Then it was time to visit the international school we'd chosen. Tim phoned for a cab (using the number in our handy home-guidebook) and managed to speak to someone who understood English.

How did we select this school? Some friends are amazed that we hadn't made the 24 hour trip to visit various schools beforehand. But seriously, it's too long a trip to do that. I did a lot of internet research instead. I did feel a little nervous about it all - our choice of school in Tokyo turned out to be a big mistake.

Here we had a choice of four schools; I discounted two instantly as they didn't run the full British curriculum (I think this was the reason - it was all done a year ago) and we will probably have to return to the UK after this posting.

Of the two that were left, I was very reluctant to choose one from the same family as the Tokyo school but tried to remain open-minded. However, after doing all my research I decided on one, based mainly on the photos of the buildings and grounds - possibly not the most relevant reasons! Actually, I'm just kidding - their pastoral care and certain other aspects really appealed to me and I thought it would suit Rhiannon down to the ground. But I left the ultimate decision to Rhiannon, without telling her the names of the two schools.

She chose the same as me, but for very different reasons. The shoes she could wear! One school had a yellow uniform - "No way, Mum!" While the chosen one allowed ballet flats and a pretty summer dress. Shallow child.

Coincidentally, a friend of mine from Tokyo is also moving to Berlin later this year and visited last summer to look at all the schools. We have different criteria for our children so she chose a different school, but was able to report her findings back to me which was useful. After the earthquake in Japan she came to Berlin for a while but sadly we just missed each other by a day. I'm really looking forward to seeing her again later this year.

We arrived at school a little early and were astounded by its sheer beauty. The grounds are extensive and a pair of red squirrels bounded across the lawns. Lawns! In Tokyo the school playground was on the roof of a seven or eight storey building or on Astroturf. 

The headmistress was absolutely delightful. She showed us the various buildings and found Rhiannon's new class where she asked two girls to come out and show Rhiannon around the school. They skipped off together very happily.

The head told us they never accept children without seeing them first but she made an exception for us because Rhiannon's native language is English and her school reports were so good. Did she read the wrong ones?

Then we were introduced to another woman who will be the new head from September. Again, she was very personable. I was seriously flagging with jetlag by now though. So when she asked me what I was doing on Friday I said, "nothing".

"You are now," she laughed, "I'd like you to come and speak at our primary assemblies about your experiences in the earthquake in Japan." 

Ah.

Armed with the times of the assemblies we collected a very happy Rhiannon and headed for home. She has already made two friends of the girls who took her around. And found some conkers  in the school grounds. Red squirrels and conkers - what a lovely place.

The school have also invited Rhiannon to come into school for the rest of the week so she can find her way around and settle in; free of charge, meals and bus included.

Bus?

Yes, this is the best bit ever - the school provides a door-to-door bus service. I will never have to do a school run again. Sweet heaven!

For this, I will talk to the children about anything they ask.

Leaving Japan

I thought leaving Japan would be hard and I was right.

However, the experience of being in the Tohoku 9.0 magnitude earthquake with all its subsequent upheaval - geological as well as psychological - made it a little easier. Perhaps at the back of my mind was the thought that the Fukushima nuclear situation was more serious than we were told. But on the other hand, Tokyo is very far from the crisis zone and I trusted the independent information we were given. Further forward in my brain was the real worry that Tokyo would have The Big One (earthquake) with all the tectonic movement and pressure building elsewhere.

I desperately wanted to go and help some of the many thousands of displaced and grieving families but was unable to leave my home. Rhiannon's school was closed for what seemed like forever. They finally, reluctantly and under pressure, opened for one week just before the Easter holidays which gave me a little respite time to sort out some packing.

Aftershocks continued on a daily basis. We were all far more jumpy about them than before 11th March and this added to the immense stress I was under. I was (and still am to a certain extent) suffering from jishin yoi - earthquake sickness - a form of nausea, probably psychological but real for all that. It seems to be common judging by the searches on my Japanory blog and comments others have made to me.

Moving home is a harrowing experience in any case. But add to that the fact we were moving to almost the other side of the world (again) into a house we haven't chosen or even seen (again) and to a country I haven't been to before (again) and you may understand a little of the anxiety I was suffering.

I worried about how Rhiannon would cope with the move; she's spent half her life in Japan. Luckily, her reluctance and anxiety about moving was alleviated somewhat by the school closure (a single benefit!) and her friends also not being around. She was definitely not sad to leave the school where she had unresolved bullying problems.

As well as all that, I was fretting about how our dog and cat would fare.

When we arrived in Japan in 2006 we had two cats. Sadly, one died a week after our arrival having suffered a blood clot. This time we have a much loved dog, Kita - a Japanese Shiba Inu - to ship as well. She doesn't take well to separation and change and had been traumatised by the earthquake. To say I was very worried about her would be a massive understatement.

Because so many of my friends had left Japan post-earthquake I didn't get chance to say "sayonara" to them. Tim had a small goodbye "do" at the work bar on Friday 8th April where he got a little emotional; they were his workmates and good friends as well, so that was understandable.

Then the weekend was spent frantically packing, delivering electronic equipment to Tim's successor and generally trying to fit everything into weight-correct suitcases. The pets were taken to board by our pet shipping handler on Saturday.

Our possessions went in three shipments. Most of it was packed up on 1st March and sent in a  container on a boat. It was slightly delayed due to the earthquake but we were able to track its progress online. If it hadn't have been packed then, we would have lost a lot of precious items in the quake.This comprised about 90% of our belongings, including all but a few of my clothes.

The next batch went by plane a week before we left Japan. Included in that was my lifeline - my PC. I still haven't got it set up yet (missing some cabling and also why I don't have photos to include yet) so I'm writing this on a teeny laptop . RSI beckons. And the rest we have to carry with us - remaining clothes, vital papers, jewellery, Rhiannon's beloved cuddlies and random bits and pieces not included in the other shipments.

We went out for our last meal in Japan on Sunday and left home at 7.30am on Monday 11th April for the first leg of our trip. With 8 suitcases!

Itinerary: Japan Narita airport - London Heathrow, London Heathrow - Berlin Tegel.

This has been changed numerous times over the past weeks. We were meant to go from Haneda airport which is much closer to our home and the very early departure would mean we would arrive at our new house in daylight. Then the flights were changed due to a lack of crew and fuel to hop over to Seoul, South Korea before heading on. Finally they settled on the above which would mean we would arrive in Berlin late in the evening.

On the drive to Narita I drank in my last views of sunny Tokyo. The sakura (cherry blossoms) were in prime flower and looked stunning against the bright blue sky. Souped-up scooters whizzed along ridden in style by people with little regard to safe helmets; the billboards, the noodle-like road scheme with  tunnels and flyovers competing with the standard roads on the sat-nav. Craning my neck I saw Tokyo Tower with its newly bent spire (again, earthquake related).

We drove over Rainbow Bridge for the last time and then sped along the highway to the easy and calm Narita airport.

As we piled our cases onto the check in machine and the girl at the counter quipped "is that all?"

Yes, that's all. That's everything we have left to take out of Japan forever.

With a lump in my throat the plane took off. I didn't have a window seat so couldn't see Fuji-san for the last time. Perhaps that was for the best.

I fought back tears and ordered some therapeutic champagne.

Here's to the next adventure.

I kept repeating that to myself, but with a heavy heart.