#13. Theres a fly in my room and I think it should die. or just get lost anyway.

BACK! It's so, so nice to be back. Apart from this bastard fly thats really beginning to wind me up something shocking. It's huge, and noisy, and arghhh.
Today was something of a miracle I think. You always know the day is going to start well when you ignore your alarm clock until a message comes on over the tannoy telling you that its time you got in your car and left the boat. your 3 year old then tells you that he needs a wee when you're sat in the traffic waiting for passport control and the dvd player has been covered by an avalanche that occured in the boot when someone moved the bugged that had been delicately balanced as to not disturb anything. you then stop outside a fish shop. which seems to be the only thing open in holland at 7 in the morning. you cant buy a coffee. but you can buy yourself a fish!!! you then turn on your satnav, which has quite unendearingly been nicknamed phsyconav (we dont get on very well at all) to discover that its trying to take you home via hannover airport. not quite where i'd planned on spending my morning. this is followed by getting stuck in the worlds most giant traffic jam and the car beginning to sputter and telling you that the engine is failing. can we say uncool? at the same time J decided that even though we had just stopped for petrol and a toilet break, he needed the toilet. so we stopped on the autobahn (motorway) to take a wee. im sure thats highly illegal and quite dangerous. not to mention the dead rat lying in the drain.

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(we got back at about...7 so we had quite a long stint in the car, and i have alot more to say about said stint in the car but this is taking up far too much energy and i need to sleep!)

#12

(Still playing catch up - pretend this time that it's Sunday)

Last day today! Trying to get everything in the car could be quite a challange. Julies managed to pretty much clear out the local charity shops, and thus even the Galaxy - as a people carrier - is going to struggle i think.

#11 - We're off to London to see the Queen...

I'm going to do several blogs in one night in a bid to catch up with all the times that i've either been too tired or too engrossed in some silly chick flick to write anything.

Pretend its Saturday, because on Saturday we took J to London to see the Queen (whom I was later told doesn't actually reside in Buckingham Palace at present) and some dinosaurs....

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Today we went to London to see the Queen. except she wasn't there, so we looked at the men in funny furry hats instead, becuase what else is one to do with a three year old at Buckingham Palace. Imagine the havock we could wreck inside!
I discovered that the monument outside is great for several things:

1. Plane & Helicopter spotting - J's very favourite past time, aside from possibly bugger (digger in German) spotting and chasing people with dinosaurs.
2. Watching the Army blokeys run past
3. Poking fun, both at the Guards in their hats, and at the silly marching they do.
4. Eating picnics constructed by genius au-pairs

Having managed to successfully tackle rush hour traffic in Tonbridge, we made it onto the train in one piece. I chose quite the wrong place to sit, becuase I kept getting very dirty looksf from the people infront of me. Personally I'm thinking this could be for any number of reasons, maybe they just didn't like me, or children. Or maybe I looked like a teenage mum. . . I don't know really. Anyway, Katherine (last years wonderful au-pair) met us on the train, after having managed to board on the wrong side of the fire door and making a dash out of one carriage and into another during the brief time the train stopped at one of the stations, we were finally united. Katherine is quite London savvy, so we made it first to the Natural History Museum in quite a sauve fashion, especially considering we had the buggy with us. without getting lost at all. We spent a good couple of hours browsing the collections of delightful stuffed animals, and ferocious looking dinosaur skeletons we found the magical picnic area!!! Now this I definately recommend to anyone wanting to eat in the museum. Down in the dungeons there is their designated "picnic area" which I had no idea even existed. It's all kitted out with some pretty cool tables, chairs and playing space, a couple of vending machines and a little shop where you can get sandwiches and muffins and things.
After lunch J fell asleep so we decided that embarking on any kind of public transport was pretty much asking for it, so we walked. and walked. and walked. until we quite conveniently ended up in Sloan Square, home of the Saatchi Gallery. Talk about perfect timing. J having just nodded off bought us a few hours in which we could look in peace at everything on offer.
We stopped for coffee and nibbles when J woke up and made our way towards Buckingham Palace. I truely believe that he would have quite happily sat for hours by the Marble Arch just watching all the big red buses, london cabs and the assortment of vehicles that passed. Not to mention the planes and helicopters passing over, which he thought were brilliant.
By the time we'd finished at the palace it was getting late and we were all tired so we decided to head back home, stopping at McDonalds for a McFlurry to take on the train becuase we behaved so very well all day.

#..i can't remember what number i'm on. but i have my laptop back =]

I made it there and back in one piece! sadly there was no wifi at Hannover, but i manged to keep myself entertained with silly games for hours on end. I'm now sat calculating the logistics required to take a three year old into London for a day on the train. with a pushchair. . .

Mum, dad and christopher came tuesday lunchtime and we ventured to pizza express where we indulged in dough balls and real lemonade. it was rather nice.

My laptop threw another hissy fit and thus was taken away again to get fixed. Imagine my surprise when today my dad and my brother turned up at the door, having driven for three hours through bank holiday traffic to bring it back to me. how cute! must admit that i cried like a baby, and im still feeling a little bit on the homesick side.

#10 - There she goes again..

I'm off again, after a rather pleasant little stay back home.
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Results went fairly well ABBBD, I'm rather impressed by the B in photography that came from very very little work in my little rebellious streak. The D in General Studies was probably to be expected, seeing as I wrote an essay on the failure of our educational system. Hit Winchester good and proper, for what I assume will be both the first and last time in quite a while. . bar hopped all night until we ran out of money and then ended up having to fork out £55 for the taxi back , which i thought was a little bit extorionate, but fair enough, it was 3 in the morning. . .
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I fly out tommorow morning, very early, which means I should probably be sleeping at this present moment in time. I need to be on top form to drive back across again! Who even does that? I leave the country in the morning, get back to germany and then drive across all over again. How silly. But I think it will be quite fun :)
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I'm really hoping that you can get WIFI at Hannover airport, It will make my stay there a little bit more enjoyable, and has the potential to keep me entertained for hours!
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BEDTIME.

#9 - Home again

Clearly jazzing up the blog didn't work, but I'm female and enjoy making these complicated, so here I go again with a much simpler blog, which no doubt I will become easily bored by and the colour scheme will change on a regular basis.

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Back home again this morning for results. Flew with Ryanair, which was...very blue and yellow. I don't understand how customs can be so busy midnight..? and that the queue for non-EU residents is always that much longer than the other queue.

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After a lovely lunch at Ruthies, I went and picked up another new pair of glasses and got my hair cut. It was all very exciting, becuase then I went and had an ice cream, saw Fi and spent the afternoon revelling in M&S, Bulmers and Dairy Milk. None of which do I appear to be able to find in Deutschland.

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Myself, Fi and the parents went out for dinner which was fabulous, it was nice to have some good conversation, until we decided that actually we wanted ice cream and scurried up to the co-op where its presently half price. In a truely girly manner we sat on the sofa with Bridget Jones, a tub of ice cream, two spoons, two laptops and orange juice from the carton, discussing our plans and booking flights to Berlin. It was very sophisticated.

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I crawled home and into bed, in the hope of finding the Time Travellers Wife online somewhere, so that I didn't have to fork out a small fortune to go to the cinema, which is appears I will have to do.

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We get our results tommorow morning! Theres a little niggly feeling, but none of the butterflies I think most people are experiencing, as to me at the moment it doesn't make a great deal of difference how good or bad they are. Considering the essay I wrote to the examiner in my general studies paper, and the fact that I pretty much stopped doing any work for photography half way through the year, I'm not expecting anything spectacular.

#8 - Jazz hands

O. For starts my blogs looking a little bit sad and boring compared to some I've seen and thus I intend on jazzing i up a little bit.
I also haven't updaated it in like...5 whole days! and to be really honest I can't remember much of what happened. Lets have bullet points of what I can remember:

• Claire Marie arrived
• Jess went home
• We went to the ballpool in Mobelkraft
• Everyone got ill. but its ok - we got checked for swineflu
• nobboy remains nobbish
• my brother left for Jesus camp
• i spent my first morning with J out and about. we fed the ducks, it was very exciting. (whilst the babies were being checked for swineflu!)
• i missed everyone at home quite alot
• i lost count of far too many things

Today:

• I started nice and early because Mom got sick and Dad had to a really important seminar to give
• We fed the babies a marvellous breakfast of eggy bread. sadly J didn't want any of my wonderful cooking but drank my coffee instead.
• I made lots of wonderful things that actually didn't turn out too well:
• Cheesecake
• Banana Milkshake
  
• Baby mush
• I did lots of laundry and cleaned out the bus a little bit
• We went for a walk in Wildpark Eekholt, which was very cool, a bit like a zoo but in the forest. CHECK IT OUT http://www.wildpark-eekholt.de/menu.html
• I came home, i ate alot and now im going to sleep alot too, whilst coming up with a marvellous plan to keep the boys happy tommorow :)
  

#7

screaming baby :( i just want to go give him a big hug. i don't' think that would help much.

some boys really are ... manwhores. and quite childish about it, which makes me feel a little bit silly. but its ok becuase i'm in Germany and therefore all is irrelevant.

We did the weekly shop today which was great fun, the germans are highly amusing people. all the stuff we bought nearly overflowed the trolley, and then we managed to leave a bag inside the store. which i had to walk miles back to go get. came home, fed the babies, put everyone to bed and then had a couple of hours peace which was nice. i need to start keeping a list of all the things i need to do, and buy. curtains are quite a high priority should anyone have the desire to send me some :P
tommorow a friend of Julies is coming to stay, which should be fun becuase it means theres an extra pair of hands around to do exciting things like play in the ballpool at Mobelkraft! In germany most supermarkets and shopping centres have free supervised play areas, like the ones they have in IKEA. which means you can just go to the supermarket to play in the ballpool come adventure playground thing. i'm very much enjoying this, as it gives me an excuse to act as though i'm about three on quite a regular basis.
Home in just over a week! for those dreaded results, that i'm not really dreading because more recently they've become a little bit more irrelevant seeing as i have no idea in hells name what im going to do with my life. im sure eventually i will find my feet and do something i really love. Very much looking forward to Thursday night, regardless of how things turn out. much less looking forward to saurday morning when i've decided it would be a good idea to fly southampton - hannover and trek it up to luebeck on the train. this could end very badly, but i'll be sure to keep the world posted!
As ever its bedtime!

#6

Oh golly! No update in days. Well just a quicky as I have to get off the computer. Today was a bit of a lazy day. I didn't go down for breakfast and was brought coffee and a baby monitor to me in bed. SO I stayed there quite contently until the babies started screaming, I went down to find one poking another through the bars of his cot, which was quite funny. Then we had lunch and I retreated back upstairs, where I slept quite alot of the afternoon away.
Yesterday we went to he 24 hour go-kart race - very exciting german villagey stuff if i do say so myself. Sadly our village didn't win, but it was a nice afternoon out with everyone.
BEDTIME!

#5

lalala. it's very early in the morning and i should be fast asleep! today we got very lost twice, once in the nanny-mobile. once in the bus. getting lost in a bus and then not being able to find anywhere to park it is quite stressful..but we made it home in one piece and with chocolate so all was well. we created an adventure playground in the back garden, complete with a castle, paddling pool and sprinklers! very very exciting. it's j's birthday tommorow, which is very exiciting. thomas the tank engine cake stylee, however is yet to be created. we have blue food dye, so all is well in the world.
i went on a little flight booking spree due to ryanairs awesome $1 sale. although the cheeky buggers then charge a $10 fee for any card transaction to make up for it. but still $12 return is not bad at all, you can't even get the train up to london for that much!!!
off to bed ready for tommorows festivities!

#4

i'm doing this now whilst i have five minutes spare so that i can get an early night. im exhausted! we went to the beach this morning with J + 1 baby, and it was all sunny and sandy and lovely. even the jellyfish were lovely. babies wouldn't sleep again, which meant that i couldn't have a nap, but i think i will now instead. met one of the other home helps today which was nice because she's been ill for some time. if anyone can provide me with advice on making a thomas the tank engine cake, feel free´- J is 3 on Friday! :p.
naptime!

#3

a night on the town! this evening we went into the big, bad city. very exciting it was as there's a big music festival going on, and so the whole place was just buzzing with life. there were little tents with fairy lights and chandeliers and it was all quite magical, if very very surreal. a bit Alice in wonderland like.

Today i got officially registered! very exciting. no entirely sure what i gain from doing so apart from the ability to open a bank account. the babies wouldn't sleep, which was BAD becuase i could have really done with a snooze myself. In the end we went on quite a long walk to the little shop down the road. panicked a bit at the idea of speaking german, and ordered some pork from the deli counter. it's a good job i'm trying so hard to be brave. once again im exhausted.!!!

#2

so the alarm clock's set for a little later tomorrow, when I shall be going to do all things officially German. What moron leaves all their paperwork(birth certificate, driving license, passport etc...) for registering themselves in the car... (which was on it's way to Brussels by the time anyone noticed). I do!. And then I managed to break the brand new laptop aswell!. Today Jess arrived, which was very exciting because we got to spend the morning at the airport, where we had some coffee and fought over racing cars, went into Luebeck and had another proper German breakfast.
Jess was given the grand tour of the house and its jungle like gardens, warned about the bastard wasps, and ridiculous sized tractors.(Which are really big, flashy and noisy - especially at midnight.) Put the babies and J down for a nap and they slept alllll afternoon which was fabulous! So I re-arranged some more of my rubbish and started to organize my little library, until I was distracted by the Time Travellers Wife, which I need to cram before I go see the film.
Managed to be convinced to drive a really old Ford transit bus, which was quite an experience - do NOT put it into first when you're doing about 50. made it home alive, had spag bog for tea, tried to tame tantruming babies and raved to some Mama Mia.

#1

being woken by a three year old...definitely going to take some getting used to, as is Sunday breakfast German style. Hung out in the Jungle (the garden, which quite resembles the amazon rain forest) complete with creepy crawlies galore for most of the day. Proceeded to be stung by some bastard wasp, and was bitten all over, definitely time to get out the marmite. Once again I should probably head to bed, up early tomorrow to pick up potential Au-pair #2 from the airport with the children in tow. By the end of this year I'm going to be an organizational genius, the co-ordination needed to keep triplets and a three year old happy is quite something i assure you.(and a skill I'm yet to acquire).nappies, dummies and spoons will be flying in four different directions until i get a hold of it all, by which time the babies will be walking, also in different directions.

The Arrival

so...I'm trying to reorganize all my possessions, which recently were shoveled into boxes and suitcases to make one hell of a journey across the channel. after almost 2 days straight traveling (+ a stop in a very swanky hotel halfway) I have arrived at my destination. I've never kept a diary, but i think it would be a shame to not document this coming year, and it keeps everyone (especially the parents - up to date with what I'm up to).
I have a funny feeling a few sleepless nights are going to be in order, until I get a hang of the notion of 3 screaming babies and a screaming toddler...