Double-Half
or One Ten without ham

Or Little Niece Is Amazing! There must´ve been a lot of poo involved, we found so many of these boxes in the attic yesterday, oh, my. Sadly mostly full with what we consider junk. There was so much again we threw away.

Slowly you can see some progress. Times are changing so fast. This box once delivered one of the back then very expensive Celestron-telescopes.
Now you can get way better ones for low prices. Dad would´ve loved it.

Some days just are … slow. When I arrived at Bro´s shop he had to talk to the guy working on the alarm system. And I had to carry this stuff to my lawyer.

Yes, I think you can say I have a lawyer.

No, I haven´t been involved in some crime, don´t worry ;-)

But when Ingo and I were waiting with our caretaker at a meet-up in April, we showed him Ingo´s last will, so he can say if it´s ok that way.
He started with some bad scenarios and went like, “why don´t you make an appointment with my wife, she´s specialized in family-law”.

So we did. She listened to why we need a proper last will on Ingo´s side – and she talked me into making a concept for me as well.
Still sad about my Mum´s death I let her do it – Bro would never ever fight my last will, I just know this! And my lawyer had given his ok to my last will, too. He knows Bro as well. A week later we each got a letter with a “proper last will”.
I was wondering why it is important to write down when and where I was born???
The first phrase ended with “Both my parents have passed away.”
I had to add all the important stuff myself!

The other day each of us got a letter.
This lady wants 1200 euro from me and 800 from Ingo. I nearly fell over!
We didn´t pay right away and I´m glad we didn´t!

When Ingo looked a bit closer at his (yes, that early! But actually it was good this way) – he fell into shock! His parents had died in April!!! And no one ever told him! This lady had written down my info, had added this sentence to her “form”, some trainee (I guess) had filled in our names – and that was it. Exact, useless copies with different names set in.

My lawyer in my hometown helped us out. He read my e-mail, he talked to me over 30 minutes on the phone, giving advice. He said he´ll write down the right information for me and send it over.

I said, please include the bill – which he laughed about! He said he doesn´t want money for this!
So, I told him I´m over on Thursday anyways, no need to send it over, I can fetch it. He said, ok, let´s talk about it then again.

When I arrived, I told him I want to thank him and that we had a dilemma.

U-oh, said his look.

But then he smiled real big when I got the Braunschweig-wine and said, I was for this one but Spouse said, what if he doesn´t like wine? So we got the Mumme-beer.
But then I thought, what if he doesn´t like alcohol in general, so we got Mumme-jam.
The magazine came with the wine :-)

Guess we get out of this with 190 bucks or less, he said actually this is way too much, 0,00 would be appropriate. He gave more advice another 30 minutes. For free.

And he added he thinks it´s great how Bro and I stick together and that this is not the rule, most fight over who gets what.
He also added if she doesn´t accept my answer, he will jump in as my official lawyer.
Funny enough... their website is offline, I wanted to answer via e-mail today, why we won´t pay 2000 bucks... Never ever will I say anything bad about small towns, I tell ya! Small communities are the best at times. Goes for “my” parking lot there, too – meter maids know, red Polo with BS-number-plate is family, no ticket here!

When I came back I had a chat with the “sales-woman” whom I really like best, I guess you can say we´re friends. She took care of Mum in her free-time when there was “woman-stuff” involved, she went with her to the next city for an ice-cream and so on. When Bro has other stuff to do you can be sure she´ll be there to take over…

Then an old friend of Mum and Bro came by…. We really started late yesterday! And we had many breaks inbetween, too.
In one I took this pic of the old tennis-rackets, kinda… idyllic, I think.
When I looked a wee bit to the left, I saw this! This is a Father! Hello, Bro?! You could´ve fallen down there!
Click to enlarge to say,oh, my!!!

We also found this document: In the shop is one like this, too, Dad had this title in being a watchmaker and optometrist, plus he was a goldsmith. Same profession, different name.
Both have our Henry on it, too.
Our Grandfather (who died when our Dad was only 14) also had his master as a clock maker. It´ll find it´s way back to the shop.

And then we have all three generations with these documents, now call this tradition, huh?
Bro has the title in being an optometrist, he´s a goldsmith and can handle watches to a certain degree.

I have to admit, btw… Ingo, you were right again by not helping me anymore with my hair.
See? I can do it now on my own, doesn´t look that bad, huh? We got a lot done despite all the breaks. We left early, too, cause we were exhausted. And because I needed to buy flowers…. The stone is back. It´s even more real to us now that both are gone forever.

Now to the second title
Bro told me, as we stood there together, last Wednesday, aka Daddy-arvo, he went to the grave. He told Niece that it´s “Omi”´s birthday and Niece smiled, pointed up in the sky and said, “Omi!”… thought it over a sec and went “and Opi!” There was a wee bit of rain, followed by a rainbow. He said, Omi says thanks for the flowers.
It´s weird how fast this girl learns and how!

Bro had mentioned “Opi” a while ago already! Has explained that Omi and Opi are up there in heaven and that this is their grave. And that Oma and Opa live next door.

 

Yeah, a rare sight, I´d say,Ingo with a kiddy´s "buggy":

 

 

 

 

 

I "taught" her that pigeons are "Ihh-bä-bäh",which she learned superfast and really didn´t like them. She doesn´t know them since they don´t exist in small towns like hers.

Then we saw a raven. She went: "Ihh-bä-bäh!!"
I told her, no, this one is black, smart and cute.
Guess she really got it!!!

When they went home again, we got to pay the real Henry a visit:

Was at Bro´s place again to work on the house. Afterwards we went to meet his family. SIL had made some soup, and little Niece loooooves soup, she sure is no Suppenkasper! She picked even the last noodle with her spoon and then…. Well, she “drank” the rest just like that! And this is a heavy bowl. She has a new highchair, too, and eats at the table, my, time runs! In the house… we started the attic: I really have no idea what our parents were thinking what they´re doing. Germans recycle just everything. For plastic and metal we have a so-called “yellow bag” in my hometown (whereas at home we have to carry the stuff to bins, that are usually more than full). 28 bags we filled (2,7 kg each), 4 big boxes of paper, 3 bags of clothes and there were heaps of shoes. Who stores shoes in the attic??? They get soggy. As did most of the books. I´m reading a book atm, Kriegskinder, Children of war, to understand their behavior. They obviously weren´t able to throw anything away. The cheapest toys, they kept just everything. So… what can you do? It´s so dang much, you start throwing stuff away. Even this one: It was hard, kinda, cause when I picked her up to dump her in the yellow bag, she opened her eyes! I have no memories of her. I thought about it for a minute and decided to not keep her. Now, being away from all the stuff, I think, maybe I should´ve taken her home? Look at the hands – like a real kid in motion. But we have a small apartment and having no memories of that doll… in German you “let grow grass” over a situation, no point in thinking about something any longer… Funny grass, huh? Pic taken on the way to the Chinese take-away, my is their food yummy!

Had a funny conversation with Niece that day.
I gave her a book (actually ages 3+, but she did great). On the right side is a button for a door-bell, underneath symbols that make sounds according to the story. Amongst other a mower, oh, guess what? She dumped herself on my lap on the ground, happily said “Rasenmäher!” and pushed the button again and again. Too cute. Well, ok, it was more a “asenäher”, but, hey, she just hit age 2!

When I left, Bro asked her to say “thank you” to me for the book. At first she didn´t quite get it. Maybe she thought, I´ll take the book back with me?

But then she got it, said “thank you!” and I answered… well. In German it´s “gerne”, “gladly”? Which she replied to with “bitte”, “you´re welcome”. And she said it so politely and serious, try not to laugh at that one!

And you have to watch your mouth now, too, she´s like a sponge and soaks up every word and she understands perfectly which ones are “bad” ones, oh, my! :-))

This really is a funny age, funny as in you have to laugh a lot (at least when you´re the Auntie and get her best behavior!)

Last Saturday I joined (well… joined probably isn´t the right word, since it has joy in it!) Ingo on a walking track with some of his work-mates. A former co-worker, now retiree, had invited to the event.

On a Saturday! My company never takes away weekend-days from us. But since Ingo is with me every Christmas-Party my company “throws”, I had no choice, huh?

We started in Ilsenburg. Which meant we had to pass the former death zone. The wall is down for over 20 years but still immediately you realize you are in former GDR.

Why? The roads are way better than ours, the houses look better. All the money over years and years mainly went to them, our roads just get tinkered, they got everything new.

Anyhows, Ilsenburg.


At 08:15 we met already, it´s about an hour´s drive to get there… we then took the “Schmalspurbahn”, or Narrow gauge railway. Actually it was quite funny to ride in something like that. Just… the steam/smoke came in and my eyes started burning right away :-(

And kept tearing all the time, the whole time we were outside.


I love to cycle but I don´t like hiking, hence I had no proper shoes.

But the invitation said, 10 km, easy walking, 15 if you don´t wanna take the bus from the restaurant to your car.

The Harz declared national park now:


We were so dang lucky with the weather – if it had rained, I would have had a massive problem. Parts were really hard come through, you had to watch every step and with shoes that have no grip… Easy is different!


Where is the fun in doing so? You can´t see nature cause you have to watch every single step of yours.

And with teary eyes, I hardly saw at times, it was a pain.

But then again… do you think this is a nice view anyway?


Ingo thinks it might have been wind, maybe it was some sort of beetle, though, traps to catch them were everywhere.

One part of the group was very slow, so we had to wait often.

Not funny, gets dang cold!

Had a chat with Ingo´s boss, a friendly guy. Tomorrow, when I drive to Bro again, I´m allowed to visit Ingo´s workplace (pssst, don´t tell). One thing we once had in common is migraine. That poor guy still suffers regularly from it, nothing really helps (I´m actually completedly free from it after several treatments of acupuncture).

The retiree led us through and always said, aww, no, let´s take this route, it´s more idyllic.

Well, maybe some luck will come with this after all, look what we found, guess the first time I saw one for real:


When we finally, finally arrived at our cars… one of Ingo´s colleagues had tracked the kilometers.

24. Through often harder ground, not easy.

Even Wednesday I was still in a bit of pain, Sunday and Monday I could really hardly walk, never had such burning muscle ache! (Ok, must be the ago coming through as well here! ;-)...)

But we made it back home. This is not ours but in the City of Henry the Lion this is a common and reassuring sight:


Seems like Braunschweig-people have a heart for animals in general:


And this one showed little fear, love the red squirrels:


And Braunschweig, not the Harz, now NP or not!

Will now light a little candle for Mum. Happy Birthday. Thanks for the idea, FB-friend, En Ne.

With autumn arriving I had to buy tea. Wow, there is so much exotic stuff out there, Ingo is just shaking his head about all the sorts I get.

But... could you resist this little "night-ghost"-tea?
It´s a "good night tea" with, amongst other lavender.
On it´s side it says:
"If your day was exciting and you don´t want to go to bed yet, have a cup of 'little Night Ghost'.
Sleep is very important to you!
Sleep well and sweet dreams!"

Yes, actually it´s for kids, but who cares, right?

Toast Hawaii and tea?


No, with beer (I know it´s not a polite thing to order a Toast Hawaii in a Croatian rsstaurant - we went to Split) and yes, I pronounce it like it´s supposed to be, Hawaii, friend P always rolls her eyes).
But... In hospital Hannover I often had Toast Hawaii. Bro and I always went to the canteen with our Mum to encourage her to eat.
Was in her honour.

So, when I saw this bag...


... I just had to get it. It whispers of sunny holidays,too...


That day I was out without Ingo. Went into shops he dislikes.

Awww... where can he iron this on for me?? So dang cute!


This heart is for us, the buttons are for the next Advent-Calendar for my friend, they´re magnets! Cute, huh???


And certainly... tea! A "Princess-Tea" for little Niece is a must, no?


Am really curious how the bags look like, pink? With a crown?

In it´s side:


... it says,
"Do you sometimes dream about having your own horse and live with your prince in your own castle?
Get a cup of 'Princess-Tea' and imagine a nice story!
Don´t forget: Everything is possible in your fantasy!!"

Love it! With her family name being translated Emperor quite the right tea, huh?

Today, as by tradition every Monday, we went to the city.
An ex-colleague always was astonished when I wore Braunschweig-clothes. He never sees that, he states.

One guy sat outside a café with the same Braunschweig-sweater on I was wearing.
And when we had a yummy, full of fat VW-Currywurst (one Wurst, two sets of fork and knive, see blog-title ;-)...) I took this pic of Ingo... Braunschweig-sweater, and a guy in the background (teachers, they meet here every Monday, too), with yet another Braunschweig-sweater. Ha!
We love our town! :-)


Next... pics and short story of the worst trip of our lives ever...
My.(Our).Muscles.Still.Do.Hurt.Like.Crazy.

School starts over here and our bakery is joining in, what a cool idea!

They offer Schultüten with healthy snacks :-)


Your monitor is fine, my cam isn´t - all blurry :-(
But the idea is cute, huh?

In front was parked this cool vehicle - with "lateral upright", how cool is that?


Oh, what Niece got to her 2nd birthday, btw, since she loves to paint so much:


Didn´t Ingo just go so dang creative? Love it!!!
Yes, Niece is two now!

Ahhh... first time I look forward to November:


Ingo got cards to Udo Jürgens! Yepp, call us old farts ;-)

Pic from today:


30C, a wee bit cloudy. Maybe the last day of late summer. I got all the bank-stuff done and then we went to Schadt´s, sat outside, enjoyed the warmth ... and... classical a Märzen (a beer). What a life...