Friday afternoon, the little one spent some time with her two older friends in a playgroup. For some time, they were making and drawing stuff. It was only the three of them and the playgroup lady.
This is what the kids insisted to make:
Any guesses what it’s supposed to be?
It has been quiet on this blog (again). Basically because the last four or five (or six…) weeks have been quite exhausting….Our holiday in Scotland didn’t really bring the expected recovery and when we arrived home lots of work had piled up. Among others, I had to organize a summer festival for more than 100 (one hundred!) kids. And temperatures suddenly rose to over 30°Celsius for more than a week. In a normal condition I am already more a what you’d call a Northern type – around 25° Celsius is fine, but it doesn’t have to be warmer than that. But entering the last three months of pregnancy, I am absolutely convinced that a possible child number three will be born at the end of winter! Even those incredibly sexy surgical stockings do not really avoid swollen legs at the end of the day.
But one of the daily highlights and, in fact, a source of relaxation and contemplativeness, has been our garden. It’s probably also the only thing that truly enjoyed the high temperatures (and only because I am still draagging watering cans) and exploded into a summer garden.
On the day we returned from Scotland, we harvested our first strawberry. The little one did, to be exact. Since then, we have been living in a strawberry wonderland. Even with the small berry raiders, there has been plenty of berries left to harvest almost a kilo each day. I have been busy cooking strawberry jam (or strawberry elderflower jam….or strawberry rhubarb jam…) and so far, we are up to 14 glasses and I am confident that there will be plenty of berries which can be frozen so we can enjoy some of them during the winter.
The stem turnips, the beetroot, the pumpkin, the salad, the potatos and the corn are doing well. We also harvested our first garlic today (earlier than expected but who am I to complain??). Only the courgettes are a bit weak so far.
A new thing in this years garden is the French spinach which has passed the test as salad contribution and will be planted next year again. Another new thing are the mangetouts which we love but somehow our plants don’t seem to feel too well. Which is a bit frustrating because we have supplied our friends with seeds as well and we planted them on the same day and theirs are full, truly full of peas. We’ll work on it…
Thanks to Karsten’s enthusiasm for bumblebees and the fact that bumblebees need at least 6000 flowers each day, I could plant more flowers than usual this year. A real joy has been the California poppy which has disseminated itself last year. The lady’s mantel and the love-in-a-mist are blooming, and so is the phacelia. Hopefully there are plenty more flowers to come!! In the meantime, we’ll fight the weed…and I hope I’ll be able to work in the garden for some more weeks!
What comes to mind when you think of Scotland? Haggis? Whisky? Sheep? Highlands? Bagpipes?
When I think of Scotland, one of my first associations is “green”. And not just green pastures, but green moss, green fern, green alleys, old stone walls covered with green vegetation, and incredibly old, beautiful green trees. Which is funny because millions of trees have been cut in Scottish history due to the Highland clearances and the introduction of sheep pastures so most parts of the Highlands actually suffer from a severe lack of trees (and due to the strong winds it is quite difficult to reforest as the wind will cut swaths of destruction into the forest). Yet I have seen some of the most impressive trees in Scotland. Old, majestic ones around the castles. And old, crippled but mysterious looking ones along the stormy coast. While driving around on the Isle of Mull (and also in Edinburgh), I again indulged myself in these absolutely beautiful shades of green you’ll find there…here is a selection of a serious amount of green pictures on my camera (and oh, I could have taken so many more pictures, but one has to watch the offspring from time to time, right?):
After a really exhausting drive to the Isle of Mull, the arrival at our B&B felt like heaven. Despite our hopes, the little one decided to wake up extraordinary early the next day so that Karsten and I went for a small walk with her at 7am before we gathered for breakfast. Aaaah, it felt so good to just sit down and have breakfast each morning. No preparation, no getting up and fetching something, no cleaning afterwards…instead, a warm fireside (it was surprisingly cold on the island, even for Scottish conditions), coffee, porridge, fresh, self-made and still warm rhubarb sauce, boiled eggs, self-made, delicious bread. We were, by the way, staying at the Mornish Schoolhouse, in case any of you is looking for a truly wonderful accommodation on Mull. It is run by a German/English couple with two children who are extremely welcoming and make you feel at home immediately. It is located near Calgary Beach which is a nice maybe 20 minute walk away.
There are plenty of things to do on the Isle of Mull, and we knew from the very beginning that three days will only allow a small glimpse of all the options. We checked out the beautiful Calgary Beach and the Arts and Nature Café nearby. We also checked out Tobermory, the cute little capital of Mull, where Karsten and our friends visited the local distillery and I and the little one discovered the seawater aquarium. Both places are highly commendable – while I can’t drink whisky at the moment, I was assured that it is a very good one, and the seawater aquarium catches the content of its tanks right from the sea, displays it for two weeks and then releases every creature back into the sea. An approach I really liked, not only because it’s very sustainable, but also because it allows to show a large variety of seasonal sea life. The most fascinating animal for the little one were the big scallops which she could pet on the back and which then squirted water…great fun! Afterwards we went to Glengorm, which is only a short ride away from Tobermory (although short is kind of a vague description on Mull). We didn’t visit the castle, but went for a walk to the beach and some standing stones. Well, I didn’t actually manage to see the beach because of an extraordinary bad mood of the little one which I tried to escape after the seventh or eight tantrum…
That was, admittedly, one of the drawbacks of our holiday. We tried to spend those days as relaxed as possible. However, due to the remoteness of many places and the single-track-roads (and all the sheep on the roads) the little one often had to sleep in between in the car or the baby carrier which resulted in a lack of sleep and, consequently, in a unsual amount of crying from her side. We also somehow didn’t keep in mind that staying at a B&B means going out for dinner every evening – and while we had some fantastic food on Mull, it again meant that we had to drive a lot and that the little one went to bed one or two hours later than usual every evening. Which again left me feeling quite stressed and tired.
Therefore, we made some adjustments for the third day. Our friends happily (at least I hope so :-)) took over the little one in the morning so that Karsten and I could drive along the coast to the Isle of Ulva. Ulva is a small, private island which can be reached by ferry within 2 minutes. There are some beautiful walks on the island, and a nice little café, The Boathouse, where you can enjoy seafood and a view over to Ben More, the highest mountain on Mull. At lunchtime, we were back at the hostel were the little one was having a nice, long lunch nap. The our friends then went for a coastal hike around Calgary Beach while Karsten and I went back to the beach with the little one (and back to the Calgary café to enjoy some “babyccino”). Even the weather was dry for the whole day!
In the evening, all of us went a superb small restaurant near Ulva ferry – the Ballygown. It is run by a couple who simply turned their living room into a restaurant and offers three or four different courses each day. There are only four tables, the food is delicious, the view splendid, the owners extremely welcoming and hearty and we were well entertained by their little son who even gave me one of his drawings as a gift. The little one was happy, even though it meant going to bed an hour late again, and the rest of us was happy too. What a precious, wonderful day!
Looking back, the Isle of Mull (and of course Scotland in general) is a stunning, beautiful place to spend your holidays. It’s remoteness, the coast, the beaches, the woodlands, the villages – as picturesque as you can wish for. Hundreds of beautiful walks, wildlife to discover, castles to visit, delicious food to eat (yes! delicious food! Seafood! And we are glad to report that the little one was even eating haggis). But! Yes, there is a but! One week is not enough. Spending four days out of seven on arrival and departure is crazy. The little one needs her naps and she needs a normal bedtime, otherwise she and I suffer. Next time, we will have a holiday flat with a kitchen so that we can do some self-catering and we don’t need to go out every evening (which we would have done on Mull too, but the self-catering flats couldn’t be rent for less than a week). Though I will indeed miss the ready-made breakfast in the morning….And as soon as the kids are a bit older, I will always return to the Mornish Schoolhouse.
After one and a half days, we wanted to make our way over to the west coast in order to spend some quiet days on the Isle of Mull.
The plan was as follows:
In the morning, we will visit Gorgy Farm so that the little one has some fun before sitting in the car (estimated time in the car: 3 hours during which she is supposed to do a long lunch nap). At noon, we will pick up our friend at the airport, pick up our rental car and start driving through the Trossachs National Park. We will have plenty of time which will allow us one or two nice breaks (maybe a short walk?) and a quick visit of a supermarket to buy some food for the evening. At 6pm we will be on the ferry and enjoy the short ride. Then we’ll only need to drive for another 45 minutes and we will arrive at our B&B.
That was the plan.
Here’s the reality:
We went to Gorgy Farm where we had a fun stay. The little one was even asked to act as a photo model as two newspaper photographers wanted to have a picture of children planting flowers. Since this is what she normally does when we are in the garden, she immediately picked up a shovel and a rake and started to work in the flower beds (very much to my amusement), and was only slightly confused by the sounds of the camera which was clicking non-stop.
On time, we were making our way back to our place, picked up our luggage and took the tram to the airport. As the little one has entered her “I want to do everything by myself and do everything you guys do-phase”, I opened her stroller so that she can sit down on one of the seats. And then it happened. The tram accelerated while the little one was still walking to her seat, she stumbled and fell and hit her head on one of the hand rails. Normally, that would have been not more than a big bruise. But she hit her forehead.
And she hit it on the exact same spot where she was stitched four weeks ago.
…(please insert a screaming child and lots of blood)…
I still can’t believe that we were in the exact same situation, exactly four weeks later, on the exact same day and even the exact same time.
Luckily, I am adaptive. So I professionally took out a bandage and a clean pad and applied a pressure bandage (Dr. Freddie, pleased to meet you!). But I also instantly knew that we would need at least some glueing (and yes, I indeed thought about buying some glue for the next time so I can simply skip the emergency unit, but then again one doesn’t want to risk anything, does one?).
We went to the airport and I was still hoping that they might have a first aid kit which might provide enough help to let us go to Mull. Unfortunately, the first aid help didn’t make it any better…the little one was screaming, her head was bleeding and the first aid woman wasn’t able to apply butterfly thingies because of all the blood. So we put the bandage back on, picked up our friend, picked up the car and went to the nearest hospital. In between, I went to the bathroom to allow myself a little breakdown (it broke my heart to see the little one in this situation again, and I feel that my limit of injuries I can deal with is reached. Hormones played a role as well, I guess).
At the hospital, we were already warned: waiting time was one to one-and-a-half hours. We were all the more pleasantly surprised when we were called just 45 minutes after our arrival. But it was only the nurse who wanted to check on the little one and check her blood pressure (which she couldn’t because the little one was too upset). After that we were allowed in the children room and waited and waited and waited. All of us had an improvised lunch and I was happy to find a chocolate vending machine because that was just what I needed. I was also glad that I had the company of Karsten and our friends this time! But all of us where not happy at all to see the time flying, especially not because, with some help of our friends in Switzerland (there is no WiFi in the emergency unit), we found out that we had to be at the ferry latest at 5:30pm, otherwise our seats would go to the cars on the waiting list. We also found out that all the other ferries for the next days were completely booked due to a rugby tournament on Mull. Conclusion: Either we make it there until 5:30pm or we can cancel our holiday.
After 1,5 hours of waiting we got nervous.
After 2 hours of waiting we slightly panicked.
The little one was fine, apart from the whole in her head and the lack of a lunch nap.
Finally, we tried to explain our situation to the nurses (and also that we thought that the wound would just need some glueing). And we were lucky: apparently we looked desperate enough that the little one was checked after ten more minutes.
Drama! Screaming child, three people to hold her still, glueing (no anesthesia this time), butterfly clips and finally vomiting due to a piece of chocolate that the little one ate before. It almost broke my heart again. Completely sweaty and on the edge of our nerves (both parents and child), we left the emergency unit shortly after three.
Our satnav’s estimated arrival time at the ferry terminal in Oban: 6:15pm.
Nonetheless, we started driving. The little one fell asleep – long overdue and after such an excitement extremely necessary!
After one hour, our satnav estimated our arrival time around 6:00pm.
Our friend was doing a great job driving as fast as possible, although it must have been quite challenging due to the left-hand-traffic. All of us on the back seats got relatively quiet after a while…gee, those Scottish streets are windy!
A little later, our estimated arrival time was 5:45pm. And that was it. We didn’t manage to get there any sooner. We called the ferry company to tell that we are definitely coming, so please, oh please don’t give our seats away! They couldn’t promise anything. The last 30 minutes were nerve-wracking, I tell you. We were on tenterhooks. Traffic lights turned red. Slow cars ahead of us. But finally, finally we made it to the ferry. And the ferry was 20 minutes late anyway (which no one cared to inform us of when we were calling).
The ferry ride in the evening sun was beautiful. The drive to the B&B windy. The back seat team stared out of the window to be distracted from a constant feeling of nausea. We somehow forgot to buy some food, but had a sandwich and some cheese for the little for dinner. And later than planned we arrived at the B&B.
It took another hour until the little one was finally sleeping. And then our B&B host was incredibly kind and welcoming and let us share her family’s dinner. We were finally sitting at the table, in front of crackling fireside, with self-made pizza, soup and pesto bread. Breeeeaaath.
This evening, I felt old for the first time in my life.
Hello there, we are back again!! After one week full of Scottishness, we returned home safe and sound and a bit knackered. It has been a holiday full of memories, old and new ones, full of beautiful landscapes, sheep. good food and good company, but also full of unnecessary excitement and tantrums due to a lack of sleep and growing independence on the part of a certain cute little (and loud) button. There are definitely some consequences which need to be drawn for the next holiday (not that we know anything about a next holiday yet), but hey, that’s how parents gain experience, isn’t it?
We started last week in Edinburgh – after half a day of travel we were suddenly overwhelmed by so many good memories, and, to make it even better, by unexpected sunshine (at least during the first afternoon)! What a welcome! Already at the airport I felt a foolish grin on my face which just wouldn’t disappear and which was caused by the greatest of all English accents…I simply love it! When we first arrived in Edinburgh five years ago, we didn’t understand a word. Which was challenging as we had to go flathunting and there is no list of bus stops in the busses – apparently you are expected to know your way around, no matter where you are from. So when we asked the bus driver about our destination, he was so kind to talk to us for about three minutes….and we had no idea what he was talking about. Well, this time, we had no difficulties at all. Although the busses still don’t list the bus stops.
There were so many small things that felt familiar and that had almost slipped our minds. The smell of the brewery. The wind (how could I forget about the wind)? The queuing at the bus stops. The smell in the bus. The Scottish love for porridge, baked potatoes and scones. The immense amount of ready-made meals in the supermarkets. All the health-and-safety signs everywhere. The Scottish weather (sweater? no sweater? your rain jacket? just a t-shirt? or a hat after all? all within ten minutes…). The unexpected view of the North Sea wherever you go. Edinburgh is one of the most beautiful cities I have ever been to. Although being there with a toddler was completely different from living there on our own. We didn’t go to any pubs, nor did we go for excessive city strolls. But we checked out the playground in the Princess Street Gardens for the first time. And visited Gorgy farm, a small farm with domestic animals in the middle of Edinburgh, which is a great spot for small children.
Unfortunately, our stay in Edinburgh was way too short to go to all the places we wanted to see again or even to meet up with all the dear people we hadn’t seen for years. But we managed to go for a walk in the city, to visit the Botanic Garden (and a certain bench), to have a coffee at our favorite café (Leo’s Beanery, for those of you who are looking for a good place to regain strength after a walk in the New Town) and to drop some Swiss chocolate at my old work place. We also managed to find out what happens when you press the alarm button in the elevator…well, to be correct, the little one found it out for us. Guess what, the alarm starts to ring. And your child starts to scream. But she was probably more scared by the petrified reaction of her father than by the alarm itself.
After one and a half day in the capital, we tried to make our way over to the Isle of Mull….and managed to check out the Scottish emergency units. But that’ll be the next blog post, I think.
Edinburgh castle
Princess Street Gardens (and sunshine, yay!)
Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh
Four years later…back again, married (as promised on this exact spot) and with the little one (and one more)
the little one’s newest discovery: babyccino!
One of the nicest cafés in Edinburgh New Town: Leo’s Beanery
One day to go and almost no nerves left…..the committee meeting yesterday evening and an incident this morning put my craving for a holiday on a new level. I was already prepared for yet another mentally nerve-wracking committee meeting (I actually had the will to remain absolutely silent yesterday evening, but it just wasn’t possible…), but this morning it also happened that my work meeting was cancelled (about which I was only informed about when I arrived in the office together with the little one on my coat-tails) and on my way back to our flat we were held hostage by one of our neighbour who felt the urgent need to critize everything that is going on around our house.
“Hello Freddie, how was your committee meeting yesterday?”
“Hello XY, I….”
” You guys didn’t look too happy when you walked around the construction side!”
“I…”
“I saw no happy faces! Well, there is nothing to be happy about anyway, is there?”
“Well…”
“Even your husband is not happy with all the things going on!”
“??”
“I mean, look at the steps they built at the playground! They are far too steep! It’s far too dangerous for little children! Even your husband says so!”
“Well, I think we should wait how everything looks like when it’s finished – it’s hard too imagine it right now”
“But the steps are horrible! You’ll spend all the time watching your kid or driving to the emergency unit. Even your husband thinks they are horrible. But I guess they are not taking them back, are they?”
“No, I am afraid they are not changing the steps anymore”
“Well, that’s too bad. We should have been informed about this!”
“But everyone was informed about it last winter and nobody said anything against the steps. The committee can’t take the steps back now that they are already built. Also, they are not really supposed to be used as steps but more as seats for the soccer field”
“I didn’t know how steep they would be. But the committee doesn’t listen to us anyway, does it? And what else is gonna change?”
“?”
“How abot that ugly stone garden?”
“Well, there will be more plants…”
“Why are they never finishing anything? Why can’t they just finish the stone garden?”
“They explained to us that it is easier to plant all the vegetation around the buildings at once because it is going to be cheaper if everything is delivered within one day”
“No, you know what? The stone garden doesn’t need too many plants. It would all fit into one car load! It’s an excuse for them to make more money!! All they want is money!”
“(insert a silent prayer for the little one to throw a tantrum)”
“And the path to the garden is far too narrow!. Have I mentioned this? (As a matter of fact she already mentioned it at least three times during the last week) I am not happy with this whole project! I would have done it in a different way! It’s horrible! But noone ever listens to me!”
“I am very sorry, XY, but I really have to go. The little one is getting rather impatient!”
…
(And for your information, my phone call three minutes later: “Darling, what in gods name have you said to XY about the steps on the playground???” – “What? I haven’t said anything about the steps!” – “Well, she is convinced you find them horrible and dangerous!” – “I can’t remember saying anything about them. But she caught me on my way home a few days ago and I might have nodded and said “yes, yes, sure” a few times while she was talking…”)
Here we go…just two more days until we are off for this year’s family holiday. It’ll be just one week, but hey, that’s longer than last year’s holiday – slowly but steadily we are improving! And the location highly compensates for the short time: we’ll introduce the little one to Scotland! One quick stopp in Edinburgh and then a few days on the Isle of Mull which neither Karsten nor I have been to so far. The weather forecast? Well, what do you expect…it is Scotland after all.
As you can guess there are still so many things which need to be done….three big bags of clean laundry are waiting to be folded, one big bag of wet laundry is waiting to be put on the balcony (and folded in the evening), flights must be confirmed, important documents need to be gathered and packed, the fridge needs to be emptied, trash to be taken out, bathroom and restroom to be cleaned, floor to be vaccumed and mopped (something I would normally postpone, but that’s exactly what I have been doing for the last four weeks, so I guess it just needs to be done at one point), waterproofs to be found, bags to be packed, flowers to be watered…then there is a playground date this afternoon, a committee meeting for me this evening, a work meeting tomorrow morning, another play date tomorrow afternoon, Karsten has another day on the field….
It’s gonna be a well-earned week off 🙂
A single photo capturing a moment from the week. A simple, special, extraordinary moment. A moment to pause, savor and remember. Inspired by SouleMama.
While the second Sunday in May is usually celebrated as Mothers Day, Ascension is normally celebrated as Fathers Day (at least in Germany). Unfortunately, the first association with Fathers Day n Germany is probably the one of drunken guys pulling hand carts filled with alcohol bottles while chanting loudly.
In Switzerland, however, we haven’t experienced any escalating alcohol consumption, which makes Fathers Day pretty relaxing. We therefore decided to do one of our day trips which I researched during the winter when I was longing for warmer weather. So we packed a small picnic, met our friends and took the train, another train and a bus and ended up in Kyburg, a lovely, picturesque village with a castle about one hour away from Zurich.
Being there with an almost two-year-old and a six-week old baby meant that we approached the whole day in a very relaxed way. A breast-feeding session here, a quick search for a geocache there, then a small bite to eat before we entered the castle. It is situated beautifully on the top of a hill, overlooking the small village, with the outline of the snow-covered Alps in the background. While the little one was relatively unimpressed (except for the old bowling game, a life-sized picture of a kitchen including a dog and a chicken, and the sight of other children) it was still nice to let 800 years of history sink in and to enjoy not only the stories and the architecture but also the small garden. Highlight for both Karsten and the little one: the pond with hundreds of little pollywogs. Thank god the little one already knows about apoptosys…
I will now leave you with some impressions of the trip and continue the rest of the day as relaxed as before, together with the world-beating father! After I made him a kick-ass chocolaty iced coffee. Happy Fathers Day 🙂
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familial entropy 