08 February 2007

Siehst du den Schnee? (Do you see the snow?)

One thousand abject apologies for keeping you all in the dark about what happened when the door opened. I had an unexpected, all day visit from Mr Braxton Hicks yesterday and contrary to what the pregnancy sites say, it hurts (I strongly suspect that the people who write for these sites are the same people who lie to you about periods, round ligament pain and well everything else). So what I wanted to do was to have some snappy quote from The Eyre Affair (one of the characters is called Braxton Hicks) but as alas I couldn't find a relevant one you've got the one above which works because...today it snowed. Oh it comes from a book called Der Kleine Baer by Else Holmelund Minarik and as a 17 year old au pair I used to read the book every day to a pair of 18month old twin girls over and over and over.

Anyway today we woke up to snow and believe me even this grotty part of town looks good when covered in snow. Now you may recall, as I think I may have mentioned it once or twice, that the FB's nursery is located part the way up the hill, towards the top part alas, which is a workout on its own on non-snowy dry days, but when the path resembles a Christmas cake (decorated in litter, not fortunately today of the plastic, pink, buzzy kind) and your pushchair contains a 3 year old adamantly refusing to walk, the hill starts to take on a kind of mythological status (I'm thinking of the bloke who has to push a ball up a hill for eternity and unfortunately can't remember his name but I'm sure that you all know exactly who I mean). So after the FB was changed (he managed to fall over twice in the snow when he was in the mood to walk) and deposited at nursery there was no way I was going to walk back down the hill especially as the pushchair, or rather my personal zimmerframe as I like to think of it, gets left behind, therefore into a cafe I went. Such a lovely treat you know, going to sit in a cafe by yourself without a little one demanding a never ending stream of biscuits, muffins, cakes, the toilet. Oh nothing happened in there, no crazed gunmen ran in demanding free doughnuts or anything like that; no the worse thing to happen was that, and I admit this with great shame, I discovered that I quite like the new song by Take That "Shine" (it doesn't have Robbie Williams in it which is probably why it is actually good).

Where was I? Oh yes the door..... are you all sitting comfortably? OK well standing in the doorway was nothing. Nope, that's right, there was nothing there. Still I didn't go to sleep that night or many nights after until the first call to prayer sounded (at dawn).
Sorry!

12 comments:

angelfeet said...

It's Sisyphus you're thinking of. Didn't the snow look lovely - for a while. Poor you having to push the pushchair. I saw a woman with a pushchair trying to force her way through the snow and remembered just what resistance there is. They should make clip-on skis for pushchairs and buggies.

Glad you got to sit down and have some time-out.

molly said...

Little Bear, auf englisch, was my oldest son's favourite! Kleiner Eisbar by Jan de Beer, was a favourite of my own when I was struggling to learn German, and in awe that it came so easily to even the smallest German children....

Not to keep worrying the same old bone ----someone had to open that door......

velcro said...

thank you Angelfeet! Skis for the pushchair would be lovely or perhaps a little motor and a mummy sized board to stand on behind the chair.

velcro said...

the FB loves the Little Bear too (we translate it as we go). I can't remember what book I used when I was learning German but it was about a knight and a dragon.

the door? Heat! Saudi in April = very hot. The door had swollen with the heat and then in the cool of the night + airconditioning the door had shrunk enough to be a little too small to fit the door frame. At least that is what my mother said.....

Aunty Evil said...

Your mother told you that so you would go to sleep.

Now come on Velcro, time to stop dithering. Would you rather battle with snow on a daily basis, or come and live here and battle sharks on a never basis?

As I look out the window this morning, it is sunny, warm but not hot, and the flowers are out. There are green trees everywhere, the birds are singing and the ground is flat. Oh yeah, we have hills, but they don't have snow on them, or sharks. Not here in Sydney anyway.

BTW, did you hear the story of the Indian who had his future predicted by the witch doctor or whoever it is that does that kind of thing? He was told that he would be killed by a shark.

So he packed up his family, and moved as far away from the coast as he could get. He went swimming in an inland lake, and was killed by a freshwater shark.

Personally I think he was a twit, if I had such a prediction made to me, I wouldn't so much as have a bath, let alone go swimming anywhere!!

Anonymous said...

Oh I remember learning German, I only did it so I could get out of PE. I learned with Herr und Frau Ehlers whatever the book's called.

Das ist eine Tomate.
Ist das eine Tomate?
Ja, das ist eine Tomate.

That's the only bit I can remember, somehow I managed to get an O level in it.

I always thought Robbie was the talentless one in Take That, they're much better without him.

Bec said...

Angelfeet beat me to Sisyphus.

But wait! Once they're out of the pram and actively engaged in school it becomes less like the futility of Sisyphus and more like a mad breeding of Pandora (don't open the box!!) and Damocles (don't touch the sword!)

Just thought I'd mention that, in case you needed any cheering up after Mr Braxton Hicks' visit. Byt the way, my experience in second (twin) pregnancy was similar with Mr B Hicks. In my case, Mr B Hicks turned out to be Ms Pre Labour, finally settling down to three or four months of Mrs Irritable Uterus.

velcro said...

MrsT your German is remarkably similar to my Russian
Is that mother?
No, that is not mother, that is an orchestra/pianist/metro station etc.
I hope one day to have the opportunity to use such a fantastic sentence.

velcro said...

Too late Aunty, did you read Surfing Free's post? Her dog was bitten by a funnel web spider. Eek does not even cover it. We may have bad weather, lousy transport etc etc but poisonous spiders and large swimming things with teeth (ok there is a possibility that we do actually have them now) yeah, we are relatively safe from them!

velcro said...

Welcome back Bec!
Thanks for the warning. If Mr Hicks comes back for another extended session I'll drag meself down the road to the hospital.

Pam said...

My German lessons featured, most memorably, a text to which there was the question, Warum gehen sie nach Travemunde? (Why are they going to Travemunde?) to which the answer was, Sie gehen nach Travemunde, um frische Ahlen zu holen (They are going to T. to buy fresh eels). Sorry if my spelling isn't quite right. I have never needed these sentences.

molly said...

So sweet of you to miss me, K. I miss all my blogging friends too. Life has a way of knocking the breath out of you unexpectedly.That's why I haven't been around. But I'll be back. Right now I'm picking myself up and brushing myself off.....