Only 3 months late...
I’m sitting here melting in a puddle and trying to recall the Spring, April to be precise, and struggling.
I can see from my diary I met my friend Alison for lunch and a catch up on the first of the month. As usual that took place in Gails on Little Clarendon Street in Oxford, where they didn’t have any decaf tea, so I went with a rooibos (which is basically decaf.)
When I went to collect my order, the guy serving said “did you order milk with that?” and in that typical British fashion I apologised before saying yes, I had. I followed with a jokey “I bet you think that’s strange” and rather than laughing politely and moving me on, he paused and genuinely considered the question, before replying “No not really, and believe me, doing this job I have been asked for all sorts!” putting a very heavy emphasis on the ‘ALL.’
If I hadn’t have had a queue forming behind be I might of asked him for some examples!
It was lovely to catch up, and we made plans to catch up in the future which turned out to be a very exciting adventure that happened in June.
Looking at my pictures, I clearly took myself out for a very grey walk that weekend and I know the following weekend I had my hair done because on Thursday the 16th I was off to Germany with my Mum!
So, my aunt in Germany was 90 in March. My brother took my Mum out to visit as a surprise for my aunt and the cover up for this surprise was that Mum wouldn’t be able to make the birthday in March but she and I would be going in April for the wedding of one of my cousins’ daughters.
The plan was for my brother to fly out with her in March, stay the weekend then fly back leaving her there for a couple of weeks.
One of my cousins would then fly back with her and stay a week here. In April the same thing would happen again, only this time with me flying her out.
After her first visit my Mum decided having already just been there for two weeks, she really didn’t need to stay another two weeks less than a month later. Instead she opted to come back with me after staying for a long weekend.
Now whilst I have seen all my cousins and their kids a fair bit over the years, it has always been when they have visited here.
Other than various work trips, I realised I hadn’t actually visited family in Germany for well over 30 years….
I must confess I was shocked when I realised quite how long it had actually been. No real reason as to why, though I guess Himself not having a passport hasn’t helped.
Anyway long overdue rectifying the situation. So Thursday arrived and my brother drove us to Heathrow, where we jumped on a plane. Actually almost literally as we ended up on a little shuttle bus whic took us to the end of the runway, where we got off and had to climb up a set of steps to the plane, like one of those 1950’s newsreels of a famous person, but a lot less glamourous.
Now I hope you are sitting down reading this next bit, because I only took hand luggage…for 4 days…and that included various gifts, plus a wedding outfit with shoes!?!
I’m still slightly shocked myself if I’m honest.
We arrived at Dusseldorf, where luckily for me the lad on immigration was far more interested in scrolling his phone than quizzing me on my intentions once I passed through into Germany. A good job really because I had completely forgotten the address we were staying at!
My mother on the other hand it seems had a lovely chat with the girl at the desk she went through. When Mum finally emerged, it turned out the girl’s grandmother lived in the same village as my cousin, so she knew the area very well and was delighted to talk to Mum all about it. I bet the rest of the people in that queue were less than delighted to be kept waiting.
This turned out to be the theme for the weekend really; my mother was in her absolute element all weekend, talking nineteen to the dozen to everyone and anyone whilst I just went with the flow!
For context I just don’t have an ear for languages, any languages. I was utterly hopeless at German and French at school, and apparently as a baby I would scream hysterically every time my Mum spoke German. She eventually she gave up trying to bring me up bilingual.
So basically, whilst after a few days I can kind of pick up the gist of a conversation, my spoken German is non-existent. I do regret it, and have tried since, but I just can’t seem to grasp it. I’m incredibly lucky pretty much everyone there has extremely good spoken English.
My cousin Jorg and his eldest daughter Chiara were waiting for us at the airport and whisked us straight to the house of my other cousin Claus for a joint birthday party for his wife Giti and the groom Nelson.
The whole family were there so it was pretty much full on from the first moment which was pretty much the rest of the weekend too. We ate pizza and birthday cake before heading back to Jorg’s house to unpack and sleep.
The next morning Jorg was up early to fetch fresh bread for breakfast, a standard habit in this area where you either collect or have fresh rolls delivered each day. I kind of feel sad that we don’t do this in the UK.
His daughters Chiara and Gina came over bringing my aunt, and we had a lovely lazy and noisy breakfast. With Mum and I handing out the gifts we had brought.
Once they left we spent the rest of the morning and early afternoon running pre-wedding errands as well as going to buy wonderful fresh asparagus and strawberries at this farm witha windmill. Very Dutch you might think and it is, more of that shortly...
My family live in an area that is very rural and it was high asparagus season when we visited. They eat white asparagus (it’s actually quite hard to get the green version we eat in the UK) it looks a bit odd but is absolutely delicious.
Jorg also did a detour to the village my Mum grewe up in so I could see the old house and also just how much everything had changed. All the fields opposite are now covered in houses so I was completely confused.
In the afternoon we dropped off some tables and cutlery at Claus and Gitti’s house then parked up and went for a lovely walk in the woods close to where they live.
At one point on our walk you could step one way and be in The Netherlands, another and be in Belgium, or step back and be back in Germany!
That evening we drove deep into the woods to this lovely Italian restaurant. Chiara and Gina are both gluten intolerant, and really really struggle to eat in restaurants in Germany. They are always blown away at how many options you have here and Gina literally bought up the ‘free from’ aisle in Sainsbury’s when she and her partner drove over for a visit last year. This restaurant not only serves great food, it’s one of the few places with a gluten free option. I found it crazy to get my head around how this absolutely huge and extremely busy restaurant is just slap bang in the middle of a forest with nothing else near it for miles.
The next day we were up early, breakfasted on lovely fresh bread, boiled eggs and cheese before getting into our wedding finery.
The venue was again in the middle of woodland and was all that was left of a monastery that had been destroyed by Napolean’s army apparently.
Thankfully, it was a gorgeous sunny day because the whole wedding party was left waiting outside because the ceremony before hadn’t finished yet!
It turned out there were actually seven weddings on that day, so it did feel like we were on a bit of a production line, in one door and out another. Luckily, the grounds were huge with area’s cordoned off for each party.
Mum and I had a bit of a wander about and also thoroughly enjoyed looking at the different bridal outfits. We drank prosecco and ate these delicious traditional donut type treats that Nelson’s Mum had made whilst the pictures were taken before finally heading back to Claus and Gitti’s house for a buffet and cake. Eventually my aunt decided she had had enough so we left with Jorg to drive her back to her flat because she was insisting I see it. From there it was back to Jorg’s to change into comfortable clothes and eat some dinner. He goes to bed very early so left us enjoying a bottle of wine and watching the German equivalent of Strictly which was pretty awful sadly, the UK format is a million times better.
The next day started with another delightful breakfast, and this from the woman who doesn’t even like bread and actually only eats it so she can have butter, which she loves a bit too much.
We set to work with my cousin preparing the asparagus whilst mum peeled potatoes and I hulled and chopped strawberries.
By late lunchtime Chiara and her husband Simon arrived with my aunt closely followed by Gina and Willie. Jorg had cooked for an army, but every little scrap went. It was so simple, just steamed asparagus with boiled potatoes and either melted butter or hollandaise sauce but it was utterly delicious, just so fresh and tasty. The strawberries I ate just as they were, bliss. I hate adding sugar to them and also the to me strange habit in Germany of adding sugar to cream.
My aunt arrived with an old photo album that was filled with amazing black and white pictures even my Mum can't remember having seen before. Mum had a lovely time reminiscing andpointing out old friends and relatives, we both thought my aunt had more than a passing resemblance to Ava Gardner in many of the pictures. Unfortunately the album got whisked away before I could get my phone out and take some copies to save. I did snap this picture that hangs in my cousin's hallway, it's of my aunt and uncle shortly after they got married. It's such a lovely picture.
Once we had eaten plans were discussed for how to spend the rest of the day.
There was a medieval fayre we had driven past the day before which we were going to go to, but my aunt decided she wanted to go and see bluebells.
The girls and their other halves left and we all got in my cousin’s car only to drive to the next town because my aunt had now decided she wanted to walk around the small lake there and get ice cream! Thankfully the heavy rain had cleared, and whilst it was cool, it was dry and sunny.
I had thought the last evening would be quiet, but no, the whole family arrived! We ended up ordering take out there were so many people, but it was a fun way to finish the holiday.
Our final morning Jorg had got up super early to fetch his partner Betina who is a teacher, and had been on a school trip to Rome with about 200 11-18 year olds!?! They had driven there in a fleet of coaches and she said never, ever again!!
It was lovely to see again her if only briefly, and to also meet one of her sons in person (he called in to collect something on his way back to university.)
Claus and Gitti arrived to take Mum and I to the airport, via my aunt’s flat because she had forgotten to give my Mum something and insisted we call in for it!
The flight home was super busy, at one point I was worried we would get bumped but thankfully we didn’t.
Annoyingly they did make us check our bags after we had deliberately managed with small cases to avoid just that! We had to wait forever at baggage claim, I had literally just gone to file them as missing when they finally came through!
I was back at work 3 days before I had another day off. The plan was to go on a circular walk near Woodstock with Soo, something she has done a few times but knew I would love because there would be bluebells.
It didn’t disappoint. There were indeed bluebells, galore as well as lambs, hares and birdlife in abundance.
We also found a midden where I got very excited and Soo got to see a side of me she had never seen before! The one who used to go bottle digging as a teenager, I would have happily spent hours there, but she managed to persuade me away.
Well that was April.
I know for a fact there would have been craft projects, books read and unnecessary things purchased but frankly it’s too long ago for me to remember….
