No more denying it

winter is fast approaching.

We scraped the first ice off the car this morning. It was 1C.

Time to get the winter clothes and boots out now.

How to get a wetsuit on a ten year old

We went diving last weekend and 'we' doesn't include me getting in the water. The wives get to drink hot chocolate while the husbands get themselves into all this gear:

The kids need to go diving too. Andre and I have decided that our kids one day will do diving too. We can't understand why all parents don't make their kids go diving. No talking back and no fighting under water!


But first you need to get them into wetsuits. If you're wearing a drysuit, the least you can do is give them a wetsuit or two.

Step 1: Have one adult hold child down.

Step two: Have another two adults force very tight fitting wetsuit (for maximum warmth) over child's legs.

Step 3: If you're in a generous mood also force booties onto child's feet. This will allow you to stay under water longer as said child will be less inclined to freeze completely.

Step 4: Load child with oxygen and you're ready to go.

Tip: patience is important throughout to ensure all children end up in water.

Weekend in Venice

As part of our long weekend in Germany last month we also took a trip to Venice. It was about 6 hours drive from Munich on Friday.

We spent all day Saturday wandering around the little streets and over the many bridges in Venice and drove back again on Sunday. We had a fantastic time there. Below are just a few of the photos we took.

Jürgen took us on a scenic route home. The beautiful mountains, green hills and lakes made us miss living in Europe...

We also stopped at Grossglockner in Austria, a glacier and one of the highest peaks of the Alps at 3798m above sea level. Big and beautiful.

Sunday was also my mom's birthday and we had a birthday dinner in Austria before continuing on home to Germany.

Just had to show you this- the hand basins at the hotel we stayed at in Italy!

Badger update

The badger in our garden was spotted!!

Andre came down early yesterday morning without switching the downstairs light on. Lights from the upstairs windows lit up the garden slightly. It was just luck that right at the moment he looked out the back door there was our little badger friend trotting across the lawn. He went right across the lawn and disappeared under the shed. Sadly I was too late and he didn't come back out from under the shed.

Now we're wondering whether he actually lives under our shed or did he dig a hole to visit the neighbours for an early breakfast Sunday morning...

Our new garden visitor

Sunday morning I came outside and found this:

And this.

All over our lawn.

"I can tell you now that wasn't me."

Monday morning I found this:

Pepper plants dug out...

Luckily the only plant with an actual pepper on was spared.
It's small but it's there.

"I said I didn't do it so quit looking at me."

After some research I found the cause. This:

I know this because of the above pictures as well us our friend digging himself a "toilet" in our herb garden. Nice. It's what they do apparently.

Badgers are out looking for food during spring and autumn and there's not much going to stop them if your garden is one of their preferred restaurants. They will dig under fences and can climb very well so there's no need for us to even put up a fence in our back garden (which opens onto a field with only trees and shrubs shielding it). Saves us that expense at least.

The only options are either a very tall fence which also goes quite deep underground and which needs to be quite strong to withstand badgering from the badgers or an electric fence. We've decided to let the badgers be and see how it goes. 

Improving our lawn will apparently get rid of some larvae which our badger is currently enjoying as you can see form the photos. We'll see how it goes once we've got veggies planted. If it will only be certain times of the year we might be able to make a plan.

Oh and in case you were thinking of a different way of getting rid of a badger, they're a protected species so no, you can't do that. They have actually been voted the best liked British mammal. We'll see how much we get to love our badger.

Cute, until it's your garden he visits next!

Apple recipes

So far with the apples from our apple tree I have made apple pie, apple & sparkling cider sorbet, two batches of apple juice and today apple crisp. All the recipes are on my recipe blog.

Still to try is apple jam. We just need to get a ladder to get to the higher branches first!

Octoberfest 2011

We missed the Octoberfest in 2010 as we were waiting for Andre's UK residence permit and missed the one in 2009 as we were waiting for our Swiss permits. Finally this year we were able to make it. Andre took a few days off from work and we made a long weekend of it. My sister, Simóne, and her boyfriend was (still is at the moment) in Germany visiting Mom and Jürgen too so it was a bonus getting to see them at the same time.

Simóne brought along Californian dirndls for each of us. Not quite the real traditional German type, but they sure drew more attention than even the shorter varieties the younger German girls wear to the festival. We might just have been the most photographed dirndl wearing girls there that day! The guys of course enjoyed our outfits and surprisingly the older people also thought it was cute. We got a few less friendly looks from younger girls though as we stole the attention away from their outfits!

We might just have started a new Octoberfest fashion!