Last day....

Sadly, our lovely visit is coming to an end. We had a great meal out last night at the Neuwirt Restauarant (where Jiggs had the good pumkin soup). Gisela was there too, and we all had various asparagus dishes, as it is the local specialty and is just coming in to season. The asparagus soup earned as much praise as the pumpkin. You will be pleased to know that I also had a sausage!

We spent yesterday in Landshut, mainly shopping which was fun. Had the obligatory kaffee and kuchen of course, at a busy little cafe that makes its own chocolate, and is apparently a favourite haunt of the rest home crowd!

Today Lyn and I have the task of fitting all of our stuff (including the huge cardboard box of good Oakley stuff that Glen has for us to take home) into our bags, and then making it weigh less than 40kg!

Timothy's first picnic

Yesterday we all went to Rothenburg, about a 2 hour drive on the autobahn. Only a moderate amount of stress for Glen who had the dual jobs of driving, and herding all these women into the car in the first place. Luckily Claudia is very helpful with suggestions from the back seat.

We made it without any wrong turnings, Timothy the perfect baby having slept all the way. When we arrived he had a feed in the car (his first picnic!), before we went wandering through the old town walls and into the centre of this lovely little cobbled town with its 13 and 14th century half timbered buildings.

The town is in a part of Bavaria called Franken, and is a wine producing rather than beer area. They bottle their wine in distinctive round green bottles, like these ones hanging on the wall outside this wine cellar.

We joined a tour of the town that was just starting, a useful way to see most of the sights. Claudia zipped away and came back with some schneeballen (snowballs), the local specialty food, which we ate as we toured, spilling icing sugar all down our fronts and dropping bits of pastry as we went (the local pigeons loved us!)

The age of the places was amazing. It had been a prosperous town, owned by a few local lords or equivalent, and the houses were very large - 4 stories mostly. They still had the beam sticking out above the topmost window with the pulley in it to haul up the winter's food supply for storage at the top of the house, and most had their own well in a courtyard. The top floor windows in some places still do not have glass, only shutters.

We visited the ancient 11th century nunnery with its revolving barrel in a window to allow the cloistered nuns to hand out food to pilgrims without seeing them (an early form of drive-through!) The nunnery gardens were very peaceful.

The town is completely surrounded by its wall, some of which you can walk around. Claudia and I climbed up and had a quick look - it was very narrow and uneven, with sturdy but rather ancient railings, and a bit too high for my liking.

From just outside the wall their is a gorgeous view down over the valley below, with its old stone double-decker bridge.

We had a very late lunch in a lovely little restauarant. Lyn had pork schnitzel, Claudia had local sausages, and Glen and I had 3 varieties of sausage with sauerkraut and dark bread. Timothy chose milk again!

It was a great day out, and Claudia and Timothy did very well with such a long outing - not a sqeak out of him all day!

Glen has been working at the hotel all night, and Timothy is tucked up in bed with Grandma again while Claudia has her shower.

Zwei Omas

Gisela stayed overnight on Saturday night, but headed home after breakfast on Sunday. Timothy enjoyed having both his grandmothers fussing over him - only a small amount of competition for his attention!

It was a gorgeous day, like a nor'wester but with hardly any wind. We walked down to the local tennis club, then around the river, and back to beer garden where we sat out in the sun with our shandies and weiss beer. Glen ordered Lyn a pint of green shandy with something in it that she thinks was midori - it tasted quite good, but the after effects as the day wore on didn't please her too much!

We played with Timothy at home for a while, but the day was so lovely that we went for another walk down to the lake at about 5 o'clock. Loads of people down there picnicking, biking, walking, and the kids kicking soccer balls about and making daisy chains. We sat for a while in the beer garden there too, although I have to say that I'm not sure I could handle a litre of shandy every Sunday either!

Today we are all off to Rothenburg, the 'most medieval town in Germany', about 2 hours drive. A bit of an adventure for Claudia and Timothy as Claudia has not yet had to feed Timothy out in public. The day looks good so far, although the forecast isn't marvellous.

Saturday night roast

I arrived back last night to a lovely dinner, cooked by Lyn, Glen and Claudia. Gisela was here too, and Timothy obligingly slept all evening while we had a delicious roast chicken with stuffing, roast potatoes, pumpkin and sweet potato (almost kumara), and then tiramisu.

Claudia had been and selected special wine at the tasting shop, and we had a lovely evening. After a few wines Gisela and I were chatting away and understanding quite a bit of each other's conversation! It seems much easier this visit - maybe because we are all a bit more relaxed, and I think Glen's German being so good now, meaning there are two translators all the time, also helps. Wait till Timothy's translating for us too!

It was good to talk to Lisa and Shell and everyone last night. You will all be at Brighton now - hope the evening goes well. We miss you all and are looking forward to getting back and telling you all the stories - we are saving them up!

Have a good week at work everyone, and enjoy the holidays Bill, Ben and Ella.

Fairy Tale Castle Neuschwanstein !!!

This is the fairy tale castle Neuschwanstein. It was built in 1869 to 1886 by king Ludwig 11 of Bavaria. He died in mysterious circumstances. So the castle has never been completed. We had to climb over 200 steps to get to the top. I was buggered by the time I had reached the top, but I was quite pleased with myself.
The view was beautiful !!
Love Lyn xxx

Wild Alderney!

Arrived on Alderney yesterday morning after a beautiful flight over (only 3 passengers on the plane) in the sunshine. It's a lovely little island with a wild rocky coastline - more wild than usual at the moment because it's very windy and the waves are thundering up onto the rocks. There are about 10 old Forts dotted around the coast, originally built in the time of the Napoleonic wars, but some of them added to during the German occupation in WW2, very picturesque. Some are virtually completely ruined, some have been done up and coverted to housing, and some (like Fort Corblets, which is Diana and Stephen's one) with potential!

They are in the process of of doing theirs, a major undertaking. Dad, you would be very impressed with the place, and immediately see opportunities for wall-knocking-down and window/door-installing. They are not living there yet, as it has been pretty much completely gutted in the doing-up process, but we went over yesterday and had a good look through.

We went back in the evening and had champagne watching the sunset from up on the ramparts. This is actually an enclosed area which was a greenhouse but is now a living area, right up at the top of the fort with the old gun emplacements just outside the window. Magic!

Today we have been into town and had a bit of a wander around the shops. As you can imagine, a wander with Diana involves stopping to chat with half the island, and actually a drive with Stephen seems to involve to stopping to chat to the other half out the car window! However I did manage to stop for a chat myself with the other 2 people who were in the plane with me on the way over.

They have another friend staying too, an old friend of Stephen's from the film industry named Bill.

About to brave the weather and go for a walk on the beach.

Good blogging from the German half of the team - keep it up!

This morning Timothy and I had playing time together. Our time in bed each morning is very special. He is awake for longer each day now. He is pulling his dummy in and out of his mouth. He is very interested in bright colours, also Kims glasses. He changes every day. Today Glen and I went shopping. We bought Timothy a musical toy for his cot, I think he likes his play gym the best though. Glen and Claudia read Timothy books each day, it seems like my job is taken.

I have seen a few good things in the shops for Ben and Ella but I may need another aeroplane to bring it all home.

Miss you all love Lyn x x x.

The last few days have been about Timothy and shopping. This is Timothys first gym. He is having a ball. We went to a large shopping complex yesterday, it was awesome. I think I will need another suitcase to bring everything home.


On Monday we went to a lovely little Bavarian town called Pfaffenhofen, were Timothy had his head massaged,dew to his birth.It looks fine to me. Afterwards we had a lovely lunch. I had Wiener Schnitzel and Kaiserschmarn (it is cut up pancakes with raisins and almonds, a traditional Bavarian dessert, it was yummy). I have already put on all the weight I had lossed.

Tim Time!

Good dinner with old friends

Another beautiful morning in the Forest, a good frost and now the mist slowly clearing from the valley.

Yesterday Pam and I had a great walk around Soudley Ponds ( where you got lost training for the Nottingham Marathon I think, Jiggs!) Their two dogs are very energetic and were in and out of the ponds and shaking all over the place - incredibly well behaved though, would put Evie to absolute shame.

Pam had to go into Bristol in the afternoon, so I had a potter about Newnham, and then went up to Wildgoose House. Dana and Jonathon were both home, putting in an enormous pond on that raised area just outside the front door, where I think there used to be a climbing frame or slide or something. It was great to see them - we had a lovely afternoon. Dana got very enthused about NZ and persuaded Jonathon on the spot that they would come out next Feb!

On the way back here I called in and had a cup of tea with Sally, which was also lovely. She's such a nice, down to earth sort of person.

Pam cooked a fabulous meal, and Joanthon & Dana, John and Val Rocking-Jones, Sam and her partner Wayne, and Joan all came. John was in fine form, loud and entertaining, and the champagne was flowing well (along with a good bit of NZ wine).

Sam and Wayne are emigrating to Adelaide next March - they have only just found out that they are accepted, and are very excited. R&P are planning on coming out for Christmas 2009, and then coming to NZ in January 2010.

This morning I am going to go walking with Roger, then head off down to Bournemouth - should be a lovely day for it.

Sunrise in the Forest

This is from the UK half of the split team. Not sure whats happening to the blogs on the German side of the team - Glen said in his txt yesterday that Lyn was about to start blogging, but I suspect Timothy was being far too cute to switch attention to the computer. The last couple of days I was there he was awake pretty much all afternoon, just gurgling and wanting to play!

I arrived at Heathrow yesterday morning. We had to circle round over London a bit before landing, and eventually came in low right over the city, with a glorious view of St Pauls, Westminster Abbey and the Houses of Parliament and Big Ben, Buckingham Palace, the Eye, Hyde Park, and lots more.

I drove down to Gloucestershire, stopping for some food and a coffee at Oxford. I had alittle walk around the old Colleges of the University, and went to an exhibition on Milton at the Bodleian library, which was really good (and quite small!)

I stopped and had a look at Blenheim Palace too. I had never been there, and have always wanted to. The building is just magnificent, the stateliest of stately homes! And the gardens are also lovely, although I only saw a little bit of them - there is a huge park stretching over acres.

The history of the place is interesting. The land and money to build the house was given in the 1700s to the first Duke, a Churchill, after his troops won the battle of Blenheim in Bavaria, saving Europe from Napoleon. It seems as though a bit of wartime nous must have run in the family! The male Churchills died, and the family became Spencers (same family as Lady Di) because the Churchill daughter married a spencer. They then added the Churchill name back in, so by the time Winston was born they were Spencer-Churchills.

Winston was the son of a younger brother, so he was never going to inherit Blenheim or be a Duke, but he was born there (by accident), as his parents were there for dinner when he made an untimely arrival. They had quite a good display of Winston history in the room where he was born.

I had a tour of the part that was open to the public (the current family still live there) and it was great. They still use the rooms we went through - have family Christmas dinner in the vast banqueting hall with the painted ceiling, and an enormous Rubens on the wall, and they have functions in the gorgeous long, light library with its huge organ at one end.

Roger and Pam have been very welcoming, and Pam had cooked a lovely meal last night just for the 3 of us. Joan came down and had a drink with us first - she's looking a bit frail but pretty good for 86.

Roger is working today, so I will go walking with the dogs with Pam this morning, and then I am having afternoon tea with Jonathon and Dana, as Pam has something on this afternoon.

I am sitting here just watching the sun rise over the Forest - magic! It's cool with a bit of a frost, but looks as though it will be a good day.

Walking!

Just a quick note to tell you that we walked 10km along the river bank yesterday.

Glen cooked us a great meal of pasta and his famous delicious fruit sponge pudding.

Claudia is about to take me to the airport. I am leaving them to do the blogging from here - Claudia in charge of setting it up, Glen responsible for putting on the photos, and Lyn to do the commentary.

Love to all xxxx

Bodensee

Bodensee (Lake Constance) is on the border of Germany, Austria and Switzerland, and is a beautiful clear lake tucked in under the Alps, with little towns and villages around the edge - very popular as a holiday spot in summer with lots of camping grounds, and little hotels and B&Bs.





We were pretty early in the year for the tourist season (we definitely were NOT going swimming!), but we had the advantage of almost deserted tourist attractions, and ease of finding somewhere to stay and to eat.





We stayed at Meersburg, a lovely little town on the German side of the lake. Getting there was a bit of a mission - 4 trains and a bus to get there, and a boat, 5 trains and a bus to get home! (An hilarious start when Lyn realised as we were about to get on the first train that her trousers were on backwards - fly at the back!) The train ride down took us through a mountainous area, where there was still a bit of snow on the ground, and there were lots of half-timbered farmhouses with their barns attached to them, very picturesque.





Our little hotel was cute, a nice room, with everything we needed and a good German breakfast in the morning. They make their own schnapps there. It was a bit early in the season for them to be doing tastings, but we bought some anyway.









The town is dominated by its two castles (Old and New Schloss), sitting side by side about halfway up the hill. Above the castles the 'old town' has little narrow lanes with half timbered houses, and between them glimpses of views across the lake to the snow covered alps on the other side.




















The Alte Schloss (old castle)is Germany's oldest castle, orininally built in the 7th century, and some of the rooms are still that old - just amazing!











We were almost the only people there and were able to wander slowly through looking at all the old weapons and armour (some of the suits of armour were so small they would almost fit Ben). There was a well that went right down to the level of the lake below, and a torture room where they kept the prisoners, and a hole that they lowered some prisoners down through the floor to the dungeons and just left them there to die! There was a secret passageway from the stables through the rock down to the lake, so that they could secretly get supplies in when they were under seige.

The rooms the were used in the 13 &1400s were great, with huge tiled stoves in the corners, and some furniture and paintings from that time. The big hall where the knights ate was great, and also the big living room used by the local ruler's family. It would have been pretty cold and miserable in winter in those days, I think.

By the time we came out of the castle it was cold and raining, so we pretty soon found ourselves in a 300 year old winekellar, eating local lake trout. I had a glass of Bischoffingen rulander which was delicious and very nostalgic!

The next day we were up early and waiting for our breakfast when Frau B&B opened up! We had another little wander in the town, Lyn and I bought a few local bits and pieces, and then found our boat across to Mainau Island. This island is just all garden! The owner has developed it into an absolute showpiece, and apparently it is lovely all year round. We are too early for the roses of course, but the spring flowers were all in bloom, and it was gorgeous.

There is an enormous hothouse, with palms and banana and orange trees, which was full of every imaginable colour of orchids, just tumbling down from the trees.

The children's garden had a huge peacock made out of pansies.

There was a great play area, and a really cool train set with half a dozen little trains running. (We thought the guy who was managing it looked as though he was in his dream job, playing with his train set all day!)

A highlight was the butterfly house. This was another hothouse (so hot that my glasses and the cameras all steamed up!), full of tropical plants, with a little river, a lake with turtles, a waterfall, and hundreds of gorgeous exotic butterflies, and just flittering round us, and almost landing on us. There were even some monarchs!

This was the biggest - you can't really tell from the photo, but each wing was almost as big as my hand.

The coccoons were in little metal baskets on the wall - we tried to buy some to bring home for Grandma for her stray monarch coccoons, but no luck!

Freidrichshafen, one of the other towns on the side of the lake (where we spent an hour between bus and train), is where the zeppelin was invented. There is one that flies over the lake giving tourists rides, but at $E335 each we thought not....

We also spent a some time in Lindau between trains, a lovely little resort town with a walled harbour and old, genteel-looking hotels along the waterfront.

We arrived home in the evening to find a cup of tea from Claudia with cake that the neighbour had made specially for us, and Timothy waiting for us, all dressed in his new clothes that Lyn had bought him. We reckoned he had grown in just 2 days!

Baby and Bathwater

The weather has turned beautiful, almost like nor'west at home (but not windy). Yesterday was fine and mild and sunny. When we go out we end up loaded up with jackets and jerseys that we are too hot to wear.

We spent the morning here doing breakfast and washing, then all drove to the town of Erding about 20km away, another lovely little Bavarian town with steep sloping roofs and fancy edgings on the pastel coloured buildings, cobbled streets and little tree lined squares full of people at tables from the cafes and beer gardens around the edges. Needless to say we stopped for the obligatory coffe and cake! Glen has been very patient with the cake, but says we are going to a beer garden next time.

Had a big chat with the neighbours when we arrived home. They seem to be lovely people, very fond of Glen and Claudia. They are a couple about our age, and her mother, and have been farmers here before they sold the land and built the apartments. They are always busy, and have a big black dog (half newfoundland and half golden retreiver apparently). They also have ducks nesting in the garden, and she showed us the one lot has hatched - tiny fluffy babies under a bush outside her front door. The neighbour is going to take us to the station this morning, and is making cake for us for Sunday - very kind.

Timothy had his bath last night. He doesn't have a full bath all that often so was a bit uncertain about it, but he didn't cry, and he kicked his feet about in the water. He is a beautiful looking child - lovely well proportioned body and quite strong.

This morning Glen, Lyn and I are off to Bodensee (Lake Constance) for the night. The forecast is great, so we should have a good couple of days.

"Climb Ev'ry Mountain"

We have had a brilliant day yesterday exploring Salzburg, home of the Sound of Music.

Breakfast with Timothy before we left. We left quite early (for us), feeling a bit guilty about leaving Claudia rushing to her physio appointment with Timothy still to feed and get ready. They were a bit late apparently but it didn't matter.

Caught a bus to Freising station, then a train to Munich, and another train to Salzburg - about 2 and a half hours altogether. The biggest entertainment at the station was the grin on Glen's face as Lyn and I negotiated paying $1.10 each to go to the loo! The train trip down was great, with the snow topped mountains coming closer and closer, and little villages with steeples nestled in bright green fields at the base of them. It was just like a continuous postcard.

In Salzburg we did a lot of walking. To begin with Lyn was full of praise for her comfortable sneakers, but by the end of the day she was cursing them for her blisters!

The streets of the old town are narrow and cobbled and lined with tall pastel coloured buildings that seem to lean over you. We wandered about for quite a while - the shops were lovely, gorgeous wee boutiques, but definitely only for looking!

Salzburg Cathedral looked pretty impressive from the outside, but the inside was amazing - decorated with coloured frescoes right up to the top, and very ornate. There was a school choir singing and the sound was magnificent, clear and rich, and you could hear a very slight echo at the end of each verse.

There is a huge fort, Festung Hohensalzburg, up on a steep rocky hill behind the town, originally built in 1077, and added on to over centuries, and lived in right up to the late 1800s. We could have gone up in the cable car, but chose to walk so that we could admire the views over the city. I don't think Lyn was so fussed about the views.....

The Festung itself was great, fully intact, and we were able to go through part of it and up a spiral staircase (more fun for Lyn!) to the top of a tower with wonderful views.

We came down in the cable car, because you have to ride a cable car at least once in the Alps!

After coffee and apfelstrudel at a wee cafe in a tiny alley, we wandered along to the house where Mozart was born. You can see that this is a city of music - there was music playing in a lot of places, music schools, and several other houses labelled as birthplaces of people who I'm sure a more educated person than me would have recognised.

We bought bread in a market. In Bavaria they eat bretzen which are the twisty pretzel shaped loaves of bread with salt on them, but in Salzburg they have different flavours of the same thing, so we bought some cheese, bacon and olive ones for on the train home, and chocolate covered for Claudia.

Salzburg is where they filmed The Sound of Music. We walked back through the Mirabell gardens past the fountain that they danced around in the film, and along the banks of the river which was also in the film. It certainly looked pretty daunting to have walked 7 children over those Alps!

Today we are having a quiet day at home. Glen was going to take me to do the big walk today, but Claudia's friend Andrea, who is a keen walker, says there will still be too much snow. I think we will see Timothy in his bath this morning.

Kaffee und Kuchen

Coffee and cake is a great thing here - something Lyn and I could easily adapt to!

Yesterday Claudia's friend Andrea came to visit, and we all walked into the town on Freising. We had a lovely walk through the old part of town. Lyn and I had a quick look at some of the shops, and Lyn bought a very nice top from the sale rack in Woolworths (all their winter stuff is on sale which is great for us!) She's planning to explore the shops in Freising more next week, while I am in England.

We ended up at a lovely little cafe by the river (I think they took you there too Jiggs). By this time it was sunny, and very little wind, so we sat outside and had coffee and apple cake. All the outside chairs had polarfleece blankets on them that you could wrap around yourself if you were a bit cold (we didn't need them).

Claudia and Glen cooked us white asparagus with a sauce, and two types of ham, one normal and one just cured raw meat, for tea.

Today Glen, Lyn and I are off to Salzburg for the day. Glen has been at his third job all night in a hotel (he has his fulltime job with Oakley, teaches English classes twice a week, and works all night in the hotel once a week), so he says he will sleep on the train this morning.

Hope all is going well at home. We are missing everyone, especially Lyn is missing Ben and Ella.

Timothy discovering he can put two fists into his mouth at the same time!

This should be a little video, not sure if it has worked.

Timothy live!

Beer and a Palace

Hi everyone. Here's our boy!!!

It's a gorgeous sunny morning here, with a predicted high of 6 degrees, twice as hot as yesterday!

We caught the train in to Munich yesterday. We had intended to do the biking tour, but it didn't seem to be on, so we ended up going on the top of a double decker bus - a better option given that it was only 3 degrees with what Grandad would call a lazy wind.

We stopped at the Nymphenburg Palace, where King Ludwig 2 was born and looked through - magnificent painted and gilded ceilings, and furnished royal bedrooms. The grounds were amazing, laid out with a long straight central canal and gardens lining the sides.

We arrived back in the Marienplatz just as the glockenspiel was chiming, all the people on it coming out and dancing. It is an old clock on the side of the town hall, with lifesize painted figures that come forward and dance about in a ring when it chimes.

From there we wandered down to the victualienmarkt, where there were dozens of produce stalls - all sorts of fruit and veges, including things like fresh dates and figs, and some stuff I had never seen before. Glen bought some carob for us to eat - long brown pods, that are dried and taste a bit like dry, almost crunchy, dates. There was a fabulous olive stall, dozens of different varieties, and flavoured with things like garlic, almonds, and parsley. We bought some white aspargus for Claudia (it's just coming in to season and apparently she loves it), and some cheese and enormous strawberries.

Earlier we had had what Glen calls a 'Bavarian hamburger' - a roll with a big chunk of sausage and sweet mustard in the middle, so we weren't really too hungry, but we went and had 3 enormous beers at the Hofbräuhaus! We had dinner there too - pork and dumplings (not as good as Gisela's) and Sauerkraut. It's an amazing place, the band in their lederhosen playing oom pa pa music, and the locals in their corner with their hats with feathers, and about a million tourists gawping like us!

Today we are having a quieter day in Freising, Claudia's friend is coming to visit.

Timothy is great, only waking once at night now, and we still haven't heard him cry.