Spam

nearly fell for this one.

Abendbrot

"Let's have breakfast for dinner today - pleeeeese!" the kids implore when I ask them what they'd like for supper. Abendbrot is the staple evening meal of most Germans - and it makes sense when you consider that most people here eat a hot meal at lunchtime. Served up on these cute "Frühstücksbrettchen" who can resist breakfast in the evening.

Thanks again Aldi.

It's that time of year again - early September, the leaves are just about to start turning brown, there is a slight chilly breeze, the nights are arriving a little earlier, but the summer wardrobe is still very much in place and people are still sitting in the sunshine outside restaurants and cafes around town.

In other words - it's time to start stocking the Christmas chocolates in Aldi!

In 'Aldi World' they just skip all that rubbishy in-between bollocks the rest of us call 'Autumn' and march straight into Christmas.

So now I have to walk past the stacks and stacks of marzipan potatoes, chocolate covered almonds, domino biscuits, vanilla kipferl, gingerbread balls and hundreds upon hundreds of double chocolate covered dingsbums I don't even know the names of, whenever I go shopping.

Some people may be able to stash their Christmas goodies somewhere in homes, from September, until they're needed in December, but I can't.

People like me don't 'keep' chocolate in a cupboard. They eat it straight from the shopping bag.

So, Aldi can you maybe just *hide* all that Christmas chocolate heavenliness when I walk in the shop? You're retail geniuses, create some kind of holographic shield that flashes into place when I walk past and shows me plastic plants, or power tools, and then remove it for the stashers of this world. Otherwise I am doomed. I walk in thinking "I can do it. This year I'll stash it all in the loft, where I'm too sacred of the 2ft gap between the end of the ladder and the loft floor to go get it". Then I'll come home and think, "Sod it, I'll eat it all now because if I put it in the loft it'll go mouldy and stink because I'm too sacred of the 2ft gap between the end of the ladder and the loft floor."

Why, you ask, the pressure to buy it now? Because in December, when I 'kind of' need this stuff, they'll be selling beach bags and towells, or will be having a Spanish week with speciality olive oil and spicy sausages. Apparently no one in my family wants sangria and tapas at Christmas again this year.

Hair today - is not there tomorrow

In the UK, under-arm and leg hair is BAD, as is chest hair, back hair even the hair on your privates. Here in Europe, it's OK.

Well it used to be. Anyone old enough will clearly remember when Nena (of 99 Red Balloons fame) lifted her arm up on Top of The Pops. Oh the outcry: "99 Brown Pit Hair's" shouted the Sun's headline the next day, "When will Europe's Wookie women discover the razor!" screamed the Mail (probably).

Meanwhile - the German reaction was "Ja? Und?"

When I got here I thought I could start to relax the whole shaving routine - but it was not to be - there's not a hairy leg, pit, chest or back in sight these days, everyone seems to be depilated and shaved to within an inch of their lives. And what with Brazilians and all those other fancy Vajayjay treatments, short and curleys are about as welcome as genital lice - which - thanks to the lack of short and curleys are on the decrease. I guess there's an upside.

Even men are hairless - I've noticed this in the sauna and I don't like it. The downstairs needs a bit of shrubbery to hide in if you ask me otherwise there's an unpleasant resemblance to one of those nude rodents.

These days if I see that rare thing, a hairy leg on a woman, my initial thought is: "Thank christ, hair's back in fashion." But then I look again and think, "Get a razor luv."

I must stop complaining about Deutsch...

Why English is so hard to learn (a poem)...

We must polish the Polish furniture.
He could lead if he would get the lead out.
The farm was used to produce produce.
The dump was so full that it had to refuse more refuse.
The soldier decided to desert in the desert.
This was a good time to present the present.
A bass was painted on the head of the bass drum.
When shot at, the dove dove into the bushes.
I did not object to the object.
The insurance was invalid for the invalid.
The bandage was wound around the wound.
There was a row among the oarsmen about how to row.
They were too close to the door to close it.
The buck does funny things when the does are present.
They sent a sewer down to stitch the tear in the sewer line.
To help with planting, the farmer taught his sow to sow.
The wind was too strong to wind the sail.
After a number of injections my jaw got number.
Upon seeing the tear in my clothes I shed a tear.
I had to subject the subject to a series of tests.
How can I intimate this to my most intimate friend?
I read it once and will read it agenI learned much from this learned treatise.
I was content to note the content of the message.
The Blessed Virgin blessed her. Blessed her richly.
It's a bit wicked to over-trim a short wicked candle.
If he will absent himself we mark him absent.
I incline toward bypassing the incline.

Uncredited (unfortunately)...

Lots of my friends have been telling me about their "Kleingartens" and the bountiful harvests they're seeing this month. When I first asked, "What's a kleingarten" they said, "You know - it's what you call an allotment in the UK". OK I thought - a tiny piece of barren soil in amongst other pieces of bleak earth with crappy looking sheds made of corrugated iron, in depressing inner city wastelands - seen 'em in London - got the picture.

In fact the only thing a Kleingarten and an allotment have in common is that there's a bit of soil in them.

In Germany a "Kleingarten" is a little piece of paradise: beautifully manicured lawns, herbacious borders, fruit trees, honeysuckle creeping majestically over handmade trellis, miniature Bavarian Alpine houses, awnings, electric lights, kitchen's, TV's, flushing toilets, sauna's jakuzzi's and sound around 3D cinema's (some for sure) - you could live there quite comfortably all year. Apparently the only rule is that 25% of your little garden must be used to grow veg, the rest....? Go crazy!

In the UK an allotment is: a piece of earth about 5ft by 10ft. There is no more to be said about them. Aside perhaps, from the fact that they are generally depressing and godforsaken.

To make my point quite clear:

This is a kleingarten:










This is an allotment:








This is a kleingarten:









This is an allotment:

inselaffe

don't forget

a plethora of passwords

Must I really have all these accounts? Twitter, Flitter, Facebook, Placebook, blogger, sprogger, hi5, low5, Xing, Ping, Spark, Shark and Fark? I made a few of those up but you get the jist. I have passwords falling out of my shoes. I have accounts in places I don't even know exist and now I can't access half of them because I've forgotten the passwords. A Russian person has been hacking my Twitter account for over a year and I don't know how to get in and close it down. What are they saying?

Some people say use the same passwords for everything. Now we're told that's the most unsafe thing you can do and to change our passwords regularly. I'm totally screwed either way. I can't even remember my own mobile phone number which I've had for nearly 10 years.


By the way I decided NOT to delete my Facebook account because something good turned up - can't remember what it was but it made me decide to give it another chance - so if you want to post something exceptionally exciting - do so forthwith - I'm still there (on Facebook that is - I'm certainly not "with it" in mind or body at the moment, but that's another story).

Facebook, schmacebook.....grrrrrr

I am so seriously thinking about wiping my account on Facebook.

Like an addict I look at it every day, more than once, scrolling hopefully down the status updates - looking for.... what? I don't know? What am I hoping to get out of Facebook? I think I've reached the limit of old friends I want to be back in touch with again, and all my family members with a computer are there as well. It's always nice to find new "real-time" friends on Facebook and make their acquaintance "virtually" but these are people I see every week anyway.

I think I'm always hoping someone will post something spectacular. Something that either uplifts and inspires me, or makes me laugh so hard I leave a puddle under my chair. Seeing old pictures was entertaining for a few minutes, until I realised that my old bosses, work colleagues, new business partners etc. could potentially also see me aged 14 holding a can of Special Brew at a dodgy 80's party, wearing an orange shirt buttoned up to the neck.

I blame Flight of the Conchords for raising my expectations too high - one of the first things I saw on a friend of a friends Facebook page, was a clip of them doing their Hip-hop-apotamus rap, and it floored me. It made me think that Facebook would provide me with a constant stream of ridiculous and hilarious entertainment. I have been misled.

Also - I seem to have accepted various friend request from people I don't actually know - whose posts are now clogging my status-update-box-bit (technical term) with utter rubbish. Yes I know I should delete them - but I fear they'll be offended and will then start 'mobbing' me, or 'dissing' me to their friends, who will then set up a "I hate Inselaffe" account and discredit me across the virtual landscape.......

Or not.

Anyway - I'm giving it a couple more weeks and if it doesn't turn up anything outstanding in that time I'm finished with it, defriending it forever, take that you massive social networking thing.....

More stuff like this please FB:

To stop yourself catching swine-flu, try walking around in a scuba suit, with a couple of oxygen tanks strapped to your shoulders. Otherwise the best way to stop it is to get it, take some pills and watch the telly until you don't have it anymore.
http://www.thedailymash.co.uk/news/health/

A grey day today

Today it's grey and rainy. Not a day for doing anything outside - which is a shame because I've just decided I should write a "Good Spielplatz Guide" for Cologne, Düsseldorf and Bonn. Why? Because I seem to be spending half my life sitting in playgrounds these days.

I think I have a pretty good idea of what makes a good one and what makes a rubbish one. Of course the criteria will be entirely slummy mummy based such as: how close is the nearest kiosk/coffee facilities and/or beer garden, is there a loo nearby (for parents that is - kids can wee in bushes), will the playground "stuff" keep kids entirely absorbed and allow me to read a book? How dangerous is the playground, near to roads. Is there a bunch of drunks sitting in the corner, etc. etc.

I am of course an expert on Cologne, but Bonn and Düsseldorf will need a bit of research, so I'm going to have to find some spies to give me tips before I do a reccie day with the kids. Hopefully I'll  finish it before the kids decide Nintendo's are more fun than swinging and sliding.

Das ist Deutsch

I'm sitting here drinking some Dickmilch, eating a Dickmann, while looking at some Kunst on my laptop - you can only do that in public in Germany.

Look what I made!

This is not a "craft-ie" type blog - I'd love it to be but I am sadly too time prohibited to knock things up willy-nilly. I am however extremely craft addicted - my personal Internet porn is the Design-sponge website - I can spend hours sneaking peaks at other people's fabulously redisigned homes, or even better, the "Before and After" section where people turn nasty furniture into dazzling masterpieces of contemporary design. I've been so inspired by all this craftiness that I've stripped a chest of drawers and am waiting until I've got enough cash to give it a complete overhaul.

I got busy in the kitchen over Easter though. I'm no gourmet - lets make that clear from the start - I find cooking a chore at the moment because there's no chance of anyone saying "Wow - the flavour! The presentation! A delight to the pallette!" - instead it's "But I don't like mushrooms! Why did you put the sauce ON the pasta?" I do like baking though - always had a thing about desserts and cakes. So for Easter I made a Simnel cake and some lovely tartlets.

These were dead easy to make and well worth the fiddly pastry bit. The combination of creamy marscapone, cream and white chocolate, mixed with smoky chocolate pastry and tart raspberries, was really rather good.

The Simnel cake was total bollocks - easy to make - just chuck everything in a bowl and mix, then stick it in a cake tin - but the cake tasted rubbish.

A crafty project which turned out OK was a dolly bed set I made for a pram which surfaced in the Eifel house recently. The kids were using tea-towells as blankets and I thought Ronnie and Ruby (the girls dollies) could do with something a bit prettier. A few weeks and lots of sewing machine needles later, I knocked up this.... I was quite impressed as I have no previous history of being able to do anything with a sewing machine apart from break it.