From The Archive

Germany : 1st June 2009


Okay, picture the scene .....


It's a gorgeous Monday morning, hubby is at work, I'm sitting in my dressing gown and uggies reading my emails on the laptop whilst seated inside on the sofa.  The big glass door to the garden is wide open and Archie is amusing himself outside.


I hear a big rustling from outside and then Archie barking hysterically.  I get up to tell him off and see him chasing something across the back yard fast.  Whatever he's chasing is flying low and I figure he's scared a pigeon out of the garden.


I sit back down and something catches the corner of my eye so I stand up again, only to watch six very small ducklings running flat out from the garden, under the outdoor setting, through the open door, into my dining room.  I repeat, into my dining room.

These small and very squeaky ducklings are now huddled on the furthest side of the dining room from the door, underneath one of the wall mounted heaters and they're screaming blue murder, and covering the floor with squishy duckling poo.

I quickly run through ideas and come up with very little.  Each time I move towards them, they run away towards the sofa area and I know I might be able to catch one, but not six.  So I ring hubby at work, advise him of the situation and tell him to come home.  FAST.  In the meantime I've locked Archie outside and the ducklings have made a break for it past the book cupboards on the long wall, down the far side of the sofa, and are huddling between the sofa and the wall.

I grab one of the plastic "clap boxes" that I use for grocery shopping, assemble it and take a hand towel from the kitchen whilst I watch the ducklings make a break for it down the side of the sofa, underneath the built in bookcases and run behind the Chinese step chest.  

Taking full advantage of the lull in proceedings, I grab some anti-bac wipes and clean up the poo and pooey duck prints off the dining room floor.  The "Duckling 6" are still raising hell with their squeaking but something sounds different, so I check behind the sofa and one has become stuck between the back of the sofa and our wedding photo album so I reach in and grab it and put it in the box with the hand towel over the top.

I open the door and call Archie inside with the promise of breakfast and hustle him up the hallway to the laundry, throw some food in the direction of his bowl and lock him inside the room.

As I enter the dining room again one of the "Duckling 6" has made a break to check out its squealing sibling in the plastic box prison and I divert him into the kitchen and grab him when he is cornered, then add him to the box with the other one.

Hubby arrives home and the remainders of the free "Duckling 6" are either in behind the corner of the Chinese chest, or in behind the wooden chest, tangled amongst all the modem and computer wires.  Hubby reaches in behind the chest and grabs two of them to add to the box.  Then we focus our attention on the two left behind the Chinese chest.  They panic and wedge themselves in between the chest and the wall and I'm down on my hands and knees at one end with a long wooden spoon gently trying to poke them towards hubby's long arms at the other.  Eventually they make a break for it and he gets them both.

So, now we're left with 6 ducklings in a plastic box and no mother anywhere in sight.

We've put the plastic box and the ducklings out under a shady tree in the garden in the hope that Mum will come back for them, and I'm typing this from an outside chair watching for her so I can release the ducklings as soon as she comes back.

Keep your fingers crossed for a speedy reunion and file this little adventure under "it could only happen to Kristy".

Horses, Friends, Sunshine = Fabulous!

Yesterday was one of those fantastic days that you know will stick in your memory for years to come.

Many of you know that I ride several times a week at a barn about 15 minutes from home.  I ride a little German bred mare called Jeany, who I really enjoy, but she's a little bit challenging speed-wise (e.g. she's a small turbo charged rocket ship).  Through riding up there regularly, I've met some really lovely people (hi Andrea and Karin!) and one of my absolute favourites is the utterly gorgeous Elke.

She and her husband, HP, welcomed me to the barn with such warmth that I was blown away.  They are always so friendly and kind that it's great to spend time with them.

Elke has her own horse, Luna,  but HP doesn't ride so much anymore.  Elke and her friend Christian ride out into the forest on the weekends quite often and yesterday they invited me along.

The weather here has been very strange for summer, lots of grey skies, rain and cool temperatures.  Yesterday things just started to clear up and we had a largely rain-free day, with good amounts of sunshine.  

Elke rode Luna, Christian rode Sally and I had my old mate, Jeany, and we headed off into the forest around 11.30am yesterday morning.  There are a lot of forests around the area and we rode for around 4 hours and didn't see a car.  Only a few hikers and a some other riders.  There are many logging tracks and we keep to those where it's safe.

After a few hours we rode through a field to a small pub/cafe, Litz Bauernstube, in the middle of nowhere.  It was attached to a farmhouse and you had to ride down their driveway to get in.  Now, Jeany wasn't at all keen to go down the driveway, as there was a paddock with some donkeys and goats in it, and a barn with calves in it, all looking at her. 

I had to get off, as she wasn't going anywhere, and I tried to lead her in, but she absolutely refused.  Every muscle in her body was tense with terror and you could tell from her stance that she was trying to say "Are you serious?  There's no way I'm going in there!  Can you see those donkeys?  And the goats?  No waaaaaaaaay!  What on earth is that?  Cows?  Small cows?  They are making a strange noise!  Are you mad, seriously mad?  Everything is going to kill me."

Cows - Horses Only Known Predator (obviously)

Eventually Christian encouraged Sally to go down, and Elke and lovely brave Luna rode down, but then had to come back and get me.  Jeany decided she could walk through if Luna was with her, "Yay for the sisterhood!", and we were absolutely fine.

The place was amazing, they even had a small paddock for the horses, so we unsaddled and left them grazing whilst we went in.  None of us had any money, but Germany is such an honest place that they let us have food and drink without any payment, just with the promise that we'd bring the money back later (which, of course, we did).

So we sat and chatted, ate and drank, and watched the horses graze happily in the sunshine - just perfect.

After we'd had a break, we saddled up and headed back out into the sunshine to ride slowly back to the barn where we treated the horses with apples, carrots and grain.  The apple trees are laden right now, so you can ride under them and pull the apples off for your horses.

It was a seriously great day and I really enjoyed myself - so here's a big "THANK YOU" to Elke & Christian for including me in their adventures.

We've Got A Shop!

A new shop has opened up in Rado.  A shop with things in it that I want to buy - fabulous!  Rado has a population of around 25,000 and we do have a selection of shops, but the fashion is a bit challenging and there's not terribly much in the way of modern things for your home - and I'm a home wares nut.

I was interested to see what would open up in the space vacated by the "young fashion" store Charles Vogele and it sat empty for a while, taunting me.  But then Depot arrived!

I'm in the small mall where it's located around once a week and I'm going in to the store every single time.  I just want to encourage them to stay around with their pretty things.  I'm not the only one, I've never seen so many women in a store in this town before.  Every now and then you see a man in there as well, but they're making the "Ikea Face", e.g. dead behind the eyes.  It's definitely a shop for women.

I think it's great and I'm supporting it where I can.  And, to add to my thrills, someone has knocked through around three stores that have been empty since we arrived, next to the Post Office, and turned it into a bookshop cafe.  This wouldn't ordinarily excite me, as my German isn't good enough to read the books and I don't like the coffee with long life milk that they make over here, but there's a shelf of second hand English language books inside!  I bought three for only 4Euro.  Great stuff.

Secondhand books?  Count me in!

Hausherrenfest Photos

Hubby helped me download the shots from Hausherrenfest on Tuesday and here they are.  Normally I like to put captions on photos, but, as I actually don't know what's going on, I'll let the shots speak for themselves.

The Bad Hair Trinity

Pfft.  I wish my hair looked this good.

Unfortunately I've been blessed with the genetic bad hair trinity.  Bad hair trinity?  You don't know?  That means I've got dead straight, fine AND oily hair.  Fabulous.

Now, thanks to the valiant efforts of the gorgeous Julia at Haar Moden in Singen who is a fabulous cut and colour merchant, my hair is manageable.  And thanks to liberal applications of volumising shampoo, volumising conditioner, volumising mousse and some basic dexterity with a blow dryer, I can leave the house without frightening the neighbours.

"What's this got to do with travel?" I hear you ask.  Well, if my hair is ordinary on a normal day, it's extra tragic when I'm flying long haul and can't "do" anything to it.  I come off a long haul flight looking like my hair has been glued flat onto my head.

But, and this is a big but, I've discovered some products that give me BIG HAIR!  Yes, the big hair that I've dreamed of all my life.  Big, like beauty pageant big.

Introduce yourself to dry hair shampoo ...

Now, this is the first dry shampoo product I used, from Lee Stafford, and I loved it for a long time.  With dry shampoo, you spray it directly onto the roots and then rub the powder in with your fingers to absorb oil.  This stuff works and it gives fantastic volume as well.

Then, a few years ago I discovered Batiste and it's better (and cheaper) than Lee Stafford.

You can buy both Batiste and Lee Stafford in normal sized cans for home and little cans for flying.  I'm never without a little can of Batiste in my carry-on (it's allowable size) to make me look presentable as I crawl off the plane after 12 hours in economy.

A squirt of Batiste and a swipe of lippy and I'm good to go.  Or slightly less scary anyway.

Cheryl Cole, I want your hair (and your handbags)!

Detroit : 9th March 2007

Last night hubby and I went to T.G.I.Fridays for dinner. It was absolutely groaning with people but we got a table for two and "our server for this evening" came over to introduce herself and her name was Tequila. Really.  How did we know this?  Cleverly, as well as having it written on her name tag, it was tattooed on her neck.  In big letters.

She asked for our drinks order and I had a Diet Coke.  Hubby asked for a beer, whereupon she asked him for ID! Really. He's 42. She said he didn't look 42 and wanted to see his ID. Hell, he might not look 42 but he certainly doesn't look 21. Without an ID she refused to serve him alcohol.

We asked to see a manager. The tubby manager waddled up to the table and asked what the problem was. We told her and then she also demanded to see an ID!  Eventually we convinced her that he was over 21 and he was allowed a beer, but admonished and told he had to bring an ID next time. Strangely enough, I don't think there'll be a next time.

VW : Drop It Like It's Hot!

After my awful experience with the "sales" guy at VW last week, I thought I'd post these funny VW clips from YouTube.  Just click on the arrow in the box on the photo.  Not, of course, that I'm encouraging anyone to buy VW after my experience!