Poorly sick

12 May 2012

I am a bit poorly sick. Guess when it started … Correct! The first day of my holiday. My General Malaise, as we called it, went up and down – sometimes hour to hour – and ultimately turned into a sinus infection, for which I’m now taking antibiotics. It pleases me that the tablets are my old school colours of burgundy and gold. Even if I can feel UK people looking at me sideways, thinking “dear, you’ve been out of school for *cough* years, maybe it’s time to have a different go-to comparison?” However, I know that meanwhile my American peeps are all “hell yeah, alma mater, go bears!” and things like that. Only with us it would have been “go oak trees!” Until our headteacher went on a trip to Canada that is and came back all “go maple leafs!” and inexplicably changed the school emblem from a bunch of oak trees (you know, like the ones growing on the school field and all over the county) to a maple leaf (you know, like the ones she saw on holiday). I left soon afterwards. Partly as a sign of protest, partly because the people around me were all “you’ve done your A Levels, you have to go now, please”.

I variously suffered with aching, sensitive limbs, an inability to control my own temperature, throbbing headaches, non-productive coughing (all the more galling because all it did was jar my head) and so on. The flight back with my stuffed up, heavy head and the changing air pressure in the aeroplane cabin was awful. Dreadful pain in my head and face that I couldn’t remedy (even holding the cold packet of caesar salad dressing from the dinner tray – the mere thought of which made my stomach churn – against my eyebrow did nothing!) and whistles and rumbles were coming from cavities in my head that I didn’t even know existed, while my eyes were producing enough sleep for the whole plane.

When we finally stopped ascending and reached 40,000 feet things eased off and I was able to stop wondering when to expect my brain to start leaking out of my ears and whether there was a special button the cabin crew could press to change the air pressure and the feeling that my head was going to break in two. Our descent six or seven hours later was horrible too, but not to the extent that the ascent had been. I feel like I should have been presented with at least a kidney stone, if not a baby at the end of it for all that pain.

So here is my advice if you have a head cold and need to fly:

1. Don’t.

2. Ask the Captain if it’s possible for you join the flight once he’s reached cruising altitude and leave before he starts the descent at the end of the journey.

Taking some kick-ass drugs will help some as well, but according to my involuntary research, I’d say that those two options above are really the best.

5 Comments Posted in: being me, travels

The Walky McWalkersons

25 April 2012

Lily and Anya are up on their feet now and with varying degrees of skill and success can walk along holding onto someone’s fingers. I bought the girls a highly technical walker for Christmas – it has a phone! – and their Nannie and Grandpa bought them a traditional wooden walker for their birthday – it has no phone! – just like one I had when I was a toddler.

Once she’d worked out how to unwrap it, Lily was keen to try out the new walker and was soon toddling up and down the sitting room with increasing speed. Her sister then joined her, holding onto Sam’s fingers at first, before finding the other walker, and they paraded up and down the room, stopping only for a quick gleeful giggle with each other.

To continue the transport theme, the birthday present from Nanna and Grandad was a couple of trikes that can be adapted as the girls grow. They start off like pushchairs, with the parents pushing and the girls firmly encased and end up as trikes that the girls can pedal themselves. I foresee a whole lot of fun for them in the big garden of their new house. And since it will be a while before the girls reach the pedalling stage, their Dad has plenty of time to design and construct them a race course.

No Comments Posted in: celebrate, family, twins, video

Böttcherstrasse

23 April 2012

Böttcherstrasse is one of those tourist attractions that is quite possibly full of tourists wondering what it is they’re meant to be looking at exactly, but there are signs pointing you into the street and everyone else is going that way, so you follow them. That’s not to say there aren’t things to look at, it is an attractive street, full of odd architecture and a golden “Bringer of Light” draws you in.

The brickwork looks so inviting to climb, but there are notices everywhere warning you of the presence of CCTV, so I imagine climbing the historic walls is probably considered to be somewhat taboo.

The town musicians of course are fairly omnipresent in Bremen and the animals can be found by the fountain of the 7 Lazy Brothers outside a sweet shop. In a dark corner of the street, you’ll also find a plaque marking the point where a donkey’s leg bone was found in the cellar of a painter’s house during renovation works, thus proving that the donkey, dog, cat and rooster did in fact make it all the way to Bremen to become musicians.

No Comments Posted in: photos, travels

Presents, or the even better paper around them

21 April 2012

We split the present-unwrapping either side of birthday tea, as Lily and Anya are not yet too well versed in how to unwrap presents and so take their sweet time grabbing at bits of paper and then being distracted because someone in the room happened to mention Jessie Cat from the Sing and Sign DVDs and oh-my-God-Jessie-cat-where-is-Jessie-cat-THERE-SHE-IS!

The girls are gradually learning words and Anya performs right on cue to the words “waving” and “clapping”. John tells me that “snack” and “storybook” are now recognised too, which will please no doubt please Suzy and Mum respectively. They’re also beginning to pick up on their names and might give you their attention when you call them. Or not. Whatever.

I gave the girls a wooden puzzle to share (I’d looked at a variety of toys and those popular hammer-the-shapes-into-the-right-holes games are fine when there’s one baby, but when there’s two, you’re basically just arming one of them) and a couple of pairs of shoes each. A local company called My Twinkle Toe Shoes sells the most beautiful soft leather and suede shoes and sandals, just right for the girls’ first steps.

We tried them on Anya before we left (Lily was too busy walking around) to see which size was needed and she was entirely perplexed by the weird things on her feet. They weren’t socks and they wouldn’t come off, they were pretty and felt funny … what on earth could they be?

Anya in particular has the most hysterical laugh that seems to come from deep within her and makes everyone around her laugh too. It comes from Lily too and to hear them both laugh is so much fun. Seeing Lily give the video camera a special cheesy grin when she clocks it pointed her way also cracks me up every time.

4 Comments Posted in: celebrate, family, twins, video

The characters of Bremen

19 April 2012

Bremen has its very own Grimm’s fairytale: The Town Musicians of Bremen. A statue of the four animals of the story, a rooster, cat, dog and donkey stands by the town hall and the front feet of the donkey are shiny from thousands of people touching them to make their wishes come true. Just like with the Wall Street bull in New York, all the tourists want to take their picture with the statue and simply politely wait while everyone takes their turn.

There’s another set of bronze statues in the town, one of which is evidently also hoped to bring luck …

As far as the town musicians of Bremen are concerned though, I still haven’t found out exactly what the story is. I bought a kid’s book of the story at the airport on our way home, but haven’t done more than flick through it. The four animals are uncared for in their homes and head for Bremen to make their living as musicians … and now I’ve got to find out what happened next … on their way to Bremen they come across a house in which are four robbers. The animals stand on each other’s backs, they decided to perform for the robbers to win food. Instead they unintentionally scare off the men and spend the evening in the house. The robbers later return and one re-enters the house to investigate. In the darkness the cat scratches his face, the dog bites his leg, the donkey kicks him and the rooster crows and chases him out of the house. The robber tells his cohorts that he was scratched by a witch, knifed by an ogre, clubbed by a giant and a judge screamed from the rooftop. The men abandon the house and the animals happily spend the rest of their days there.

I really must read that book.

Another figure by the Town Hall is Roland. We had actually first heard about Roland from Hubert the night before. In one of his new songs he invokes a whole bevy of saints, his favourite being Saint Rita, who makes the impossible possible. To add a little local colour at each of the concerts, he also mentions the local saint during this invocation. Roland isn’t a saint, but he is protector of the city and as long as he stands, it is said that Bremen will remain free and independent. He was paladin of the first Holy Roman Emperor Charlemagne as well as a military hero. The 10-metre-high statue has stood in the market square since 1404 and Roland carries a sword of justice – which just so happens to be my favourite kind of sword.

No Comments Posted in: photos, travels

First birthday tea

17 April 2012

We took a break from present-opening / box-thumping / wrapping paper-waving for afternoon tea, with finger sandwiches for the girls and bigger sandwiches for the adults. It’s good to see that Marmite is already on the menu and being enjoyed.

It’s quite something to watch these girls eat, or rather to have watched them develop from helpless little mites who just drank milk to girls who now sit at the table, carefully picking up their food in their perfected pincer grasp and helping themselves to water from their sippy cups – though we’re evidently still working on the idea of getting the spout at the bottom, rather than the top for best results. Not a scrap of food is wasted, as anything that is dropped into their bibs is found again with tiny searching fingers and popped straight into their mouth. Even if it is completely soaked from the water that has also collected in the bib. Clearly they’re going to be on board with the notion of dunking biscuits into their coffee.

Sam and John had commissioned two Waybuloo cakes for the girls – De Li in pink for Anya and Lau Lau in lilac for Lily. (I’ve seen a little of Waybuloo, but not enough to have known the characters names without Wikipedia’s help.) The girls were presented with their cakes, each with one candle burning and we all sang them Happy Birthday.

One cake was sponge and one was carrot cake, the desire for and divvying up of which nearly ended up in a brawl at the far end of the table between the twins’ Nanna and Auntie Vanessa. I stayed down the composed end of the table and ate my sponge cake.

It was while sorting through this particular set of photos that it dawned on me why I was finding it difficult to cut the set down any further: there’s two of them; I’m dealing with twice the number of birthday babies that most people have, double the smushy faces that most have to photograph. It feels as though Anya and Lily have always been here and having twins is just the normal thing. We always say that we can’t imagine how people get by with just one baby in the family – how do you share them for starters? There’s just more smushiness to go round with two of them.