With Baz

Sitting with Barry

At the moment &I am sitting with Barry showing him the new layout on the left side of the blog and we are talking about the old family photos. I've also had my first G&T of the day :-)

August 2010

August and things!

Have started packing my bag for the flight to Liverpool tomorrow. Our 'Baz 'n Pam' will pick up 'Ey up Soft-lad' at the airport and so will start my three week gallop in England. I'm looking forward to seeing old faces again and two new ones. They are the children of Jefferson and Leanne, who I have not met!

What else will be happening in August? Birthdays of course!
Beatrix will celebrate her 37th on the 6 August, Nicole celebrates her birthday on the 21 August, but we are not allowed to know how old! Jürgen will be 66 on the 24th, Angelika will celebrate her 58 birthday on the 25th, sister Pauline will be 66 on the 26th (she is catching up on me :-), Dieter will be 66 on the 27th. Ziya also has his birthday on the 27th but we are not allowed to know how old! My lieber Jan will hit 27 on the 28th August.  Jan, you are getting old but I am glad you still play football - and look younger! Enjoy Nederlands with Arancha.

Happy Birthday to all and have a great time with family and friends

Eating again

Eating with Andrea

Yesterday I met liebe Andrea and we went to a restaurant of her choice to celebrate her successes.  She has just got her BA degree and confirmation that at the end of the year she will start work in a government ministry as a new civil servant.

She has also won a scholarship to work and study at the Parliament building in Budapest where she wants to 'brush up' her Hungarian.  She recently moved into a new flat. Not bad, Andrea. Most people just do one thing!

I invited her out so she choose where to meet. It was really nice to see her again. We sat outside for it was 34°c and ordered the same thing. I reminded her of  her comments that I am always putting photos of myself eating and drinking onto this blog. Well, here is another!

Goodbye

Goodbye Herr Hein

At last, Herr Hein packed his things today and left his flat.

Since February 2010, he has disturbed me and the other tenants where I live. He lived in the flat opposite mine. He works shifts and seems to have some kind of split personality disorder compounded by hard liquor. He would come home at midnight then start banging his entrance door, banging inside his flat, shout obscenities and wake everyone up. I was right in the firing line because I could hear everything.

I complained in writing to the owners in February 2009, and there followed an exchange of letters because they asked me to keep a daily record of when he 'disturbed the peace'. There are laws in Germany about such things. I did this and nothing happened so I got a lawyer in August 2009. The lawyer sent monthly details and a demand for a reduction in the rent to the owners. You can do this under German law. The owners rejected each monthly demand.

The person in the flat above Herr Hein also complained and recorded the noises and disturbances. He also called the police one night and send copies of his records to me to send to my lawyer.

And so this went on and after Christmas 2009, my lawyer began to increase the pressure on the owners to do something. This led them to threaten Herr Hein with court action and so he decided to end his contract.

The matter has not ended. There is still the issue of 'reduced rent' and now I am pursuing a claim against him for damages over the time I had to endure this reduction of my living qualities - this is a loose translation of the German law! I now have a new lawyer specializing in this aspect of the law, so let's see what happens.

This afternoon I invited the neighbour, who also complained, to a little celebration in our collective garden. There we took the photos of me celebrating. The one of the truck/lorry was taken earlier to show  the packing of his things.  ' Goodbye Herr Hein'!  We won't miss you at all!!

das Boot

Das Boot

Last Friday, Rolf picked me up and we drove south east of Berlin until we reached the Wolzige See and his boot.

He needed help to work on the boot and his sons were not available, so I came on the field as First Reserve!

With an extra pair of hands we got the work done and then I was allowed to steer the boat through the channel onto the lake.

It was a very hot day, 34°C and with not much wind, but we needed to test our repair work. It was a completely different experience than my first trip on the boat last year. This time I was familiar with the dimensions of the boat and knew how to steer it. What I had to learn this time was to watch the lake top for signs of wind,  then pull the ropes directing the forward sail to make sure we got that wind, while, still steering or even preparing to tack. The back sail just looked after itself!

All went well and so we decided to stow the sails and let the boat drift on the currents as we had a light lunch. After, Rolf went for a swim as I lay back in the sun and soaked it up.

 He agreed that we should have another day on the water before Autumn and me helping to get the boot out of the water. I look forward to it.

Jüterbog

Jüterbog visit

Last Thursday I had a nice train journey to Jüterbog. It lies south of Berlin and takes about 35 minutes to get there. It was very hot, 32°C but we have had these temperatures for just over a week. I like it but many complain that it is 'too hot'. I just think about the long cold winter days and smile!

I went to see Jürgen and Dieter. They also complained about the heat but from the perspective of not being able to spend all day working or sitting in their garden. At least I enjoyed many products of their garden, particularly strawberries. I love them and fortunately we had them in jelly as a desert and later as a strawberry torte with cream. Mmmm - delicious.

Here are a couple of photos. I was thinking about Andrea when I took them for I remember getting an e-mail from her saying, "I looked at your blog recently and you are always eating!" Congratulations to Andrea for she has just passed her exams for a Bachelor Degree, and she is moving into a new flat.