16 April 2015 - An encounter with some locals

There are some interesting things to note here in Germany, at least in Bermatingen.  For a country with rules and safety standards, we were surprised to see a tiny baby in a front facing car seat in the front of a Smart Car with a big labrodor in the back!  Car seat safety standards in Australia are more strict than that and we would never put a baby or young child in the front passenger seat!  There are, in fact, quite a few Smart Cars, and I suppose, as they are made in Germany, one would expect it.  I have even seen a Renault Twizy, a one seater electric car!  We have seen loads of Opel Zafiras, like our car at home, which have clearly taken off in Europe moere than in Australia.  The big four wheel drives which dominate the roads at home are hardly seen but there are plenty of Zafira and equivalent sized vehicles.

I could give our school day mixed reviews and I do hope the people living underneath us weren't home when Luke had a major conniption.  Our hosts for this airbnb, have just returned from USA, and occupy the lower storey of this three storey old house, so I feel we have to be a bit quieter.  We met our hosts while Luke was having the loudest tantrum of the day about putting on his shoes.  Oh, ground!  Swallow me up!

We stopped at the bear statue for Luke to settled down which worked a treat.  He loves sitting on the bear!  There were two friendly looking grandparents with their grandson and cat so I got talking  to them in German (!) and before I knew it they were telling us about their apple farm and their family.  we had a lovely time chatting much to the kids' chagrin.  The lady came out with a bag of Topaz apples for us which were delicious and crunchy but not quite as sweet as Pink Ladies! Karl used a bit of his Dutch to join the conversation so all in all we understood each other !

Straight out of an Enid Blyton novel!

Woolly camel with wonky hump

 We walked past the little circus which has come to town in the fields next to the supermarket.  It looks like a one man show and the animals were an unusual collection of a woolly camel with a collapsed hump, a few llamas, some goats and some Shetland ponies.  The transport caravans looked like something out of an Enid Blyton novel!

Forest ramblings and walking over a creek on logs added to our adventure, watching out for stinging nettles as we balanced our way across. 

Bridge strengthening activity

Bridge building

Bird's egg shell

Very old road markers along the road to Bermatingen

My sister, Ali, is on her way to visit us right now!  I am super excited.  She is driving from her home in Switzerland to capture me for a night and whisk me off to her place.  We are so looking forward to sister time and a catch up without kids leaping into every conversation.

PS  Ali arrived safely and we had a lovely evening chatting and laughing - so good to see her again after so long.  We realised how noisy this old place is with its squeaky floorboards when the man from downstairs asked us to walk more quietly.  Eeeek creak eeek creak - it is so hard to be quiet!  We are so fortunate to live in our own houses in Australia where our noise isn't generally an issue for our neighbours.