Sunday Morning no blues but blue suede shoes

Once again it is Sunday morning and all is well in the world. Well, at least in my little world. Russia and the USA are playing cat and mouse again, the weather is throwing another wobbly and the North Pole and the South Pole are having fun cross-dressing! For my part, I am busy listening to Pink Floyd's first album "Piper at the gates of dawn". Its been so long now I can't really remember when I first heard this album but the music from this work has followed me through most of my adult life. Of course, the first album I ever heard from Pink Floyd was "Atom Heart Mother" but for whatever reason, Pink Floyd's music as accompanied me ever since.
Anyway, to come back to now and the weather here in Schermbeck. Yesterday was a wonderful sunny late summer early autumn day. We spent the whole day in the garden and I must say we really achieved an awful lot. The garden looks good and I am looking forward to doing some pottering about later today.

I have up rooted a few plants from the old house and now they need to be planted out ready for next year. My black eyed Suse and other delicate plants can start being prepared for coming in to the house because at night time it really does cool down considerably.

For Sabine

King Of The Mountain Lyrics

Saturday Morning and all is still

It is dark and silent outside. Barley a sound is to be heard out there. The sky is heavily overcast and still and impenetrably colourless. I have been awake for about half and hour now and since it is the weekend, I have decided that I can afford to have a bit of a tinker on the computer and maybe sleep a bit later.

The house is silent, too. The children have gone to stay at their father's for the weekend and Uwe and Sabine are upstairs, presumably asleep. I have to admit to being somewhat down the whole week and yesterday was a really bad Bobbi day. I simply wanted to come home and get into my room and shut myself off from the rest of the world. In fact, things worked out very differently. Firstly, Sabine asked if I was going to cook and so I immersed myself in making something nice for supper. Uwe was on his way on his motor bike and I knew it would be nicer for him if we had something warm and satisfying, so I cooked up fete cheese in puff pastry and roasted olive oil drenched potatoes and onions. It was a big success and despite my better judgement we finished the meal with a bottle of beer and later a glass of wine. Suse had telephoned at around five thirty and had implied that she would be coming to see us shortly. I had laid an extra place for her at the table but she didn't turn up until much later. After dinner, Uwe suggested playing guitar a little and somewhat surprised at his suggestion I happily complied and then we had a really nice half and hour or maybe even more of singing and playing together. It did me good and left me feeling much better about my self. The whole day, I had been on a downer and had been building a really negative self image. After playing guitar and singing with Uwe I felt like my old self again. Thanks, young man.

The Struggle goes on

Well, I have just about survived the summer recess and as long as I don't look at my bank balance, everything is ok. I am still enjoying my new living situation and I am beginning to settle in. At the weekend I am meeting with the new people who will be taking over my old apartment and we want to discuss what we are going to do with the garden. I want to take most of my plants but the concrete planters and the little house can all stay there. It will mean less work for me and who knows, maybe I will get a little bit of money, too!

Last night was dreadful. I was kept awake the whole night by a bloody mosquito or a brood of the dammed things and it was simply awful. I haven't slept so badly in a long time. Last night I slept upstairs in my bedroom and it was not a very pleasant experience. I think I want to dismantle the bed and make something else.

Had a great day today. What about you?

The day started well. I woke a little later than I wanted to but then I was working quite late last night and I just didn't have the enthusiasm to get up so early this morning. Anyway, I am glad to say that I slept quite well last night and felt so much better for it this morning.

I got up, did the morning ablutions and went into the kitchen. Bina had had a late night with Uwe last night so I didn't expect her to be getting up so early (07:20) and so I poured myself a coffee and went back to my apartment. I noticed a piece of paper on the table and decided to read it and saw that it was a note from Bina to me to tell me that the dogs had already been fed. She knows that as soon as I get up I usually go automatically to the toilet and then feed the dogs as the first thing in the morning. Armed with my coffee and the knowledge that the girls had been fed I went back to my room and started working on my business website. It is beginning to really look good now. Have a look here.

Work on the site went really well and later I heard a noise in the kitchen and saw that it was Lisa and so joined her for a few minutes to eat my breakfast with her. We talked a little and I ate a peice of bread and some cooked meat. After she left the room I tidied away the breakfast things and taking another cup of coffee I went back to work. After a while I decided to take the girl for a walk and having dressed appropriately (see last entry) for the cooler weather off we went down the lane.

I decided to give a bit of effort to the session and really got up a good pace. The sky had been grey from early morning on but now it was starting to rain. I had noticed this before I left the house and so I had had the good sense to put my anorak on. Thank goodness I did because on the way it started to really rain and I would have got quite wet if I hadn't been wearing it.

When I came back we met briefly and I got stuck into working on the site. By 12:00 I was thinking about getting ready for work and decided to prepare a salad for dinner. Bina helped and we were soon tucking into a very tasty green salad with eggs and goats cheese. Mmm. very tasty.

I finally went off to work and started to prepare for the coming customers. I knew that Justin was coming and after him, Wilhelm. With Justin it was the same old shit but with Wilhelm we had a great session disscussing the pros and cons of opera. It was a very interesting 40 minutes or so. Then Jill arrived and we had a really nice time. She has really developed in the last 6 or 7 weeks and is growing into a really pretty and nice little girl. I have to say that today it was a pleasure to work with her. Anyway, she left and I was just getting packed up to leave when somebody rang the door bell. Turned out to be Nikolas, a student from the last term who had simply assumed that we would carry on as before and hadn't thought it necessary to phone to ask if it was ok to come and visit me. He went to Hong Kong during the holiday and had had to use English to communicate and this had really impressed him. Today, all the children seemed such different creatures to those that I had been teaching shortly before the summer holidays. It was such a nice and pleasant change. After our session I was, once again, getting ready to leave when suddenly another student arrived. I had thought that I would be home about 3:30pm but it was now already 05:30pm and that meant that I wouldn't be leaving the office before well past six o'clock. Never mind. At least the students brought money with them. At last a little bit of money coming in. Phew that's a relief.

Finally I managed to get away, but it was nearer seven o'clock than anything else. I was just getting into the car when I remembered that I had promised (several hours before) Katrin that I would be along in a few minutes. It had completely slipped my mind and so realising my mistake I decided to simply go there and see how she would react. She greeted me a little strangely but soon warmed and we had a really nice hour together. We discussed lots of things and being able to talk with her helped get a few things off my chest.

As I am writing this blog I am listening to music and with the door wide open I can hear the gentle pitter patter of the mild summer evening rain outside. The weather today has been spectacular to say the least. As I was coming home from Katrin's I was almost mesmerised by the colours and shapes to be seen in the sky. It was more than fantastic, it was breathtaking. I raced home in order to get my camera out and to take a few shots.

Is this the curtain call of the summer?

One gets the feeling that the summer is over! Sad. I'll talk about it later.