If I think back on where we were and what we were doing one week ago it feels strange. The distance of our life today from the life we were leading up until a week ago is so much greater than the short span of time suggests that has since passed.
It was only one week ago that we were sitting comfortably in Maddy ’s and James’ living room, si pping tea and coffee and having a very relaxed afternoon with the fire crackling away. And now we are back to the hustle and bustle here in the city. School starts not at nine but at seven-thirty. I get up at five-thirty to get work done in the morning. Emil and Theo are struggling with the early rising almost more than I am.
I have to remind myself constantly that I was quite resolved to retain some of the fundamentally relaxed manner that we lived by in England. Just one example that would be unthinkable in Germany. The check-out lady at the Tesco till is friends with the customer in front of you. The food is paid for, everything is neatly bagged but aparently they have not yet covered all the topics they needed to discuss. And so the chat goes on and on, regardless of the queue’s length. In England, with no urgent appointments and very relaxed daily schedules I could enjoy this kind of interchange, maybe even join in if it was fitting. Back in the daily routine of work, driving the children, more work, shopping, and the general rushing to and fro I want to keep that attitude and not be infuriated by the slowness of the check-out aisle. I got off to a good start today: with two hours to spare I decided not to mark papers but to go home and have a little midday nap. Good decision.
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Vor einer Woche war noch alles anders. Das Leben, in das wir zurückgekehrt sind, ist irgendwie viel weiter von dem entfernt, das wir bis vor ein paar Tagen geführt haben, als die kurze zeitliche Distanz vermuten ließe. Vor gerade einmal sieben Tagen saßen wir gemütlich bei Maddy und James im Wohnzimmer vor dem knisternden Kaminfeuer und tranken Tee und Kaffee. Jetzt hat uns der Alltag wieder fest in seinen Klauen. Die Schule beginnt nicht mehr erst um neun, sondern schon halb acht. Ich stehe früh halb sechs auf, um noch vor der Schule etwas zu arbeiten. Emil und Theo haben mit dem typisch deutschen Frühaufstehwahn beinahe noch mehr Probleme als ich.
Ich muss mich ständig neu daran erinnern, dass ich mir fest vorgenommen hatte, die grundsätzlich entspanntere Einstellung, nach der wir in England gelebt haben, zu erhalten. Nur ein Beispiel, das mir in England nicht nur einmal geschah. Die Kassiererin im Supermarkt ist eine Bekannte der Kundin vor mir. Der Einkauf ist bezahlt und in Tüten verpackt aber offenbar ist noch nicht alles besprochen. Und so schwatzen die beiden weiter, egal wie lang die Schlange der Anstehenden wird. In England konnte ich solchen Gespräche amüsiert beiwohnen, vielleicht sogar mit der einen oder anderen passenden Bemerkung mitreden. Aber da hatte ich auch keine Termine. Wieder im Hamsterrad des normalen Alltags will ich diese Grundeinstellung beibehalten und mich nicht aufregen über die langsame Kassiererinnen. Heute hab ich gleich ganz gut damit angefangen: Zwei Freistunden habe ich nicht Arbeiten korrigierend in der Schule gesessen, sondern bin heim gefahren und habe mir einen kleinen Mittagsschlaf gegönnt. Gute Wahl.
On our travels we came across a number of signs that we want to share because they are either typical for England or they are strange or funny. Here is part two of two. Click here for part one.
On our travels we came across a number of signs that we want to share because they are either typical for England or they are strange or funny. Here is part one of two. Click here for part two.
Unglaublich, wie die Zeit vergeht. Die erste Hälfte unseres Englandaufenthalts ist nun um. Für diesen Tag hatten wir uns einen besonderen Ausflug vorgenommen. Wir besuchten das Bombenabwurfgelände der Royal Air Force bei Donna Nook. Glücklicherweise blieben wir von tieffliegenden Kampfflugzeugen weitgehend unbehelligt. Weit draußen auf dem Wasser waren lediglich die Zielscheiben für die Maschinengewehre der Jets auszumachen. Wir waren gekommen, um die Wattlandschaft in Augenschein zu nehmen.
Nach mehreren Besuchen in Lincoln gibt es hier eine kleine best of Serie. Das Wetter war nie wirklich optimal für tolle Bilder. Wenn die Sonne scheint, gehen wir meistens in die Natur. Städte sind unsere Schlechtwettervariante. Aber ich habe gemerkt, dass die Fotos in scharzweiß trotzdem einigermaßen wirken.
After several visits to Lincoln this is a small best of series. We never had exceptional foto weather. That’s mainly because we use the beautiful days for hiking and geocaching in the countryside. Towns are the bad weather alternative. But I guess in black and white the pictures still work.
Kate Fox writes in her Watching the English that there is nothing worse than taking yourself too seriously. Why not put the proverbial English sense of humour to the test?
Kate Fox schreibt in ihrem wunderbaren Band Watching the English, dass es für Engländer keine größere Sünde gibt, als sich selbst zu ernst zu nehmen. Wie könnte man den berühmten Englischen Sinn für Humor testen?
Die meisten unserer neuen Bekanntschaften hier in England, größtenteils Eltern der Klassenkameraden von Emil und Theo, fragen nach, wie es denn kommt, dass wir acht Wochen hier in ihrem netten Dorf verbringen. So direkt wird diese Frage natürlich nicht gestellt. Eher so: “Seid ihr wegen deiner Arbeit hier oder wegen der deiner Frau?” Meine Standardantwort lautet dann. “Ich fürchte, dass wir zur Zeit gar nicht arbeiten.” Und dann muss ich die deutsche Elternzeit erklären: zwölf Monate, unter bestimmten Bedingungen vierzehn, so viel für die Mutter, so viel für den Vater, nacheinander oder zusammen, … viele viele Fragen. Und ja, wir schätzen uns sehr glücklich. Das zum fünfzehnten Mal erklären wird öde.
Wenn das nächste Mal die Sprache auf dieses Thema kommt, habe ich mir vorgenommen anders zu antworten: “Ich war verdeckter Ermittler bei den Ostdeutschen Neonazi Kameradschaften. Aber ich wurde enttarnt und jetzt bin ich im Zeugenschutzprogramm. Naja, wenigstens habe ich jetzt mehr Zeit für die Kinder.”
Oder so: “Naja, eigentlich bin ich Drogenhändler aus Ostdeutschland. In letzter Zeit gab es Drohungen gegen meine Familie. Die Russenmafia steckt dahinter. Ich dachte es sei das beste, für eine Weile unterzutauchen, bis Gras über die ganze Sache gewachsen ist. Also zwei Monate hier, dann zwei in Schottland, dann im Mittelmeerraum. Ach herrje, jetzt hab ich mich aber verquatscht. Jetzt muss ich Sie leider umbringen.”
The first stop on our Sunday outing had to be Caistor Town Hall. Being geocachers we are used to quite a bit when it comes to reaching into dark holes in search for the treasure: gaps in walls, holes in the ground, dead trees. But today we equipped ourselves with heavy duty rubber gloves and a fresh pack of bin liners. The job was to search the dustbins of yesterday’s Christmas Food Fair. We were not in search of a cache with a “disgust rating” of 5. Ours was a business far more serious.
In Flanders fields the poppies blow Between the crosses row on row That mark our place; and in the sky The larks, still bravely singing, fly Scarce heard amid the guns below.
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November is the month of poppies in England. Everyone wears one on his lapel, coat, sweatshirt or car. Emil and Theo explained what they had learned at school about it: the battle fields in the first World War looked like poppy fields when viewed from a plane because so much blood had been shed. Or the other way round: When flying over poppy fields the RAF pilots were reminded of their comrades’ down in the trenches.
What really happened was that poppies were the first flowers to come to bloom on the graves of dead soldiers in Flanders. Inspired by these red blossoms the Canadian doctor John McCrae wrote the poem In Flanders Fields, the first stanza of which you can read above.
Emil and Theo’s first week of school almost over, we are starting to establish a routine. And it is the best of routines imaginable. The English have a lot of good sense when it comes to starting the day right. And I do not mean the classic Full English Breakfast. It usually consists of eggs (scrambled, fried or over-easy) and bacon, some sausages and Black Pudding on the side, along with baked beans and fried tomatoes and mushrooms. Oh, and a couple of slices French Toast. If you like it hardy and substantial it may just be your thing. A couple of hours after ingesting a Full English, you may even be able to move again. But this kind of meal in the morning has one thing going for it: You don’t need anything else until tea in the late afternoon, when you may feel inclined towards sharing an apple with your loved ones. The name Full English, however, implies that there are tuned down versions of it. Only very few English have it on a daily basis. It is rather more like a cherished tradition, cultivated on special days. But this post actually is not about breakfast.
On weekdays, Emil and Theo spend most of their time in Caistor. Here they attend Lincolnshire Montessori School. An old inn, complete with barns and stables was converted, with much attention paid to detail, to house the school. It is a young school and a small one and all the teachers and staff are contagiously enthusiastic about their work.
Remember remember the fifth of November Gunpowder, treason and plot. I know of no reason why gunpowder treason Should ever be forgot.
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In 1605 Guy Fawkes, together with a number of accomplices, conspired to blow up three dozen barrels of gunpowder in the cellar underneath the House of Lords in Westminster. The plot was aimed at the State Opening of Parliament. The Kind and large numbers of parliamentarians were supposed to die. The plot was uncovered and failed, Fawkes was taken into custody, tortured in the Tower of London and later executed for treason.
Our coordinates have undergone dramatic change. We are now no longer at Eastern longitude but just west of the Greenwich meridian. It is five past three in the afternoon and I’m driving through the rural (and sunny!) English countryside. BBC Humberside are playing The Bangles and I realise for the first time it is going to be a while until I have to face another Manic Monday. Such a great feeling.
First time I jumped an English queue – and we are still on the continent. Luckily the drivers of all the craftsmen’s vans and caravans took it lightly. In my own defence: the ferry boarding assistant had been sending mixed signals. From my perspective he had waved me to himself. He claimed, however, he dad waved me „into the right lane“.
When I was younger I thought very long and hard about how the world would be different if the maps of the world were drawn the other way around. After all placing North on the top half of the globe is a completely arbitrary decision. On my map Australia and New Zealand as well as Brazil and Argentina along with the rest of South America would be in what is our North, whereas the US and Europe as well as Asia would be situated in the Southern hemisphere. Today you can find reversed maps online. Wikipedia seems a good starting point.
This is not the first instant of a word of the week which is quite new. Kenlee was the first. And as of yet I have not found any written occurance of this weeks example. However, over the last few weeks it has featured abundantly in German television and especially radio broadcasts of the currently ongoing Olympic winter games.
It is not the first time I mention Stephen Fry in this little series of celebratory essays. “Celebratory of what?” you may well ask yourself. Well, in my opinion, the inventiveness of language users is as much cause for celebration as the versatility of language itself. People are constantly inventing new words – or new uses for an old word. Some people are better at it than others and some simply excel. Stephen Fry is of the last category.
When I was about fourteen or fifteen years old I was utterly in love with the stories about Sherlock Holmes and his faithful companion Dr Watson. Possibly that is one of the reasons I have been so captivated by House MD, a character very closely modelled on Holmes. The strange yet often quite easily deducible vocabulary allured to me. Words in Doyle were my favourite puzzles.
