Just in case anyone is still reading, I'm still around but with greatly restricted internet access and somehow can't make myself give up too much time to bother getting all the way to an internet cafe. Settling in in Düsseldorf but am still (six weeks later) at the completely exhausted after work every day stage. Things haven't quite gone as planned in that regard as my boss has now been out sick for three weeks and it's tough running an office for someone when you've barely gotten to know the way they work, their clients etc. But I'm just trying to muddle through it and wishing I liked the person I share an office with a bit more. Oh well, such is life and I'll manage I know. But it's tough to deal with on top of moving my life here.
I'm slowly getting to know places around town and figuring out where to go to buy things. The first couple of weeks were a bit crap as I didn't know anywhere so was just popping into the supermarket for everything I needed (which, given that I didn't have a fridge, wasn't I huge amount I have to say!). And I'm slowly getting my apartment in order - still haven't completely unpacked all the boxes but ran out of furniture and storage for what I have unpacked long ago. I did decide to sacrifice the table from the kitchen so that I could set up a crafting space in my sitting room so at least now I can gather all my stuff together in one place to work away at.
I still have no cooker, ran out of money and decided that a two-ring hotplate would do for the first few months. Which seemed like a great idea until I got my River Cottage Preserves book in the post last week and decided to make chutney. Did that at the weekend but would have loved to have been able to also make some soup. And the roasted tomato passata. And. And. And. Highly recommend this book, it's the one I've been waiting for with all the detail you need to get started on preserving without having to wade through pages and pages of confusion. And the recipes are fabulous. Gotta go and get some work done. I've definitely exceeded the no-more-than-30-minutes-per-month-personal-internet-use-in-work rule!