And the not so good about the move...money

Considering how much this move has ended up costing me, it seems even more crazy that I've done it for the sake of a not-highly paid 20-hours-a-week job. I still think it was the right decision though and although part of the debt I have now incurred did arise from careless, even reckless spending during the very stressful weeks of the move, a lot of it is just part of the cost of doing anything in Germany. It is a land of three-month notice periods so moving in just over a month meant some additional costs that I have no control over. Of course, there are some things that I still haven't gotten around to actually cancelling yet so a portion of these costs are ones where I've just missed the boat. But there's only so much I can do and I was close enough to breaking point a few times during May that I just had to decide to let them go and focus on getting the more urgent stuff done. Like making sure things like insurances and internet were transferred properly. As it turns out, the move will end up saving me about 25 euro per year for my house insurance, so that's something at least.

What with having to pay double rent for May (1,200), double monthly transport in June as I cancelled my ticket in Dusseldorf too late to avoid having to pay it there (80), pay a three-month deposit upfront for the new place (1,350), pay 2,000 for the movers (that was just the actual invoice and doesn't include other money for lunch, drinks, moving boxes and so on) and multiple train tickets between the two places (at 90 euro for a return trip), not to mention money spent on paint, supplies, and some to people to help with the painting (I'd estimate probably over 1,000 for this but am not going to wreck my head going back to figure it out - a lot stemmed from running out of time and just needing to get things done no matter what), it feels horribly like I learned nothing from previous mistakes. However, although there was a certain amount of "fuck it, if I'm in debt anyway let's just spend more money" spending as well, I did keep what costs I could to a minimum and, more importantly, I didn't let that kind of thing go on for too long. And for the most part, even that money was spent on things that I did need (even if I could have managed without some for a while) and will use for a long time.

And of course there are all the new costs that come up with living in a new place, such as joining the library, security deposit for a canteen card, security deposit for keys to the office and so on. It's always feels like a constant drip, drip, drip. Added to which, I will now be travelling for work on occasion. At least for the first three or four months this will be fairly regularly and being at a university, there's plenty of paperwork involved before I'll get the money repaid to me. I'm hoping that submitting everything promptly will result in prompt repayment. At least all of the travelling I've been doing means I've been building up loads of points on my credit card. And I have this lovely view to look at every day. It makes me happier than I can describe to be back near some mountains (okay, hills) again.

I have no concrete plan in place as yet to pay off what I now owe. A lot will depend on my final salary (not long now until I know how much I'll be getting every month), and how I manage with financing part of my life from translations. I'm keeping my eye out for a second job as well, preferably what is called a mini-job or 450-basis job here if I could find a good one. In terms of tax, health insurance, social insurance etc., I can have one mini-job in addition to my normal job and not have to pay any contributions. It's probably the most effective way of earning an additional 450 a month but it's a bit of a minefield as these jobs can often be the most exploitative, with people being asked to work outrageously long hours and so on. We'll see how that pans out. 

Is that enough rambling for now? I've gotten back to tracking my budget properly again over the last couple of weeks and I think all of the really big expenses for the move are over and done with. As things stand today, my debt (made up of credit card, overdraft and 3,000 which my sister loaned me) comes to 7,140.93. The credit card will be the first to be paid off. The minimum payment is one-fifth every month and comes out by direct debit so there is no chance to put it onto the long finger. Apart from travel for work, I'll be doing my best to not use the credit card at all until it is cleared. It's currently at just over 1,500.

After that it'll be the overdraft (currently 2,600) and then I'll repay my sister, who doesn't seem to even really want the money back (she offered me money and I insisted that it be a loan). I have a lot of annual expenses coming up in the next few months though, so it is going to be a slow journey. At least one advantage of being in a new place is that there are no expected behaviours - I don't really know anyone to be going out for dinner with, assuming we'll go to that nice place, for example. I can just be the frugal/stingy person straightaway and no-one is wondering why I've changed.

I'm considering however, once the credit card is paid off, taking some time to build up a bit of savings. I'd like to have a constant 500 euro float in my current account so that even if I don't have a lot of translation one month, I'm not stressing too much about next month's money. I will have some tax return money coming to me so I might divert that perhaps. And I will hopefully get at least something back from my deposit from the old place. We did the handover on 31 May and she said she was happy that there was nothing I needed to pay for. A portion will be withheld to cover the annual costs (heating, electricity in common areas etc), which won't be calculated until early next year. However, there wasn't anyone ready to move in on 1 June so technically I'm still on the hook for the rent for June and July. They wanted to replace the floor in the bathroom so if the work can start on that, or if someone else moves in, I'd be officially released from my contract and no longer need to pay the rent for the remainder of the notice period. I'm trying not to be too hopeful though, to avoid disappointment. She did offer at least, to deduct whatever rent I will owe for those two months from the deposit so I'm spared having to fork over cash for the rent. Much as I love Germany, these three-month notice periods are a pain in the neck. If I hadn't moved so quickly I wouldn't have been able to take the job I got though, so in the end, it all worked out. Or it will. Watch this space.

I'm off...

It took a while but in the last few weeks all of a sudden I started getting invitations to interviews. Had six lined up over the course of two weeks! And then the first one was the charm - I was invited to a second interview a week later and it turned out they didn't so much want to interview me as they just wanted to offer me the job. Contingent on me spending a couple of hours there that afternoon just to make sure that I was happy and comfortable with the person I'll be mostly working under. Because, hold on to your hats, I've found somewhere to work where they attach great importance to the chemistry between people being good! I wasn't sure that existed in Germany! Hang on, that's worth more than one exclamation point I think!!!!!

So, now it's all go. The sensible thing to do would have been to wait and go to all my other interviews this week but I was very enthusiastic about this job after the first interview - the place, the tasks, the people and the type of graduate program I'll be supporting (sustainabililty-related! - I'm not going to name it though as it's quite specific and I like to cling to the notion that I'm still not completely identifiable from this blog. Quaint, some people might call that.)

I did go for one interview at my local university before I got this offer and haven't heard back yet but to be honest, I wasn't 100% certain about the professor I would have been working for. He seemed nice but also seemed like he could easily wear more than one face and I've learned to be careful about people like that. At any rate, I'm thrilled with the job I've gotten and only one other that I was called for interview for was similarly interesting and that would have involved either a long commute or a move to a town that's not particularly attractive. I cancelled that interview and instead, I will shortly be moving to this lovely place....

This is obviously one of the nicest views and there are parts of the town that are just as grey and horrible as any town but look...hills!

So even though the job I've gotten is only a part-time job (20 hours a week, increasing to 30 hours a week next year if they get funding) and is restricted to two years (so I have two years to try and wangle things to get a permanent position - something not at all easy to do in the public sector), it feels so right that I am going for it. I've already put out feelers to a recruitment agency in the area and am feeling very positive at the moment. That changes hourly though. At the moment I'm feeling pretty good because I had an unexpected but very welcome request via the National Association of Translators on Saturday which led to a nice bit of work on Monday and yesterday. Tough job but I think I did alright. Am just waiting for some feedback from the agency now and hoping that they were satisfied with it. It was a job just the other side of my comfort zone but when I got down to it it wasn't too bad, I think. Would be great to have made another contact that might lead to work every now and again.

Another aspect of working for the public service means that things can take a while. They would like me to start as soon as possible but it will probably take at least four weeks for the contract to go through all of the various departments and councils it has to go through. Still, starting mid-May or the beginning of June is very, very short notice in Germany. Bear in mind that if I hadn't already left my job and was just handing in my notice now, I wouldn't be free to start work anywhere else until the end of September and even if I would have been able to negotiate an earlier release from my contract, it would have been at least a few months.

The entire country seems to be predicated on a three-month cycle though, which means that although I did the sensible thing and left my job first (although that might work against me when I'm trying to find a new place to live and can't show income slips from an employer for the last few months), everything else now has to be worked on pronto. I've been trawling the websites looking for an apartment and have managed to arrange two appointments for Friday. Really hoping one of those is suitable and works out. I have to give three months notice on my place here, which means paying rent here until July. I'm really hoping that if I can find someone to take my place one, they'll let me out of my lease earlier. Need to phone now and find out. And organise to move. And cancel a million and one other things. I started making a list and it already covers one and a half A4 pages. Some things are just a change of address but some are things that have to be cancelled. Most are three-month cancellation policies but may have exceptions if you're leaving the state (which I will be) so I have a whole lot of paperwork ahead of me.

I may end up not blogging much at all over the next couple of months or I may end up blogging multiple times a day. It really could go either way. I'm excited and so happy to be feeling this level of enthusiasm for something though. Heidelberg here I come!

Quick catch-up in photos

Running out of time and haven't had much to blog this week at all so thought I'd at least just post a few photos that I have taken during the week. I had a good week and have still been feeling bad. Unfortunately I seem to have picked up a stomach bug or else I ate something bad at the barbeque I was at yesterday so I spent a goodly portion of the night draped over the toilet and, well, although I did make it out to go walking with friends this morning, let's just say that fasting today was not at all difficult to do. Even though it wasn't actually a planned fast day. But c'est la vie.

A lot of my time this week was taken up with knitting a present for a friend. Short notice invite to a party after contacting a friend to say happy 40th even though we've lost touch over the last five years or so. At any rate, I had been wanting to try out this stormy weather shawl pattern that I saw on mortgagefreeinthree (I've been working my way through the archives over the last while and it's just one of those blogs that makes everything seem so simple even I can give it a go).

I had the blue and the half ball of green already in my stash and used a voucher to pay for most of the three new balls. I also had another slightly less bright ball of blue, which is the one I ended up using. The colours aren't quite right in this picture but you get the idea.

My other crafty activity this week was making a paper chain. Each ring on this chain represents twenty euro and the whole lot is how much I will need to enable me to take a month off work in November. So, now I'll have a visual reminder hanging in my living room every day. And the satisfaction of seeing it get shorter and shorter.

I started the shawl on Wednesday evening and spent perhaps three hours on it. Then the same again on Thursday and up early on Friday to spend an hour on it before work. Another couple of hours on Friday evening before I literally ran out of time. And also wool. Although it wasn't perfect, it came out pretty well. I did my best to block it although probably could have done with another day to block it again, stretching it out a bit more. 

I don't really know how to crochet properly so didn't do the fancy scallop edge from the pattern and just finished it with another line of plain in the last of the yellow. The sharp-eyed among you might notice that I actually ended up using the yellow to finish off the last of the last line of blue - that block is an entire 100g of wool. 

I made a tomato tart to bring to the party with me, as well. Shortcrust pastry spread with mustard, topped with grated cheese, sliced, seeded tomatoes and topped with slices of mozzarella (since it was a special occasion) and plenty of oregano. 

Just for my own information this one. Smaller shop this week but included a couple of tins for the storecupboard, too. 11.75 this time.

At various points in the forest I went for a walk in today, there are signs showing various exercises to do or things like this to do exercises on. These are bars to use to do push-ups on. I can't even do one fake girly push-up but I gave it a go anyway. Using the higher one I did five - but barely managed to move down or up more than about an inch. So, something to work on there. There was also a pile of logs at this station, which you put on your shoulders to swing from side to side (you can see the shadow of my friend doing that in the back left of the photo.

So that's that. And now I'm off to bed. Hoping that by tomorrow morning I'll be feeling much more like a real, live, human being. :)

Trees along the river

Last Sunday was the Dusseldorf Marathon and, as I did last year, I helped out with the Irish Business Network's participation. So on Saturday I cooked pasta for 30 or so people and then on Sunday I helped a bit in setting up the tent, hung around all day and had a good time and then helped take everything down again and lug it all back up to the pub it came from. I thought I had posted these photos last year but it seems that I didn't so now I can just go ahead and post the two sets to show how different two years can be when it comes to weather and the growing season.

Last year, the weekend of the marathon was gorgeous, weatherwise. Sunny but not too hot, blue skies with not too many wispy white clouds and dry. This year, it rained. Well, it did clear up by lunchtime so that it was no longer raining but it remained grey and overcast (not that that stopped me getting a touch of sunburn). So this year, instead of this:

We had this:

I didn't think to look at last year's photos before going this year so I didn't get quite the same view but you can get the idea. The really big difference, though, is seeing how the long, cold winter in 2012/2013 influenced the growth of the trees compared to the very mild, nearly non-existent winter and early spring of 2013/2014. I had to zoom the camera in to nearly its full extent to capture a bit of green last year:

But this year? Whole other story.

Butternut squash lasagne

I bought a butternut squash before going to Halle in February and then didn't do anything with it since I ended up getting sick. Since I finally feel like I can't possibly put off getting back to eating and cooking properly (helped enourmously by going to a friend's for dinner last night for two delicious vegetarian dishes from the Ottolenghi book) I took the herby quark I bought at the same time and put into the freezer back out yesterday to defrost. I actually starting the day feeling like I was going to have another unproductive day but when I went into the kitchen just before one to get myself a very late bowl of cornflakes for breakfast I ended up turning on the oven, preparing the butternut squash and putting it in to cook. I actually hadn't found the recipe for lasagne again yet so forgot that they just saute the butternut squash in cubes - still, roasted with garlic and a red onion gives me just about the same, cooked squash that doesn't even need any more mashing or pureeing to use it in the recipe. The recipe doesn't call for it to be mixed with cheese or quark either - I think I was just mixing it up with the stuffed butternut squash recipe I often do. And hey, garlicky, herby, creamy butternut squash has to work at least as well as just mashed butternut, don't you think?

Since it's now cooked I thought I'd better just find the recipe and check I remembered it quickly. And of course I had completely forgotten about the white sauce part of things. No problem to whip up a quick white sauce though, right? I even have milk, not always a guaranteed thing. The one thing I don't have, however, is flour. I ran out in February and have completely forgotten to get some more in. So frustrating. So I could upset my day's planning to try and get out now to find a small shop open on a Sunday (there's a general Sunday shopping ban here for most instances, only touristy things are allowed open except for a couple of times a year - small tobacco selling type kiosks can open sometimes, too and some of them stock some basic groceries, too). Or just try it without the white sauce and sprinkle a bit more cheese between each layer. Decisions, decisions, decisions.

Edited to add the photo I had forgotten I took:

Visual journal - 1st January 2014

For the past couple of months Laurie, over at slowlysheturned has been posting a visual journal - "posting two photos per day, one representing my activities or feelings that day, and one with some detail of my home, yard, or nearby walks". For no particular reason I decided that I wanted to try and post every day in January and so I'm robbing her idea. Although I will probably only post one photo a day and they might sometimes be old photos. These posts will be in addition to whatever else I feel like wittering on about.

So just to get the ball rolling on this one, here's a photo from the train this evening.

I had a seat in a Ruhebereich or quiet area. No mobiles allowed and you're supposed to generally keep quiet. I really like this and love getting a seat in a quiet area. Some people try to ignore it but more than one phone call will usually draw comments from several other passengers and requests to switch the phone off or move to a different carriage. Most people who are there, are there on purpose.

Places to go, things to see, songs to sing

One thing I really would like to do is to start visiting more places in Germany. So once I am debt free, I will need to decide how exactly I want to do that. I'm thinking something like a weekend away every second month and a day trip every other second month, so that every month I do go somewhere. Every month feels like a lot though so I suppose I'll just have to wait and see. In the meantime, I thought I'd start a list of potential places to visit.

Day trips (no more than 3 hours away, preferably no more than 2)
Xanthen
Bremen
Bielefeld
Neanderthal (no excuses, this is only half-an-hour away!)
Aachen
Bonn

Weekend trips (no more than 5 hours away, must be reachable after work on a Friday)
Stuttgart
Hamburg
Bayreuth

Longer trips, minimum long weekend
Dresden
Leipzig
Munich
Bodensee
Rostock
Sylt
Berlin

I'm going to make this stuff into a separate page and keep it updated as I think of new places to go or to tick things off as I start to actually go on trips. Hmmm, while I'm at it, I should add some of the places outside Germany that I'd like to go to and some of the things I'd like to see.

In a few weeks time, choir will be performing Haydn's Creation. Last night, as part of our fund-raising efforts for that concert (the big choral works are expensive to stage - we're talking minimum 12,000, which is why we only get to do one every couple of year or as a support to other, state or otherwise subsidised groups), we performed extracts from it at a very posh old folks' home in town. They have a nice theater in the building (and a pub in the basement, so all the facilities!) and it was very close to capacity, I'd estimate just over 200 people attending. It's lovely to sing for an appreciative group and know they really want to be there and haven't been dragged along because they're family. LOL. We sang with just a small six-piece ensemble, with the piano picking up the slack for most of the missing instruments and had two soloists (the tenor bits were mostly left out, except for one trio when our conductor sang the tenor part.

What was particularly lovely about this concert was that because it wasn't a full orchestra and space was limited, the soloists sat just in front of the choir. Normally they sit at the front of the orchestra and the only time you get to hear them properly is during the dress rehearsal when they might turn around and sing towards the choir instead of towards the empty chairs. It was really wonderful to have them so close.

There are one or two places where we could probably do with a little bit more work but overall we gave a pretty good performance. And in two weeks we have a long weekend away to rehearse all day long for a couple of days.

I don't want to start spending money I don't have (even in my head) but I do want to get down on a list some of the things that I feel like I've been putting off or just never gotten around to over the year simply for lack of funds. I may never do all of them but once I have them on a list, at least I can think seriously about them and decide once and for all how important it is to me to give them a go. And one thing that will definitely be up there is singing lessons. I've never really had any proper ones, except for the once-a-year 20 minute session my current conductor insists on having with everybody (and honestly it's a fantastic extra service really, he doesn't get paid anymore for the days he comes early to do this). And I'd love to have more control over what I can do - being able to sing not just loudly but strongly, better breath control and so on. In the meantime, I found a song (don't think it's gone viral yet but it certainly deserves to!) that I think I may need to learn the words for (have already typed them up and printed them out for my books of lyrics) and sing next February during one of our after-rehearsal pub sessions in Halle!

The Ballad of Lidl and Aldi

Zero waste

I've made great progress over the last few years in ditching the disposables and trying to reduce the amount of waste I produce.  And I was doing pretty well in only producing a small bag of rubbish every two or three weeks.  Unfortunately, living in an apartment now I have no possibility of setting up a composter anywhere (no garden, no balcony and don't even know anyone who I've been able to persuade to set one up in their garden), which means that I now have a full small bin full of rubbish every week and sometimes twice or three times a week during the height of canning season.  Funnily enough, I've found that the habits I've built up over the last few years are more difficult to break than the habits they were replacing, which I'd had for much longer.  So even after more than four years it still bothers me every single time I throw something in the bin that I know could be perfectly well added to a compost heap.  I've considered trying to get a small wormery going in the kitchen but I don't really have space for it and there is a clause in my rental contract that states that I am responsible for ensuring there are no infestations of insects or bugs.  I've already managed to acquire moths (of the clothes eating variety) and somehow it seems to me that bringing a whole lot of worms into the building might not go down too well.

Germany was probably one of the first countries to introduce rubbish separation and recycling so we have three bins available to us in our building.  One for paper and carton, one for plastic packaging and one for general waste.  I'm also lucky enough to live just across the road from some glass bottle banks, for those bottles that don't have a deposit to be claimed once you return them to the shop.  Once I've separated out all the stuff for those bins I don't have much left to get rid of except for veg peels etc.  Switching from disposables has certainly made shopping a lot easier, too.  No need to remember to buy sponges or dishmops every couple of months, I just use my own knitted cloths.  No need to remember to buy serviettes, I have cloth ones that I bought nearly fifteen years ago that are still going strong.  No need to remember to buy kitchen roll, I have lots of rags and cloths to soak up any spill.  No need to remember to buy toilet roll except once a year or so, I have an old towel cut up into squares that work so much better than paper.  No need to remember to buy sanitary towels, I have my mooncup and washable pads.  And no need to pay for any of those things anymore makes it all even better.

I don't think I'll ever get to the stage of producing zero waste but it's still a goal worth aiming for I think.  Top of my list for the next place I move to, though, is enough outside space to have a small composter or wormery on the go.  Until then, this post marks the end of the April A to Z challenge.  It's been interesting but I'm not really sorry that it's over.  I may take a few days rest from blogging now.  Or I may be back tomorrow already, since it's a bank holiday here and all.  Can't believe it's May already, time is really flying by.  A sign that I'm getting older, apparently.  I like to tell myself that that's balanced out by my getting more childish, though.  You take what comfort you can get, I suppose. :-)

A few photos

I made pizza sauce today and have another batch of tomatoes in the oven roasting now for a second lot. The farmer at the market yesterday said he expected to have tomatoes for a few weeks yet. He'll probably pull the plants up in the next week or two and then it'll be a couple of weeks before everything that's left on them is finished. Feels like a long time - I must remember to make a note of the last week they have tomatoes so that I can remember it for next year.


In an attempt to do something nice and autumnal at home (Germans are very into their 'deko' stuff and will kit out their houses according to the season all the time - we're not talking just about a few flowers either), I made up a little platter with some of the things I've found while out walking the last couple of weeks and added a candle too. It's a small start but although I take the piss out of the Germans sometimes the idea of making small decorative adjustments insde to reflect the seasons outside is something I really like.

And here's a picture of the first two tomatoes I harvested from my plant at home.

I ate these with some bread and cheese for lunch. They weren't very big but very, very sweet. There are a few more just turned red now and others nearly there so I'm going to wait until the end of the week to eat them. My brother will be over for a visit then and it's always nice to share the harvest. I planted some spinach and lettuce in my window boxes a couple of weeks ago as well and they have sprouted now so I might even get to have my own supply of salad leaves during the winter. We'll see.

Adjusting to a different climate

Although I don't feel like I'm that far away from where I grew up and lived for most of my life according to viamichelin it's 961km and that is enough to mean a very different climate. That was part of the reason I wanted to leave Ireland, just couldn't handle another rainy summer. But still, adjusting to the reality of a different climate is another story. And even though I have lived in Germany before I was mostly much further south and in or near mountains as opposed to the very flat place I live now (about 40km from the Netherlands and the flatness continues until a bit to the east and north of here).

That means that although it may get slightly warmer down south, it is very humid here and even at nighttime doesn't cool down much, unlike in the mountains where at least you can get some air. Yesterday it was 27 degrees when I went to bed at half-ten and, when I got up around midnight it had 'cooled' down to 21.

It is interesting learning to deal with it though and having to modify my behaviour to what seems to me to be completely illogical. So, to keep my apartment cool I've discovered recently that I should be closing the windows, not opening them to let in the air. Have a day off today and closed up the windows (except the one in the bathroom, which for smell reasons I prefer to leave open) not long after I got up. At that stage, it was nine o'clock and 22 degrees both inside and out. It is now just after 11 a.m. and while I'm sitting here feeling that it's a bit stuffy and rather warm, it is 4 degrees cooler in the apartment than it is outside (26 and 30 degrees respectively). Crazy stuff, don't think there has ever been a day in Ireland where that would happen but maybe I just never realised it might be a possibility there. It has also been difficult to get my head around the fact that I have to be looking out for damp and mould in the summer due to the humidity rather than in the winter due to the, eh, damp.

I've just checked the Met Eireann website and opened up the review of 2006, which is the latest they have up there. The mean annual temperature was 10.6 and it was the hottest year since 1997 although with the coldest March. The highest temperature recorded was 32.3 on 19th July and that was the highest temperature recorded since 1976. Temps for Dublin Airport were: mean 10.3, highest 26.5 and lowest -5.8. So that'll give you some idea of how different it is. Checking the forecast for today and the next few days in Ireland it seems to be highs of 16 to 20 (which I'd consider to be really nice weather) with lows of 10 to 13 overnight. While in Dusseldorf we have between 24 and 31, with rain due over the weekend and so the temps potentially dropping to 17. It's just a whole other world.

Beans and things

Was very brave today and tried cooking with chickpeas for the first time thanks to a recipe I saw on this blog which I had almost everything on hand for. So easy I can't believe how often I have intended to do chickpeas and have chickened out. I can see them playing a much bigger part in my future eating. Especially since the heat here is making me wilt - anything that adds more options to cold eating for me is a good thing. It's not outrageously warm really but compared to how Ireland normally is, it is sweltering and I reckon it'll take a good few years for me to get used to it. Must have been about 30 degrees yesterday and it was due to be 27 today but it is really humid with it. We had massive thunder storms yesterday afternoon and loads of rain but within an hour you could barely tell it had rained.

Today I feel like I have spent most of the day in the kitchen but I'm doing something for half an hour then need to sit down and rest while I cool down before going for it again. Can't believe it's almost nine o'clock. The tomatoes have finally arrived back at the farmers' market and I was going to attempt my first water bath canning and make some ketchup. But I haven't gotten to it so am going to wait till tomorrow after work.

What I have done:

Cooked chickpeas which I had soaked since yesterday, chopped up tomatoes, feta cheese and combined with the dressing of lemon juice, mustard, olive oil, black pepper and garlic.

Cleaned and de-stalked blueberries, redcurrants, blackcurrants and strawberries. Ate a fair few of the strawberries and made the rest into a rough purree to have with yoghurt for breakfast or desserts this week. The blueberries, redcurrants and blackcurrants are in the dehydrator - it will be interesting to see how they turn out.

Did what seemed like neverending amounts of washing up.

Used gooseberries to make pectin stock. I want to try and make more jam next weekend without having to use jam sugar.

Cooked broccoli and cauliflower to make a bake but couldn't face turning the oven on so that will be tomorrow's dinner. Also cooked some turkey pieces to add to it - will have some of those now with bread as my supper and leave the rest to add to the bake tomorrow.

Podded, blanched and froze a kilo of broad beans (350g podded weight).

Drank lots and lots of water. And watered some plants I just haven't bothered to for a couple of weeks.

Hung up the load of washing I did this morning. Naughty me doing washing on a Sunday again but the heat had me so exhausted yesterday I forgot about laundry until it was almost eight o'clock.

In other news I am working my way through visits to doctors. My bloods are all fine, even, surprise, surprise, my cholesterol (my diet isn't as bad here as it was the last few months in Ireland but I haven't exactly been making a big effort to cook and eat healthily). The colonoscopy was clear of any problems and I just have to go back in ten years for another and in the meantime try to get a hold of my mother's medical records so we know once and for all exactly what type of cancer she had. German doctors are very interested in prevention being the best cure. I did find out that I'm allergic to birch tree pollen so that's interesting. Appointment with the orthopaedic doctor tomorrow about my feet and that should be everything.

And finally I am getting places on my patchwork blanket. I knew when knitting it that I should have been taking care of the end bits as I went along but I didn't so now I just have hundreds of squares that need to be finished before being sewn together. I'm not quite halfway through but it is getting there and going fairly quickly now. Finishing things off is probably one of the most important aspects of most crafts and it's the one I'm least proficient at and could do with working on.

Oh, and I did an online IQ test yesterday and apparently have an IQ of 131, which according to one page I found (obviously I am going to take the one with the most favourable explanation :-) ) means that I just make it out of the highly intelligent category and into gifted. Since I got a good result I think I am going to stop being so dismissive of IQ ratings as a method of rating intelligence!

Edited to add: while I was destalking the currants earlier I thought to myself they might not be all that suitable for drying as they are so small and so juicy - what's going to be left. They've been in the dehydrator for six hours now and, given their small size, I would have expected them to be shrivelled up to nothing but they're not. Really not sure they're going to work out but even if they don't it will have been worth the experiment.

Welcome to my kitchen

Thought some might like to see my new kitchen. Here's a before picture of one side - bear in mind that in Germany you quite literally need to move everything including the kitchen sink (and tap come to that). I took this picture on the day I moved in.

This is how it all looks now - I have, of course, not gone with the traditional fitted kitchen style but rather cobbled together what I could for as little as possible.

The fridge and washing machine are both new but not big-brand names - I wanted to get the highest efficiency rated possible for the limited budget I had. I have had the tallboy for a long time. It used to be in my dad's bedroom and then mine and has travelled with me since and served so many different purposes. The nice dresser is one of my second-hand bargains (40 euro).


This is my cooking corner:



I bought one of the butcher block type units from Ikea and the second from the second-hand Ikea stuff website, from a couple round the corner from me and 10 euro cheaper than the new one. The oven was donated from my sister's cellar - I went to visit her in France in December and brought it back on the train with me, worked well as a conversation starter I can tell you. Until I have enough saved for a proper cooker the two ring hotplate and oven do very nicely although I miss having a gas cooker.

And here's my new sink. Built the whole thing myself (from flatpack - special offer from the local big DIY place and never again. Didn't realise before I would become so opinionated about sinks!). I did get a plumber in to hook it up though which was just as well as I didn't realise that when he told me to "get any standard tap" he meant "get any standard tap that fits the pipes coming out of your wall" and I had bought entirely the wrong shape one. So he ended up having to go out and buy one for me which cost twice what the sink and cupboard did. Lesson learned and at least I'd feel a bit more comfortable having a go at hooking up a sink and washing machine myself next time. I think. Maybe.


And, the last corner with my second-hand table and chairs (60 euro) and a lamp donated by a friend. Will get around to getting the electrician in to fit lights to the ceiling one of these days. One of those things I would have just done myself in Ireland but the wiring here looks completely different and I want to get it done properly the first time.


And finally, a shot of my new dishes. Well, new to me anyway. I saw this set in the second-hand shop when I first went in and bought the table and chairs and thought it looked really nice. But, I had enough plates and bowls and mugs to do me and more important things to spend my money on. Told myself I’d go back at the end of the month and get it if it was still there. In the end I couldn’t afford it then either so didn’t even bother going back and then at the end of the second month wandered in to see if they had any more decent furniture in and yer woman recognised me and said she still had the pottery I liked but had put it away in the back as it wasn’t selling and if I wanted it she’d give me a good price. Couldn’t really argue with 60 euro for the whole set! There are 70 or 80 pieces altogether so it’s less than one euro a piece. The picture doesn’t do the red colour any justice at all though. It looks a bit pink here but it’s really a vivid, vibrant shade of red. I did some checking on the internet to see where it was made and it's from a ceramic works in the Black Forest (which might explain why it appealed to me so much as most of the time I lived in Germany before it was in the Black Forest) which closed in 1989 so I know it has to be at least 20 years old. That's practically antique!

Must be a bit frugal at least

After posting about my budget the other day I decided to phone the council and find out exactly when the readings for gas and electricity are taken only to find out they had been taken a couple of weeks ago and my bill had been posted to me that morning. What a coincidence. The person who lived here before me either liked overpaying and getting the refund at the end of the year or I really am getting to be frugal in my use of electricity and gas because I seem to use about one third of what she did. They reduced my payments going forward but I asked them to put them up a little bit and I'll monitor the gas meter monthly from now (which I wanted to start doing anyway) to see if their level was realistic or if it's better to keep paying the higher amount (still much lower than I've been paying till now). I do need to get an electrician in to fit some lights as I've just been using plug in ones up to now (so much light from the street lights that you wouldn't need a light in the bathroom at night anyway but my recent visitors disagreed and I do hope to have visitors again) so I can check with him whether or not there is a generic key available for the cupboard where the electricity meters are kept or if I really would have to get the management company out every time I wanted to take a reading.

On top of another fairly crappy day in work (the kind that makes you decide by the end of it that it really would be a good idea to make sure your CV is up to date) it was nice to check my bank account and find out that the refund from the council was there already.

Bread

There are some things which do remind me on a regular basis of some of the reasons I am glad to have moved to Germany. Every little helps and even when I'm caught up in the worst of a what's-the-point-of-it-all mood that applies even more so.

Bread has to be one of the best things about living here. In fact, my only complaint (hey, I'm Irish, I'll always find something to moan about!) is that it means I haven't bothered making my own bread at all since I got here. And since I live alone I can't buy every type of bread every week and just have a bit of each and know someone else will finish it. I had a freezer full of leftover bread before I calmed down a bit and started to only buy one loaf of bread at a time. In fact I just took the last of my frozen bread out of the freezer to make breadcrumbs with for a pasta bake this evening. But the bakeries even open on a Sunday morning now so I can go and get myself a roll or two and have a nice leisurely breakfast.

Which connects to another thing I love about Germany - shops don't open on Sunday. Or bank holidays. Well, actually the state I live in apparently passed a law recently that shops could open on a Sunday (the law allowing bakeries to bake and sell for a few hours on Sunday mornings happened sometime in the last 10 or 12 years - I definitely remember my first couple of years in Germany that bakeries would sell Sontagsbroetchen on Saturday evenings) and there are a couple of small newsagent/tobacco shops which do open but for the most part everything stays closed except for a special Sunday opening a couple of times a year. As I live on a main street this has the added advantage for me of bringing a much quieter place on at least one day a week.

Technically, Sunday (as well as every day between 12 and 15 and every evening after 10) is also a quiet time i.e. you're not supposed to hoover, use the washing machine, cut the grass or anything else that makes noise. Depending on your building and rental contract you might not even be allowed to shower during this time. Sometimes it is a pain and I do sometimes ignore it, for example I didn't get the hoovering done yesterday so I did it this morning and I have a wash running as well at the moment as I didn't get it all done yesterday and I had towels I wanted to run on a hot wash (which I do every couple of months to help also clean out the machine a bit). I know I'm very busy for the next four weekends so it made more sense just to do it now. But, for the most part I try to keep myself to getting things done during the week or on Saturday mornings. It means I have very busy Saturday mornings but by Saturday afternoon things are mostly done and I feel like I have the rest of the weekend to myself. Years ago, when I was a student here shops closed at 12 on Saturdays except for one Saturday a month when they could stay open till 16. Many shops still do close around lunch time on Saturday so I just pretend to myself that I have to get everything done by 12 - it's an added incentive to get things done and not just meander.

I do live on a main street and it is very loud so I won't be staying here for a very long time but oh how fantastic it is to have my own place, something I would not have been able to afford in Ireland. I pay 550 euro a month for a nice, fairly big apartment - the same in Dublin would easily cost 1200 and far more for a decent quality. The area I am living in is really great too. I'm only a couple of stops away from the Altstadt if I want to find nightlife or shopping. But all the shops I actually need are within less than ten minutes walk.

There is a farmers' market twice a week just around the corner and it's a proper one, where all the farmers have to come from within a certain distance from here. I do most of my food shopping there on a Saturday morning. There is a big fruit and veg shop just down the road as well so if I fancy the non-organic, out of season imported stuff it's right there. Lemons and bananas are about it although I recently discovered that the fair trade shop just a few doors up the other way sells bananas sometimes too. There are three butchers, one of which sells a lot of organic meat and one of which is a real hippie kind of place that I like a lot. There are three bakeries within a minute of my house, one of them is a long-established one which has five shops in Dusseldorf and the other which I buy from has two shops in Dusseldorf and is more expensive but does a lot of organic baking. If I need a supermarket there are five within a few minutes walk - Rewe, Kaisers (the two big ones, comparable to Tesco say), Aldi, Plus (similar to Aldi) and Edeka. There are numerous small newsagents/tobacco/lotto shops. Three bookshops. A library. Loads of small restaurants, although there is a predominance of Italian restaurants which is all a bit boring after a while. Have to go further afield for Chinese or Indian for example. There are shoe shops and clothes shops as well although apart from Woolworth, they tend to be a bit on the pricey side. There's the aforementioned fair trade shop, a Bio Supermarkt (organic supermarket) and a healthfood shop. And my bank is just across the road as well. There is an optician and a leonidas shop. Chemists as well, plenty of hairdressers (haven't been able to bring myself to go to a German hairdresser yet though even though I badly need a trim) and even an Oxfam. There's a wool shop only about 15 minutes walk away and I also have two branches of Cash & 'Raus nearby, which is a charity helping long-term unemployed and which sells second-hand stuff. One of the ones near me sells mostly books but they all also sell furniture and I have bought most of my stuff there. There is a great toy shop which nearly makes me wish for kids (and the money to buy the stuff - wow, good toys are expensive) and a hardware and household goods shop which is also a wine shop and which sells everything I could need at prices which are for the most part comparable to the big DIY centres. And the Rhein is only ten minutes walk away.

And finally for now, the public transport here is great. I have a monthly ticket which costs me less than I paid for a monthly student ticket when I was in college in Dublin - 14 years ago!!. I can travel on trains, trams and buses within the Dusseldorf city area during the week and at weekends and in the evenings I can travel within the whole area covered by my local network, which is about an hour or two in any direction. And on weekends or evenings I can bring a second person with me as well, which is very handy for when someone is visiting.

Still here

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!

Sand hole collapse and a raffle

I'm not much of a one for supporting religion and particularly not for supporting organised religious institutions. However I do find the idea of women coming together to support each other and grow a very powerful one and so I decided to make a donation to this raffle (there are some fabulous prizes but I had to think about it a bit before deciding to go ahead and support it). I'm writing about it here though, not so much to ask other people to donate but to draw their attention to this post from a year ago explaining some of the background as to why this lady has decided to set up this fundraising effort. I'd never heard of sand hole collapses before and kept meaning to write about that post but don't think I ever did. So, now I am but am taking the easy way out and just linking to Earthchicknits' post - she really talks about it far more eloquently than I ever could.

Happy Friday everyone - my last one in Dublin, this time next week I'll be on my first day in my new job in Düsseldorf.

Needle book and pin cushion

I signed up for another swap on down to earth, this time for a needle book and a pin cushion and got matched up wtih a lady in the USA. As I could see from her blog she is a very experienced seamtress so I've been glad there's so much time to complete this swap. We have until September and given that I'm in the middle of moving that's not a bad thing. On the plus side I found out today that my stuff will be in Germany tomorrow. And I won't be there for another week! It'll be kept by a German company and delivered then - I'm just hoping now that it'll be delivered fairly quickly and not just left sitting in a warehouse for weeks.

Anyway, I received my needle book and pin cushion from Cindi today and they are beautiful. Thank you so much again Cindi, in case you're reading. They even have my name embroidered on them! I did keep my camera out of the big shipment so I'll take photos as soon as I can and post them up. And as a bonus I also got an amazing bag which will be very useful for me as I learn to sew I think - I love to have things to organise everything into. Everything was so well finished that it certainly gives me a lot to aim for in terms of sewing efforts.

Although rather than starting a load of new projects I really need to finish my blanket project first - it's H.'s birthday next Monday so he's definitely not getting it for his birthday. Unfortunately the way my finishing dates have worked out mean that I won't be able to visit him for his birthday but that of course means that I have a bit of extra time to finish it. He's a chef so can't take time off to come and visit me during the season so it's likely I won't see him until September - I may be able to take a day off work then to head up to him for a long weekend. In the meantime I know we got a first edition stamp sent to work a year or so ago that nobody wanted and I put it to one side. So I'm going to send that to him in a card so that he has something on the day and to add to his stamp collection.

Should have worked harder on that list...

Things I didn't keep but probably should have:

Screwdrivers and alan keys - at least my brother didn't manage to return my drill to me on time so he'll bring that with him when he comes over the week after I move

The extra vacuum pack bags I bought (my fault for leaving them out so they got packed by the removal guys)

12 days to go

Sent most of my belongings off with a removal company yesterday. Am still very nervous about the whole thing (particularly don't like the take-all-my-wordly-possessions-and-here's-a-big-cheque-too aspect of it!) but people ship stuff all over the world everyday and I'm hoping it'll all turn up in Düsseldorf and not too much will be broken. I caved at the last minute and kept my files with documentation relating to work, pension, health insurance and the Revenue. I've bought my brother a flight to come and visit me the week after I arrive over there and will leave a suitcase of stuff with him to bring with him as well. How ridiculous is it that it was cheaper to buy another flight where he can check in one bag of up to 20kg than it would be to pay the excess baggage on that 20kg if I were to bring it myself (at €9/kilo excess baggage is not cheap!)?!?

I have a mountain of stuff to do in work and will be doing some serious overtime in the next few days to get through it. This situation hasn't been helped by my boss being actually in the office over the last week rather than out at meetings and the fact that he's been doing more client work than admin as well which in turn generates more work for me. And he's sort of trying to make sure everything is covered before I leave so keeps calling me into his office to show him how to do this or that and confirm points he wouldn't normally bother his head with because I'd take care of it. My replacement won't start for another month so for the time he's away on holidays he'll have little or no support in the office keeping an eye on things although admittedly in the last year or so he has gotten much better about actually taking a proper holiday and not being in constant contact with the office. I'm working on a handover document for my replacement setting out everything that needs to be done on a daily basis to keep everything running smoothly and am even amazing myself at the myriad of very small tasks I do that don't seem to be 'real' tasks and yet are the kind of things that make up a good part of my day - I seem to do a lot of things that take only a minute or so but it all adds up.

It rained again today. I know it's raining a lot more in Germany than usual but I still can't wait to get away from it and at least have a bit of sunshine inbetween.

List of what I'll need for the first few weeks

I feel the need for many lists at the moment and may need some help with this one so have decided to put it online in case anyone has any suggestions.

This is all the stuff I will need to live for a few weeks while the majority of my possessions are in transit (potentially 4 - 6 weeks). The idea is that I will have a very big suitcase (and as you're only allowed 20kg I will probably have to pay excess baggage charges - will probably work out the same as trying to get someone else to travel with me and having to pay for their flight).

Work clothes and shoes

Casual clothes and shoes

Underwear

Cloth STs and Mooncup

Toiletries - hairbrush, deodorant, soap, toothbrush and paste, moisturiser, toilet roll, nail clippers

Travel first aid kit

Towel

Tea towel and dishcloth

Air mattress and pump - and something to power pump as I won't have a car handy to use the cigarette ligher bit

2 x sheets, 1 x duvet, 1 x pillow and pillowcase (may be too hot to use duvet hence two sheets)

Knitting (won't have a lot else to do in the evenings and am way behind on my blanket project)

Iron

Adapters for plugs

Cup, plate, knife, fork, spoon - plan to buy something cheap when I get over there

What else?

I plan to buy some of those vacuum pack bags to use to make as much of the above fit into my suitcase as possible.