Monday morning, post <<vacance de printemps>> and my eyes wonder around the vestiges of the holiday. So much to do- have a cup of coffee, run the vacumm cleaner over the floors, boil the kettle for tea, tidy up the girls bedroom, have a cup of coffee and make fruit salad for breakfast, send off a few emails, make a to-do list for the emails I need to send, pour water over a tea-bag, and see if I can quickly write to you before I have to get to work early/all day today. (excuse me quickly while I squeeze all the tannins out of a 5 Roses tea-bag…)
This recent school holiday has been an interesting one. Anton travelled to Saudi Arabia for a week from Easter Sunday, the girls spent their two weeks at home with a young babysitter while I went off to work each day (note that baby sitter is not the same as a nanny- I arrived home each day to find the debris of lunch scattered all over my kitchen, not to speak of the array of random toys lying in odd places. A nanny might have been quite different 😉 !)
Then, half way through their first week, I took my bike to work to be able to sort out some admin immediately afterwards, only to finish work and discover my beautiful pink bike had been stolen from in front of the pub. Never mind the shitty inconvenience of not having a bike, and having to go through the motions of getting a new pair of wheels, it’s the sheer gall of awful thieves in this town. I don’t think I know of many people who haven’t had a bike stolen in Strasbourg. The statistics are remarkably high, but apparently, its the season for it…
Needless to say, my lovely Bike Guru Anton found me a second hand one in no time, and by the Easter weekend, I was sorted with a similar bike, a new heavy duty lock (it really is heavy- adds a good kilogram extra onto the bike that I have to cycle with…), a new goodie-ma-jig behind the seat, on top of the tyre, so that I can strap school bags to, or in time, saddle bags can be put on, and he replaced the tyres so that I can go round corners at speed with more grip!
The other piece of hot gossip, that maybe you haven’t seen either on Facebook or Instagram, is that we have decided to move out of our city-bound apartment, into the Strasbourg suburbs (which is more a village, less a suburb), but it has a patio and garden. July will be our 4th year anniversary here, the girls are bigger and able to commute to school easier now, and we have talked about this move for a good many months- we just needed to get through our stuff, and decide what we were going to do I think. Through a network of contacts, I knew of someone who was moving out of their place that had a garden, so the opportunity kind of came up without having to really look for it. So, we’ll be moving at the end of May. We are all beyond excited- do you have any idea just how many braais we will be having in the next few months?? And how much of not cooking I may get away with? ;-)- I’m not sure who is more excited: Anton or me!
There is an established garden- irises, tulips, roses and shrubs, hedges and trees. There are 3 peony bushes, and we will have walnuts in November, grapes sometime (I have to confess- I don’t know what season grapes bear fruit naturally- summer right?). And outside the kitchen balcony, is a view of the open country- there’s a vast field that will be under wheat or maize soon. We will have the morning sun pop in our eyes unobstructed by buildings, and we can enjoy a glass of wine on our terrace well after 9pm while the sun sinks passed the small row of apartments on our west view. La Petite Monstre is asking for a trampoline, and my Little Heart is beyond happy to have her own bedroom.
Thursday post-script.
It’s so sad that I don’t have the endless hours that I used to because it’s become difficult to focus on finishing a letter. But I am grateful to have work as a delightful gap filler and the obvious source of extra income.
It’s been an odd kind of morning. Kids bickering in my bed even before I managed a sip of coffee didn’t do me any good so I was snippy. It’s been randomly bloody cold here in Sxb for the last 2 weeks so we had to pull out the winter coats as gloves to be able to cycle to school. Then my poor Alex crashed off her bike when she slipped on a wet man-hole cover. Later I was confronted by a Blue Light Brigade on the way home- traffic lights had been put out so that police could guide traffic. I saw the biggest car with the darkest windows had a Greek flag flying out front so I can only imagine it was a VIP Preek MP. But tre out of order traffic lights confused everybody. My dear South Africans- yiu can pat yourselves on the back for having “traffic-light out of order” savvy!! And while I’m directing to you- Happy Freedom Day. I was really happy to be able to explain to Alex today what is the deal about it. She’s big enough to understand now.
And lest you think I would have forgotten, yes, I am so aware of how much I would love to be able to talk garden stuff and moving with Mom, especially now. 23 months have gone by. I don’t carry the same weight on my shoulders as I did a year ago, but the sadness is still there.
For now, I must head to work though. Luckily I prepared an Irish stew yesterday already, and I know the boss wasn’t in last night so the kitchen is in the same clean state I left it!
Will try to write again soon. I’m sorry I’ve been so out of touch.
Lots of love and hugs to you all,
Me
Xxx
Pinot, Bretzels, and Cathedrals 