Join the Club

Germans love their clubs. If you want to play football, raise canaries or walk Nordically, and you live in Germany, you automatically join a club, known as a Verein. That gives you instant friends, a place to go on a Saturday night if you’re feeling lonely, and it adds meaning and purpose to your life.

As parents, we have already joined an athletics club so that our children can run around a track with other kids and attend gymnastics classes. We believe that we will be joining a football club in the next year so that our small fellow can run aimlessly after a ball with others of his ilk. If any of our kids wanted to play tennis, hockey, rugby or netball we would have to join a club. This means paying a modest yearly fee, and getting involved on some level, whether it’s tending the herbaceous borders at the tennis club, lift-clubbing small hockey players to away games or turning up at various fests and ordering alcohol (my speciality).

We are broken, though, that there are no cricket clubs in Germany, except the casual one that takes place in our garden most weekends. It’s fairly relaxed, and closely tied to our regular weekend barbeque. There is no joining fee, no pruning involved and the requirement is the ability to hold a bat, however badly, and occasionally make contact with a ball. We are a small island of cricket in the large German sea of football.

Today, after a long bike ride, we stopped at a restaurant for a bit of lunch. We were lucky enough to be sitting next to the Sunday meeting of an unusual club.

The facial hair Verein. Twirly moustaches everywhere. We giggled, tried not to stare or do this:

We have to be careful. People take their clubs - and their facial hair - very seriously here.

10 Things My Kids Love About Germany

One of the posts that consistently gets hits here is 10 Things I Love About Germany. It contains reference to cake, walking, coffee shops and great holidays. Today, while sitting in a coffee shop and eating Schwaebsiche Apfelkuchen, I asked my children what they love about Germany, and this is what they came up with:

1. Berlin. The best city in the world, even better and prettier than London (where two of them were born).

2. Swimming in the summer and skiing in the winter.

3. The coffee shops serve very LARGE slices of cake.

4. Being able to speak two languages.

5. Lots of Italians live in Germany, so you get really good pizza and extra good ice-cream.

6. Having lots of friends who speak different languages (English, German, Spanish, Turkish, Arabic, Greek).

7. Going ice-skating in winter.

8. Our friends P and M who are kind and funny and let us sleep over at their house.

(Please note that the grown-ups love P and M too, for exactly the same reason.)

9. Kika - the children’s TV channel.

(The grown-ups love Kika too. It is advert-free and age-appropriate.)

10. There are lots of different sports you can do - cycling, walking, skiing, swimming, gymnastics.

Germany - the land of outdoor living, great food, wonderful friends and big cake. How can you not love it?

Cold Comfort

A year ago, deep in the heart of Europe, while driving through the continent’s longest tunnel as my family slept around me, I made a decision that was momentous for me. It had been silting up for years, but as the weight of the Swiss Alps pressed down on my family, I decided that, although I love my homeland and although my soul will always be South African, I will never live there again. The tunnel was long, straight and well-lit, and I wept as I drove. I kept the decision locked into my heart, not wanting to verbalise it, because that would make it too real. Today, I’ve cried again, all day long with bitter tears as the nail was banged into the coffin of my decision.

In September 2006, 100-year-old Herbert James “Bob” Downs was stabbed several times in the home which he built and where he had lived for 72 years. His murderer stole a television from him, which he later sold for R150 (€12). Sibusiso Mbuje Dlamini (29) was caught later that day, wearing a pair of Bob’s favourite shoes. There have been many murders in South Africa, countless murders, some perpetrated by the apartheid government, others perpetrated by the freedom movement and others by ordinary citizens. Every murder is tragic, but the murder of Bob Downs caught my heart. He was the grandfather of a schoolfriend of mine, and had recently celebrated his 100th birthday surrounded by his loving family: children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren. His granddaughter, K, had sent me photos of that lovely day. One picture that stays with me is of Bob, sitting amongst rows of his family, under the generous arms of a tree, the green lawns of someone’s home stretching out into the landscape of KwaZulu-Natal, the land that is etched into my heart. The joy that radiated from them made me cry. I felt, selfishly and briefly, robbed. Shortly afterwards, he was murdered.

This week, Dlamini was sentenced. He got life, plus ten. Cold comfort for Bob Downs’ family.

If you are feeling brave, look at Bob’s face here. See the wisdom in his wrinkles and the kindness in his clear blue eyes, which are those of a much younger man. When I looked at this photograph, over a year ago, I knew that I could not live in a country where a life as well-lived and good as his is so cheap. I made my decision and I held onto it in silence.

Last night, I was contacted by a young South African woman, who found me through my blog. Her husband is of German extraction. They are considering selling everything and immigrating to Germany. We spoke on the phone for a long time, and I heard the same sadness in her voice: how she loves her country, how she lives in fear, how the stress is affecting her whole family and how they are going to take the biggest risk of their lives and move. And I counselled her to do it. Germany, I said, is stable. It is green, healthy, safe, child-friendly and kind. As I said those words, my heart tore a little more. She is born and bred South African like me, whose parents are South African like mine. Her father runs a small supermarket and, she says, in order to be safe, his own private army. “Going to the supermarket there is like going into Belfast. Soldiers everywhere.”

This morning, I drove past green hills and thought how blessed I am to have landed in this safe, green place. The Heidelberg hills are so beautiful, gentle and rolling, filled with surprises like ruined castles and winding rivers. They will never be mine. They will never attach themselves to my heart with barbs that cannot be loosened. If my soul had to choose between the green hills of Heidelberg and the yellow grass of the Drakensberg, my soul would choose the latter. I dream of the smell of the air in Cape Town, and wake up with my pillow wet.

My mother and I have been having these phone-calls. We skirt the topic, we tease around its edges. For a year, we have been approaching it. And then today I said it. I said, “Tones, I’m never coming home.” And then I cried and cried. Somehow, when you tell your mother, then it is real, almost too real to bear. Since then, I have been crying and I can’t stop. It’s cold comfort for my mother that we are safe here, cold comfort for me that my life is stable and kind, cold comfort for my children that they have freedoms unimaginable to kids of their age in South Africa, but see their grandparents once a year.

My heart is breaking. I am never going home. My beloved country, exactly that of Alan Paton’s, land of yellow grass, duikers, vervet monkeys, sardine runs, dark palaces of thunderstorms, crocheted doilies weighted down with stones, the smell of mutton, rusks dipped into sweet tea, people who shout hello to each other, will always be a holiday destination for me. I am filled with love and admiration for those who stay, for those who still believe in South Africa’s future. They are brave and their courage astounds me. I can’t be that brave.

From the Frontline

… of suburbia, here is my life today:

Having a slight hangover, after cooking dinner for five girlfriends last night. We ate guacamole, a butternut and feta gratin, green salad with asparagus, carrot and walnut muffins with marscapone orange cream. We drank some bottles of rose, my favourite summer drink.

Sniffling somewhat, from the hayfever that prevents me from enjoying early summer with my whole heart.

Worrying about how Chapter Six has gone all spongy in the middle and how I am going to give it its edge back.

Reading other writer’s blogs for tips and finding this from Scott of Poetic Chaos:

When I get stuck while I’m writing, it’s usually because I realize there’s a problem with one of the characters. I’m not ‘getting it’ where they’re concerned. One of the ways I try to work around that is free writing. I’ll just open a new window and start writing for ten or fifteen minutes. Sometimes, it turns into a two way conversation between the character and I. Other times, it’ll be a journal entry, or just free association.

If I really get stuck, I play around with scenes that I’ve already written, and try writing them from the ’stuck’ character’s perspective. It lets me into their head a little more, and gets me in tune with the character.

And I think a lot of voice is like that. It’s about tuning in. Sometimes, you’ve just got the frequency off a little bit - if you jiggle the knob, you’re going to get that clear crystal picture.

Enjoying the sensation of worked-out muscles in the gluteus maximus from my run yesterday and aerobics class with the Tommy the Teletubby on Monday.

Wondering if I will ever lose the five kilograms I joined the gym five months ago to lose, and considering my friend G’s tip to go and have my thyroid tested, but fearing that my thyroid will be fine and that the way forward will be a sparrow’s diet.

Puzzling about how I have got myself into hosting a sleepover for four girls between the ages of six and eight this weekend, and steeling myself to be firm with the one invitee who knows no boundaries. The solution may be to tranquilise with DVDs and popcorn.

Dreaming of leaving for Berlin next Thursday for six whole days of aloneness and writing.

Missing my husband.

Feeling inspired by this piece of wisdom, collected at Pippa’s Porch this morning:

The easiest thing to be in the world is you. The most difficult thing to be is what other people want you to be. Don’t let them put you in that position.

What’s happening in your world today?

Litlove’s Parenting Meme

We have just handed over our three children to some wonderful friends for a Saturday night sleepover, and I am soon to don my Berlin party dress and head to another friend’s birthday party, from which we do not have to return till dawn should we so choose. Thusly childfree, it seems like the perfect moment to attempt Litlove’s Parenting Meme.

(And, since there has been a little, just a very very little, bit of daytime drinking, I cannot be held responsible for some of the things I may or may not say below.)

Litlove’s Parenting Meme:

How do you view your role as a parent? What are you there to do?

To love and protect. To guide and assist. To equip and prepare. To model behaviours and be consistent.

In your social circle, are mothers expected to work or are they encouraged to stay home with the child?

I know very, very few women who do not work in some way or another, but I also know very, very few women who have returned to work full-time. The short school day in Germany and the lack of adequate after-school care means that most women only do part-time or freelance work. The few I do know who work a full 40-hour week have live-in help, who collect the children from school, provide meals if necessary and play the role of parent until Mama or Papa comes home. However, the older children are, and the more independent they are able to be, the longer hours most mothers work.

How do you feel about your children’s education? What’s good about it, and what would you like to see done differently?

I am thrilled with the German kindergarten system with its emphasis on childhood, play and learning by doing. I feel it is a privilege in this highly pressurised world that my children have been allowed this gentle, fun and completely non-academic start. We are two years into the primary school system and I am satisfied thus far, though still horrified that our state requires my child to start high school in Grade Five. The school appears to cater to the lowest common denominator, which is probably the case in all state education systems and I can accept it. However, I am unhappy with the idea of my kids staying in German-only education for the rest of their schooling, so we are starting to scout around for bilingual schooling options. They exist, but at a price.

How do you share the childcare with your partner (if it is shared)? Do you tend towards different activities or different approaches to parenting?

I have been opinionated about how I want my children raised, and have been lucky in that my husband shares my views. He accepted potentially divisive things like sleep-sharing, attachment parenting, long-term breast-feeding without a murmur, and says today that our offspring are better off for it. He is a totally hands-on parent and has been from the start. While he could have chosen career paths that meant he would only see his kids at the weekend, he has always avoided what he calls “the rat-race”, and made choices that give him time with them. This is the reason we do not live in London, Johannesburg or New York. While I am still the primary care-giver, we are aiming in the long run towards a model where I work more and he cares more.

What are the most important virtues to instill in a child?

It sounds cliched, but I do think nothing beats a healthy dose of self-esteem.

What’s the relationship like between mothers at the park and the school gate? Would someone you didn’t know help you out in a stressful moment?

While I am not a fan of baby groups and forced mother-child group activities (in fact, I run screaming), the mothers whom I have met via kindergarten and school have been my life-savers. I am not everyone’s best mate, and I think some find me slightly odd, but I have some very dear friends who have kept me sane, make me laugh and love my kids. If I’m at a playground with my children, I have no trouble chatting with other Mamas if I’m in the mood, but sometimes I just want to zone out and look at the clouds.

What do you fear most for your children?

I try hard not to live in fear, but I suppose I fear something terrible happening to them. I also fear that we are making an inhospitable planet for them to live on.

How do you discipline your child and what are the errors you would put most effort into correcting?

I am one of those boring Mamas who cares about manners, and I probably overdo the repetition on that score. I don’t like violence and that is punished with time-outs on the stairs (a bad, bad thing that makes people cry). I am intolerant of whining and one of my oft-repeated phrases is “Say that to me in your pleasant voice.” Like Litlove, I find that aptly-used praise is more beneficial than lots of negative talk.

Do you think the life of a child has changed much since you were young?

Oddly enough, we are managing to replicate our South African childhood, where we spent a lot of time outdoors, walked to and from places independently of our parents and were expected to be social beings who could converse with adults and children alike here in Germany. Having said that, childhood has become more technological and we are constantly monitoring and assessing how well we are handling that. (For anyone who’s interested, Lia of the Yum Yum Cafe has been writing a fabulous series of posts on children and technology.) My kids also have a greater awareness of the world, and have travelled far more, than I ever had or did as a child.

What is the best compliment your children could pay you for your parenting skills?

My kids are good at frequent, fulsome compliments, so clearly I model praising really well. If they said I helped them to be happy and be their authentic selves, I would rest on my laurels.

Feel free to play too.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have a party dress to don …

Things To Do Instead of Writing

You can spend time with friends, with old friends, who because you haven’t seen them for so long, seem like new friends, and with new friends, who because you feel so strangely at one with them, seem like old friends. You can drink wine with them in the afternoon, share your kids with them, wander new streets with them, and make extravagant promises to babysit their kids, once they have some.

You can spend an entire afternoon in Berlin looking for the perfect dress. You can look for something whimsical and floaty, with tea roses and cleavage, that looks like Jane Austen wore it to a party where there was croquet and Indian tea, but finally buy a twenty-first century dress, a little edgy, a little sharp, but with its curves in the right places. Also with cleavage.

You can drive long distances, to places you never dreamt of visiting, take trains where your children press their noses against the windows, ride bikes around the city of your dreams, bump into pedestrians and mutter sorry in two languages. You can float down a river, or down a leafy path in the Tiergarten and hear the white wolves howl at the daylight in the Zoo.

You can read A Quiet Flame and imagine the encroaching horror of Nazism in Thirties’ Berlin, and then read No one belongs here more than you and be swept away into an imagination and a sensibility that leaves you shell-shocked, war-wounded, but glad to be alive.

You can eat the best ice-cream outside of Elba in a glass palace of shops and elegance, merguez sausages and couscous in a leafy beer-garden, white asparagus with hollandaise sauce in an achingly hip urban square and the best rhubarb cake you can imagine in the courtyard of an Italian restaurant where you are introduced to the chef and the hostess by name.

You can climb with your children to the top of the Siegesauele, admire them hanging upside down and learning to swing and slide by themselves in playgrounds, watch them falling in love with your friends and weeping when they part, and see them take part in their lives with such spirit and joy that you want to shed tears of your own.

Instead of weeping, you shout, “Who loves Berlin?” and hear them yelling back, “Me Mummy! I love Berlin! I love it! I do!”

Auf Wiedersehen, Pets

Today I spent at the pool vigilantly watching my threesome, who range from swimmer to paddler to fully paid-up water wings user. Tomorrow I take them to Alsace Lorraine to visit friends who, for their sins, are spending the Whitsun holidays in a camper van in a village that my friend described as “one house” (thank God for satnav). Thursday, we leave for Berlin.

With sunshine and holidays abounding, I bid you a brief Auf Wiedersehen. I am taking a blogging and Internet break for a couple of weeks. I plan to spend the hours that I’m not soaking up the wonders of Berlin and Lübeck working on my novel, which I have been neglecting since the sun arrived in Germany a couple of weeks ago. During my last two runs (six kilometres!), I crystallized the action of Chapter Six in my head and now have to get it all down before it vapourises.

I also plan to look for the ultimate summer dress. If I can’t find it in Berlin, then I can’t find it anywhere!

See you at the end of the holidays. May the sun shine on you wherever you are. Tschüss!

Dresses and Sunshine

Yesterday, I went shopping in Heidelberg, looking for the ultimate summer dress. Then I got cross and went home. What is going on with fashion? Dresses are either ground-length maxis that are tentlike at best, shrouds at worst, or ridiculous little miniscule shifts in which one can neither ride a bike nor stride along a street without revealing to the world one’s position on women and hairiness. Being short, the maxi style makes me look like a traffic cone, and being curvy with thighs, the mini ain’t an option. And don’t even say “leggings” to me. I’m with the Fug girls on leggings: hate them on anyone over 20, unless they are dancers or Kate Moss.

As well as the Sixties maxi/mini mindset, there’s this ridiculous love-affair with Eighties fashion going on. I’ve done bib-fronted, frilled Victoriana already, I did the sweater dress look at 12, I’ve seen the racer-back come and go once before and I’ve worn jumpsuits. I did baggy pinafore dresses to death in my teens and I don’t ever want to wear one again. I want to wear a dress that emphasises my shape, not one that disguises it. I’m also hating the smocks - I both look and feel pregnant in them - the big clunky beads sewn onto everything and the ugly neon colours.

My other moan of the day is that German high street fashion is so generic. Not only do the three main high street brands - Esprit, Mexx and S.Oliver - all look identical to each other, they seldom move from their formulae. This year’s Esprit summer look (sporty pants, T-shirts, and stripy shirts) looks pretty much like last year’s Esprit summer look. Boring. At least in H&M, you find some healthy Scandanavian madness, but yesterday it had come over all Eighties neons so I flounced out as quickly as you could spin me right round, baby.

So my search for the ultimate summer dress, the dress that would be neither too long nor too short, that wold flatter the good bits and hide the imperfections, the dress that I could wear out at night or to the pool with my kids? Came to naught. I was tempted to buy two things: a black maxi skirt (until I realised I have one already) and a silver-grey wrap dress printed with white butterflies from H&M (until I realised that I have two wrap dresses and a third, while it might be pretty, would not in any way be Ultimate). Instead I picked up some new bistro-style glasses, a couple of photo frames and stopped off at the nursery on the way home and bought potting plants for the terrace. Who needs clothes?

Today was Mother’s Day, the day I would have liked to worn my ultimate summer dress, given that it was an exquisite day and we cycled to a restaurant in the next village for real, Italian, crispy-based pizza. I wore a dress that is two years old. While it is black and as my husband kindly pointed out, smacks slightly of Sicilian nonna, it was just the right length for cycling, clung in just the right places and floated in other places. Thanks to my darling family, who woke me with home-made presents and spoilt me with their love all day long, I felt fabulous. Like a really fabulous Italian grandmother. New dresses are clearly not essential to my happiness, but my four darlings certainly are.

And a little bit of sunshine helps.

Confessions of a Slacker

722 words. That’s all I’ve got to say about that.

I’ve also been slacking on the blogging front. This is probably the first time - apart from holidays - that I haven’t blogged for a whole week.

Instead of writing and blogging, I have been doing some living. In the style of the lovely Ms Make Tea, here are some random items of life that have got in the way:

• A morning at Daisy’s kindergarten, making her Schultüte with her. The Schultüte is a cone-shaped object, decorated according to the child’s fancy, that is filled with goodies and presents, which the child takes to their Einschulungsfest. This is a special day to celebrate starting school. It involves a church service, a walk to school carrying both Tüte and spanking new backpack (the Rantzen), a ceremony of welcome and a visit to their classroom with their new teacher. Then they go home, have coffee and cake with the family, and unpack the Tüte. Daisy’s is beautiful: a winter ice-skating scene with sparkling ice and mountains, all in white, blue and silver. She is clearly moving out of the pink princess phase, which is a relief.
• A visit to the Auslaenderamt to renew my Aufenthaltserlaubnis. Yes, that is as stressful as it sounds - German officials are very officious and I always tend to arrive minus the one vital piece of paper that would ensure having my residence permit renewed on the spot. However, the guy in charge of surnames N to P, which encompasses us, is the most relaxed official in Germany, and the whole thing was achieved in five minutes. Afterwards, we sat in the sun in Heidelberg cafe and breakfasted. Lovely!
• Three jogs and a yoga class with my very lovely yoga teacher (I have to say this because she now reads my blog and doesn’t want to be cast as one of the nasty Germans in the drama that is Life in the Burg - and she is very lovely). All my runs have been outdoors and I have loved the sunshine, the green hills and the swift wide Neckar river.
• Going through the children’s clothes, putting outside the old and outgrown ones for charity (and placed these on the street for removal today) and replacing winter clothes with summer ones. It is lovely to see everyone running around in sandals, short sleeves and sunhats.
• Planning and booking our family’s visit to Berlin and Luebeck next week. We are staying in holiday apartments rather than hotels, which, I discovered on my last visit to the Hauptstad, is the way to go. I am dreaming of Berlin.
• Watching DVDs! I laffed my way through the first season of Flight of the Conchords, which is a hilarious programme about two New Zealand musicians trying to make it in New York, with the help of their abjectly useless band manager, Murray. I also watched Babel, with Brad Pitt and Cate Blanchett, which is an excellent and sobering film.
• Discovering the Love Food Not Waste website, which I am plundering for tips on how not to waste food, in light of Emily’s EcoJustice Challenge. Broccoli stalk soup anyone?

And now I’m off to lie in the hammock.

A Neighbour Apologises

STOP PRESS!

In an unprecedented move, a Burg neighbour has apologised to expat Frau Otter for stating baldly in public that her children are bringing rats to the suburb. Frau Otter says she is still recovering from the shock.

“I was amazed,” she says. “I have been accused of many things by my neighbours. But this is the first time, someone has apologised to me. It’s just a pity that her apology, unlike her accusation, wasn’t public.”

Frau Otter says that she had been in the crowded local bakery one Sunday morning, when the neighbour, who we will call Frau A to preserve her anonymity turned to her and said, “‘A rat ran over my husband’s foot yesterday. I spoke to Frau G, who denies that the rat has anything to do with the three compost heaps in her garden. She said maybe your children have been picknicking in the corner near our garden, and that’s why the rats are there. It’s pretty disgusting.’”

“I was so stunned I couldn’t say anything at first. Then I told that my children very seldom eat in the garden, especially as it has been winter, but if they do, they have a chocolate or an ice-cream which they eat up. They never leave food remains in the garden.”

Frau Otter reports that on recently meeting Frau A again outside the bakery, her neighbour apologised to her.

“She said, ‘I didn’t mean to insult you, I just wanted to warn you about the rats. I don’t want one of the children to be bitten.’”

Frau Otter says that having been accused of having stinky bins and offensive barbeque smoke by neighbours, it was appalling to have her children accused of bringing rats to the Burg.

“I feel vindicated now,” she says. “Clearly not all my neighbours are insane lunatics.”