MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!

(have a look at our new and old rascals in the holidays on the picasa album on the right)

w-w-h (wild weekend halle)

finally one merciful soul has send a few pics from our wild adventure in halle a few weeks ago (danke, pam!!!) and by putting them up i should perhaps correct the several implications you could be mistaken to believe



1. there were not just five people at the party
2. no, andy turned only 50
3. all his ex-wives were present (but most)
4. we all looked that good by the end of the night




but even if we're all posing a bit here it was just fab to see so many old friends and share the kind of chit chat that you usually reserve for school reunions (which i have failed to get to yet) and find out that they're all doing quite nicely

before we turned more seriously and checked the bottles and the dance floor and then it was almost like in the good ol' days and in the end we danced to some pretty weird stuff from ossi land as well as the sins of our youth (tainted love anyone?) before we all returned to husbands, wives, children etc. the next day with the slightest hangover and the puzzling question what it will all look like when andy turns 60 or so...

magical moments in trafalgar square

a wonderful, magical moment on trafalgar sq last night where the fabulous southwark concert band (yes, with our daughter) played a full set of christmas carols, right next to the climate change protesters and their activities, oddly matched but peacefully side by side. rike swore she saw about 250 santas!

snow white and the tasmanian devil

busy days, folks, not only at work where we are drowning in the run up to christmas while our students are already boarding their holiday flights but also at home with the arrival of chilli the tasmanian devil (pictured), 12 weeks old



and little snow white being two weeks older and a tiny bit bigger but still kittenish enough to play day and night untill they crash out (preferably on rike's bed where they have decided to reside).



both were rescued by the celia hammond trust until we took over and rike is now the proud mum of the two fluffers whose main purpose in life is to shred everything in sight.

but being so utterly charming, clever and cute always helps and already they are getting treats and pressies every other minute and it can only be a question of time before they rule the entire household. much to rike's liking...

rodeo in los alamos, nm

today i stumbled across these pictures as we stumbled across the event last summer - a local rodeo show, barely made public on a few flyers, a low key affair for the working cowboys in los alamos, but for us a real treat and baking in the hot august sun that afternoon was about as remote from the cool, sleek laboratories that we had seen earlier in town as it could be and made the place where oppenheimer et al invented the bomb even more unreal. great riding skills but i still manage to feel sorry for the little calves...

halle 1 - new york city 0

why - my dear husband wanted to know when confronted with the idea that i would spend a weekend away in halle/saale - why is good ol' andy not celebrating his 50th birthday in new york city? it's conveniently located, cheap to get to and, best of all - you get a direct flight...

reader! you don't want to get bored with the saga that followed. suffice to say that andy's birthday present - the good man is 50 after all - shrank considerably as i attempted to make a booking for his town. not sure exactly what i had in mind - a nice louis vuitton travel set with four large suitcases or a voucher for three suits at dior homme, but the travel set became a small key ring holder and the three suits turned into a silk tie in the sales and eventually even that was out of range and andy has a bottle of shampoo now as i finally got hold of some complex business class arrangements via munich and frankfurt. she's so caring i can hear you mutter - true, but the question remains: how good's the party??         

first rate is all i can say - great people (all the usual suspects!), great venue great dancing and great atmosphere - andy clearly didn't get a few other birthday presents this year. as with the better part of saturday spent in the air and an early start for a long, long night there was not much time left to actually get a look at halle but after a lavish breakfast on sunday midday we managed to get a glimpse of the market place, marienkirche, roter turm and moritzburg - all incredibly beautiful and very sensitively restaured. a pleasure to see and definitely a place to come back to. after a long round of saving. or moving the lot to new york...

(will post some pics if and when others send some as i managed to forget my camera)   

fun at the lord mayor's show

despite torrential rains and a few seconds of sun inbetween we actually managed to have a lot of fun at the lord mayor's show last saturday.












not that we are usually too impressed by any kind of military parading but principles quickly fly right out of the window when your darling daughter stands in front of the lord mayor himself and blasts into her french horn.

lovely insight of course into the belly of guildhall where it all started in the early hours.

 










and it has to be said that the marching of the old guilds was rather impressive and brought a little piece of history alive.







shame we couldn't find a camel...

watch the whole show on the bbc here

Unser Andy wird 50!

Wir gratulieren auch recht herzlich!
Viel Freude im neuen Lebensjahr, lieber Andreas!

Hier ein paar Jubilanten, die dieses Schicksal mit dir teilen:
Möbel Martin
Das Sandmännchen
Barbie
Asterix
Die Currywurst

mikesh

rike took these lovely photos of her little cat, mikesh, last summer. mikesh came to us as a stray five years ago and was a cute little rascal, full of energy and mischief. one of his many tricks was to knock on the front door to get into the house - cat flaps are soo boring - so to the amazement of friends and visitors they would kindly open the door for us only to find a cat sitting there looking eagerly towards the cat food corner. today the vet had to put him down because he had cancer. all very sad...

yvonne and deac

this happens when you google your own husband just to find out from facebook or other wonderful toys whether he is actually going to make the dinner he promised for tonight (twitter hasn't reached us backwater zombies yet) or that he is still friends with you or what he actually looks like. what he actually looked like was also a revelation...good to know i'd have fallen for him then as well. cute!!!

outch

well - I certainly didn't look nearly as composed as this young lady with her bike when a car ignored my right of way in waterloo and crashed into me last week...not much fun, let me tell you...

best birthday presents ever

not that it is something to shout about - being yet another year older - but even birthdays become bearable if you get that special treatment:

breakfast made by daughter with candles and cakes and chocolate decorations and happy birthday sung by husband and then these presents (brace yourself!):

a very very pretty orchid (probably the prettiest I have seen for a long time) AND 2 hand painted stones AND a voucher for a new cake ring

AND a voucher for a self knitted shawl AND five lion bars AND another voucher for a cake (which beautifully materialized the next day) AND a little something in the garden (see pics) by giles kent.

How cool is that??!!

sweden's got talent

...and that's no exaggeration - beautiful solveig not only hit london fashion week as a model with a show in somerset house a couple of weeks ago but has just flown back into town again for the london film festival, and we are crossing our fingers that this talented young woman who devides her time between old europe and los angeles just get's the right deal this time. as so often: watch this space!

motto for this week

taken in pecos, nm

merris - it's your birthday again!

american outlaws

FADE IN:

EXT. WOODS

The Rangers plunge into thick woods. Branches slap at them, but the sound of gunfire keeps them going.







Captain El Deaco is still in the lead, flanked by two young women who are obviously sisters.










The tall, handsome one is Miss Esterly; the younger one with the lopsided hair is Miss Rossell.

EXT. WOOD'S EDGE

They break through the other side of the woods, emerging behind a rickety set of fence-post fortifications. Instantly GUNFIRE tears apart the trees around them. The Captain's horse goes down, and the sisters dive and roll to hide beneath the palisade.


The Captain, still alive, has fallen beyond the wooden shield. Doc Evilmountain scrambles through the savage rifle fire, grabs El Deaco, and hauls him behind the fortification.







CAPTAIN EL DEACO
(bellowing)

"Fall back into the woods! Out of
your saddles before you're shot out
of 'em!"







The Rangers leap from their saddles as a new sound starts -- a dull roar that grows and approaches and BBRRRRAPPPPP
as, unbelievably, trees EXPLODE INTO SPLINTERS and horses and men go down in a heap!

Yep!

(check the picasa albums for more tales)