The Five Generations

At the end of last year my nephew became a father. His son is lucky not just to have a grandmother, or a great grandmother - He has a Great Great Grandmother!

I'm not sure how often this happens in families, but I reckon it's not that often.

Featured from Left to right. Young Cody, my Nephew, My Brother, My Mum, and my Nana.

Getting naked

We’ve been back from our break in the UK for just over a week, and last weekend we went to the home town of Mrs H which is situated in the Odenwald to celebrate the birthday of our nephew Boy Blue. With family members we went to the Miramar fun swimming pool complex near Weinheim. The kids had a lot of fun on the various slides and in the wave pool, whilst the adults mainly relaxed and chatted. Mrs H and I visited the sauna which was pretty big, with 4 saunas inside and various ones scattered around outside. There were also steam rooms, ice rooms and whirlpools. There’s nothing quite like getting naked with a couple of hundred Germans.

The first few times I ever visited saunas I felt a bit freaky, but once overcoming a church upbringing and old fashioned British values I discovered that the sauna is not only good for your body, but its very good for the soul, so now that winter is approaching we will be visiting the sauna more often.

Back in North Devon

We Haddocks are currently back in the UK staying in the town where I was born and grew up. We're visiting family and friends and having a great time, I forgot how much I miss the sea. Ilfracombe hasn't changed that much, apart from a few more hotels have burnt down (when will the insurance companies catch on), but the town is essentially the same. The sea air is making me very tired and I am going to bed earlier every night. In a few days time I'll be going to bed before I get up! :)

She shoots! she scores!

The Haddock family have just spent the weekend at a wellness hotel in the Black Forest celebrating the 75^th birthday of my mother-in-law. The rest of the family were in attendance and we had a really great time at the Schiffkopf Hotel which is situated just over 1000m above sea level. The views over the Schwarzwald were breathtaking.

We spent a lot of time relaxing, swimming, walking and sweating in the sauna. I even managed a bit of time in the hotel gym, which is good as I haven’t been to the gym in Marburg for a while. The food served at the hotel was outstanding, as was the wine. I was drinking grape juice. We had a wonderful time, but we had to leave after breakfast on the Sunday as the Juniorette had a football tournament to attend. Her team won the tournament and the Juniorette scored the final goal of the last game. I actually remembered the camcorder this time.

Technorati Tags: Schwarzwald, Football, Juniorette,Schliffkopf

Busy schedule

I’ve had a busy week; unfortunately I am not sure what with. There’s been a far amount of garden work, various minor jobs done around the house and I played football again with the Alter Herren. Doesn’t look much on paper, but it sure used up my time quickly.

Tomorrow we are off to Nürnberg to watch Germany play San Marino in a qualifying game for the European Football Championships. Germany should win quite easily and hopefully we should see a sack full of goals. We intend to get to the city early to have a look around and then meet up with family members Deepblue, Mr Blue and Boyblue before the game.

On Sunday we are going to Hessentag in Butzbach to see Silbermond in concert. Hessentag (it should be called Hessenwoche as it lasts for more than a day), is held at a different town in the state of Hessen every year. The town then hosts various events, activities and concerts for the duration. Aerosmith are playing on the last night of Hessentag and I would really like to go, but unfortunately I have to work. Such is the life of a shift worker. But at least I get to see Silbermond.

Technorati Tags: Hessentag, Football, Butzbach,Silbermond

A bird in the hand

This a clip of the Juniorette with a bunch of parrots at Gatorland on our last family holiday to Florida earlier this year. Lots of other people had bird feed as well but for some reason the parrots seemed to flock to her.

Technorati Tags: Juniorette, Gatorland, Parrots,Florida

Wir sind Werder Bremen

On Sunday the Haddock family travelled up to Dortmund to watch Werder Bremen play in a critical Bundesliga clash with Borussia Dortmund. Werder are fighting to win the championship whilst Dortmund are battling against relegation. The weather was fantastic, sunny and hot, with temperatures reaching over 30°C in parts of the Ruhrpott. The game was a sell out, with 81,000 fans in attendance at the Signal Iduna Park stadium. This ground is the largest in Germany and must be one of the largest in Europe. Even so it is not one of my favourite stadiums as views of the complete pitch are restricted in some seating areas.

We met up with fellow Werder fans and family members Mr Blue and Boyblue before the game (Boyblue seen in photo) and then took our seats for the game. The atmosphere was fantastic, the Bremen away fans were in fine voice and I had a sore throat by the end of the game from shouting and singing too much. Werder took the lead through Miroslav Klose and doubled it shortly after with a curling free kick from Diego which was wonderful to watch. The game ended 2-0 with Werder fully deserving to win. They had a few wobbly moments in defence, but then they always do. One downer was that Tom Borowski (Juniorettes favourite player) re-injured his knee and won’t be able to play for a while.

It was a really good day out and excellent that Bremen won. A couple of years ago I had to work in Dortmund for 6 months which meant I had to spend a lot of time away from Mrs H and the Juniorette which put a considerable strain on us all. So I considered our visit back to Dortmund on Sunday with Werder winning like a little bit of payback.

Technorati Tags: Juniorette, Werder Bremen, Football,Dortmund

Different strokes

It's been a busy week since I last blogged. The new cabinets for the office arrived and had to be built. Thankfully this task is now complete as building furniture drives me mad. In the garden I have started to dig out a new flower bed, but there is still a lot to do. I have also planted the tomato and sweet pepper seeds in the propagator. This year I am growing three varieties of tomato and three varieties of sweet pepper.

Last weekend we went to a family gathering in Calw to celebrate the 80^th birthday of an Aunty from Mrs H. It was an enjoyable occasion and the Juniorette and Mrs H performed a little sketch (as seen above). Later whilst talking to Aunty we discovered she was a very keen swimmer in her youth and she was thrilled to hear that the Juniorette also has a love of the sport. Of course in her day the swimming award levels weren’t named the same as they are now. One was called der Totenkopf (deaths head). I guess things were a bit different during the war.

Technorati Tags: Juniorette, Swimming, Calw

Top of the class

Earlier this week Mrs H & I had an appointment with the Juniorette’s school teacher/head mistress to discuss how she is doing at school. In our part of Hessen children receive their first school report in the summer term of their second year. The Juniorette so wants to have an official report, but she will have to wait a few more months yet.

Personally I believe the chat could not have gone better. The teacher said that she had nothing negative to report about our daughter. In fact she said that at the moment the Juniorette is the top student in the class. Apparently she even has her temper under control. She does well at maths, reading and dictation and most importantly of all has a desire to learn. We were very happy with the feedback and were extremely pleased with the progress that she has made.

The Juniorette was obviously very curious to what was said about her in our meeting. So we basically told her what was said, but we omitted the fact that she is top of her class, instead we told her that she is in the top group of her class, as we do not want success to go to her head. We told her how happy and proud we were of her, and of her achievements so far.

Also this week my Dad had a Stent Procedure performed in hospital in the UK. All went well and he is back home recoving.

Technorati Tags: Juniorette, Family, School, Marburg