My pride and joy

The Juniorette of late has been a very busy bee. She is still swimming 3 times a week, and is now football training 3 times a week. Twice with her normal team, and now once a week with an all girls team. She is really enjoying it all. Last weekend was her last football tournament as an F1 player, in a couple of weeks she becomes an E-Jugend player. She really is becoming a very good defensive player, and has a pretty hard tackle which surprises a lot of the boys.

Last weekend the Juniorette also competed in the Berirksmeisterschaften Bezirk West 2008 (West Hessen) Swim meet in Dillenburg. She improved her times in all the events she competed in, and in her age group she came 4^th in 50m backstroke and 5^th in the 200m breaststroke.

To top the week off she has just found out her results for her school report. All 1’s with two 2’s. She’s rather pleased with herself and, we are very proud of her. Next week we are off on holiday for 2 weeks to Mallorca. This holiday is really needed, and I believe relaxation will be top of the agenda along with lots of snorkelling and swimming. Only a few more years to go and then the Juniorette will be old enough to learn to Scuba dive – I just wonder if I’ll be able to squeeze back into my wetsuit then :)

Saving Leon

In addition to the Juniorettes swimming training, she still attends Swimming club on a Friday evening. She sees it as a fun time, but lately a couple of older boys have been giving her and Leon (a school friend) a hard time. It came to a head last week when one of the older boys grabbed Leon’s hair and ducked him under water. After 10 seconds or so the Juniorette kicked the older boy as hard as she could in the bollocks. He immediately let go of Leon, who could then thankfully breathe, and then chased the Juniorette, who easily out swam him.

She reported the incident to her swimming instructors who concluded that the boy deserved the kick for his actions. It seems that these older kids have been causing a bit trouble for some time. I was really proud of my daughter. I have always taught her to stand up for herself and for her friends, and that sometimes violence needs to be used to resolve a situation. Don’t start trouble, but be prepared to finish it.

Happy Faces

On Saturday the Juniorette had another swim meet. This time it was held in Darmstadt and she was swimming with her partially sighted training team mates in the Hessische & Thüringische Schwimm- Meisterschaften 2007 for disabled swimmers. The Juniorette was the only non disabled swimmer at the meet. She loved travelling there on the team bus and had a really great day. She improved her times over 25m & 50m breaststroke and competed for the first time in the 100m event.

The competitors consisted of physically and mentally disabled swimmers and everyone was overcoming some sort of challenge to swim in the heats. For me the highlight of the day was the medal ceremony. I don’t believe I have ever seen so many truly happy and joyous faces in my life. This was the first swim meet I have ever attended and it was a very relaxed event. The Juniorettes swim team felt like an extended family, but Mrs H did point out that the non disabled swim meet she attended a few weeks ago was a lot more manic.

The Juniorette really enjoyed herself and the organisers even arranged a certificate and a medal for her, so she wouldn’t feel left out.

The first Swim meet

Yesterday the Juniorette attended her first Swim meet. She has wanted to do this for a very long time. Her trainer had arranged that her first competitive swim would be in Marburg, so that she didn’t have the added stress of a big journey to contend with. She was quite apprehensive before meet and was quite anxious that she may be disqualified if she didn’t perform the dives and turns correctly.

She swam 25m & 50m Breaststroke and 25m & 50m Freestyle and wasn’t disqualified (which she was very happy about!). She attained first place in the 25m & 50m Breaststroke, 2nd in 50m Freestyle, and 3rd in 25m Freestyle. As it was her first meet she was in the first timers group, but in subsequent meets she will be allocated to races where her fellow swimmers have comparable times.

I wasn’t able to attend the swim meet as I had to work, but I did see a very happy and proud girl when I returned home. There is a further meet at the end of the month and hopefully I will be able to attend then.

Technorati Tags: Marburg, Swimming, Juniorette

Return of the Trick Cyclist

I finally got round to filming the Juniorette on her unicycle. The result is shown above. She now needs to start to learn how to juggle and a career in the circus is on the cards.

It was a sad week for the Juniorette as she learnt that her school teacher and head mistress will be leaving her school next February. There were a lot of tears as the Juniorette really likes her. It’s such a shame as she really is a great teacher and has great control of the kids. She also loves to speak English, which is very handy for me.

Later today the Juniorette will be playing football for her team in a tournament, and next weekend she will be taking part in her first swimming competition. For both events I will be working. Such is life

Technorati Tags: Marburg, Unicycle, Juniorette

More lanes please!

For the last month the Juniorette has been doing another swimming training session, on Wednesdays in addition to her training on Mondays and swimming club on Fridays. Along with her football training on Tuesdays and Thursdays it means she is a very busy little girl. But she would not have it any other way.

This is her last school week before the summer holidays and this Friday she will be given her first school report and grading. She is very excited about this and was disappointed last year when she discovered that there was no grading for the first school year.

She has a pretty much full program arranged for her during the summer holidays including a week’s football school in Frankfurt and two weeks of organised fun & games by the local community which all her friends are attending. Of course Mrs H and I will be on hand to provide entertainment should boredom strike in any quiet periods.

Technorati Tags: Marburg, Juniorette, Swimming

Going up a class

The Juniorette is still doing very well with her swimming. She attends swimming club on a Friday and does further training on a Monday evening. Her swimming club is divided into 3 groups and she has been in the intermediate group for the last 6 months. She has now been informed that she can join the senior group after the school summer holidays. She is a very happy and proud 8 year old girl.

Last Sunday was Mothers day and the Juniorette had her first outside football tournament of the season. She played very well, had a couple of good shots, but was a bit disappointed not to score. She really wanted to score a goal as a present for Mrs H. The team performed well which bodes well for the rest of the season.

Last week the Nintendo DS Lite arrived for the Juniorette. She has been saving her pocket money and xmas/birthday money for quite a while to buy this and was quite excited waiting for it to turn up from Amazon. We ordered Nintendogs for her which is a game where she has to look after and train a puppy. I was surprised at how much fun this was and how addictive it can be. But fortunately with the amount of activities that the Juniorette participates in, she hasn’t the time for it to become a problem.

Technorati Tags: Juniorette, Swimming, Nintendogs,Marburg

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

Swimming update

The Juniorette has attended her first two swimming training sessions and absolutely loves it. Each session is 90 mins long and she is mainly concentrating on her breaststroke and backtroke. She is very excited and proud to be finally learning how to do turns. She is swimming 25m lanes and has made friends with a blind girl who is a few years older than her.

Above is a clip of the Juniorette with Minnie Mouse on our Florida trip at the start of the year

Technorati Tags: Juniorette, Swimming, Marburg

Doing swimmingly well

A couple of weeks ago the Juniorette enquired at her swimming club if they could enter her in for some swimming competitions. She was told that her club do not swim competitively but to do so she would have to join a different club. Fortunately the head trainer/instructor overheard the conversation and said that if she was serious about swimming competitively he would help train her. He trains a lot of disabled swimmers and has been quite successful with his blind swimmers in the German disabled championships. The Juniorette would do extra training with the disabled swimmers. Both Mrs H & I think this is an excellent idea as many children grow up with little or no experience with being with disabled people.

Technorati Tags: Juniorette, Swimming, Marburg