I’m going away again tomorrow. Actually, that’s not strictly accurate (but when has this blog ever been?). This time I’m not just going away, but being sent away. Work is sending me on a seminar. A two day seminar… the two days being Friday and Saturday(!) in Cologne. So we (my colleague and I) are leaving tomorrow straight after work. Annoyingly, I should have been going to Vienna with Jan this weekend – it’s a friend of his 30th birthday and there’s a party. But it cannot be helped. At least I’ll get to see the Cologne Christmas market though… it’s supposed to be nice.

And now I have to go and figure out a way to get 2 pairs of socks washed and dried in time for me to pack them in my going away for the weekend bag. The radiators shall be on full blast tonight methinks…

I’m sorry, I know you’ve all been dying to hear about the wedding. Me, I’ve just been dying. I woke up on Monday feeling awful. Sore throat… weak… no appetite… couldn’t stop coughing. Somehow managed to drag myself into work then left again at 1 because I could not concentrate. I was home by 2:30pm, in bed by 3 and, other then a brief trip to the kitchen for Lemsip, I stayed there until it was time to get up the next morning. On Tuesday I managed to stay at work for the whole day but by the time I was on the train home I was back to feeling awful, so once again I went straight to bed. I haven’t even been reading Katyboo’s blog or Belgian Waffling that should tell you how bad it was! (No, it’s not Swine Flu to answer the first question my mother asked when she phoned to see how I was).

Do you know what the worst thing is about being ill as an adult? There’s nobody to look after you. If I’d been 10 I’d have had people bringing me medicine and Heinz cream of chicken soup while insisting I stayed in bed. As a 26 year old I had to cook my own food (half of which ended up in the bin as until yesterday I still had no appetite) and fetch my own medicine (Lemsip, Strepsils and random tea that’s meant to help with colds). And nobody could care less whether I was tucked up in bed or sitting in my freezing cold living room waiting for the kettle to boil.
Thankfully I seem to be on the road to recovery now. I don’t think I could have stood another week of this (and anyway, I have to go to Cologne on Thursday evening for a 2 day seminar and I really, really don’t feel like being ill during that…)

I shouldn’t be on here. Jan and I are going away tomorrow, not to England this time but to another part of Germany. We’re invited to a wedding on Saturday, so I’ve taken half a day off work (hooray for flexi-time!) and we’re travelling up tomorrow afternoon. There are a million things I have to do before we go, and it’s already 10:40pm. Looks like it’s going to be a long night (and I have to be up at 6. Eeep!) The dishes need doing, there’s rubbish to be taken down and I’ve only packed half of my stuff. But I couldn’t leave without writing a blog post, could I?
And now I have. So I’ll finish eating my baked potato and get back to sorting things out…

The other day I read a book from the list, The Door in the Lake by Nancy Butts. That’s 4 books down and another… oh, at least two hundred to go. And I’m adding new ones all the time. (Just so you know, the link up there takes you to the short version of the list. The actual list is a physical one… meaning it’s hand written on paper. The pieces of paper live in a ring binder… which is now about half full. Will I actually get round to reading them all? Probably not. I’m going to give it a damn good try though… )

This book is a children’s book (yes, i read children’s books…). Amazon recommends it for 11-13 year olds. I’d say its suitable for slightly younger kids as well, providing their reading skills are up to it.
So what’s the book about?, you ask.
12 year old Joey Finney disappears while camping near the lake with his family and best friends. Two years later he walks into a shop, sees his own face on a milk carton and passes out. He has no memory of the time that’s passed and doesn’t look a day older than when he disappeared.
I enjoyed most of the book. Joey’s struggle to fit back in at high school while coping with the addition of a baby sister to the family and the fact that his younger brother was now taller and appeared older was well written and interesting. It was over a bit too quickly for me (I could have done with more answers!) but overall it wasn’t bad. I’m sure I’ll read it again some day…

I spent most of the weekend trying to tidy my flat. In between I did some reading for my science course, started writing a letter, attempted to make a dent in the mountain of dirty clothes that’s threatening to take over the bedroom and made some notes for my dissertation. It is now Tuesday. The flat is still a tip. The kitchen floor is mopped, but the mop bucket is still standing in front of the fridge (why in front of the fridge? you ask. Who knows?) The wash basket is still overflowing. The bedroom remains unswept and I’m only halfway through the letter. As for the science course… let’s not even go there. To be honest I’m bored with the whole thing, but it’s paid for now and I’m determined to pass. I just wish I could remember enough from GCSE to do so without any of the studying.

Maybe I should try focusing on one thing and actually sticking with it until it’s done for once.
Food for thought…

Yes, it’s one of those posts again…

• Why do so many people here feel the need to run across the road in front of trams? I’m sure you’re in a big hurry, but trust me, getting hit by a tram isn’t going to get you to your destination any quicker…
• Speaking of trams: why does the display thingy insist on telling me my tram is coming “sofort” (immediately) when it is nowhere in sight and will clearly not be turning up anything like ’sofort’
• Why does my kitchen still smell weird even though I’ve taken the rubbish out?
• Why do I have almost not of my wages left already when the month has only just started?
• Why has the translation book I ordered for 30 euros which Amazon claimed should be here by 30th October not arrived yet? (Question for my UK readers, if I actually have any – surely you can’t all have gone off to France and Korea?: Is Royal Mail on strike? That might explain it…)
• Why is my wash basket so full?
• Why are crisps so addictive?
• Why is my flat so cold?
• Why are so many people I know pregnant? (Every time someone gives birth another person makes the “expecting” announcement. It’s madness!)
• Why is it not the weekend yet?

By “you all” I of course mean the while two people who commented on my last blog post…
So, in an effort to protect my last remaining shred of anonymity (and not unfairly expose the boyfriend) I’ve decided to place one photo of each of us in a password-protected post.
E-mail me if you wanna see. If you don’t have my e-mail address (but are a regular reader) let me know and we’ll see what we can figure out. If you’re not a regular reader (ie. if I have no idea who you are) then sorry, the answer’s no…

Once again the weekend has gone by far too fast. It’s Sunday evening already, back to work again tomorrow and as usual I haven’t even managed to get through half of the things I had planned to do over the weekend. This time, though, I think it may have something to do with the fact that Jan and I spent most of yesterday sewing. Actually, that sounds far too tame to describe what we went through. Let’s replace sewing with “4 hours of kneeling on the floor, needle and thread in hand, wishing I had never heard of the word costume”. Yes, you did read that right, I said four hours. I felt like a cripple afterwards. my knee was hurting again, my left leg had gone completely dead and my lower back was killing. And why did I spend my entire Saturday afternoon sewing on the living room floor? Because the boyfriend and I were invited to a birthday party last night with the theme “comics”. Jan decided to go as something called The Phantom Blot (no, I’d never heard of it either. Something to do with Mickey Mouse apparantly…) So he found instructions on how to make a black robe, bought a huge piece of black fabric for a ridiculous amount of money and made him a costume. I’ve never been so glad to finish anything in my life! It was worth it though. The robe ended up looking really good. I refuse to go through that again any time soon though… I’ve already told him he has to keep the costume and dress up as something involving a black robe at every fancy-dress party for at least  the next four years…
By the way, in case anyone was wondering, I went as Minnie the Minx. Predictably none of the Germans had ever heard of her. I thought I looked good though…

• This morning I overheard a phone conversation in which someone was apparantly explaining the concept of changing trains. “I’ll be travelling for a while yet, I have to change trains now” *Pause while, presumably, the other person spoke”. “We’re just pulling into Mannheim now then I have to get out of the train, go to another platform then get on a different train”. He wasn’t even speaking to a child either (unless I missed the point where it became normal to address children as Mr. so-and-so). The mind really does boggle. Or at least mine does.
• Currently wondering whether working at a place where I actually know how to use the coffee machine (and don’t feel guilty every time I dare to so much as think about leaving my seat) is a blessing or a curse? I think I may have overdoed on caffeine today, all in a desperate attempt to stay awake. (Sooo tired…)
• Having spent the last two evenings  searching every clothes shop in Karlsruhe for something to wear over a dress at a wedding I’m invited to next month. I’ve come to the conclusion that the colour white is an endangered species this season. I even resorted to looking in United Colours of Benetton today – the first time I’ve been in there since I was about 12. Unsurprisingly I found nothing I liked.
• Despite not finding the top I wanted, I have spent a small fortune over the last few days. A serious dent has been made in my wages already and November isn’t even here yet. Not good people!
• The first assignment for my science course is due on 4th November. I haven’t written a single word of it yet. I guess I know what my plans are for this weekend…
• Snippets is a fabulous word. I feel like I should use it more often.
• That is all.