It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas…

The decorations are up in the shopping centre, the stands for the Christmas market have started appearing, ready for opening day (29 November) and all my Facebook friends in England seem to be able to talk about is the Coca Cola advert (you know, the “Holidays are coming” one). My flat is being slowly taken over by Christmas too. My grandparents gave us our gifts from them in September when we were over ad one very organised penpal has already sent me a box of things, which I’ve put to one side unopened like a good girl.And to make matters worse, I received my first Christmas card today… from England, sent by a friend with a 3 month old baby. How does she manage to be that organised when I, who has no children, can barely even manage to keep my flat clean?! Add to all the above the fact that I’ve nearly finished putting Jan’s advent calendar together (ok, I’m a little bit organised, but 1 December is lot sooner than Christmas!) and suddenly the festive season is beginning to look very close indeed.

Christmas table decorations

But I’m not ready for Christmas yet! I may have resigned myself to the cold and got out my winter coat, gloves and scarf (no hat yet though), but inwardly I’m still wondering where July went. Surely it hasn’t been a whole four months since my sister came to stay? I wish I could just ignore the approach of December for a while, but unfortunately there are presents to be bought and if I don’t do it now there’s no way they’ll arrive in time to be sent on to England! Then there are all the plans that need making – when shall we visit the Karlsruhe christmas market? Which date would be good for my annual Christmas dinner? What biscuits should we bake together with Jan’s choir? I’m exhausted just thinking about it! For Christmas this year, all I want is a little time so I can actually enjoy 2013!

And now I have to do some work, otherwise I’ll never have this translation ready by 10 o’clock tomorrow morning. Overtime! No wonder I’m having trouble getting in the Christmas spirit…

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Slow down!

I found out today that my cousin’s daughter is now six months old. Six months!! I mean, she was born in January, so obviously it was going to happen some time soon.. but it only just was January… wasn’t it? Except no. It’s July. How did that happen? It’s not even like I’ve been doing loads – which would at least explain where the time has gone (time flies when you’re having fun and all that). I tried to write a letter to someone the other day with all the things I’d been doing since May in it – May being the last time I wrote to them because I’m almost as useless at letter writing as I am at blogging. I came up with the following: Went to Jan’s dad’s 60th birthday party, had visitors and went to Ettlingen with them, took a day trip to Calw, went to a christening (the final one was last weekend). That’s four things. Four! In two months!
Clearly somebody needs to slow the world down for a while and give me a chance to catch up!

I never was much of an organiser…

It is the end of Tuesday. That means it’s been a whole week since I last blogged. I didn’t mean to leave a whole week between blog posts, but somehow the last seven days seem to have run away from me. In fact, scratch that. The last few months have run away from me. Do you realise we are now half way through June? It’ll be Autumn again before I can blink…

This weekend I’ve mostly been trying to arrange our holiday in Ausust. It’s stressful! We’re driving round Great Britain for three weeks, and I’ve been trying to tget the dates confirmed so we can book the last few B&Bs. Only problem is, currently we only have 1 day in Edinburgh, and we would like more, but one person isn’t willing to cut Cardiff short (although why we need 3 days there is beyond me?) while a second doesn’t really want to take a day off our final stop as that will leave us with a mere afternoon for relaxing before embarking on the long journey back to Karlsruhe, by car (ferry from Dover to Calais then a nice drive across France). I suppose I could suggest leaving out Fort William instead… Decisions, decisions.
By the way, if anyone knows a good, cheapish B&B in Edinburgh please recommend one! At the moment we’re leaning towards the Haymarket Travelodge, so any experinces of that would also be greatly appreciated. You know where the comments box is…

Where did my week go?

I have been so, so tired all day. Mostly, I suspect, because we went out last night to celebrate St. Patrick’s Day and didn’t get home til after midnight, but to be fair I was tired before I even left the flat last night so it wasn’t entirely my own fault…

But what I would really like to know is where on Earth this week has gone! It’s Thursday evening already. Tomorrow is Friday… the last working day of the week. Then it will be Saturday again. How? Why? Time seems to have sped up again and I don’t think I like it! Of course, it doesn’t help that I’m feeling guilty because I haven’t managed to write one word of my dissertation since Sunday.  I have around 1,300 words now but I need something like 15,000 and the deadline is drawing nearer. Eeek!
Also, you know things are bad when you end up eating instant pasta (just add hot water and stir!) with a pastry fork because you’ve run out of all other cutlery. There are only two of us living here (well, officially only one but Jan’s place really is just a storage area now)… how can all the forks and all the spoons be dirty? It’s a good job I actually bought pastry forks otherwise I would have had to resort to a teaspoon… or do some washing up. I think we all know which option I would have gone for…
Time to go to log off I think. My lovely, lovely bed is calling my name…

Need more time…

I can’t believe December is a week old already. Where is the time going? I could have sworn it was only just summer…
Anyway, I’ve been a really, really bad blogger lately. Between illness, seminars and Christmas shopping I just can’t seem to find the time for anything! The good news is that I’ve almost finished buying all my Christmas presents. The bad news is I’m also almost out of money and I still have to send several packages to England. Oh, and then there’s the little matter of paying the electricity bill but we won’t talk about that…

I put Christmas decorations up in the flat at the weekend. Very exciting! I’ve never had a place of my very own to decorate before 🙂 Between that and all the presents I’ve wrapped the living room currently looks a bit like Santa’s grotto. A very messy Santa’s grotto admittedly (I desperately need to tidy the flat but the whole no time thing just keeps getting in the way!) but it’s all very festive. Jan and I also went to the Christmas market on Saturday and I tried some cherry Glühwein, which was delicious. Definitely getting in the spirit over here 🙂

I promise to come and visit you all soon, but right now I have to go and do the computer marked assignment for my science course. I haven’t been able to work on it much lately but I refuse to fail now that I’m so close to the end!
In the meantime, why don’t you leave me a comment and let me know what you’ve all been up to….

Today it’s NOT all about me

Today is A-level results day in the UK.
My little brother, who I swear was just a baby the last time I looked, was among those trooping down to my old high school to collect his exam results. And… he passed. In fact, not only did he pass, but he got some excellent grades (much better than mine!), securing him a place at his first choice of university. (Yes, in just a few short weeks my brother will be heading off for his first year at university. How did that happen?! Someone has been fast-forwarding time, I swear). My brother will probably never read this, but I don’t care. I want the whole world to know how proud I – and the rest of the family – are of him.

Well done Jay! You better be celebrating tonight (and tomorrow, and the next night… gotta get in practice for fresher’s week y’know 😉 )

Doing nothing while January whizzes by

Can you believe January’s more than half over already? Unbelievable! We’re 17 whole days into the new year already and I’ve done exactly… nothing. Hmm. What is it with time going by so fast lately anyway? I’m sure the years were much longer when I was little.

So, it was my dad’s birthday yesterday. He’s the third member of my family to have a birthday this month, and it’s my Grandma’s on the 27th. What is it with members of my family all being born in the same month? Actually, that’s not strictly true, there are more then 4 people in my family. But January is definitely the most crowded (and thus must expensive) month. Plus it comes straight after Christmas when I’ve already spent all my money buying gifts for half the world. Aaah.

Now, could somebody please explain to me what it is with Gordon Ramsey and the Secret Garden? I wrote a post a while ago wondering why Amazon recommended me a Gordon Ramsey cookbook based on the fact that I rated the Secret Garden. (I’m still not getting the whole rating a kid’s book means you must want a recipe book thing, but never mind). Since then I’ve had a few people land on my blog through a Gordon Ramsey/Secret Garden related post, but lately it’s gone mad. Just take a look at this screenshot (hopefully you can read it):
For those who are unfamiliar with wordpress, that’s part of the stats page for my blog, specifically the part that tells me what search engine terms have led people to me (it’s also where I find the questions for Question Time). The above list is all from the same day. That’s 14 queries about Gordon Ramsey and the Secret Garden in a mere 24 hours. What is going on?? If anyone has any information please leave a comment. (Yes, I know I could just Google it myself, but quite frankly I can’t be bothered, so just indulge my laziness would ya).
Right, I’m off to make a cuppa. I got a box of Chai tea yesterday that sounds lovely and I haven’t tried it yet. (In case anyone’s interested it’s black tea with what’s described as “Indian spices” – ginger, liquorice, cinnamon, pepper, sweet blackberry leaves, pimento, cardamom and cloves – sounds yummy, no?)

Nearly Christmas?

I’m off to the Christmas market soon. my first and probably last trip to a Christmas market this year. It’s bloody freeeezing outside though. Shall have to wrap up warm and get a few Glühweins down me I think.

Speaking of Christmas… am I the only one that doesn’t feel like it’s nearly here? In 6 more days I fly home for the holidays, I have a pile of wrapped presents in my room and two cards hanging on my wall but I still can’t seem to get my head around the fact that it actually really and truly is December and in two weeks time I will opening presents and eating turkey (again).
This year has gone far too fast

Thoughts

I’ve just been looking through some random stats on my blog. It seems my most used tag is “boyfriend” with a total of 43 times. Second is work with 22 uses and in third place comes books, 21 uses. I’m pretty sure that says something about me. I don’t know what but I’m pretty sure it’s misleading. How have I managed to mention work more often than books? Must do something about that.

I need to do a translation for uni. It was actually supposed to be handed in on Monday. Oops. Not even a month into the year and I’m behind already. Luckily it’s only a practice piece so I won’t lose any marks for handing it in late or anything. It would probably be a good idea to get on and do it though.

How is it Wednesday already? I’m sure it was only just Friday. I always thought putting the clocks back was meant to give us another hour. Instead I seem to have lost about 72.

Time going fast does have its advantages though. It’s pay day on Friday. And I get extra money starting this month. I’ve already had my wage slip and seen how much I’ll be earning from now. I’m going to be rich. Rich I tell you! (Actually I’m still going to be poor, but rich compared to what I was before. And at least I’ll be able to afford a few decent Christmas presents this year).

And oh my gosh, I’ve just realised my internship is half over already. Three more months to go. And after that? We’ll see… it depends whether the boss decides to give me a proper job.

OK, enough procrastinating. Time to get on with the translation.