Bahamamamamamamaamas...*ggg*;-)))

Tini pitter patter of footsteps are slowly making their way upstairs...and there it is...Mammi!!!Hallo!!! Here comes Finley with his chuchu, which is of course a car, but everything with weels is a chuchu these days. Fine with me. I know what he means.
Right now he is busy sticking money in the air condition vents. I guess whoever will move in here next is in for a nice surprise;-))
So, Finley has gone back downstairs. I have put Dora on rerun and he is still in love with her, prefers her to sitting on Mammi's lap...thank god!!!
This, of course buys me some time to quickly write a summary of our ever so relaxing, but much too short holiday at the Bahamas. Freeport really is - just around the corner- and it took no time at all to get there. Unfortunately there are no direct flights out of Richmond and we had to fly via Atlanta where we had a seven hour layover on the way back...BORING, to say the least. I read every magazin on the planet, know that Angie and JLO are having twins, Brad stays home with the kids, Jennifer hates to go to the Academy Awards for fear of facing Angie, Ryan Seacrest is a prick and last but not least...a bunch of people seemed to have a great time at Heath Ledger's funeral in Perth. It is important to know these things, that's what life is all about;-)))))))))))))
We all cought some bug there or in the Bahamas. Finley and I are sitting at home feeling poorly and Steve braved the elements and drove to work in arctic temperatures of -5C.
But hey, let's not dwell on that and live in the past for a moment.The Bahamas where great. Very small island...aparently 90 miles long and 17 wide, which ever way you want to look at it. Steve's Dad greeted us at the - very small- airport, looking suspiciously like an indigenous after having been there for nearly 6 weeks;-)) The drive to Coral Beach took about 10 minutes. Granny welcomed us with open arms and...a beer!!!
Freeport offers all the usual tourist activities like riding on the beach, canooing, para sailing, fishing, diving...and the rest of it. I of course did nothing at all apart from sitting on the beach, reading lots of books and strolling all along the beach into town for a mocca and chocolate ice cream (tasted like frozen chocolate mousse hmmmmmm)to Island Java, my favorite coffee shop nearly every day. It felt a bit like 'Home and Away' for anyone who is familiar with that.
A really great storm on Wednesday gave us a taste of what a hurricane must be like. Of course it was nowhere near that bad, but crazy enough to settle into the apartment for the day and read.
I took some photos of the wild elements. It felt really amazing and a little scary to be at their mercy.
On Sunday we visited a really remote beach in the national park where we had to...cross the road, hike throught he mangrove forest and walk on a wooden walkway to get to the beach. Sound familiar? All that without the map (I am the map, I am the map, I am the map;-)) Sorry, no I am not crazy, just watching to much Dora!!!!
Steve and I walked for miles to find the spot where a scene from Pirates of the Caribbian was filmed. It also reminded me of that scene from Shakespeare in Love, when Gwyneth gets shipwrecked and walks barefoot into the distance on a remote island and the voice over narator saying: "My story starts at sea...a perilous voyage to an unknown land. A shipwreck. The wild waters roar and heave. The brave vessel is dashed all to pieces, and all the helpless souls within her ...drowned. All save one: a lady...whose soul is greater than the ocean and her spirit stronger than the sea's embrace. Not for her a watery end, but a new life beginning on a stranger shore. It will be a love story for she will be my heroine for all time. And her name will be...Viola...."
For some reason this is my favorite movie quote ever, probably because I was stoned when I watched it;-)))
Moving on...it was beautiful to say the least and coming back was hard, but living there is not an option as only Bahamians are alowed to work on the Island. I guess I have to find another place to live. If only there wheren't so many nice places!!!

Children's books

Writing Children's Books is one hell of a job and I am sure J.K, Rowlings knew that all too well. Still she managed to write Harry Potter with a small child on her lap or perhaps in the crib next to her when the kid was asleep.
There are days, when it flows really nicely and inspiration is on my side. Some days, however, are dreadful and uninspiring. Those are the days when I am desperatly on the lookout for a Muse helping me to get the flow going.
I guess every writer has the same problem and I am really writing this to test the new Amazon quick link widget.
Guess I could use Organic Gardening as a guineapig, but hey who cares...as long as it works.
Well, let's have a look at it now and see if the widgets link to Amazon. If they do I will be very proud of myself;-)))))

Visit to Meadow Farm

Earlier in my blog I mentioned that I would find great things to do in Richmond and than write about it so other people (if anyone should ever read this!!) can go and see them as well.
Meadow Farm is one of those places and I learned about it from my friend Martina who had been there many times and it seems so had everyone else. It was just me who did not know about it. So much for discovering Richmond. Well, it looked like I had some catching up to do and therefore went there two days in a row!!! On the second day, Sunday, I took my boys and we took a TOUR of the place. The tour consisted of walking from chicken pen to sheep pen to pig pen and of course horsy paddock and not to forget the vegetable garden, which looked more like a barren wasteland. Andi our guide still managed to find some hardy herbs and gave us great tips of how to prevent mice from entering your house by planting rosemary and lavender close to wherever the cute rodents have their little doors. Might just try that with our permanent house guest who refuses to eat the yummie stuff we put into the traps.
Andi also introduced us to Frosty the lamb, which was hand raised as it had been rejected by its mom. Needless to say the lamb is looking well and will go nicely with the home grown rosemary when the time has come;-)
We where also able to admire a praying mantis nest, which really looked like a dried up leaf, but according to Andi housed about 20 of the lovely creatures. On our tour, we where joined by another family and Finley quickly made friends with the two girls. He borrowed the youngest one's stroller and had a ball pushing it through the farm yard. Steve put a Rugby ball in it to remind him that he is actually a boy;-)))
Meadow farm has largely been keept as it was in 1860 and the aniamals and plants all derive from those days. This does not sound right!! The animals and plants are not really that old, they had of course fathers and mothers and grannnies and great great...bla, bla bla...!!!
Nice place for kids and I bet really great in the summer when they do all kinds of courses and lessons and people can help shear the sheep, every Saturday in April if I remember correctly.

Why I didn't make it to the Super Bowl party!!!

You just know it is still very early in the morning when your bedroom is pretty dark and there is no noise outside apart from maybe a confused finch or sparrow. The streets are quiet, because it is Sunday and everyone is sleeping...everyone apart from my husband!! And I know this, because of that hand, creeping across our King Size Bed (reason for having such a thing is so he cannot reach me unless having to really make an effort:-)))) starting to poke me , probably with the intention of getting me aroused. AT 6 IN THE MORNING...you've got to be kidding me!!!!
Of course I pretend to be fast asleep...even snore a little - for dramatic effect. Not working. I snore a little louder. Still not working. Now I get angry and tell him to f... off.
Anyway, I really don't want to go into any more details as this is already quite bold. However, this is by no means the end of it. As I try to find a way back into my lovely dreams, Finley starts crying. Well, it was no real crying, but annoying enough to end my Sunday sleep in once and for all!!!
So I drag myself out of bed and turn the TV on. No Dora, damn! I guess she is still sleeping??? Luckily there is other stuff on. Of course there is...this is bloody America. There is no test picture after the nine o clock news like there was in Austria (at least when I was little), here we have round the clock cartoons...yippie!!
I proceed to make our favorite breakfast, porridge, which at 6.30 am tastes exactly like it looks. No...I meant cardbord;-))
Now, with Finley watching...stuff and both of us finished with breakfast, what next? I, of course, need watching cartoons like a hole in the head and decide to make a carrot cake. What else can you do on a Sunday morning with a five kilo bag of carrots? I don't know what posessed me when I bought that!!! Hoping the noise of the machine will wake Steve, I start to grate about 20 cups up carrots, 3 of which are required for the recipe. In the end I use about 5 cups for the cake. Needless to say - it is very, very moist!!! It was in fact so moist that I thought it was still raw when I tasted it at lunch time..perhaps it was a little. Steve's fault! He was in charge of taking it out of the oven, because I went back to bed.
Right, I went back to bed and so did Finley. We both had like a full day's work behind us and where ready for a nap.
And so I crawl back into bed, sinking deep into my lovely foam matress. There was a lot of catching up to be done. Half way into dreamy land, I get hit by a sledge hammer. I could almost see our next door neighbour standing on the other side of my bedroom wall holding the biggest hammer above his head...big develish grin from ear to ear!! Why, why do people not honor Sundays...God did, or did he not say: 'Hey guys, we have been working really hard...renovating this place. We did all that plumming and drilling and lots of other noisy and nasty things that drove Ingrid crazy all week long. Hey, lets have a break and not work on Sunday!!!!!'
No!!! Of course not!! We work on Sunday too, and make sure Ingrid does not get anymore sleep.
Well there you go. No more sleep for me. Finley, however, who does not have any problems sleeping trough sledge hammers during day time, but wakes up every time I tiptoe past his bedroom door at night, got his pre lunch nap.

After that we all decided we needed some fresh air and drove out to meadow farm where we looked at...a whole lot of stuff and animals. It was really nice, but I was too tired to fully appreciate it and therefore there will be no further mention of the farm until tomorrow, after I had some sleep and remember all the things Andi (the guide) told us.
And there you have it...my mini diatribe on why I did not make the Super Bowl Party!! I feel so much better now and I really hope the Americans win;-)))))

Apfel

Finley has just learned a new word...'Apfel', which of course means apple in English. I am glad it's another German word as I was worried lately that he speaks to many English words already (all five of them!!!) Even though most of those sound almost the same in both languages like ball, fisch and banane;-)
Ohh..he just came and gave me a shoe, saying the word shoe or was it Schuh?
Anyway, I gave him my cell phone, whitch buys me a few more moments on the computer. Might get it back with an empty address book and almost everything else erased, deleted and locked, but thats a risk I am willing to take in order have some peaceful moments writing.
I am mostly writing about him anyway, so he sould be greatful that one day he'll get to read all those wonderfully embarassing stories. Here I might add that latley he is very fond of Dora (the explorer). He even says her name, first thing in the morning...pointing to the TV cabinet, as if that's where she lives!!!!Silly;-)
At this point I ask myself, 'should I be worried he is becoming addicted to TV or should I just be grateful for that god sent invention that enables me to do things that don't involve...and here is the list:
1. being bored to death at various playgrounds
2.Following my son with a damp cloth trying to remove pencil, crayon or other interesting marks from walls, cupboards, fridges, floors....!!
3.Reading stories in which he has absolutely no interest apart from when he manages to ripp out pages
4.Take him shopping or any places he sees things he wants (pretty much anywhere)
5.Bother to take out toys from the toy chest only so he can throw tham all over the place and not play with them...!!!!!
I guess the list is endless and at the moment nothing makes me happier than hearing Moose from Noggin singing 'days are the sunniest...cows are the moooiest...bla, bla, bla!!...and nothing else, because he is sitting and watching. I guess I am a bad mom, but at least I feed him. Oops that reminds me, it's dinner time. Better get cooking;-))

Movie night

Every once in a while one needs to do the movie night. Not at an actual
theater, but in your own cosy living room on the plasma screen with
surround sound, a glass of wine, homemade pizza and as many films as
possible.
We hired four at the video fan (still best place to get movies if net flix
hasn't arrived on time) and managed to watch a staggering two before Mr. Sandman
arrived.
However, those two where a pretty damn good choice!
We
thought we ease ourselves into the evening by watching The Wendell Baker Story, a
film I had not heard about.
Talk about a feel good movie.
The film released in 2005 with Luke Wilson directing and in the lead role and
his brother Owen playing the evil head nurse was the perfect choice to start of our movie night; very funny in a Life Aquatic kind of way.
I think it must be the Texan heat that gives those people their laid back
attitude and slow approach . The film had no hectic elements in it and
you always got the feeling everyone involved had all the time in the
world. I guess there is also a lot less pressure in a low budget film.
It's like, "which ever way it ends - it will be all right"!!!
Anyway, Luke Wilson playing the very sexy (in a droopy kind of way)con artist
Wendell, turning from bad to good (even though when he was bad, he
still managed to be more likable than...I don't know, any of those
modern saints!!) made my night and despite the Los Angeles Times
calling the film, "alternately sunny and charming, dark and weird,
confounding and dull" and that "you probably had to be there", I'd watch
it again tonight:-))))


Stardust on the other hand (film number two)was an entirely different story.
Tristan Thorne's quest to find the falling star in order to get jiggy with the boring village bicycle (adequately played by Sienna Miller)is packed with adventure from beginning to end.
Whatever a fairy tale needs...you name it, this film will have at least
one of them. From the ruthless aging king (Peter O'Toole) and blood thirsty
witches, to a very metro sexual Captain Shakespeare who makes a living
by harvesting lightning bolts??!! played by genius Robertde Niro, this film has it all and more.
Ricky Gervais cackling like a chicken, Claire Danes' star qualities, seeing Michelle Pfeiffer actually ageing and the most romantic picnic
setup ever in the history of fairy tales awards this film a magic feel
that combines romance, action and comedy all in one package!!

Awesome photos on Flickr

I found these photos on flickr, which have been put there by the Library of Congress, the U.S. national library.
There
are thousands and I have not yet seen all of them, but some of the
images are really amazing, the kind of photography that really stands
out.
Also women's dress sense in those days was fantastic and stylish all the way down to the factory workers.
Sadly, we have lost that ability completely.
To many fashion branches and to many styles to choose from. Perhaps one
day we'll come to our senses again and trade the comfort fast food and
jeans world for a bit more class.

Brand new face!

I just gave my blog a brand new face, which also includes some advertising. This blog will be the future home of Richmond research and also a character I am writing a book about.
Wizards and Witches deserve a break and now that Harry Potter is all grown up, it is time for a New Kid on the Blog. That new kid, however, is still in its baby shoes and to protect its identity, I will have to keep quiet about it until further notice.
There will be updates on its progress as I keep writing, so don't forget to check in and see how far I have got...also I will be raiding Richmond for awesome things to do!!!
Stick around;-)))

Big Bear...aaaarrrrg!!!

That's the sound Finley makes, every time he sees a bear...or a horse, a cow, an elephant, a frog...!! The only animal he does know the name of is a ffsch, thanks to Sarah who presented Gerard with one of which for Christmas. The ffsch had to be rescued and taken up to their room soon after as Finley got VERY excited every time he saw the ffsch and tried a number of times to shake him out of his bowl!!!
...and this was only one of our many adventures in Big Bear City, California. The excitement really started with flying on standby as we where travelling on Captain Gerard's Buddy Pass (thanks Gerard;-))). All went swimmingly though and we arrived all together and happily in LAX. For me this was the first time I ventured out that far west and I instantly loved the West Coast...it was like coming home!!
A last little trip to the shops (big shops) and off we went up, up and away - into the mountains in the perfect skiing car, the Audi SUV. (I should get paid for advertising)
On a long and winding road we climbed up to Big Bear and set up camp at the newly Wed's mountain retreat, where we spent nowhere nearly as much time as we did at Vons and Kmart;-)) Just kidding, we of course had to stack up provisions for ten days of feasting to our hearts content. After the veggies had been neatly packed away in Finley's plastic Kmart bath tub and stored in the garage, which kept them colder than any fridge could ever have, we got cooking!!
Sarah is the best cook and I am not lying when I say that. An avid pupil of Jamie and Gordon, she makes the perfect, better than any restaurant, Mac and Cheese and cooks a wicked roast with all the trimmings...yummy!
I could go on about our cooking adventures for ever, but I wont, event though the curries for Saturday's party where an absolute delight...
Enough of that, or people will think all we did in CA was eat!!!

There was not much snow on the ground, but they made plenty of REAL snow, like REAL man made snow in the ski resorts and we took our perfect skiing car, filled it with lots of skis and boots and sticks and went skiing.
Finley got dumped in a really lovely day care place which I thought called themselves the Manson family...turned out it was actually the MacDonald's family - much better!!
Anyway the ski resort proved to be a snow board resort, with Steve, Sarah, me and a handful of others being the only skiers amongst thousands of snow boarders.
If I have never mentioned this before, this is the time to do so...I hate snow boarders, particularly the ones who have just learned it and think the slopes are their personal living room where they can just sit around wherever they feel like it.
Luckily (for them) we found some runs where there was literally nobody and that turned out to be most enjoyable apart from the encounter with the murder lift...no further comment!!

Another very memorable event was the Saturday Christmas/Wedding party, which was surprisingly well attended given the fact that people had to travel for hours to get to Big Bear and than sleep on sofas, blow up mattresses and camper vans, which very well organised by the lady of the house turned out to be no problem at all.
The party itself was rocking!!! Well equipped with strobe, disco ball and smoke machine we danced the night away to Sarah and Gerard's groovy music collection and the odd Bon Jovi??!!! track...how did that get into their collection I wonder????
We all looked like we where on drugs, but it was actually the haze from the smoke machine that distorted our faces. In retrospect I am glad I was not on drugs, because there where times when the smoke got so thick it felt like being in some horror flick and that kind of intoxication would have truly scared the s..t out of me!!!
Saturday's dancing into the early morning hours was an exception. The norm was falling asleep in front of a blazing fire at 7.30 pm barley making it through half an episode of Black Adder. We blamed it on jet leg, Sarah and Gerard... I can only guess, probably old age;-))))))))))))

Like with all great things, this one also came to an end much to quick. Probably not for Sarah and Gerard who I am sure where ready to kill having to listen to one more weeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeehhhhh and ffsch by the end of our holiday;-) Watching TV also has a whole new meaning now that the remote control does not have to be hidden on top of the fridge anymore and a program can be enjoyed from start to finish without having to shout NOOOOOOOOOO a thousand times!!!!
The little sheep can go back to their home next to the open fire place and the little bamboo coasters can rest in peace.

Our ten days in Big Bear where ten days full of adventure, accidents and absolute bliss amongst really wonderful friends and it was so much fun to spend Christmas and New Year with you guys. A big Cheer to you and all the people we met there!!!CHEEEEEERS!!!!!