Hann. Münden is a town with a medieval centre, not far from Michael’s hometown of Kassel. Once Kassel itself had a centre like this, but now, since the war, it looks more like this. We had a lovely, if chilly, afternoon in Hann. Münden on Easter Friday, stopping for coffee and waffles to warm us up. Moni was born here. I love this photo of her so so much.
This weekend my wonderful and very clever Nanna turns 89. We’ll be on the road back to Norway, so I wanted to wish her a very happy birthday now. We had such a nice time visiting her while we were in Australia, and going shopping with her, and going out for breakfast at the French Cafe, and out for lunch with Dad at the Belair Hotel. We crashed Dad’s and Nanna’s regular Thursday lunchtime date twice, and they got us to take a picture of them at their regular table. I love you so much, Nanna, and wish I could go out with you every week. xxx
An abundance of chocolate aside, it’s all about the decorations.
This display was in one of the shopping centres. Felix enjoyed walking along holding on to the little fence, swiping other small children out of the way.
He liked the purple cows.
Michael liked the watch-makers.
I liked the fuzzy goats.
Moni has been looking forward to showing Felix the rabbits for weeks, but I think she liked his snuggles best of all.
Today some close friends came over and we had a little birthday party for Felix. Good friends are so precious. In this photo you can also see: Felix’s lion, which was a hand-me-down from a very lovely lady in Idaho Falls, who has a son a couple of years older than Felix (Felix adores this lion, so my cake was an attempt to approximate it); the curtains my Grandma gave us; the coffee cups and milk jug my Nanna gave us for our wedding; tulips which reminded me of the ones you can see here; a vase which was a birthday present from the barnehage; a delicious cheesecake made by my lovely Norwegian friend; a colourful bowl that my parents gave me when I moved to York; a candle holder that Michael acquired many many years ago, long before I met him; and the gorgeous cardigan that my Mum knitted for me while we were in Australia, shortly after these photos were taken. So although we are a long way away from our families, we were pretty much surrounded by love. And Felix seemed to like the cake.
The little guy had a good time playing with his birthday presents and his new friend Pearce.
In the background in this one you can see the walker that we spied in a shop in Adelaide, but Michael’s parents bought for Felix in Germany. It was a happy day. Surrounded by love, indeed.
You fed yourself porridge, spoonful by heaped spoonful.
The sun shone on our little house and we were happy inside it.
The tracks I made pulling you on a little sled around the tree stayed there all week.
You watched schnappi with your father.
You patted the cat, and chased him around the house, and squealed with glee every time you saw him. (Sorry that Mermos just looks like a black blob – it’s really hard to get a picture of him. It’s even harder to get a picture of Felix and Whitby together because every time Whitby hears Felix make a sound, he’s out of there.)
You slept in your pram.
You walked up and down our living room, clutching your new walker. You stood by yourself with your hands in the air and a grin on your face. You had your first full days in barnehage, which just about broke my heart. You really liked it until you were smitten with a nasty cold. You held up your lion blanky and whispered ‘raaa!’ You pointed to the sheep in you books and said ‘baa!’ You pointed out the doors, and exclaiming ‘door!’ everywhere you went. The image of you crawling up to a new doorway and peering around the corner is one I never want to forget. You looked very sweet in your new winter wardrobe. (And yes, that’s the green jumper I knitted. I am so pleased with it.) You woke me up many times, every night. But I adore you.
On Australia Day we had a BBQ at my aunt’s house, which turned into an impromptu early birthday party for the babies. Here they are testing out each other’s presents.
I made some bug-cakes
Mala tried to steal Grandma’s lunch
Felix practiced his standing
and learnt how to wash the dishes.
Next time the little guys meet they will be taller, older, wiser. This next little sequence of events is too sweet not to record.
Last weekend my cousin Tom got married in my grandparents’ garden. It was an awesome party.
Apart from the bride and groom, of course, my grandparents were the stars of the show.
There was a brief thunderstorm, which everyone had been dreading all week,
but it didn’t dampen anyone’s spirits.
It rained so hard that the creek (dry all summer) flooded, and they had to fish out the lighting cables.
But the skies cleared and all was well.
Here is a random selection of our family. It was so nice to see everyone together.
Grandma explained to all who would listen how her daughters and granddaughters used to find fairies in the garden
(and lions, I told her)
and in the sparkling evening light,
that was entirely plausible.
The next day we did it all again with the other side of the family at my Grandma’s house.
Little Miss Mala stole the day, walking laps of the gardens with various adults in tow.
Everyone was happy to have another generation around.
The desserts were pretty good too.
Felix got thoroughly spoiled – at one point the three of us were sat together on the sofa, pretty much buried under an avalanche of presents.
Here Felix is looking about as exhausted as I was by that point,
but it was a wonderful, wonderful day.
At ten months, Felix, you are a pretty awesome little chap. You seem to have learnt about a hundred things since arriving in Australia two weeks ago (in addition to growing four new teeth, bringing your total to six!). After understandably bursting into tears upon meeting my family in the airport, you’ve grown quite fond of them. You are very happy to hang out with your grandparents, and you save some very sweet smiles for your great-grandparents.
Towers of blocks appear to offend you and must be destroyed and scattered instantly. You spend a lot of time putting things into other things. You’ve started throwing your blocks around with gusto.You adore your mega-blocks truck. You play with it for hours every day, spinning the wheels, and opening and closing the lid and putting the blocks and the little man in and out of it.
You chatter just about all the time. Your favourite sound is now ‘dawdle awdle’, but you also experiment with many others – you can quack like a duck and cough like your granddad, and you love to imitate whatever sounds we make.
You have very clear ideas about the way you want things done, and you let us know immediately if we get it wrong. You love strawberries. You reach your arms out to people you want to go to. The swing on your grandparents’ deck is a big hit.
You had a few (more than usual) wakeful nights while you were pushing out those four teeth. After about an hour of wakefulness early one morning, Michael was singing lullabies to you and we thought you were about to drift off, when we suddenly heard a sweet, cheeky, high-pitched ‘dawdle awdle!’ Any other time of the day it would have been cute.
You are impressed with my new ergo sling (thanks Mum!) and the stroller is becoming less and less popular as a result. You are not crawling yet but you are becoming increasingly mobile – rolling around your crib and pulling yourself up onto your knees. It’s getting tough to strap you into your car seat as you can just about wriggle out of it. All in all you are relishing all the attention and the new sights and sounds, though your favourite spot to view the world is from my arms.
We’ve taken you to the beach a few times now and you love it. Yesterday we sat you in the water and you thought that was pretty fabulous. The first time we put you down on the sand you were amazed. After several minutes of silence and intense concentration as you dug and scattered and curled your fingers around the stuff, you delivered your verdict: ‘heh!’
I took Felix to my Nanna’s craft morning today.
He ate strawberries, we ate strawberries and cupcakes and pikelets with jam and cream.
There’s quite an amazing story about how my Nanna met these women in the first place, but I’ll have to tell you that another time when I’ve got the details straightened out.
We had such a nice time. The closest I got to doing any craft was showing them the pattern of a cardigan I’ve decided to knit once I find some yarn that will work. They were very encouraging, but I was blown away by the projects they were working on!
Felix enjoyed playing with one of Nanna’s golliwogs.
I’ve had to put my postcolonial qualms aside, for these are truly impressive creations.
