We've been busy doing God knows what since we returned. Sunday 14th saw J competing in a women's soccer tournament which she thoroughly enjoyed - right up until the moment that she broke her left-hand little finger in two places as she landed after heading a ball. A friend dropped us to a hospital and 6 hours later we were out of the Emergency Department. Enough said about that experience, except to say that to read this a week later in the online NZ Herald about the clinic director who frets about patients waiting for over an hour made us almost want to move to NZ.
With a plaster cast on her hand, J's abilities to do anything have been severely curtailed and she relies on me to help her shower and wash her hair, do the laundry, cooking and anything else requiring 2 good hands. In other words, nothing has changed except for the addition of the showering and hair washing assistance. (Let's see how long it takes her to read this and react - if you don't hear from me again, it's been nice to know you.)
Last Tuesday saw me click over another year and we quietly celebrated by going to the movies and then to our good friends S & C's place for a yummy dinner and a catch-up with another friend who we hadn't seen for a couple of years.
After leaving Melbourne and the fab gym where I Body Pumped to my heart's content, regular exercise has not been part of the routine, so as of last week I'm back to daily power-walking for an hour in the park while J does her runs. She's still aiming for the Berlin Marathon at the end of this month but her training was knocked back by the Iceland vacation and the finger breaking.
Iceland posts as of tomorrow, but in the meantime, here are some Berlin images. The first three were taken on Sunday when we walked to the Reichstag and the others were shot this morning while on my walk through the grounds of the Charlottenburg Schloss.
The Reichstag which houses the Bundestag
This one's for MamaDuck who also wrote about jet-trails today!
A pond in the Zoo Park
Morning reflections in Charlottenburg Schloss park
Bugs up a tree, having a party and listening to the Beatles
The Charlottenburg Schloss Dome
The Orangerie which was used to house the exotic plants during winter, but now hosts concerts and functions
Tourist boat on the Spree River
Two of the three curious French Bulldogs who
5 comments:
Jet trails - wheee!
Park - wow, look at that green, and the water!
Bugs up a tree - I saw some at Aranjuez, or at least very similar, red with black markings but differently proportioned I think. Will post pic for comparison. Any idea what they are?
Looking forward to tomorrow's Iceland blog, if you live to post it - I expect Jen could do some serious damage with a small pointy plaster cast! Tell her I sympathise really, poor thing. I hope they won?
I have no idea what the beetles are, and my Google searches for "red beetles+Germany" brings up many links for red Volkswagens!
The plaster cast is now beginning to annoy her (impatient Aries wot she is) and also starting to smell. She seems to think that it's going to come off at the end of this week, but I have doubts - we'll see. Maybe it'll be replaced by a lighter metal one to protect just the fingers.
Her team came 3rd (they played the last game without her as their star forward and goal kicker) but have vowed to win next year!
Wow! the pics look amazing! [as usual :o)]
I probably would have just walked into that pond!
Those Beatles look beautiful!
The bugs are called "Gemeine Feuerwanze" ("Gemeine" not in terms of mean, but common or normal). In English it is called "Firebug" or ("fire bug"). Btw. It is not a beatle ("Käfer"), but a bug ("Wanze" or in latin "Hemiptera"). Apparently it is now also called true bug, because the Americans apply bug to all insects.
Harsha: thanks!
Anonymous: thanks for the detailed explanation and the identification of the bugs - it's really helpful. They were all over some of the trees in Schlosspark Charlottenburg.
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