Bloody winter vomiting bug...! (Warning: a bit sweary!)

Good day! It is snowing today in delightful Vegesack and as a result I'm doing my very best to not leave the house until it's stopped/I've run out of food, tea and toilet rolls/nuclear apocalypse. A bit mean of me, I know, but I detest snow. Snow makes my hands turn white with orange and purples spots (thanks, crap circulation). Snow clings to you like a snotty tissue you've accidentally sat on, then leaves your clothes soaking wet because it's basically rain that sticks. When is spring?

Anyway, since I posted last I spent a few days in the UK. What was meant to be a fun weekend of work and seeing friends was RUINED by various bodily functions...

The kids I nanny here are wonderful, but they're very young, and one family has four children under 4. The eldest caught the winter vomiting bug, and as a result it's been flying round the house for at least a fortnight now. Last week, I left them on Wednesday night and flew to London on Thursday morning. By Friday night I was still fine, and I thought I'd gotten away with it, despite having changed nappies every 20 minutes for four hours on one particularly shitty day.

NOPE.

Saturday morning, I woke up feeling groggy and exhausted. I made a cup of tea. The tea lasted less than five minutes in my system before I sprinted to my bathroom, which was actually the fastest I've moved this year so far. By 10.30 I was both shitting water and praying to the porcelain god on a regular basis (thankfully these two never occurred at the same moment), and I continued to do this for 8 hours. Then I slept forever. On the upside, I definitely lost a few pounds and vomiting is a hardcore workout for abs!

I'm back to healthy now and looking after still-sick babies. No wonder they're screaming half the time at the moment. I would too if it were more socially acceptable for adults to scream and yell without the influence of alcohol. Actually, the next time I'm ill maybe I'll just pretend that I'm drunk.

The flatmate with the guitar has left, which means I can no longer practice the shoddiness that was my A major chord, which is really annoying because I was starting to get ever so slightly less atrocious. But on a positive note, one of the mums I work for has lent me her cakepop maker!! I made a batch on Wednesday that were pretty darn good, although I forgot to take pictures, and I'll do some more next week. Or maybe this weekend. Who knows. I'm crazy like that.

So we have a murder of crows that live in the trees outside our flat, and right now they're all crowing really loudly like the beginning of a horror movie. It's the sound of imminent doom. I might just go and check that all the windows and doors are locked. Although, obviously if this was a horror movie that wouldn't matter. Because logic.

I'm off into Bremen tomorrow (if it's not snowing and I haven't been murdered) and I'm taking the boy's camera so hopefully I'll be able to share some pretty pictures next time. But for now, here's some snow on some trees in our garden. Because you've never seen a picture so original:

This bloody weather...

You can take the girl out of Britain...

I shall start this installment by complaining about the weather. It's bloody awful. On Sunday, I went for a walk with the boy. Gale force winds and spurts of rain and hail. Hail that grinned as it hit me in the face (that's what it felt like, anyway). It varies between being so sunny my transition lenses decide we're in the Bahamas and I look like a dick, to the clouds of Mordor descending (at this point the Orcs arrive and start snarling on Vegesack High Street). Suffice to say I was rather spoilt with nice, non-wintry weather in 2014, and I do not appreciate being treated this way by Northern nature.

Anyhoo, enough whingeing.

I thought an update of my resolutions might be a good idea:

I will learn to play guitar. This one is going slowly (ie. I started yesterday), but it's going! I can play E major and A major - badly. I can also now tune the guitar using an app (I still marvel at technology on a regular basis). Apparently once I learn D and can play that, there will be hundreds of songs I can learn. As long as they're not all Status Quo.

I will learn German. This one is going well. The other nanny I work with doesn't speak much English so I have to understand her German. And understanding meaning is quite important when you work with small children... But I'm starting to find the confidence to speak to people, and although they reply in three different ways before I can understand, I do eventually understand. And that' for me, is a win!

I will bake new things. I have done this once so far. I still have no baking equipment so the only thing I can bake right now is flapjack (for non-Brits, this is a delicious mixture of oats, honey, sugar and butter that is baked and cut into bars). The 'new thing' about it is that I added raspberry jam, and this is because all the shops are closed on Sundays and I couldn't buy any filling!!

I will take at least one photo every day and post it here. Ummmmm.... yeah...

I will write more. Please see above resolution.

I will make more effort with friends and family. This is going well, although I still have so many people to get in touch with.

Ok, so it's a mixed bag as far as keeping my resolutions. C-, must try harder.

The only thing left to report is my list of THINGS I HAVE LEARNT THIS WEEK.

• I have no idea what happens in track cycling races. Especially when the commentary is in German.
• I like currywurst. I really like currywurst.
• It's rather difficult to get a double duvet. Germans have individual single duvets on double beds. 
• Germans love to knit. Or crochet. Or something. So many shops sell wool, and the supermarket has an entire section devoted to their love of woollen craftiness.
• The german word for some owls is Uhu, which is to be said musically, like a coo. I love that.

Time for some Rosetta Stone. Tschüss!

What I've learned after five days in Germany

• German people are extremely nice (apart from the grumpy checkout guy in the supermarket)
• It's cold, but not as cold as I'd feared - phew!
• The pillows are 80cm x 80cm ie. huge squares. I can't get used to this at all.
• If you speak to people in halting German, they will automatically reply in English. As lovely as this is, because I get very nervous when I'm trying to speak to a native, I'm trying to learn, dammit!
• The word for kettle is wasserkucher - water cooker, makes sense - and drinking tea with milk is seen as a bit strange.

All in all, I think I'll like it here as long as I keep myself busy. There's not a whole lot of stuff to do in Vegesack itself, and I haven't had chance to explore further out yet. As I love lists, I've made one entitled "Stuff to do in January". Snazzy, huh?

• I've got some work nannying triplets (with another nanny so it's not as crazy as it sounds), but I'd like a bit more so I'm pimping my wares online and looking into admin work from home. 
• I want to start baking asap but currently there is no baking equipment in the flat. Not so much as a rolling pin or cake tin! This will be remedied over the next couple of weeks. 
• I've resolved to start Insanity next week because I'm currently the heaviest I've ever been and look like a Weeble-Wobble (although if I fall over, at least I'll bounce right back up!)
• My flatmate has a guitar which he's said I can use - wahoo! - but it's right-handed so I can double my challenge by playing the way the rest of the world does. I say 'play'. I can't 'play' anything. But I will!
• I have completed level 1 of German on the Rosetta Stone!! A few more levels to go, but I actually feel like some of it is sticking in my brain.

I feel like I'm finding my feet here. It's a nice feeling.

New Year's Resolutions (I know, I know...)

Ah yes, that time of year in which you promise to become a better, more caring, richer, more skilful member of society. And despite disappointing myself and the universe every year, I insist on this cyclical tradition of promises and self-loathing because one day I will learn to play the guitar, learn a new language and become a squagillionaire.

So here goes.

1. I will learn to play the guitar. This is on my list every year, with the exceptions of when the word 'guitar' is replaced by 'piano', which as happened a few times. I just kick myself that if I'd only started learning when this first appeared on my list (I was 16, I think), then I'd be giving Taylor Swift a run for her money. Come on, three chords and the musical world's my lobster. Just ask Status Quo.

2. I will learn German. I'm moving to Germany tomorrow (eek!) and I can say mein Auto ist kaput (my car has broken down) and enquire Wo ist der Vogel? (Where is the bird?) Both will serve me well, but I fear I may need a little more. I'm terrified that at some point I'll need to go to the doctor and play Charades to explain my disorder. So Rosetta Stone is on the laptop, Duolingo is on the phone and I shall dedicate 30 minutes a day to practice my deutsch.

3. I will bake new things. I love to bake. It's one of my favourite things to do. And while my lemon drizzle sponge and red velvet cupcakes are lovely, what the bloody hell is a charlotte royale? Now that I have more time, I shall expand my baking knowledge. Cake pops, meringues, tarts, pasties: I shall master them all. I'm actually thinking of creating another blog to journal my baking adventures, so watch this space.

4. I will take at least one photo every day and post it here. The world is a beautiful and really weird place, and I would love to have a photographic story at the end of the year to remember 2015 by.

5. I will write more. Every year I start a journal, or a story, or some songs. I always get frustrated and think my writing is the most dreadful shit I've ever had to lay my eyes on. It gets thrown in the bin and I have to buy a new notebook (the last bit id fine because I have a love of buying stationery. So this year, I shall journal. I shall write stories and terrible poetry. I shall create characters that will never see the light of day. And that's ok.

6. I will make more effort with friends and family. This one is by far the most important. When working on ships, it's very easy to explain that time zones, distance and an internet system slower that dial-up c. 1996 make it all very difficult to keep in touch. And everyone understands, because everyone is busy with their own lives. But it's time for me to step up to the plate. When I think of someone, I shall send them a little message.

7. Become a QI elf, perform at Jools Hollands' Hootenanny, become muscle bound without losing my curves, develop an anti-wrinkle cream that actually works and a pair of glasses that won't fall down the bridge of my nose, get the role of a quirky romantic lead in an indie movie that suddenly explodes and I win the lip-sync battle with Jimmy Fallon.

A girl can dream...