Autumn Holidays

The boys have been on school holidays since Friday 13 October. That also means that Mom is on holiday. I have had the opportunity of lying in most mornings. Hubby brings me a cup of coffee along with the morning newspaper. When the kids start moving around, I then get up and start my day.
We left for Koln on Friday afternoon. We got to Venetia and Patrick after a long delayed journey due to traffic jams and roadworks. On Saturday morning, after a lovely breakfast, Gerard, Lara and I headed for the City centre. I cannot pass up the possibility of shopping at the English Shop. In the afternoon we followed Venetia and Patrick to Bruhl where we were meeting up with another South African couple, Penny and Michael. Penny is a South African married to a German.
They had invited other S.African people along to this lunch and it turned out to be a very interesting afternoon. Barry (an English guy) married to Leigh (ex S.A.) is a manager for EMI records and Leigh was a base guitarist for the all girl group Clout. Penny's friend of 25 years, Louise, was also there. She is a stylist living in Kensington London.
Penny's kids and ours got on well together and a great afternoon was had by all.
Sunday morning, we had a slow morning and after breakfast, allowed the kids to go to the Playground and soccer field which borders on Venetia's house.
We had a lovely weekend in Koln with our friends.
The morning temp on Monday the 16th was a really chilly 1 degree. A decision was made to put the underfloor heating on from that night. We have "Nachtspeise" which is a night rate on our electricity. This is a cheaper rate than the normal daily rate. Therefore our electrical household appliances all start work at 10.00pm. I start the dishwasher then, as well as the washing machine.
I had friends over for tea on Tuesday morning and Gerard left for England in the afternoon.
Robert's friend got to spend the rest of the week with us.
On Wednesday I took the kids to movies. Went to see Cars which turned out to be a really cute movie (even in German).
Gerard got home on Friday evening late. There had been numerous problems on the highway, so he had driven via Wurzburg and then Fulda to get here. Gerard spoilt me by bringing me the Live 8 DVD which I had tried to get him for his birthday!!!!
The weather had warmed up again and the mornings weren't as frosty as at the beginning of the week.
In fact, we had a week of really good weather - beautiful sun filled days.