shovelling snow

German law says that he who owns house has to clear a path a meter wide outside said house should it snow.
Last night it snowed. Quite a lot. The good news is that Werner was prepared - he had been to the DIY store last week and bought 40kg of grit and a snazzy Finnish made snow shovel. This morning he had the chance to use both. The bad news is he will probably be able to use them again tomorrow and the next day and the next day ..... too.

Cold cat walk

Now that she seems to feel at home inside the house, Ella is keen to take a look outside. So, yesterday we went on a cold cat walk. For now, until she knows her territory she gets to be on the lead. Maybe next week she can go out without it - although the frozen ground and occasional snow doesn't make for very comfortable cat walking conditions at the moment (for either of us).

Visitors in the cherry tree

Now that the cherry tree has been pruned and has lost all its leaves we can see the birds that visit it.
Yesterday a large green woodpecker sat halfway up the trunk watching us watching him.

Empty flat

Today is Handover Day. The day that Frau B gets the keys to our old flat. Yesterday we took away the very last bits of our stuff and cleaned and scrubbed and wiped and hoovered.

Saving the trees

Looking out the first floor window on Monday I noticed that there was a large branch hangng off the cherry tree. Having already arranged that the tree surgeon would come and professionally tend our magnolia tree and cherry tree in either December or January I called them up and asked them to come a little bit earlier.
The magnolia now has a proper shape to it, and the brokencherry branch has been removed (along with other endangered extremities) . Chain saws and safety gear were in action, and a huge trailer full of branches were driven away.

Moving day 5 - postscript

While we were moving, Zoe and Florian kept Ella shut in upstairs in the house. After everyone had left, she was allowed to come down and discover her new surroundings. She seems to be settling in well.



This photo was taken on Sunday morning.

Moving day 4 - at the house again

Although there are no photos, we can safely say that all the young men worked brilliantly the whole day long. After 8 hours of hard work all our possessions were in the house. Both sofas and the sideboard which was collected on a detour to my mother in law's flat, are now up on the first floor. And there are no scratches on the floors or wall.
A job extremely well done!

Moving day 3 - back at the flat

After lunch we emptied out the truck and went back to the flat where the real work of moving the sofas and the washing machine began.

Moving day 2 - lunch break

When the van was full for the first time, we drove to the house where Zoe took the order for 11 pizzas.

Moving day 1 - at the flat

Moving out day was on Saturday 5th December. At 10am prompt Gregor Goll turned up with his truck. He was closely followed by Sinan, Cengizhan, Metehan, Manuel, Manhal and Woldemar (not sure if I got all the spellings right there). And they all set to work.
Gregor organised the rest into a chain so that they could pass the boxes and smaller stuff from one to another down the stairs.

The first few hours were easy enough.

Office in the making

By now we are probably able to put up Ikea Billy shelves in our sleep. Luckily the desks were easy to put together too. The rolling chest of drawers was another matter entirely.
The office will no doubt grow as time goes on but happily the basics are appearing slowly but surely. I've tried sitting at the desk with the curtains drawn looking out at the garden. Nice and soothing and a good place to write.

Curtains

Finally, after having cost an arm (but not a leg), the ground floor now has curtains at all the windows. This will hopefully stop people staring in and asking if the house is for sale or rent.
Only the front windows have nets - they blue curtains at that window are lined too to reduce the light from the lamp post outside.
The first floor curtains and blinds will have to go up after we've moved in.