Caturday

Bill loves his silver shoe lace. Here he is falling asleep guarding it

Space!

This rather crappy photo was taken with my point and shoot this evening at dusk. I've played with it a bit to make it a bit clearer. We went out with the telescope and had a good look at the planets and the moon and then the International Space Station went over at about 6.30. Later we'll have a look for Mars!

We are hobos!

About a month ago we got our lovely new sofa.

Being incurably lazy, I only just got round to having the council come and pick it up. We wanted to give it to charity for it to be recycled but they wanted over £100 to collect it. The council wanted £40. Oh well!

So now we have a sofa on our front lawn. Our grouchy neighbours are going to love that!!

PIVOT!

Bits of Berlin

1. The Marienkirche which has a very cool medieval mural of the dance of death although it is sadly very faded. In the background is the TV Tower, the tallest structure in Germany. It's undergoing extensive renovation at the moment which sadly led to some very inefficient and frustrating queueing systems.

2. The Berliner Dom. We didn't go in but it's very impressive from the outside!

3. The World Clock in Alexanderplatz. Very very cool! The numbers rotate so you can see what the time is anywhere.

4. Ice on the river Spree

5. Phill next to a chocolate model of the TV Tower at Fassbender & Rausch Chocolatiers. We also had some amazing hot chocolate and a blackforest gateaux.

6. The Neptune Statue This was quite creepy with many slightly disturbing characters!

7. The view of the Spree from the TV Tower

8. A quite random concrete 'statue' of some furniture in Pankow

9. The view of the Reichstag from the TV Tower

10. The Brandenburg Gate

11. A Book Tree! Lots of tree trunks with holes in for people to leave books for others to take. I think it's something to do with Book Crossing. Sadly all in German or I would have taken something!

12. The Dome of the Reichstag over the top of the Holocaust Memorial.

Geek Central

As soon as Phill learned that the world's largest model railway was in Berlin, it was almost a foregone conclusion that we would visit. Well, it was actually pretty good! And huge! It was designed to represent Berlin itself and most of the landmarks and events were represented. It's also being expanded all the time as the city grows. There is even an airport with planes that take off and land. There were loads of great tiny details in the people in the landscapes.

David overseeing the model

Tiny graveyard complete with ghosts, zombies and trick or treaters

The control panel!

A model of the building the model is in. A tiny landscape is just visible through the window!

A stargate up on the hill!

The Airport

Scrat from Ice Age on an iceburg

The miller's daughter from Rumpestiltskin with her spinning wheel

The Reichstag (government) building. On top of the building is a glass dome which, if you are more organised then us, you can visit. In front in the model is a stage where you can choose who you listen to, including Kennedy declaring he is a donut!

Berlin

Phill and I have just had a lovely week away in Germany. Coincidentally, our friends Helen and Dave went to Berlin at the same time although our trips were slightly staggered. We also got to visit another friend Lorna and her gorgeous boy Philipp who live there now.

It was Helen's birthday while we were away which meant going out for a fabulous dinner. We went to a pizza restaurant called The Twelve Apostles in Charlottenburg in the West of the city. They do lots of lovely Italian food but their main thing in Pizza. They do a special pizza, the Pizza Gigante, which is for a minimum of 3 people. Basically, they make a massive pizza for a group and put a mixture of toppings on. We ordered one for 5 (the maximum) and the only stipulations were no onions or fish. What turned up was truly epic. There was enough parma ham to make it look like someone had grated a pig over it. There were artichokes and capers, tomatoes and different types of cheese and several types of pig. It was delicious. The boys regarded it as a challenge!!

Before: Daniel's head for scale!

After: locusts have passed through!

During the week, we had the chance to do loads of fun things. We went up the TV tower, to the zoo, to the DDR museum, saw the world's largest model railway and drank a lot of coffee! We also went to a cafe where everything was chocolate. Nom!

I have a million pictures so I think I will do a different post for each part.

Caturday

Mani, helping me wind my lovely Bee sock yarn

Nothing like knitting to a deadline …

This is one half of a pair of Fetching fingerless gloves I made a couple of years ago.

Phill and I are off to a very cold Berlin tomorrow but our flight is so early we are off to the airport on the last available train. When looking for some lovely warm knitwear earlier, I found I no longer have the left hand Fetching. Luckily I have enough of the yarn left to recreate it. Quite why I am blogging about this rather than knitting, I'm not sure!

Mustache Bag!

I have a new bag and I love it! I bought it from Etsy with some of my Christmas money. LOVE :-)

New Years Resolutions

One of my resolutions is to blog more. I promptly forgot this which is why we've got to the twelfth of January before this post. Today I downloaded the Blogger app in an attempt to encourage posting.

I have to use phone photos so forgive the quality ;-)

To start off, here is a picture of phill pretending to hold up a giant tree while we were in California for our honeymoon.