I came across this mini- fragment of a diary and post it our Life-website for future memory-blessing and your possible reading a bit of real-life diary.
31 March 2011
Final sorting – clothes dry in time and sorted in small heaps. First into the suitcase, 2 deep pink floral dresses for Josie and Evie each and a Little Red Riding Hood dress each. These have been hanging on hangers on our bedroom door…….. and now the time and joy to give to our granddaughters are almost here!
Bookings of bus trips, flights, train and hostel to Dresden are finalised, printed and slipped into a plastic folder with passports. We pack, weigh and redistribute – so far, so good. A last skype with Isabelle and Michael – we are excitedly counting the sleeps. Gordon works his last days and has so much to do before signing off for a much-needed holiday.
Friday 2 April 2011
It’s 10.00 pm - Gordon sets THREE alarms as we need to be up and about at 1.30 am – yes after midnight! We sleep the 2.5 hours as quickly as we can!
Out of bed with a jolt – we cannot afford to miss the 3.20 am National Express to Stanstead airport. And ……. we have an 30 minute walk with 2 heavy suitcases and our 2 bits of hand luggage to the bus stop at Galleria. Gordon changes that plan quickly and wisely. So, instead, we take our luggage by car to the bus stop – and while Gordon is guarding our belongings, I drove home and walked as briskly as I could, back to the stop. As those who have lived in South Africa most of our lives, we never cease to marvel at the relative safety in the UK. Here I walk in the dead of night – far – by myself, with no apprehensive.
One would imagine that this time of the morning the streets would be deserted and that at last quiet would have descended – no such thing! In the late night hours, there are 2 lanes of cars – why are these people not in their beds!!?? There was even a stretch limousine, clearly carting party goers home. The other strangeness was the full-on bird-choruses. What is up with these birds of real feathers, don’t they snuggle down in their nests for closed-eye either – cheeky!
Back at the stop, I find Gordon busy downloading sermons onto his iPod and having been joined by 2 Irish student girls. They have opted for an almost all-night party and did not think it practical to go to bed before catching the 3.20 am bus. Good chats with them!
The bus is a mere 5 minutes late and after depositing us at Stanstead, we zigzag our way through sleeping bodies who took up more than their share of the seats. It’s very very, very thrilling to board the Germanwings plane at 7.40 am and experience the typical German culture, accents, hospitality and efficiency, straight away.
Soon we ascend and soar over green, green England. As we leave the English south coast behind, the mist sets in quickly and thickly. But not for long before we are able to spot ferries ploughing the English Channel waters and wind farms planted in the channel.
As soon as our no-frills plane fly over Europe and Germany, we see meandering rivers, straight-lined canals and patch-work farm-land. Is that extra colourful patches not perhaps Dutch tulips starting to take on colour? Maybe, maybe not.
Then the unmistakably attractive architecture and sharp incline of the German rooftops. Reason, I think, is to allow snow to slide down.
At Hannover, we land with a bump and German-like punctually exactly at the promised time. By now we could burst with excitement.
Gordon and I collect our luggage with literally trembling hands, and wheel our suitcases towards the airport arrivals door, wondering who we are going to see on the other side. Then……….. there! Right in front of us: Michael and Josie!!!
We run to them and hug and laugh! It’s been 15 months……….and Josie is now 4 yrs and 2 months old. Of course we knew what Josie and Evie looked like, but a photo or skype can never really portray the real little loved-loved persons.
Josie’s bubbly and giggly and running ahead - laughing.
It is just as oh-so-special to see Michael again after more than a year. Their trauma and experiences of the BIG earthquake in Tokyo, still fresh. Our son-in-law drives us down to Gifhorn -on the wrong side of the road!! Josie and I play games in the back of the car. As we get to the well-known medieval villages and farm-surrounds of Winkel, all we can think about is seeing Isabelle again and seeing Evie who was 7 months old when we saw her last – and now 21 months!
Oh sweet reunion! We reign in much of our excitement, so Evie can gradually get used to us. We hug, cry, hug with Isabelle. And look and look at one another – it’s been tooooooooo long!
Josie alias Red Riding Hood.
Ditto – Evie trying out her dancing poses, unaware of her unruly pony tails
Evie calls Gordon, Mack and insisted on Mack helping her up the stairs - to his joy.
Our lovely Isabelle – our oldest daughter.
Josie eats ice-cream just before supper-time – courtesy the neighbour.
Hooray for digital photography & many photos that hopefully will serve as the rest of the diary and golden days with Michael, Isabelle, Josie and Evie. In the middle of our stay, Gordon and I nipped over to Dresden for a few days. And this is how far I got with the Dresden-diary…………….!
Dresden: Reading and prayer on the train: “Oh, Creator, please don’t repair me, remake me. “The old has passed away; behold, the new has come.”
Together we explored the old Eastern Germany city, full of character and culture, on foot and by bicycle and tram. Lots of uphill walking to the Bastei Bridge and Konigstein Fesstung and medieval villages. Ok for every uphill there is also a – welcome! – downhill. A big part of this side-trip was our stay in a big, clean and comfortable private room in a hostel in the hippie-part of Dresden – quite a few locals looked like characters straight out of Camden Town. The one theme that will always pop up in our Dresden memories will be: destruction and restoration, during and after World War II.
Isabelle kindly fetched us from Braunschweig train station - how thrilled we were to see the Schmidt-family again for a last few gems of days together!
For further information find links here to
the Bastei Bridge and to
Dresden - the Cultural heart and tourism, and lastly
the hostel in Dresden that we highly recommend for hospitality, location and being organised.