At the start of the summer holidays we had a visit from my Mum, Dad, niece and nephew. It actually seems like a really long time ago now but I didn’t want to let it pass undocumented. They arrived on a Saturday lunch time to glorious weather so we made the most of it by spending the afternoon in the garden. The following day we got up early and went out to our local bakery/cafe for a German breakfast consisting of bread rolls, croissants, cheese, salami and ham. Yum yum. Rich, Little Miss and I go fairly often and it is always a highlight of my Mum and Dads visits here. Sunday was all about the food as later that day we went to the Libori. The Libori is a yearly festival with fairground rides, stalls to buy all sorts of bits and bobs that you never knew you needed until you saw them and lots of food and drink stalls. As with most German festivals it’s really just another reason for lots of people to get together and have a good old drink if I’m honest, not that that is a bad thing! Little Miss went on the carousel and then I took my parents and niece and nephew on to the big wheel while Rich looked after her as she point blank refused to join us despite lots of persuasive tactics. The big wheel isn’t really a ride as such, it’s a little bit like a teeny tiny version of the London eye, it moves around very slowly and gives you a great view over Paderborn. When we got to the top my Mum, who usually doesn’t scare easily, got rather clammy hands and clung on for dear life. She was rather glad to get off it and let her shaking legs recover! After that we had the obligatory German bratwurst and pommes followed by yummy garlic mushrooms. I was a bit rubbish and took very few pictures but if you want to read more about the Libori festival and see some pictures click here.
Unfortunately Monday and Tuesday were very wet miserable days and so we did a bit of shopping and pottering around.
As Wednesday turned out to be another grey day threatening rain, I decided it was the perfect opportunity to pay a visit to my favourite ceramic studio. Unfortunately lots of other people had the same idea and because it was so busy (alongside the fact that I took a restless 3 1/2 year old who can’t sit still for more than 10 minutes, along with me) it wasn’t quite the usual relaxing experience. Nevertheless, everybody enjoyed themselves and came away happy with what they had decorated and with eager anticipation of the finished glazed product. My nephew painted a ‘crazy eyed hungover squirrel!’, my niece sponged a lovely pot with stars for her Mum, my Mum used the bubble blowing technique and some peel off hearts and stars to decorate a pot for her craft room and my Dad was rather pleased with his mug which he painted over peel off stars.
Now, I had envisaged helping little miss to decorate a plate or a bowl which she could use for her breakfast on a daily basis but as soon as she saw the aeroplane money box she was adamant that she was making a pink aeroplane and there was absolutely no dissuading her!
Little Miss’ reaction to her aeroplanewas absolutely lovely. She was so excited when we went to pick it up and she saw that it was so shiny.
When we got it home and she was given some ‘pennies’ to put in it, her excitement was just priceless. It now has pride of place in our kitchen for all to see! I didn’t make anything this time as I needed to be free to help everyone else at it was their first time, plus I had to keep little Miss on task and stop her from bouncing around the walls and causing havoc! I have since been back and will post pictures just as soon as I pick up the finished article after glazing, eek I’m sooo excited!
Thankfully by the Thursday of my parents visit the weather had improved enough for a walk into Bad Lippspringe and a visit to our local ice cream parlour for waffles and ice cream, yum yum!
On Friday Mum persuaded us to go back into town to revisit the parts of the Libori that we didn’t get to see on our first visit. I was a little bit grumpy about going back as I didn’t relish the idea of walking around the stalls again (over the years I have been to the Libori numerous times so it’s not really that exciting for me any more) but I’m glad we did as I found a lovely present for a good friend of mine with a special birthday coming up later this year.
All in all it was a lovely visit and as usual went by far too quickly. It was my niece and nephews first visit to Germany and they went home full of news about what a great time they’d had and are eager to come back again. We’d love to have them to visit again but next time I may have to hide the monopoly or set a time limit on the game as I will never get back the 3 evenings I spent being slowly and painfully bankrupted by my nephew!!
Karen x
