Family Forum / Parenting / Mothers / November 2005

Hi!

Well, as the subject says... it has been snowing outside repeatedly
during the last few days. I have never seen snow here in northern
Germany earlier than mid-December as long as I can remember!
Of course I chose that weekend to invite a lot of people, several of
them coming by car from more or less big distances.(sort of a gathering
 of internet friends, I knew several of them irl before, so nearly no
risk involved) *sigh*
Worst day, weather wise, was Friday, and of course that was the day I
expected the two persons with the longest car drive to do, from the
Black Forest to Hamburg, about 700 km each way. They were supposed to be
here at 8 pm, and at 5 pm they called me to tell me that there's a
traffic jam on the highway 7, radio stations spoke of 20+ km.
A bummer for them, of course, I was a bit relieved because DH decided
that morning to bring our car to let some parts of the brakes
changed/repaired plus changed the tires to some fit for the winter
season (we normally drive with summer tires the whole year round, but
this year DH needs to drive long distances repeatedly during winter),
which caused us to be car less until 6 pm. Car-related items on my list:
grocery shopping and bringing DD to a friend of us who lives an hour
north of us. I had been to work until 3 pm, so now I had a bit more time
to pack really nice clothes and some toys for DD and to pack DS's
clothes, who was to go to his grandparents the next day, giving me time
to play card and board games with the 12 friends I had invited for
Saturday afternoon(originally I planned on renting a room for that
somewhere, but forgot about this weekend being the first of the xmas
season, so I decided that 12 persons  would fit in my flat, so no need
to choose another date.)
Well, two hours later the two from the Black Forest were near Hannover,
two hours left for them to reach me. DD was safely on her way to
Neumünster with DH, and I had some time for some last minute house cleaning.
My friends arrived at half past ten, and I could forget my notion to go
to bed very early to be fit for the long day (and night) ahead.

I enjoyed the next day, but the next meeting of that bunch of friends
will decidedly be in summer!

On a side note: The unexpected snow storms left many cities in North
Rhine Westphalia and southern Lower Saxony powerless, due to the posts
holding the power lines getting torn down by heavy and wet snow  turning
to ice on the lines. While I really feel with the families that  are
without energy and thus without heat for the fourth day in a row with
temperatures outside around the freezing point, I was very amused that
the energy companies, which always said that power failures like that in
the US during the last year could never ever happen in Germany, have to
endure the renewed and quite heated discussion about what the companies
do with their huge profits when a mere snow storm can destroy more than
50 power posts in one afternoon.

Gruß aus Hamburg,
Diana