Australia can wait. Germany now.

A day of packing, nerves and anxiety, followed by an almost sleepless night. Does every mother fret like this on the eve of a big trip with her children, without her husband? I know I do. An epic trip, the travel within the travel of this trip - my children meet my grandmother. A life- achievement by the end of the day.

Pre-dawn moulding of small boys limbs into their clothes (selected to match eachother and me, plus travel well), taxi to Cork airport, and away to London Stansted.

My first time in a cheap airport: how long will it take to get through one set of customs and on to the next plane? Will my odd paperwork be a problem, as I'm not registered in Ireland, and I should be, according to the police and Immigration there? What could go wrong? How can I keep myself and these two small boys moving through the day? Can I make the switch to German again, now with them holding me in English as well?

Then Munich. I get a strange feeling as if this is the real start of my trip - as on so many trips my whole life long, I've come into Munich. This is familiar, my family, my roots. And the immigration guy asks me at the end, all friendly - why are you travelling with these boys who do not have your name? Could he please see the authorisation that I may do so? Digging out my marriage certificate to prove they are my lawful children, this is just German properness...there are rules, you must know that we know them, and we must be seen to be doing it all the right way...Goddamm. I had packed all the papers, so I expected it really, didn't I?

And now it's all new, talking to my boys, listening to all the Germans on the S-Bahn - on the way back from summer holidays in Sweden, China, the world. I'm eyes and ears, and memory lane, can barely speak for the flashbacks of other times I've made this trip, other times I've stepped off at Gauting, other times my grandmother is standing there as if she did this every other week!

And it's summer at last - we wear t-shirts, without singlets under or jumpers over, the whole day long. Lovely family days, remembering things past, family traits. Also crafting new days - now that I'm moving about with children of my own. An age watching the Bean swing on the rings in my uncle's garden, fabulous, what muscles, what meaning in a simple sunny afternoon!

The Bean gets to spend E35 on Schleich toys, agonising, enjoying the selecting for an HOUR, yes!, in the toy shop on the Stachus. The Pumpkin invents an elaborate game with my aunt, involving pegging all the clothes pegs on one of her potplants - and then pegging Christmas decorations, leaves, Easter eggs to the tree!

The View From My Window 1

I love it here. Out of every window, there's a different spire to be seen - the Red Abbey, St Finbarrs and St Nicholas. The density of housing, of history just outside, the quiet of this place is just exactly what we came for.

Someone must have been watching on our whole journey into this flat in Cove Street, one street down from the river Lee, right in the middle of Cork! Just enough room for all of us, and the minimal stuff we brought. It's odd to move in and not own the linen, kitchen stuff, furniture - yet call it ours now. In all our moves, it's never been as easy as this.

St Nicholas is my favourite, out the kitchen window, only about 50m away. There's a floral reclining armchair ( I know I know, but here's to the beauty of a fully-furnished flat) positioned with a small table just so, so that when I sink back with a book, I can see straight up to Nicholas. He's there as I work in the kitchen too, we're forming a solid, quiet relationship. The pic shows kitchen tap, window and Nicholas; this is taken from said chair.

Barbara Kingsolver's book: Animal, Vegetable, Miracle, is absolutely wonderful: phwoar can she write, I love the format, with contributions from her husband and daughter too. Makes me laugh out loud, weep tears of recognition and read to anyone at any occasion! How does spaghetti grow! Strange to be reading a book about feeding a family from your own garden, now that I've just left mine, but inspirational. This food-theme is going to be big this year - local, fresh, high quality. And I've every intention of starting it all up again once we go back: the compost will be great, hope the avocado tree makes it!

And out the door, we've found the chemist, the corner shop with newspapers, phone top-up machine and friendly faces, the local pub, the internet shop we can use to print letters, as there's no printer here with us.

UPDATE: By February, the Bean is allowed to go down and buy milk by himself, returning with a HUGE smile, the correct change and maybe a packet of Actimel yoghurt drinks! "I worked out that I had enough if I only got the 4-pack!"

A walk to Stanage Edge

What makes a day stand out? It's seeing something you thought you'd never see. It's finding a liberation in an hour, from days and days of being in the harness of humdrum 'ordinary' life..

Meeting Ivan. This uncle, zany, I'd heard about him for years. Finally, the day is on us, I'm dreading it and putting on a brave face - and curious too. There is a beautiful pink rose bush in the front garden, the house high on a hill in Sheffield. Inside, it's a-clutter with one man's stuff, not aired, cleaned or moved enough in a long time. A shelf for the tins for a rainy day - what's the other shelf of tins for? The walls covered in photos, prints of familiar places, like Hungary and Australia.

He's like those uncles of my mothers, that I used to have to visit when we stayed with Omi - a particular Continental sense of humour, wordplay that all know is clever, even though we don't always laugh out loud. Sentimental, referential to other times. So we get on GREAT, I play the mother role with absolute conviction, can just be as I am. Leathermanman says, wash everything, don't touch anything! But we get tea and fruit out, look through photos and his old cameras. The Bean is a PERFECT namesake, shows great interest in the old cameras, wants to know about this strange man, as much as the uncle wants to know about him. The Pumpkin gets hungry, we open one of the Rainy Days tins and eat soup, heated, direct from the tin. I can't write about the bathroom, but I'm touched and entertained, all at once. And I imagine laughing with my mother-in-law about it in future.

A walk to Stanage Edge in the Peak District. Like other walks with my elderly relatives in Germany, all set off, groups form for 'walk and talk'. The Pumpkin and the uncle have exactly the same pace, The Bean and I run, run in the wind over the stones on the edge of the Edge. Liberation. Leathermanman imagines himself bouldering, we are all liberated in this Australia-like expanse, our gazes stretching to a horizon, the view filled with grasses and heather, fields, stone walls, not buildings, not crowding close around us. In the photo you can't see, but LMM and his uncle have EXACTLY the same shape head!

Then we take Ivan back to Eyam Youth Hostel. He took the first photos of it, when they first started promoting themselves long ago - and is DELIGHTED to be out for a night. We fold children into their bunks and drink a bottle of wine outside in endless late summer light. There's much hilarity and tales of lives lived before we all met up today. Lovely.

A well boring day

What a magical combination of engineering and other-worldly skills, with generations passing it on! Saw this sign on a wall, on the way home Cork from a day further out west. Left the boys in the car to snap this one!

A day when Leathermanman worked all day, so I packed the Bean and the Pumpkin and a picnic into the car, in search of Drombeg Stone Circle, Creagh Gardens and a day out. The Drombeg stones are well, small, but the knowledge that centuries ago, some mysterious folk watched the mid-summer sun rise up through a chink on the horizon and cast its rays across the altar stone and through the centre of the 2 lead stones, well, that's not so bad. Boys imagined cooking here, and enjoyed running about in the big space. Creagh Gardens are closed, but we enjoyed our picnic in a lovely garden nearby all the same.

The Look of the Irish 1

What's with the boys haircuts here - shorn short on pale heads, with maybe a bit longer on the top. Or razor cuts in swirls in the sides, dyed on top. And soccer sports gear, white shoes, sloppy training pants, sport tops. And all acrylic and hanging around in groups by the corner shop, by the river, wherever.

Even my two smallies have commented on it. I feel uncomfortable walking by them, but mostly am amazed that this counts as fashion here...errgly.

It just looks a bit destitute....

Mash, Baked and Chips are NOT 3 food groups

The Irish are famous for their potatoes, god they are. Sadly though, they're obsessed with them, and we're not really liking them...where are the delicious potatoes I remember from Europe?

At one meal you can be offered mash, chips and get a baked potato. Do they realise? How do these ancient habits get so stuck? How could they not grow more things during the Famine, if the potatos kept failing? They want to be seen as so modern, but if you're eating that much very plain potato, can you really move forward?

We talked about this today as we drove back from the Donkey Sanctuary at Lisarow, and then stopped for tea and scones in a ?cafe/restaurant that's been going since the 17th century. And they're still cooking the same food there too! Bacon in great slices, cabbage in watery sauce, the roast is out, but I can give you mashed turnip and bacon.. All this at 4 in the afternoon. We laughed at what people were eating in the middle of the afternoon. Update: we later learnt that in farming country, this is often the time for the one big meal.

All we wanted was a good coffee and a nice cake maybe. Queen cakes are cute - a little cup cake, with a bit of jam on top. Good for the boys.

Ah the Donkey Sanctuary - a refuge for all those old donkeys who were decommissioned by the tractor after the war. The owner grew up nearby, went off to England for a while, then came back and happened upon old, mistreated donkeys in the Irish fields. During the Boer War, the English had paid 5 pounds and a donkey for an Irish horse, who were strong and well-bred. The farmers re-worked their farm gear, ploughs and traces and the like, for the smaller donkeys and put them to work, with great success in small fields.

After the tractor, they got put out into fields and often abandoned, until they were rescued and brought here, where they are nurtured back to health, and, the friendly ones, put up for adoption. Beautiful Jerusalem cross donkeys, grey ones, white ones. Did you know that a male donkey mating with a female horse makes one kind of animal, a female donkey with a horse - the result is called something else?

Nadine and I both had tears in our eyes at the trees planted, the benches set in memorial, for people who'd loved donkeys, kept donkeys, were being remembered here by their families. Yes, it's fundraising too, but great initiative and care too. What a funny country.

And in the landscape as you drive, there's another ruined castle, grey stones standing overmossed, reaching out above the growth and decline of centuries...and another....its golden age really was very long ago.