Big Bad Wolf

.....otherwise titled "I'll huff and I'll puff and I'll blow your house down" - or knock it down with a wrecking ball and throw up some cubist monstrosity.  Well that's what the current state of the property market seems to be like around here to me.

If you're a regular reader of my blog, you may be aware that since early 2011 we've been looking for a house to buy (to buy or not to buy).  This search has been long and hard and not without it's curiosities and problems along the way.

• I've been astounded at the number of swimming pools houses in my neck of the woods seem to have - lots of them outside and it's not as if the weather here is that spectacular that you need to cool off every now and then. 

• I've been gobsmacked by Makler (estate agents) telling me that houses with four bedrooms all together just don't exist.... It seems that the trend is to have a separate 'Elternschlaftract' which is a parents suite - and this is often on a different floor to the other rooms.  Great when your kids are older and more self sufficient, but with three children under 10, it's not the best of set-ups.

 

• I'm beginning to get my head round the kitchen sizes - or lack of...... An eat-in kitchen - or at least a kitchen big enough for a bit of social chatter whilst cooking was one of my top wants.

 

• However, the main one I've really struggled with is the propensity there seems to be in this area to buy a house, knock it down and build again. Now, undoubtedly some of these houses are in need of significant renovations, conversion work, decorating and the like, but with some there is really nothing wrong - certainly in our eyes.

If you read my post Wobble Wobble you'll know we went to view a (very nice) house near the Boys' school.  There was nothing specifically wrong with the house - other than a noisy road at the back of the plot.  It gave me the wobbles (which fortunately I seem to have stilled for now) and we didn't buy.  Driving past it last week however, we were surprised to see it had been knocked down and a new modern house was being built.

Now apart from the noise (which rebuilding isn't going to address!) there was nothing wrong with the house.  It was a 1950s villa - with a fantastic staircase, beautiful original features such as some stained glass windows, solid oak front door, fabulous 50s bathroom suite - overall, in very good condition and a house which had obviously been cherished as someone's family home.  Now it wasn't right for us - but to completely demolish it and start again - with something which is not at all in keeping with the surrounding properties - it all seems a bit weird to me, and surely not in line with German eco-sensibilities.

Roll on 9 months and just before Easter we finally found the house for us - yes a 1950s villa, four bedrooms all on the same floor and gas in the (albeit small - but extendable) kitchen.  Now, we seem as far as we know to be the only people to actually want to buy the house - despite 20 odd viewings in the first week it was marketed - the only conclusion we can come to about this is, that the plot doesn't lend itself to demolishing and rebuilding (fortunately for us!). 

So it's taken us the best part of three years to find our new home - and naturally the course of property purchase never did run smooth - but we're hoping to have contracts signed in the next couple of weeks and then to move in the early Autumn.  So all fingers and toes are crossed here and we're 'druckening our Daumen' too.

Wine of the Month - April 2013

Feeling rather sheepish as I write today - been very neglectful of the blog these past few weeks, life had simply got in the way!  Anyway, I will try harder...... so here we are with another wine recommendation - and a revamp of the blog. 

Spring has, I hope, finally sprung and boy has it been a long time coming - the clocks changing, a few warmer days (though it was sleeting here again today and we've still some lingering piles of snow....eek!), and lighter evenings and my thoughts turn to crisp, dry, cold whites.....

 

 Well, my latest recommendation is a somewhat overlooked wine in my opinion - the humble Muscadet. It hails from the Loire region of France, and in keeping with most of the whites from that area is a reliable dry, crisp, light wine - very easy drinking!I have recently stumbled across a very reasonably supermarket available Muscadet (NB do not with Muscat which produces a very sweet wine).

La Cheteau Muscadet Sevre et Maine sur Lie - to give it its full name ( Sevre et Maine is the part of the Loire Valley it hails from and sur Lie means it has been left in contact with the 'Lees' after fermentation).  It retails in Germany for about EUR4.50 a bottle (and UK readers you can get it in Asda for £6.00).

It is a very light, fruity (but not overtly so) subtle wine, which works well on its own as an aperitif, or with lighter dishes - fish, seafood - that sort of thing.  Highly gluggable and well worth a try!

Bottoms Up!

Why?

Why, why, why????  It's all I seem to hear at the moment from L - who's almost 3. It was the same with the Boys, so I wasn't expecting any different with the Wee Girlie - how else is a toddler to learn without questioning everything they come across?

What other 'question' words should my toddler be using?  Well, it depends very much on where you're from it would seem.  As an English mummy 'Why?' is the word I expect most - probably closely followed by 'How?'.  Not so in Germany it would seem.

Last week we were at the Kinderarzt for the U7a the 34-36month developmental check-up (more on 'U-Appointments') and had the usual forms to fill in on what your child can do.  At the 2 and 3 year checks, this is concentrated on speech and social skills - so which words they use independently from a long list (not what they'd parrot after you) and how they interact with others / in certain situations - i.e. if a stranger approached them.

One of the speech parts of the questionnaire this time concerned what question words your three year old uses.  Did they use the following words:

• Wie? - how?
• Was? - what?
• Wo? - where?
• Wohin? - where to?

I was very surprised to see that Why? (Warum?) didn't feature on the list. Now my three year old chatterbox uses all of the above - but her top word is most definitely WHY? repeated a myriad of times over the most mundane of things.... the temptation to say 'because I said so' is very difficult to resist!!

So do German children not ask Why? - is it a cultural thing that they are not encouraged to question the way things are?  If you ask Herr EE, from his experience in the work place he would say yes - there seems to be no questioning of 'why' things are being done just a propensity to say 'no I'm not going to do it'.....!

Is it so expected that Why? is the question word of choice that it's not even worth asking about it - I have my doubts here given the German propensity to double check everything.... their thoroughness would not allow them to miss out something so important as 'Why?' nor indeed to make the assumption that everyone uses it.

Of course, I forgot to ask the Kinderarzt why (!) it wasn't on the list - I'm certainly always querying why he does certain things - what the need for them is and I get the impression that it is not the norm among his patients - but what that is down to of course is still up for debate.

So 'Why?'  Do / did your children use it incessantly, is it an Anglophone thing, or are your experiences of other cultures such that the use of 'Why?' is common to all childrens' development? 

The House on the Hill

On a hillside promontory, overlooking the Baldeneysee on the southern outskirts of Essen stands a house on a hill.  It's rolling park-like gardens and wooded glades give it a very rural and peaceful air - you wouldn't know you were in the (in)famous German industrial heartland of the Ruhrgebiet - nor would you suspect you were standing at the front door of the former seat of one of Germany's great industrial families - the Krupps.

So it came to be that yesterday I was standing there - with about 25 other ladies (mainly Americans but with a couple of subversive Brits thrown in to liven the mix!) - waiting for our guided tour of Villa Hügel (literally the Hill Villa).  It had been arranged by the American Women's Club of Düsseldorf and I had been invited along by a friend who was involved in arranging the excursion.

The back of Villa Hügel showing the main house on the left, a corner of the 'little house' on the right and a linking building with arched windows in the centre.

Now I had seen Villa Hügel from the lake below whilst boating around it with the In-Law's last summer, and had passed through it's (very own) railway station en route to Essen centre.  I'd seen books about it and watched a historical drama about the Krupps which featured the house - so I knew a bit about it before going.  I'm also a veteran of the National Trust in the UK - so have a bit of experience of the odd country house (or three) and not to forget I'm a complete expert on all matters upstairs/downstairs having seen Downton Abbey - so I was most definitely prepared for the visit.

Grand Hall with domed glass ceiling

Villa Hügel didn't disappoint - although it's not like it was in it's heyday of course due to continued modernisation over the years, but there was still an air of grandeur, some fabulous chandeliers and tapestries and a sense of awe at the scale of the house.  It was built in about 1873 by Alfreid Krupp - he designed it himself and used a large proportion of Krupp produced materials to build it (a steel frame for example and a steel staircase) - he was apparently paranoid of the house burning down and so wanted to use as little flammable material as possible....
 

Room in the 'Linking Building'

Dining Room in main house

As befit one of the leading industrialists of his time, Krupp's seat was impressive - some 269 rooms consisting of over 8000sqm of usable floor space - a pretty impressive house by all measures.  It was a very extensive estate and at it's peak there were over 700 staff manning the house, gardens, home farm etc.  Villa Hügel also paid host to a constant stream of important visitors - all of whom had the red carpet treatment in an attempt to further the Krupp business.  These included various Emperors (of Germany and abroad), Kings, Statesmen and so on - not all of them were enthusiastically received however, Hitler being one of these - whilst Krupp needed the work from the war effort - and Hitler needed Krupp's steel there was a big social divide - one which the Lady of the House was not willing to cross.

Villa Hügel remained the family seat until the end of WWII when it was appropriated by the Allies used in that capacity until it was returned to Krupp in the early 1950s.  It was however not used as a family house again.  It was opened to the public for use as a cultural centre - and still houses exhibitions today.  It is also home to the Alfried Krupp von Bohlen und Halbach-Stiftung (Krupp Foundation) a not-for-profit organisation who were passed the Alfried Krupp's estate on his death.

It is a beautiful house and well worth a visit if you are in Essen.  The grounds are beautifully kept and there are apparently lots of things to look at / explore within them - unfortunately, we didn't have time for that yesterday - so another visit is most definitely called for!

(Thanks to Kettwigefrau for the pictures)