Odin's Muhle Farm, Rhine Valley

This week is half term at school, and we had been booked to go to a cottage on a Donkey farm in the Rhine Valley since Christmas.  The cottage was wonderful.  It only took us two and a half hours to get there, including a Rhine crossing via ferry, lots and lots of twisty mountain roads, and even a gigantic motorway bridge, probably more than a mile above the Rhine, with a spectacular view of the valley.

The cottage was tiny, and entirely heated by a log fire in the room downstairs.  It heated the cottage really fast, and made it smell deliciously of wood smoke.  It was super cosy!

Matt was of course (being extremely manly) in charge of the fire.  He only managed to burn himself twice, oh and once on the oven when he was cooking the roast!

Above was our cottage, and below was the main farm house which was at the end of our path, just to the right of the photo above.  We had lots of donkey fields around us, and were woken each morning by the sound of them talking to each other, or calling for breakfast.

We went on a couple of walks around the farm, and in the nearby forest and fields.  The walks were lovely, with not a single person in sight, and not a sound to be heard, apart from the lovely stream running through the centre of the farm.  It was pretty cold, and as you can see from the photos, overcast every day.  The colours on the photos really don't do justice to the beautiful scenery. 

 I found lots of interesting bits of tree, fungus, wood and stone to take pictures of...

One day, we drove down the scenic Rhine road to Marksburg Castle, in the town of Braubach.  We passed so many castles along the way - they are at every village, and on every hilly outcrop.  The valley is literally littered with them!

This one is Marksburg Castle, which is open all year round (not many are - most are just open for the tourist season, as are shops, hotels, restaurants, etc.  Some of the tiny villages are like ghost towns, with nothing open, and no people about during the day at all).

 You can only go inside the castle if you go on a tour, but they run every hour and it was only 6 euros each.  The tour was in German, but we were given an excellent guide book in English, that was a very detailed translation of the tour.

The castle was very interesting, and absolutely freezing cold!  Marksburg was the only castle in the region not to have been destroyed at any point in history.  So, the castle today looks exactly as it would have done when it was originally built, with only a few modern restorations in the same style.

One day we drove out in the afternoon, without a plan of where we were heading,  We just set off down the road that runs alongside the Rhine, and stopped at a few villages on the way.

The below picture is of a fountain in one of the villages.  There was a metal grill on the bottom and something to do with science had made it turn this wonderful red colour.

In one of the villages I discovered this gem of a post box.  The colour is so intense and the detail so ornate, I thought it was just wonderful!

We even spontaniously decided to cross the Rhine on a ferry to explore the villages on the opposite bank.  As we crossed, we went past this very cool castle on a tiny island in the middle of the river!

We came across a lovely town that had some interesting architecture, and of course its own castle.  We discovered the castle by accident, as we were looking at the church.  We noticed some stairs leading up the valley to the ruins of the church in the photo below.  Once we reached this plateau above the town, we saw that the stairs went further up to the castle too!

The castle wasn't open to the public, because it is a hotel, but it did have a coffee shop where we had a hot chocolate and cake with a lovely view over the Rhine.

On the opposite side of this valley, in the photo above were farmers fields.  These fields blow my mind!  They are so steep, they seem almost vertical, and I find it truley incredible that fields this steep can be farmed.  How do they do it!!!???

We had a fantastic time in the valley, and would love to come back here in the summer months when the weather is warmer, and more of the castles are open.  It truly is a beautiful place to visit.

Karneval

This week was the start of Karneval! (think of the same celebration as the Rio Karneval).  Our area of Germany celebrates this festival in all it's glory, and so of course we had a day of Karneval fancy dress on Friday.  This was my outfit, that I made the night before.  I was (obviously) a Parrot, although I did get called the Roly Poly bird from Roald Dahl's Enormous Crocodile story (I'm OK with that), and a chicken (definitely less OK with that one!).

This week has been a very hectic one.  Out of the 3 Year 6 teachers, two were off for the entire week.  While this was hard work for myself and the other TA who took over the classes, it was incredibly stressful for the 1 teacher left to deal with all the issues of year 6, parents evening on Wednesday and Ancient China day on Friday (which was one of the teachers who was off's idea, but he went off sick before he could prepare anything, but of course after the kids had been told it was happening).  Ancient China day was due to Chinese new year taking place next week, and China being the History topic for Year 6 this half term.  We talked about China, and Chinese new year, and swapped stories of those who have been there, then made Chinese fire-crackers, money envelopes and lucky decorations, as Chinese children do during the new year celebrations.  Then we had a party with Chinese food in the afternoon.  It was really hard work, but the kids enjoyed it.  

After school had finished was the Karneval Disco.  This was for all our kids in year 3-6.  It was much like the Halloween disco, with the hall decorated, and a stall for sweets and glow sticks.  In the style of Karneval teachers took it in turns to go onto the stage and throw handfuls of sweets into the crowd, which was pretty fun.  Tidy up was much easier than the Halloween disco because we actually had bins this time, so all the rubbish wasn't thrown on the floor!  It was such a long week, but Matt and I still managed to go to a Karneval house party on Friday after work.

On Saturday and Sunday people go out in fancy dress and use Karneval as an excuse to start drinking at 9 am.  This, and the huge crowds didn't appeal to either of us at all, so we have just had a quiet weekend in.  A friend came over yesterday to watch the rugby and have fajitas, which was nice.  Tomorrow we are off to our cottage in the Rhine Valley.  The weather has turned very mild and sunny, so our holiday will be wonderful in the beautiful valley.  I can't wait!

Snow, Rugby and Pizza

This is how the week started off!  This was my walk to the tram stop to go to work on Monday morning!  The snow was really heavy, falling in huge snowflakes.  It was very cool, but by the end of the day it had disappeared.  It tried to snow on and off throughout the week, but nothing settled.  You wouldn't think it, but now we have blazing sunshine, and it's not even that cold today.  On Thursday it was -4!!!  Very cold, especially when I have a 45 minute outside duty from 8am on Thursdays!

The week at work has been busy, but mostly back to normal as people are gradually coming back from being ill last week.  We are all having our appraisals at the moment, so I am covering PHSE lessons which our boss normally does, so that he can meet with teachers.  I like teaching PHSE as the kids are really interested in learning about new things, and lessons are normally full of tricky questions and debate.  This week however, my boss decided to do something book-week related (it's a Roald Dahl themed book week this year), so the kids were all making up their own stories and making mini fold up books.  It was a lovely lesson, but I had to teach it 7 times in 2 days.  Not such a lovely lesson when you've done it that many times.  On Thursday I did it 5 times!!!  More appraisals next week, but after half term I should be back on my normal timetable. 

Friday was dress up day for book week, and everyone had to dress up as something to do with Roald Dahl.  My costume is below.  The kids loved it, but kept trying to grab me, insisting that I was the key to their entry into the Chocolate Factory!  It was a fun day.

On Friday night, the 6 Nations rugby kicked off with Wales Vs England.  We invited some people over, and ended up having 16 people squeezed into our living room!  I was most impressed by the fact that we had chairs for 13 of them!  The match didn't start until 9pm, German time, so we ended up having quite a late night.  The last stragglers left at about 2.30am!  It was a really fun night, and it was lovely that so many of our friends came over.

 Today, we are having a lazy day, clearing up after last night, doing the food shopping at the local market (below) and watching more rugby.  Tomorrow will probably be more of the same.  We have one more week of school before half term, when we are off to a quiet cottage in the middle of the Rhine valley, surrounded by interesting castles and villages.  I can't wait!

The Perfect Weekend

It's been a really good weekend, rounded off quite perfectly today with my discovery of an email from the Museum Management and Curatorship Journal saying that they are going to publish the article I have written for them!  The article is an adaptation of my Masters dissertation, on the repatriation of human remains from the British Museum and the Natural History Museum in London.  I finished my Masters degree in 2012, then spent a long time re-writing my dissertation for publication.  I submitted it in March 2014, and have had it back from the publishers twice for improvements.  I submitted it once again in December 2014, and have now had it confirmed that it will be published.  It's been a very long journey, and I am absolutely thrilled that it has finally come to an end with the perfect outcome!  I'm not sure exactly when it will be published, as there are various procedures that need to be followed, such as copyright contracts, etc.  Also, i'm not sure how far in advance papers are accepted before they are published, but I will let you all know when the journal is due out!

The week itself has been very busy with lots and lots of cover work!  There is lots of sickness going around the teachers at the moment.  My busiest day was Tuesday when I covered Year 6 Science in the morning, then Year 4 German, then Year 1 German, then Year 2 German!  I was terrified about Year 2, not being part of that department (We are Years 3-6).  I don't know any of the kids, and the obvious - not speaking the language I was meant to be teaching!  

I came out of the lesson feeling really quite good.  The kids were all well behaved!  I told them that I couldn't speak German so I wouldn't be able to help them, then proceeded to prove this by reading a few lines of their work in a really dodgy German accent, making them howl with laughter.  Their normal teacher came in to collect them for the next lesson, and said how quiet is was in there!  She had warned me before hand that they could be quite boisterous.  The teacher came up to me later saying that the kids had really enjoyed my lesson, and that I had tricked them into thinking that I spoke no German!!!  So not only was the lesson a success, but I convinced them that I could speak a language that I can't!  I think I should get some serious brownie points for that.  It cheered me up on an otherwise fairly rubbish day of cover work.

Yesterday, Matt and I had a great day out.  I had just decided that I am going to put myself forward for doing a PGCE next year at school, and we decided to have a day out to celebrate.  I have wanted to go the the Neanderthal Museum since we moved here!  I studied Neanderthals while doing my Archaeology degree, and have always had a bit of a soft spot for them, since they are what really fascinates me about Prehistory, and what got me really interested in Archaeology in the first place.  Near to Dusseldorf is the Neander Valley, where the first European Neanderthal skeletons were found.  There are not that many discoveries of Neanderthals across the world, so when they are found it is quite a big deal, and can often change how we view Prehistory entirely!  Close to the discovery site is the Neanderthal Museum, which is all about the discovery of the skeletons, and about what we know about Neanderthals in general in terms of religious beliefs, burial practices, diet, methods of hunting, living arrangements etc.  The museum is well laid out, and there are stations every so often that you can plug your headphones into to learn about a particular subject.  These were in English too which is always useful!

The museum was great, and it was interesting to find out what Archaeologists have learnt in the few years since I finished studying Neanderthals myself.

Just a few hundred metres from the museum is a trail that leads to the original cave site where the first European Neanderthals were found.  The valley isn't much of a gorge any more, it's fairly flat, so you have to use your imagination, but it was great to see a site that I have spent some time studying in a lecture hall many miles away, and several years ago!

It was a lovely day, and we rounded it up with dinner in Dusseldorf, and a few beers by the river... and a few Dunkin' Donuts for good measure!

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As promised, here are a few photos of us playing in the snow last weekend...

I love this tree, it's so beautiful!

Below is Matt's snow angel...