I was up WAAAAYYYY too early this morning (around 3:30 am); after I realized that there had just been a big storm in Lincoln with power outages for the kids and a bit more leakage in our apartment (thankfully, Kai was able to check on that after work), I just couldn’t go back to sleep! So I actually got out of bed a bit before 6 am when I heard my mom stirring (she is an early riser these days, although she wasn’t when I was a kid!) and we had tea together after we had both showered, and Mark joined us a little while later. A bit extra mom time is always good!
Then Mark and I took off on a long-ish walk (6 miles total) — we wanted to visit the lake in the neighborhood of my mom’s former home, where we’ve walked many times (Rubbenbruchsee). It’s lovely that there is not only this lake (brought into existence by an old quarry, since the groundwater level here is always very high, right up to the surface) but a small forest with mature trees and lots of hiking and biking paths crisscrossing it on the way, all close to the center of Osnabrück. Lots of green space! The lake was very much the same, but closer to our return route around an ever-expanding hospital, we could tell that some of the areas are much more overgrown. It’s astonishing how much vegetation can change things, and the changing attitude of Germans to wildflowers and blooming grasses these days makes a big difference. A lot does not get mown or cut back to preserve the pollinators, and that’s a joy to see. (Although a very wet summer also made everything grow like crazy!)
We then went by my mom’s former house and the neighbor’s house, where Kati and Kai and I lived for a year in 2009-2010. Both houses have by now changed owners and have been remodeled extensively. But while the new owner of my mom’s house remodeled the back and the interior of the home in such a way that the street-facing side looks almost exactly like before, the other house and yard looks quite different! While no longer a cosy little overgrown relic of the 50s (we lived there with all the 1940s and 1950s furniture that Imke’s neighbor’s daughter had left in place), it now lets in so much more light, it also has a big deck instead of a little terrace. The kids would be astounded; but my mom is sorry they took out all the old roses that grew against the house, so I know she’s glad her front yard has not been altered quite so much!
On the way home, we stopped at a little corner café for a cinnamon roll and a piece of cherry coffee cake (and I had coffee, too!), and when we got home, I took a bit of a nap to make up for my very early morning. My mom returned from her yoga class around 12:30 and I made us some of yesterday’s leftovers as quesadillas with a little salad. Imke and I took a little round through the botanical garden, trying to stay on shady paths since it had gotten toasty. She also showed me where the cyclamen (“Alpenveilchen”) bloom every spring before anything else comes out. I’ve never seen them because I only ever come to the gardens in the summer months! When we got back, we had coffee and cake yet again (apple and plum, both good but not outstanding) and then Mark replaced my mom’s complicated LED ceiling light bulbs, which we had to order from Amazon since the local hardware store could not, while I embarked on a bit of a dusting adventure (doorframes, spider webs on the ceiling, corners behind the coatrack, and other hard-to-reach places. At the end, I said “Now we’re ready for the mother-in-law” and my mom shot back, “Thank goodness those times are long gone” and then giggled for at least 15 minutes with pure delight at BEING the only mother-in-law in question. She was also delighted to have had all her non-functioning lightbulbs replaced because she would have otherwise had to call the electrician to do it.
In the spirit of relaxing a bit more (and because it got quite cloudy and threatened to rain a bit), we just hung out at home after our housekeeping extravaganza. I worked on my doodling skills, but when I fixed us some open-faced rolls for dinner, Mark stole my doodling utensils for some construction work:
We watched the German news with Imke (I pointed out some of the English words in general German use to Mark along the way), but went to bed early and started reading a book together that Andrea and Peter had recommended. A nice, laid-back day.