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lupestripeToday is the first day that the office has felt warm, which doesn't auger well considering it's only the middle of April. I really love summer but the houses here get unbearably hot when temperatures are high. At 23C, today was the warmest day of the year so far, and normally we can ride it out until we go back to the UK for our usual May visit. Last night was the first time I needed to open the window but I am loathed to do it as the creepy crawlies come in. I guess we could look at investing in another air conditioning unit, but it seems such a waste when we may be moving back to the UK at any time. But then, with nothing fixed, why continue to suffer.
The CDU/CSU and SPD finalised their coalition agreement on Wednesday, meaning that a new government should be formed shortly. Dual citizenship is not mentioned at all, neither is anything that will directly affect us. However, there is one onerous sentence that talks about reforming immigration law and there has been talk of making the requirements more strict. One idea that has been floated is moving the language requirement from B1 to C1, which would definitely rule me out. B1 is attainable for me, but C1 certainly wouldn't be. I guess, as always seems to be the case right now, there will be more uncertainty but with the AfD now overtaking the CDU into first place in some polls, I fear things will only become tougher as the months progress.
Monday saw me visit the dentist again to get the results of my x-rays which were taken two weeks prior. It was confirmed I have the onset of minor periodontitis and that it does require treatment. It's on my molars and is nothing to worry about, but does need to be done. Fortunately, my insurance has already confirmed they will pay for it and the procedure will take place in late June. It was initially going to be early June, but I wanted to avoid it immediately after ConFuzzled and during my dad's 70th birthday celebrations. As it involves an injection and local anesthetic, I am already bricking it a little bit, but it is routine so I suppose I'll have to ride it out. I've never done anything like this before though, so I may be a bundle of nerves closer the time. I also need to consider whether I get laser treatment to kill any potential bacteria, at additional cost, or whether I use antibiotics instead. I'm going to be sent literature concerning this in the post.
I had a job interview on Tuesday, which I initially thought was going to be for a freelance position but in the end was more a full-time role. I was personally recommended by my former boss, even though it's an industry and position I haven't really done. Influencer marketing is not the biggest interest of mine, but it is better than my current sector, although I am unsure whether I have the skills required for this position. I have done project management and delivery roles, which was why I was referred, but the task they have sent me to do ahead of my second interview looks a little out of my wheelhouse. Furthermore, with other potential freelance work in the pipeline, I may stick with where I am right now. The money would be better though, if they accept my demands (that's yet to be seen), but my gut feeling is probably to step away.
This weekend has largely been quiet. We had intended to go Qualgeist this weekend, but on discovering the event we were targeting was on Saturday rather than Friday, it somewhat lost its appeal. We are going to have to go more often but I am caught in the conundrum of wanting to do bondage, but being too lazy to bother. I wish Wolfie was more keen too, but I get the impression he can take it or leave it too. The main reason we were going to go was that random person got in contact with me on Fetlife a few weeks back asking about the German fetish scene as he's visiting Berlin for a few days. He mentioned he'd probably go to this event, which at least meant we would know somebody, albeit obliquely. In the end, Wolfie and I were both too tired and lazy to be bothered. We'll try and go on a random Tuesday, I think, in the next few weeks.
Today was going to be the better weather day, but the weather foreskin lied and yesterday was sunnier, albeit cooler. I did a lot of story editing last week, while I have also been enjoying Pascal Farfal's Go Fourth weekly writing group. I've found this really encouraging and it helped me submit an anthology story last week and do the bulk of editing on a very tricky story yesterday. Indeed, I ended up editing for seven hours on Saturday prior to last night's Go Fourth meeting. As there are many Americans in the group too, we have been having to shift our timings to ensure as many of us can get to the meetings as possible. Normally, these calls have been 20-30 minutes, but last night's was over an hour. This was partly due to technical issues, but a lot of it was due to us wanging on about the Denny's in Swansea and planning a furry visit to Fargo, North Dakota. I fear I got a little too excited and took over the chat sometimes, but I always try and let others speak. Due to technical gremlins, I had to conduct the first 15 minutes of the call as we were struggling to hear Pascal.
The only other thing of note I did yesterday was try and new coffee shop called Cinnabun's which has opened in a unit that I was considering opening a craft beer bar in. I bought the plain cinnamon bun to see what they were like, and while the texture was wonderfully fluffy, it really needed more flavour. At €3.60, this is 60 cents cheaper than all the other variants, which have different types of icing on top so those are to try next.
With that done, I wanted to go out today, but wanted it to be cheap as we are between weekend trips (Vienna last week, Leipzig next week). In the end, we went to the Military Museum at Gatow. We went there this time last year and only ended up seeing half of it. It had been on our list of things to do for a while and as it is free entry, we thought it was worth visiting. We managed to finish it off with an hour to spare, checking out the radar equipment, trucks and a handful of planes on the right side of the runway. We also checked out the 'You Can't Miss Gatow' exhibit in the roof of Hanger 3. This detailed the history of the site, all the way from the First World War to the present day. Charting the history of the complex was interesting, as was discovering how it contributed to the Nazi war effort, the Berlin Airlift, the British mission in Berlin post-war and Cold War espionage. In the main hanger, some of the exhibits at moved around slightly, but most of them were what we had seen already. The only other new bit was a temporary exhibition of photographs taken by West and East German aid crews who were distributing aid to famine-hit Ethiopia in the mid-1980s. There were some harrowing pictures here, along with some technical and logistic ones too. There were photos of stunning scenery as well as a few that seemed to tap into African stereotypes which looked a little uncomfortable to modern eyes.
We spent about three hours here, after which we decided to grab some food in Spandau. The initial plan had been to go to BRLO and sit in the beer garden, but the sun disappeared under dense clouds from 4pm to 6pm and we thought it wasn't quite worth the hour and a half journey from the airfield. Annoyingly, as we were eating our delicious steak and baked potato, the sun came out, making us feel we should have perhaps tried BRLO after all. Still, there will be other times and by the time we would have gotten there, we would have only had about an hour of daylight left. We hadn't been to Salt & Pepper for a while and we are glad we did - the food there is so good, and good value for the quality too. We were certainly satisfied upon our return home, even if it did make me feel somewhat sluggish and lethargic for the rest of the day.
It's amazing how two-day weekends never seem to be long enough. With Easter next week, this working week is only four days' long, but even then the week feels never-ending. I really hope we can switch to four-day working weeks more in future as the greater possibility to see and do things over a three-day weekend is highly attractive. Still, we are now entering the time of the year where there are holidays aplenty - Easter plus three days off in May alone - so I guess I can't complain. Plus, I do feel more optimistic now the weather is turning, despite the general bin fire that the world is right now. Hopefully I can keep this up in the coming days and weeks.
The CDU/CSU and SPD finalised their coalition agreement on Wednesday, meaning that a new government should be formed shortly. Dual citizenship is not mentioned at all, neither is anything that will directly affect us. However, there is one onerous sentence that talks about reforming immigration law and there has been talk of making the requirements more strict. One idea that has been floated is moving the language requirement from B1 to C1, which would definitely rule me out. B1 is attainable for me, but C1 certainly wouldn't be. I guess, as always seems to be the case right now, there will be more uncertainty but with the AfD now overtaking the CDU into first place in some polls, I fear things will only become tougher as the months progress.
Monday saw me visit the dentist again to get the results of my x-rays which were taken two weeks prior. It was confirmed I have the onset of minor periodontitis and that it does require treatment. It's on my molars and is nothing to worry about, but does need to be done. Fortunately, my insurance has already confirmed they will pay for it and the procedure will take place in late June. It was initially going to be early June, but I wanted to avoid it immediately after ConFuzzled and during my dad's 70th birthday celebrations. As it involves an injection and local anesthetic, I am already bricking it a little bit, but it is routine so I suppose I'll have to ride it out. I've never done anything like this before though, so I may be a bundle of nerves closer the time. I also need to consider whether I get laser treatment to kill any potential bacteria, at additional cost, or whether I use antibiotics instead. I'm going to be sent literature concerning this in the post.
I had a job interview on Tuesday, which I initially thought was going to be for a freelance position but in the end was more a full-time role. I was personally recommended by my former boss, even though it's an industry and position I haven't really done. Influencer marketing is not the biggest interest of mine, but it is better than my current sector, although I am unsure whether I have the skills required for this position. I have done project management and delivery roles, which was why I was referred, but the task they have sent me to do ahead of my second interview looks a little out of my wheelhouse. Furthermore, with other potential freelance work in the pipeline, I may stick with where I am right now. The money would be better though, if they accept my demands (that's yet to be seen), but my gut feeling is probably to step away.
This weekend has largely been quiet. We had intended to go Qualgeist this weekend, but on discovering the event we were targeting was on Saturday rather than Friday, it somewhat lost its appeal. We are going to have to go more often but I am caught in the conundrum of wanting to do bondage, but being too lazy to bother. I wish Wolfie was more keen too, but I get the impression he can take it or leave it too. The main reason we were going to go was that random person got in contact with me on Fetlife a few weeks back asking about the German fetish scene as he's visiting Berlin for a few days. He mentioned he'd probably go to this event, which at least meant we would know somebody, albeit obliquely. In the end, Wolfie and I were both too tired and lazy to be bothered. We'll try and go on a random Tuesday, I think, in the next few weeks.
Today was going to be the better weather day, but the weather foreskin lied and yesterday was sunnier, albeit cooler. I did a lot of story editing last week, while I have also been enjoying Pascal Farfal's Go Fourth weekly writing group. I've found this really encouraging and it helped me submit an anthology story last week and do the bulk of editing on a very tricky story yesterday. Indeed, I ended up editing for seven hours on Saturday prior to last night's Go Fourth meeting. As there are many Americans in the group too, we have been having to shift our timings to ensure as many of us can get to the meetings as possible. Normally, these calls have been 20-30 minutes, but last night's was over an hour. This was partly due to technical issues, but a lot of it was due to us wanging on about the Denny's in Swansea and planning a furry visit to Fargo, North Dakota. I fear I got a little too excited and took over the chat sometimes, but I always try and let others speak. Due to technical gremlins, I had to conduct the first 15 minutes of the call as we were struggling to hear Pascal.
The only other thing of note I did yesterday was try and new coffee shop called Cinnabun's which has opened in a unit that I was considering opening a craft beer bar in. I bought the plain cinnamon bun to see what they were like, and while the texture was wonderfully fluffy, it really needed more flavour. At €3.60, this is 60 cents cheaper than all the other variants, which have different types of icing on top so those are to try next.
With that done, I wanted to go out today, but wanted it to be cheap as we are between weekend trips (Vienna last week, Leipzig next week). In the end, we went to the Military Museum at Gatow. We went there this time last year and only ended up seeing half of it. It had been on our list of things to do for a while and as it is free entry, we thought it was worth visiting. We managed to finish it off with an hour to spare, checking out the radar equipment, trucks and a handful of planes on the right side of the runway. We also checked out the 'You Can't Miss Gatow' exhibit in the roof of Hanger 3. This detailed the history of the site, all the way from the First World War to the present day. Charting the history of the complex was interesting, as was discovering how it contributed to the Nazi war effort, the Berlin Airlift, the British mission in Berlin post-war and Cold War espionage. In the main hanger, some of the exhibits at moved around slightly, but most of them were what we had seen already. The only other new bit was a temporary exhibition of photographs taken by West and East German aid crews who were distributing aid to famine-hit Ethiopia in the mid-1980s. There were some harrowing pictures here, along with some technical and logistic ones too. There were photos of stunning scenery as well as a few that seemed to tap into African stereotypes which looked a little uncomfortable to modern eyes.
We spent about three hours here, after which we decided to grab some food in Spandau. The initial plan had been to go to BRLO and sit in the beer garden, but the sun disappeared under dense clouds from 4pm to 6pm and we thought it wasn't quite worth the hour and a half journey from the airfield. Annoyingly, as we were eating our delicious steak and baked potato, the sun came out, making us feel we should have perhaps tried BRLO after all. Still, there will be other times and by the time we would have gotten there, we would have only had about an hour of daylight left. We hadn't been to Salt & Pepper for a while and we are glad we did - the food there is so good, and good value for the quality too. We were certainly satisfied upon our return home, even if it did make me feel somewhat sluggish and lethargic for the rest of the day.
It's amazing how two-day weekends never seem to be long enough. With Easter next week, this working week is only four days' long, but even then the week feels never-ending. I really hope we can switch to four-day working weeks more in future as the greater possibility to see and do things over a three-day weekend is highly attractive. Still, we are now entering the time of the year where there are holidays aplenty - Easter plus three days off in May alone - so I guess I can't complain. Plus, I do feel more optimistic now the weather is turning, despite the general bin fire that the world is right now. Hopefully I can keep this up in the coming days and weeks.
