Last year, as you may recall, I picked up German citizenship. After just a little more paperwork, this resulted in a burgundy Europaische Union passport of my very own, which has duly sat in a desk drawer until – finally – a few weeks ago I actually had an excuse to use it on an overnight work trip to Berlin. Perfekt!
I must admit that I was a little nervous approaching the passport gates for EU citizens. I mean, I don’t believe Germans are particularly known for their practical jokes, but was this actually a real passport or simply an elaborate bureaucratic prank? Fortunately, it was real, and the gates opened with a swoosh of acceptance. On the other hand, at this moment I also realised that if you scan a German passport at a German machine in Germany then the on-screen text will (not unreasonably) switch to German. Similarly, if you present a German passport to a German receptionist at a German hotel in Germany, he will also switch to German. So at the very least, I really need to memorise some apologetic phrases about speaking English.
Berlin itself was short but delightful: a hearty Expedia party here, a tasty Airbnb breakfast there, and just a little bit of spare time to wander around ITB Berlin’s giant convention halls and compare the national tourism stalls from various countries. (The equivalent of the over-competitive Science Fair kid is surely Spain, which somehow bagged an entire room to itself!)
A few weeks later, Randi and I spent a morning at the German Embassy in London to kick-off the process of passing this European identity down to the next generation. “I should warn you that there is a bit of a backlog to process the birth certificate…” we were warned by the lovely woman at the birth registration desk after she had checked our documents, before learning that the estimated wait is three years. “But don’t worry, your son is already legally German!” she confirmed, before noting brightly that three years is already a big improvement on the four years it used to take. And, more importantly, none of this stops him getting a passport in the meantime. (And yes, we’d have to make an awful lot of family Christmas market trips before this became a cost-effective way of avoiding the €20 ETIAS fee, but still…)
Some general child updates:
- He has now graduated from SnuzPod to cot. This was a sad and traumatic moment (for me, not for him) and I have no idea why he insists on growing so quickly.
- He has also now graduated from carrycot to parent-facing buggy seat. Again, I felt very bonded with this piece of equipment, and now the era of the carrycot has just been abruptly terminated. But thanks to Jamie for coming round and giving both of these items a new home!
- All of the articles I read about the appropriate levels of screen-time for young children are so focused on TVs, phones and tablets that they never address the most addictive screen of all: the train board. He’ll always turn his head to seek this out!
- He continues to show zero interest in rolling or crawling, but is very happy to sit up straight. I’ve asked him just to pretend to crawl a bit in time for Catherine and AJ’s visit, purely to keep up appearances.
Our revolving-door childcare team over the last month has comprised Stu, then Beth & Stu together, and finally solo Beth, with a few days of bonus Aunty Tash too. Everyone has been wonderful, so thanks! These visits also coincided with both Stu and Beth’s birthdays, so we also got to compare-and-contrast Randi’s dual birthday cakes and evaluate nutella vs. peanut butter icing. (I say “we” but unfortunately I mean just the adults, sorry.) For Beth’s birthday we also spent an evening at Dishoom in Shoreditch, which is always a winner.
This month we also spent a lovely Sunday morning with Steven and Sadie and their little one, who is very close in age to ours, and so will be dangerously vulnerable to the “you must be friends!” argument in future when the parents just want to hang out. I also enjoyed some post-work drinks with Andy in Clerkenwell, watched the Wild London Attenborough special as recommended by Tash (which was great, although I do hope he’s still able to get travel insurance to go further afield) and started a new series of Jet Lag with Randi and Beth. This one is set in Taiwan, which is probably as close to scratching the “you should do a series in China!” itch as it’s possible to go.
Last Sunday, we also took both of our mothers out to a tapas lunch at El Molino in Penge to thank them for all of their grandparenting so far! Their grandson was also super-delighted to have both Bubbe and Granny G together at the same time, as our photos attest.
And finally… Tash, Katie and I also found a few hours for a session on Board Game Arena together! This was extremely fun, and we played all sorts of favourites, from Incan Gold and Can’t Stop to Cartographers, Ticket to Ride and Dobble. My only slight issue is that over the entire course of these varied games, I managed to win precisely none of them. Zero! So, a rematch will clearly be needed at some point.
