John Barrowman as special guest in our podcast

First a BIG thank you to all the John Barrowman fans out there. You are fabulous and gave my little blog a new visitor record! 158 views yesterday! Whooohoooh!

And as a little present for you all…(whisper)….come closer….

I’ve got a 10 minute Sci-Five special with our beloved JB! Sadly they had to lock me away (AGAIN) but hey…I sneaked into the TARDIS and had a little trip instead.

So for you all please follow this little LINK to our very own podcast and listen to JB talking about Hollow Earth and the well known Captain Jack Harkness.

ENJOY 🙂

Hollow Earth recording and editing

As some of you might already know from twitter, we recorded Hollow Earth, the novel from John and Carole E. Barrowman.

I was in the studio only for one day since I had to continue editing the following day.  I just couldn’t miss the chance to meet the fabulous John Barrowman in person! And gosh, he is a nice person! He was totally relaxed, funny, silly and very charming. All in all just a normal person like you and me.

The recording was great fun. John is a really good reader and brings the story and characters to life in his very own style. I especially enjoyed his wonderful Scottish accent which he gave to some of the characters. It is just superb!

The story all in all is well written and I must admit that after each chapter I finished editing, I couldn’t wait to continue with the next one. I soon fell in love with the characters, the whole idea of the story and was nicely surprised by how dark the story gets for a young adults book.

So even if you are just a Torchwood or John Barrowman fan (and especially if you don’t even know either) you should get this book and enjoy a few hours of excellent entertainment.

But the best and most amusing thing for me was to discover all the little gems John had hidden for me over the next two day recording while I wasn’t there. Oh the joy and laughter…especially the FaD monster….no…I won’t tell you what that is…that shall for ever stay JB’s and my little secret. (grins) 😉

All in all this project was a great experience and I have to admit that this is properly the first book where I wished, after finishing the last chapter, that it would have had double the length.

So PLEASE…PLEEEAAASE John and our friends from AudioGo…let us do the follow up books!!!

We try to learn Japanese with Rosetta Stone

Konba wa or good evening everyone,

Rosetta Stone Japanese arrived a couple of days ago and today I took a few lessons. It is great fun I must say…BUT…it gets very quickly, VERY difficult! Especially when it comes down to the Japanese letters I get quickly lost. My advice to everyone who uses Rosetta Stone, is to take as many notes while you go as you can. It certainly makes it a lot easier to look things up and remember things.

I also downloaded the Mobile Companion and will try it over the next couple of days to see how that works. I’m not sure yet if I can learn Japanese completely with that program but I think it will give you a pretty good idea of how the language works and helps you to at least have basic conversations (hopefully).

And there is still the option to go and visit a Japanese course somewhere to get the bits I didn’t quite get.

If any of you ever learned with Rosetta Stone feel free to tell me your experience. I would love to hear how easy or difficult you found it. 🙂

Until next time

Tanja

The trouble with the Fluffies and the joy of a superb Online Store

Another week another worry.

After all the worries we had about our eternal kitten Manny, it was now Schnecke again, who needed to get raced to the Vet yesterday morning. After Manny had his second blockage, Schnecke had his second kind of poising symptoms like the last time.

So I called the Vet as soon as they opened and was in the car only a couple of minutes later. Again he had to stay in to pump fluids, antibiotics and painkiller into him.
In the afternoon,  the Vet called and he couldn’t tell me what caused all the symptoms. the blood-test didn’t gave them any clue  but at least we know that it isn’t any of the nasty stuff cats can get like AIDS.

What I have to do know with him is make sure that he looses weight with, guess what, even more special food. Sigh. Let’s just hope his kidneys or pancreas  don’t fail…which would be a horrible.

Poor Schnecke is now snuggled up under my duvet and will properly stay there for the next 2-3 hours. When he comes out, I’ll give him a little bit of his new food, which he ate at the Vet and Baghi will also get his beloved Kitekat gravy.

Thanks to MonsterPetSupplies (who kindly added kitekat in just a few days to their store) I finally have some food which Baghi loves. So no more order from Germany anymore. They are a fabulous online store, always fun to twitter with  and you really should check them out if you have any pets at home.

Right, back to work now to earn some money for all the Vet bills we had over the last half year.

Take care till next time

🙂

Saturday morning

Beautiful morning here in Croydon. Blue sky, sunshine and -3.6° Clesius out there. Would be perfect for a nice, long walk through a forest.

The cats enjoy the sunshine either outside or (like Baghi & Schnecke) on the window sill with heating warming them up from underneath as well.

Also got two new bird feeder which our little, fluffy friends seem to like. One of them is a Squirrel safe peanut feeder and all the tits seem to enjoy to have one safe feeding opportunity. 🙂

I also took our eternal kitten Manny to the Vet yesterday (because he was back from holiday…the Vet not our cat) and the good news is that there aren’t any crystals left. Good news! We now have to continue his diet (good that I just bought 9 kilos of special food from Hills and Royal Canin for him) for at least 6 weeks and can change the food to something less expensive.

Now time to wake up…if I can ever open my eyes and get rid of the lovely headache.

Have a great weekend everyone.

2011 in review

The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2011 annual report for this blog.

Here’s an excerpt:

A San Francisco cable car holds 60 people. This blog was viewed about 1,400 times in 2011. If it were a cable car, it would take about 23 trips to carry that many people.

Click here to see the complete report.

Where is home?

I came back here to Germany last Tuesday evening and it feels so good to see the huge forests over here. On my first day here my mum and I drove through the town where I lived for 9 years and we stoped at the garage so I could pop into their workshop for a chat with my boys. It was great that they all still remembered me and I got big hugs from all of them. After 10 minutes or so we then went up to my favourite view point where my mum to show her the beautiful view.

And after a nice shopping tour where we got all the delicious thing I don’t have in the UK and spent the evening with dining. 🙂

On Saturday came one of my best friends for a short visit and we had a long chat, talked about my old employer and he showed me some nice pictures from his new wooden log hutt he’s working on. It was so good to see him again and I can’t wait to get the next letter from him.

But to be honest…I am a little bit home sick and can’t wait to be back home with Neil and the fluffies. Although I miss my forest and friends from over here I think that my new home now is the UK. Shocking…I know. Even if I don’t really have many (or no real friends too be honest) over there, I call it my home because that is where my partner and my fluffies are!

So one more night (again only with a few hours sleep before the pain kicks in) and then I’ll be back on he plane and on my way back home.

Hmm…that smell…guess it is almost dinner time…so see you in a few hours back on the island. 😉

Tanja

Where has the year gone to?

Hiya everyone,

It is December and it is almost x-mas again. Time to look back and review a few things.

It certainly was a very tough year for me, full of frustration, anger and disappointment…but also with loads of fun, surprises and a very important realisation.

I think the first, big and important thing was to come off the books of the bl***y JobCenter plus (I still wonder for what that plus stands for…certainly not for customer service and help) and launch Ladbroke Audio together with Neil. It means so much for me to finally earn my own money and be able to buy stuff for myself, the cats or Neil without asking him for money all the time.

Just to be able to drive to the Garden Center and by a bird feed table made me so stupidly happy that I kept watching it all day long through the window to see the birds…well..squirrels to be honest….get their food.
I know that might sound silly….but it really makes me happy to know that I can help that little wildlife we have here in Croydon (yes, even the cheeky squirrels). That was also the reason to join the Surrey Wildlife Trust for a fiver per month, to help them do even more for the wildlife here in the UK.
Next year I will try to do a bit more for the bees and other insects in our garden, so that it will be our very own little wildlife paradise.

I think the next big thing for me was a hug from the almighty and wonderful Tom Baker. I mean…come on….he IS the fourth Doctor! Thanks to the help of Michael from AudioGo (because I was too shy to start a conversation with him) I got into a lovely chat with Tom and even got a hug. (melt) Even if I didn’t grew up with him in Doctor Who…he will always be my favourite Doctor!
That day I gave him a little letter in which I wrote how much he changed my life and how much I love him as the Doctor…and a few weeks later I even got a replay!!! (geeky happyness)

 

 

And inspired by him I started to knit my very own Doctor Who scarf. And after weeks and aching fingers it is finally finished and I really, really love it!

 

The next scarf I have to knit will be for Neil…and I think there are already 4 more people who want one as well. Guess that means I have to learn how to knit faster. 😉

This year was also the year of shocking cat events. First Schnecke got a deep wound on his tail and we had to go to the emergency service around 11 PM. Second (again) Schnecke got poisoned and had to stay 2 days at the VET to be monitored. Luckily he survived and is a happy, fluffy bunny again.
We also got two young kitten and we weren’t sure if we wanted to keep them or find a new home for them. But let’s be honest….how can you give something that cute away after we had coddled them up?

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Anyway, I’m going to fly back to Germany for a couple of days to celebrate my mum.s birthday and have a great time with her. Can’t wait to see her again and have a nice long walk in my old forest again.

Hope you are all having a good time and don’t get too much stressed with all the x-mas shopping duties.

Talk to you soon.

Tanja

About a letter from a dear friend and about friendship

Today I’ve got a letter from one of my best friends in Germany. We worked for 13 years together in a company and had a very good friendship outside the work place as well.

Walter was always there for me and was more of a dad then my real dad ever was!

It is so wonderful to get a handwritten letter from someone that is so important for you and who lives now so far away. That really made my day because I know that there is still someone who hasn’t forgotten me.
Of course I’ve already handwritten him a reply and hope that he can read my scribbly handwriting. Fingers crossed that I’ll see him in two weeks when I fly back to Germany to celebrate my mum’s birthday and have some time in my old forest.

Shame that I still struggle to make real friends over here in the UK…
Still the best friends I have here are friends from twitter and I know only 2 of them in real life. Weird isn’t it?

But I am not alone with this ‘problem’ and because of that Neil came up with the idea of the Tweet-Up Club to give everyone the chance to finally meet the people behind the @ in real life.  Sadly the response isn’t the best yet but I hope that will change after x-mas!

That reminds me that it is almost time to write my x-mas /Yule cards for my online friends around the world.  So if you want to get one as well, get in touch.

Tanja

Fight for your life!

This week was certainly THE most difficult week I had so far here in the UK. Why you may ask, well let me try to explain what was going on in my crazy mind.

I don’t really know where to start so you have to bare with my mad writing in this post.

This week I decided to go back to Germany. I’ve got a job offer a tool maker plus assisting production manager and I could have started basicly the same day. So I told Neil that I was thinking of taking it to earn my own money and be more independent again. But that also meant that I had to leave him for that.

Of course you are right that this wouldn’t happen if everything was fluffy and happy. But let’s be honest, we all have our little probs and weird things about us and I did the same bloody error like I always did in my life: go the easiest way and walk away.
I did that in my longest relationship I ever had with a person…I just gave up and turned away without fighting for it.

So let’s try to cut it short without getting into too much detail…after a very emotional day, a lot of talking, I decided that this time I won’t run away from the problem, THIS time I would face it! We both did and I feel so relieved that we finally did talked everything through.
I mean I gave up all my life back in Germany to come over here for the man I love. We even have now our own business together and I really enjoy the editing work and much more, work from home! So why should I give all that up? Of course I miss my forests, my mum and my friends but with the new business it will also allows me to drive/fly back home instead of just once a year.

And now, after everything is sorted and I feel so relieved and calm again I will stay here in this weird British Island and will start to conquer the Universe from here .

So let’s fight for your life and your happiness because it is YOUR life and BE happy.

Tanja 🙂