hTTi

An article was published in England (and online) today from Bad Muenstereifel's youngest budding sports journalist. I spend most of my time worrying about the academic difficulties with Kid 1, so I'm very happy (and proud) to have something more positive from Kid2. It is particularly pleasing becaus...

Great story, thanks. Entertaining and informative, albeit very few food recipes include descriptions like: "its a lot like trying to stuff your wiener into a used condom without the elasticity of latex".
Good luck on the quest for the perfect sausage.

Good headline in the paper: https://www.theguardian.com/society/2025/apr/29/drink-champagne-reduce-risk-sudden-cardiac-arrest-study-suggests I won't bother reading the whole article, as I've been disappointed by that sort of thing before. Instead, I'll trust the headline tells me all I need to know,...

I guess this is taking a bit of a tangent, but I'm always surprised when landlords agree to allow small dogs but not larger ones (I allow neither). So, big generalisation coming from a large dog owner (perhaps I should say that some of my friends..ok very few...are small dog owners) but in my experi...

It is unusual (i.e. daft) to make that offer after signing the agreement. However, it is not in itself odd, particularly if they have just sold a house. Assumedly, they have cash sitting in the bank doing little or nothing, so are taking a punt that it is beneficial to you to have 6 months' rent up ...

I accept it is safer to deregister first for a private sale, but you do NOT have to deregister the car yourself prior to selling. You just need to be sensible about it, and do the sale properly. You need a written contract, signed, dated (including precise time and KM stand) and with personalausweis...

I've found scalable capital pretty easy. It's a German site and it does a tax summary for my accountant.

They have just started a requirement for me to access it via an "app" on my phone rather than via my laptop, which I find a complete pain, but I guess the youth might even prefer it.

They could start by making contact with your local Familienberatungsstelle (local Kreis website will have a link), they would also give help and contacts for more specific therapy. The Familienberatungsstelle is good and free. As is suchtberatung for family members....it's been a tough year.

No, you really shouldn't just drive one without the licence being valid for that class any more. You need to contact the licence issuing authority. Unlike in the UK, here in Germany the CIe which they used to give away for free is only valid until you're 50, thereafter you need to get your eyes test...

Thanks for that link Emkay. I've checked with neighbours and they have also had 900% increases. However, there is a very interesting point from the link, in that my property falls into two of the land value areas shown on the link. The bottom section of my garden (very roughly an area about 1500-200...

What about some craftsman spending time, effort and no small amount of money making beautiful, original items from precious metals and stones, only to see the items stuck in a shop window under a sign offering, "Schmuck".

I am going to speak with a few neighbours to check they've had the same sort of thing, as it does seem excessive. All I can think of is that it seems the calculation date was at the end of 2022. House and land values have increased around here massively in the last 5-6 years, and the end of '22 saw ...

Just under 2k. I know that means it's still not exactly a huge sum, but it is an exceptional increase.
I guess it's the price for living in a cash strapped if beautiful area, here in the glorious (and increasingly expensive) Eifel.

We have just received ours. It has gone up by 900%. No, that is not a typo.

Sounds like you've had bad luck with the electrician, and he's being a bit of a d:ck - charging you for repairs to his own errors and leaving you with a disconnected doorbell. Broadly I agree with LeonG's approach though - getting lawyers involved at this stage is costly. I assume you have at least ...

This SNL sketch popped up on my youtube recommendations. Enjoy.

I'm conscious this might be turning things away from school choices in Germany, and more towards the difficulties I am currently having with Kid1, but several of you have already added important points/helpful thoughts, so I would like to address them. Apologies in advance if this is too off topic. ...

One of the (few) downsides of living in the Eifel is that there aren't tonnes of nearby schools. Sadly both the local Real and the (relatively) nearby Gesamtschule are full at present, so we'll only know if a change is possible in June, which is a pity. That said, I've spoken with Kid 1 about it, wh...

I have a call with the Gesamtschule admissions folk tomorrow. Whilst I hope that there would be the opportunity to go into the correct level for each subject individually, I suspect that the German system (one overall qualification, rather than individual subject qualifications as would be the case ...

Thanks again for your thoughts. One of my concerns is the point highlighted by Snowingagain - even if he changes school, at some point he is going to have to put some effort in, even if it is "only" a Realschule. Sadly Emkay, whilst he is still ok at some subjects, he has now dropped down ...