Children are welcome…

… as long as they can be seen.

That was the impression left by a visit to one of our favourite service stations on the way from England yesterday.  The sign on the door says “Kinder sind hier gern gesehen”, meaning “children are welcome”, but actually translated as something like “children are gladly seen”.

Kinder sind hier gern gesehen

"Kinder sind hier gern gesehen"

Anyway, we like this particular stop because they have good value family meals and it is at about the right place to have a break on the 6 hour journey from Calais to Frankfurt.  As usual, we stopped there yesterday and ordered our meal at the warm food counter.  We then let our daughter go to play in the childrens’ area which is located between the food section and the seating.  This was our mistake.

When we came to pay at the cash desk, we were charged the full price for our drinks because the cashier could not see our daughter from her viewpoint.  This all made very little sense, as she was still prepared to charge the food as a family meal, so accepting that we could have the deal on the food but not on the accompanying drinks on the same tray!

Strangely, my offer to go and get our daughter to “prove” to her that she really was with us made her change her mind and she duly removed one of the drinks from the bill.  Perhaps she didn’t want us to hold up the queue anymore?  (Sound familiar?)

Gründonnerstag

Gründonnerstag is the German name for Maundy Thursday.  It is the day before Karfreitag.

On this day, people go to Church to be freed of their sins in order to make a “clean” start for Easter, thus leading to one explanation of the name: the idea is that “green wood” is said to be fresh.

Another reason for the name may be that it is the end of the fasting season, and people used to eat mainly vegetables on this day.

It is a normal working day, although many people do take the day off to go away for a long weekend.

To hear a simple explanation and a short discussion in German, listen to the podcast:

(Press the “play” button to listen to the podcast)

Download a transcript

Download the MP3 file | Subscribe to the podcast

Aufruf zur Blutspende

Vor einigen Tagen erreichte uns eine tragische Nachricht aus den USA. Ein berühmter Podcaster, Brian Clark, ist in einem Verkehrsunfall schwer verunglückt und hat ca. 6 Liter Blut erhalten. Zur Zeit liegt er auf einer Intensivstation.

Die Webgemeinschaft in den USA hat daraufhin aufgerufen, entsprechend  dem Wunsch seiner Frau, Blut zu spenden.

Auch wir möchten diesen Appell weitergeben, denn auch in deutschen Krankenhäusern ist der Blutbedarf hoch. Vor allem wenn es jetzt wieder wärmer wird steigt der Bedarf erheblich an.  Bei den örtlichen DRK Bereitschaften erfahren Sie die Blutspendetermine.

Wie eine Blutspende abläuft erfahren Sie in meinem Beitrag vom letzten Jahr.

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