Germany or bust

I have, as you may or may not have noticed, been rather quiet of late. This is mainly because I have been up to my ears in rewrites on The Summer Season (which deserves a whole post of its own, frankly). I finished going through the proofs last Thursday, just in time for us to embark on an epic trip to Germany on Friday.

We haven't managed a trip to Germany with mil for four years. Two years ago, we had a big 85th birthday party for her, so lots of friends and family came to that, and then she was ill, so last year was a right off. Quite frankly, I'd have said we'd never do it again, because mil's now so infirm, it is an immense undertaking.

Except... in January we had the sad news that her only sister was dying, and Spouse and I just felt we should get her there. Our initial idea had been to leave the children here, and just go with her, thinking that we were going to be attending a funeral. But then, mil's sis being the incredibly strong character that she is, pulled round, and managed to get herself home. So... our trip turned into a last chance saloon visit. As it's the Easter hols, and no 1 was going away with the school (coincidentally on a choir trip to the Rhine), we all went. It was just as well no 1 was away, mind you, as we couldn't have fitted our luggage, the zimmer, and wheelchair in, had she been there... (Taking an elderly person away is nearly as bad as travelling with a toddler...)

To say that I have been stressed about this trip is putting it lightly. Particularly as we had an extra little excitement in the form of mil needing a blood transfusion the week before we went. I kid you not. It could only happen to us. The docs at the hospital were all very wary of us taking her away, as her white blood cell count is low which means she's prone to infections (as she has people in and out of her flat all day, plus visits from the children, and Spouse who probably bring loads of germs home, I don't think she's more likely to get ill when she's away, quite frankly). Luckily our very kind and thoughtful GP seemed to think it was no worse then driving her around Epsom, so off we went...

Friday morning, therefore found Spouse dropping no 1 at school for 5.45am while I got mil ready with no 2. We miraculously managed to get on our way by 7am, arriving at the Chunnel (NO WAY were we going to manage the ferry!), early enough to get on an earlier train. So far, so few problems.

The first thing that happened was that I had a panic attack. Damn. That was unexpected. It took me till we got to Holland to calm down, but I had managed to get over it by then, just in time for us to try and organise a loo break. Then it took us ages to find a reasonable loo with disabled facilities. I thought Europe would be better at that kind of thing then we are, but apparently not... On top of which, just as it was getting more and more crucial we find a loo, the sat nav decided to take use the wrong way, so we ended up driving twenty minutes in the wrong direction. Once we'd sorted ourselves out and found somewhere reasonable to stop,we had the fun of getting mil in and out of the car which was a nightmare, as she'd seized up on the journey... Oh joy.

Up until this point we'd been doing very well time wise. I had been merrily sending no 1 texts telling her which country we were in (she was a bit worried that we might all die in a car crash and she'd have to go and live with her uncle), but once we hit Germany and the Ruhr it all went pearshaped. The roads were heavy with traffic, and it took much longer to get to the outskirts of Hannover, then normal. Hannover is still an hour away from Wolfsburg where we were staying, but it took us two hours plus because they seemed to be digging up the road everywhere.

We finally arrived at the hotel around 7pm. I enquired at the desk about the disabled room I had allegedly ordered, and they told me mil could go on the ground floor. Spouse and I inspected the (lovely it has to be said) room, and decided the bed was too low for mil, so we thought it better if she came upstairs in the room next to us. Which was our first mistake...

Having got mil settled, we phoned various people that we needed to, while we waited for dinner. This caused much embarrassment to Spouse as mil is deaf so she was shouting down the phone that we would be meeting her friend Herbert at 6pm the next day. By the time she'd finished, the whole hotel knew, including four young lads in the corner who were having hysterics. Mil of course, is blindly oblivious to such embarrassment, as she has spent her whole life speaking loudly and inappropriately in public (sil had a mortifying experience in M&S with her once when she demanded tights with a large gusset at a thousand decibels), but by the time we went into dinner Spouse was trying to crawl away...

At bedtime, no 2 and I went to the lift to take mil to bed. The lift then decided to play silly buggers, and went up, and down, and up and down, and then... stopped. Five inches below the ground floor. I pressed the emergency button and got a service engineer, who seemed every cross to be disturbed, and no 2 ran off to get the man on reception, who had a heated exchange with the engineer, before asking if Spouse could come and help him. So Spouse arrives, gets in the lift and lifts the bottom of the wheelchair, while Mr Receptionist lifts the handles. As Spouse puts his head up, mil puts her head down and crack! Spouse manages to nut his 86 year old mother. It could only happen to us...

The lift clearly wasn't going to get mended straight away, so we changed our plans and decided to let mil sleep downstairs (much to the kids disgust as she had the better room). Luckily the lowness of the bed wasn't an issue. Though the lowness of the toilet was, and the lack of handholds in the walk in shower meant a shower wasn't an option. We did muddle our way through, and by the end we'd perfected a reasonable system, but really... You'd have thought a chain like Best Western would have at least ONE disabled room. As it was, they advertised one on the website and the staff told me apologetically they didn't have one. I don't suppose many English families bring over 86 year olds in wheelchairs, to there isn't much call for it, I guess...

Fortunately Friday was the most stressful moment of our stay - Spouse and I were practically hysterical in the bar, wondering what on earth we'd done - but by the next morning Mil had perked up, and was able to move around less stiffly. So we were able to take her to visit her sister, which was the point of going, as well as getting her over to see her cousins in the country near the town where she grew up. In the evening we managed to meet the friends who'd caused the lads so much hilarity the previous day. (Said lads turned out to be from Hamburg football team, St Pauli FC, who were playing Wolfsburg in the Bundesleague. To our amusement there were German paparazzi and fans waiting at the entrance as we left in the morning. Had we known, we would have taken lots of pictures...)

Sunday saw us with mil's sister again, plus a trip to her home town of Gardelegen where she met up with some other friends. We were also able to take her on a brief visit to the house where she grew up, and back in Wolfsburg, we took her for a spin round the castle, where her mother grew up. The children were amused to hear that as a child Omi, was only allowed to play with the children of the Count, as the village children were deemed too common!

It was an exhausting trip, possibly one of the hardest we've done, but a real eye opener to see how well Mil rose to the occasion. She is so positive and has such a great ability to put difficulties behind her, it meant that hard as it was, it was a lot easier then I'd imagined. And this is probably the last time she's going to see her sister, and we never thought we'd get her there. Sometimes, you have to do the thing that has to be done, however difficult...