Life + Times of Fenton et al.

Growing up in Brisbane I didn’t understand a lot of things. I didn’t understand why Christmas decorations and some traditions centred on snow and winter. Oh I accepted it — most children do when it comes with perverse amounts of sugar and receiving free toys — but I never really understood it. Similarly, I never understood what the whole fuss about winter was. The longing you would hear from our northern hemisphere neighbours about when warmer weather would arrive, the excitement of spring and all the things they were going to do in the summer. Sure winter was a couple of inconvenient weeks in the middle of the year, but I honestly didn’t get the big deal.

Then we moved to Canberra. Turns out some places can measure four distinct seasons by the changes around them and not just by checking the calendar month. The colours in autumn were gorgeous instead of a couple of trees that looked like they had gone off a bit. And, after living through six and a half Canberran winters, I finally understood what the longing for the warmer weather meant.

But not until the last few days have I ever seen such an abrupt arrival to spring. Last week was snow and temperatures hovering around zero (or further below!) and this week, wow! Small birds flittering everywhere with some kind of happy chirping and chittering going on. The sun is shining, the grass seems greener and the air is warm. I mean I haven’t actually seen Bambi gently grazing in the forest yet, but I FULLY EXPECT TO any day now. I know that the last weeks have had an almost unprecedented late winter cold snap but, seriously, the warmer weather (and the attendant Disney atmosphere) has come on faster than you could say “Frühling”. Well faster than I could say it anyway.

We received a fax the other day from the German moving company who will be taking our household goods from the port in Hamburg (where the ship arrives about the 2nd of April) to the house in Jülich. A standard sort of letter asking for documents that will be required for our things to clear customs. Documents such as a copy of my passport, signed declaration that we aren’t bringing in anything illegal etc. Of course they also require a copy of my German residence permit. Can’t be sending stuff to people who aren’t supposed to be there right?

The problem being that, officially, we aren’t here yet. Even though my work and the house we are living in is in Germany, I am employed by a Dutch organisation, F.O.M. (which in English stands for Fundamental Research on Matter. More on them here and about the division I am employed in here). So before we can be German we have to be Dutch. Technically, it is only me who has to be Dutch then German. Gaynor and the children are all EU citizens (they entered Amsterdam on their British (EU) passports) by virtue of Gaynor’s English birth. So they are pretty much free to wander as they please but if they intend to reside somewhere they have to show valid health insurance and income support.

So I am almost Dutch now. That is, I’m waiting for my Dutch residence permit to be finalised. Of course, applying for that wasn’t straight forward either. I had an appointment with the immigration authorities at the local town hall, a week after we arrived, only to find out my birth and marriage certificates weren’t acceptable. Turns out my marriage certificate (which had been accepted by a number of Australian bodies previously) wasn’t more than a commemorative one anyway! Naturally, I’d been warned to this fact by Gaynor some years earlier but it seems that piece of information had been filed in my mind with “Things I May Need to Know One Day”, right next to “Things to Recall If I’m Ever on a Quiz Show”. For the documents to be legally recognised they need to have an Apostille afixed to them. This is an extra stamp ($60 per document) which essentially authorises the document as legit (it is issued by DFAT) and makes it recognisable under a 1969 Hague Convention to which Australia became a party in 1991. I can hear that last filing drawer opening as I type …

Anyway, so the procedure now is to get my Dutch residence permit approved (within two months), then to go with the family to the German embassy in Amsterdam to get official stamps in our passports to say we can go and live (and I, work) in Germany. Then, we go to the local town hall here and register with the immigration police. This then gives us a German residence permit. Exhales slowly. Which brings us back to our stuff arriving in a few weeks in Hamburg. The best we can hope for is a fluke of bureaucracy where our German residence permit are finalised by then. More than likely though, we’ll need to pay for storage of our things until the rest of the paperwork has lined up.

Not that this has been a rant (well not exactly), but this is the price of staying together as a family, the way we chose to do it. Oh, as a happy side benefit of obtaining our German residence we’ll be able to register a car.

The first weekend we were here was Karneval, one of the bigger festivals in this part of the world. They had parades in different cities on different days, so you could go on a parade-crawl if you wanted, though not many seemed to do this. There was even a parade which came through our small village (Selgersdorf, about 5km out of Jülich) on Monday (which was a holiday). A lot of people tend to get dressed up as if they were going to a fancy-dress party. Then you line the streets — almost one deep in the case our of village — and wait to enjoy the parade as it passes by. The parade throws out plenty of lollies and treats (including small toys) and so it very popular with the local children, who scramble around frenetically collect all and sundry. The neighbours had already advised the children to take large bags with which to collect the bounty. Needless to say, this was a good way for the children to help feel welcomed to their new home! In fact, for the couple of days we were here, the children were handed sweets by almost everyone we met, including a public servant at the local city utilities office. Perhaps they decided a place where they treat children in such a way isn’t all that bad.

The day after the lolly-throwing parade we witnessed another tradition that goes along with Karneval. A number of townsfolk dressed up in, I suppose, traditional outfits which consisted of a fez (truncated conical hat with a tassel) and a matching brightly coloured silken shirt (bit like a jockey’s colours). They go around the village carrying a circular sheet and an effigy and stop at pre-arranged locations. Oh they also have a small band as part of the entourage. Several of the people carry stick brooms, just like you would expect a stereotypical witch would have. So anyway, the band plays some cheery type music as they march around the streets stopping, eventually (actually, its sooner rather than later) at the locations they have already arranged. And when they stop, the following ritual happens.

A head broom carrier says something official for a minute or so and then the non-broom carriers who are holding the circular sheet with the effigy on it count to three and then launch the straw man as high as their co-operation, strength and the laws of physics allow. The other broom holders stand around the outside of the launching circle with their brooms up (sweeping end high) and help guide the effigy back to the sheet if he happens to become a bit wayward. Of course, as he’s launched the crowd gives a cheer and after he’s landed the band gives a quick ba-bom. They repeat the official spiel and launching another two times after which they break up with some satisfaction and cheeriness and have something to drink. The adults, of course, consume some alcohol (we’d seen both beer and probably schnapps going around) and everyone stands around chatting in a congratulatory and happy manner.

After they have consumed a small sufficiency, they gather up their things, the band strikes up again and they march onto their next location, which for the two of these that I witnessed — one in our village and one in Jülich itself — was another 20-50 meters further on. Don’t need to overexert yourself I guess.

For our village run, they stopped between our house and the next, though this was due to our neighbours being long-time residents of the village. They had a few children and grandchildren involved in the parade and they brought out some of the alcohol for consumption. Our neighbour, Herr Nieveller(sp?), was most surprised to find I didn’t drink. Also, they had two sheets and effigies, one for the adults and a ‘competing’ one for older children with some good natured rivalry going on between the two. We were invited to the church yard later that evening for the burning of the effigies and some fireworks. The whole tradition is designed to sweep out (with the brooms) the winter spirits (represented by the straw man) and welcome in the spring (probably represented by the alcohol :)). It’s a good thing they have kept it up all these years since it seems to work.