Visiting Meike

[pne]

Stella and I went to visit Meike and Wolfgang to day; Meike is a colleague of mine.

At first, we had problems getting there… the S3 was about six minutes late in Harburg, which is bad if you only have seven minutes to change in Neugraben.

We got into Neugraben at the time the next train was due to leave, but the sign said that the train would be two minutes late. We hoped that would give us enough time to rush up the stairs and buy tickets, but I couldn't figure out how to make the machine give us two return tickets at once. After three failed tries, I went down the stairs to see whether the train had arrived yet and saw that it had arrived and left again—I could see its back lights receding. Darn.

Fortunately, Stella had her mobile phone with her and so we called to say we'd be forty minutes later. This gave us time to buy the tickets we wanted and catch the next train.

We had a nice time with the two and could see how their little daughter Wiebke was doing, as well; she was born in January, so is about a month younger than my niece Emily.

Most of the time, we talked about things related to Wiebke: pregnancy, child rearing, birth, nursing, and so on. I was happy to hear that Meike was still breast-feeding Wiebke at six months (though she's started to add solid food at midday) and that she intended to continue doing so, since I'm rather in favour of women breast-feeding their children when they can. She also nursed Wiebke on the sofa a couple of times while we were there, without much fuss, which I also found good.

Meike had originally planned to return to work on the 15th of July or the 1st of August, but she said she got email from Andreas on the 20th telling her there was no work for her. I kind of thought that might have been the reason I haven't seen her back at work yet, and it's true: there are people who don't have a "proper" job at the moment (myself included). Meike said she could insist on being able to work part-time but, in practice, she'd probably be one of the people who are not working on a particular project and that wouldn't be too good.

She would like to go back to work but she says she'll wait and see what turns up in the next few months. She says she's skeptical, though; they've been telling us about possible big projects that we've "nearly won" for years and most of them never materialise. However, her maternity leave ends in Janury (a year after Wiebke's birth), as I understand it, and at that point she intends to go back to full-time work and the company will be obliged to offer her a full position.

We had supper with them, too: Wolfgang had cookied noodles with a zucchini sauce (hard to describe). It was pretty good.

We learned some interesting things about child rearing from Meike; things she said she was doing differently from, for example, her mother and why.

We left at around eight; Wolfgang drove us to the station. Unfortunately, the train was a quarter of an hour late (if I understood correctly, because of problems in the tracks due to the heat), but we got to Neugraben all right and managed to catch a connecting train fairly quickly. Got home about twenty minutes ago.

Comments

[nik-w.livejournal.com]

I couldn't figure out how to make the machine give us two return tickets at once

As programmers, I think we would have to blame that on poor User Interface Design!

Wiebke is a nice name - how would it be pronounced, though? My German is practically non-existant (I did a year of it when I was about 13 and apparently had a good accent), so I'd guess "Veeb-kee" or possibly "Veeb-ki". A whole year's maternity leave - I'm sure that's a lot longer than women over here get, although I do think it's good that they get to spend so much time with their children. I also agree about the breast-feeding - it is a lot healthier for the baby. My nephew got breast-fed all of about twice - his mother complained that it hurt and so just gave up. He's easily the smallest child in his class, and I wouldn't be surprised if the two were related.

> problems in the tracks due to the heat

Our rail network is badly affected by that - if the temperature gets too high, then there's a chance that the rails could buckle as the train goes over it too fast, so they have to reduce the speed. We have trains going from London up to here that are down to 40mph in places - it's causing absolute chaos.

[pne.livejournal.com]

Wiebke is pronounced roughly "Veep-kuh", with a shwa (reduced, unstressed vowel) in the second syllable.

As for the rail network in GB, do you read the NTK.net weekly newsletter? It contained a pointer to an "inappropriate print advertisement of the week": http://thegareth.net/home/photos/random/inappropriate_advert_of_the_week

[nik-w.livejournal.com]

I've not heard of ntk.net, but having just had a look at it, I've subscribed to it! Love the picture - very amusing:)

[redfarmer.livejournal.com]

Hey pne! Adding random support people to my friends list again! Thought I'd go ahead and add you since I do run your fan club. ;)

[pne.livejournal.com]

Hey there :)

I probably shan't return the favour, though, since my Friends page is already too big to handle comfortably. But thanks!

maternity leave

[pne.livejournal.com]

I think I got two things mixed up: Mutterschutz is probably maternity leave proper, and that starts, I believe, six weeks before the due date and lasts for a couple of months or so afterwards.

However, after that, one can take Erziehungsurlaub (literally, educational/upbringing holiday) which is unpaid time off from work in order to care for a young child. I believe one is entitled to two years' time, which can be split between husband and wife if desired. (So the mother could take two years off, or each parent could take a year off, or the father could take two years off, for example.)

Re: maternity leave

[nik-w.livejournal.com]

Ahh, yes - that makes more sense now, although over here two years' unpaid leave is called losing your job:P I highly doubt most companies would be that generous - paternity leave has only just started happening - and that lasts about only a week or two, I think.