The most "earth-shattering" event of the past couple of weeks is that Son has moved out from home. His room upstairs is now very "orphaned", very empty, and has the sound of a church, devoid of his presence (and clutter and dust, a-hem) as it is now.
He had passed his final exams in May with good marks, we celebrated his graduation at the end of June ... and hey, I should actually even be able to find a photo of the occasion.
Here are two of the official part in the morning when he got handed out his leaving certificate (along with about 100 other graduates)...
... and one taken by Andreas before the Graduation Ball at night with his (fat and old) mother (oops!).
When all this was over for him, he started working at the Daimler Benz plant in Hamburg for 9 weeks (shift work on the assembly belt, quite a new experience, and often boring, and getting up very early in the mornings for morning shift wasn't his most favourite part about the job, but when he got his pay, he liked the job, after all). Now, given the fact that all car building companies are facing lots of problems and reduce production nationwide, we must say he was very, very lucky to have got the job, at all!
And when the nine weeks were over, he had just about a week time to have a little time off and go on holidays and he decided to ask James and Mary in Ireland if they were willing to have him for a week. They were willing. So he spent some time fishing with James and enjoyed himself a lot.
Which brings us to the more recent past, where we could be found on the road between here and Greifswald ever so often, trying to find him his student digs there - which we did find, and he moved out of here and into his new abode on the weekend of 4/5 October. He's been back home for a visit last weekend but finds the train ride home so tiring that he decided to only come back next for Christmas break.
As it happens, I was in Greifswald myself once again today to bring him his two book shelves (the room comes with desk, one shelf, bed, and a warderobe, but that one shelf is not enough!) and a couple of other things (a TV set, among them, so he can watch some TV on the weekends that he's decided to spend there), so I saw him again today but won't see him for weeks on end now.
The knowledge that any time he's back home means he's only "visiting" makes me a little sad.
The knowledge that any time he's back home means he's only "visiting" makes me a little sad.
But he's a young adult and must go his way.
I'll show pics of where he's at now in the next installment.
