A very special arrival

Yesterday the postman arrived with a very special parcel for me and Leroy. It said it was from Germany on the envelope. We could here somebody moving around inside so we opened it quickly. Imagine what a surprise we had when we meet Hennes the Koln Football Club mascot, to be more precise Mookie's (@Schnille) Koln mascot sent to us in Mookie's memory by his brothers Poldi and @F_R_E_D_I, his sister @fuzzyFreya, the piggies Mozart and Narler and their mum and really from Mookie.

I was so excited I hugged and hugged and hugged him to welcome him. It was like hugging Mookie as well. Some of you might recognise Hennes from Mookie's blog. Leroy and I were so touched that Mookie's family believe that he would have wanted Hennes to live with us made us so emotional we actually cried.

Hennes quickly made himself at home and started meeting some of the family.

You probably saw him hugging Gunner, the Arsenal Football Club mascot, on fuzzyFreya's Twitpic. He was amazed when her met Gunner here cos this Gunner is biggggg! They chatted about football and being mascots for ages.

We showed Hennes around our football collection. He is used to Arsenal but was a little less keen on the England memorabelia as it is mostly from 1966. However, he enjoyed meeting all the world cup mascots and chatting with them.

Hennes was pleased to find that he was not the only German here. He met our German sister Snowdrop who came from Frankfurt from @RetteKaninchen. Hennes was very gentle with her and they talked a lot. They didn't seem to agree about what football team to support but otherwise got on really well.

Hennes had brought a guide book to Koln for Leroy. Poldi sent it for Leroy as Leroy will be visiting him in Koln this year.

Leroy is so excited about going to Koln that he wasted no time in reading the book so he could look at the places he will see. He can't wait to go and meet @fuzzyFreya, @F_R_E_D_I and his special fellow lion mascot friend @Poldi and their mum.

Thank you so much to Mookie's family for thinking of us and allowing Hennes to come and live with us. We promise to look after him well and give him lots of football to watch. He misses all of you but he is settling in well.

Missing a dear friend

It has been a long time since I have written anything on my blog and that is because I really wanted to write this post but it has taken me a long time to do it because it is a sensitive thing for me and I haven't been able to think about it clearly until now.

Most people know how fond I am of our dear friend Mookie and we all miss our strawberry blond friend badly.

Mookie first introduced himself to me when he was in the world final of the voting walls that we all used to be familiar with. He told me, in a Mookie way, that he was the only German in the competition. Well of course as soon as I got to know him I wanted to vote for him. Anyone who met him would want to vote for him.

Everyone who knows me and Mookie know that we are both football mad! Only English and German people would know how difficult it is for English and German people to discuss football in a friendly way, the rivalry is such that it is almost impossible, but with Mookie I could do that and we regularly discussed football. During the World Cup England played Germany and lost badly (as usual), Mookie was so gracious in victory that I acutally supported Germany in their next games. We also used to discuss our clubs and supported each others teams in our national leagues which was fun. Most fun of all was playing football with Mookie on Twitter. He always won but then he is German and I am English.

The picture above is one of my favourites of Mookie and how I like to remember him, dressed up for the world cup as a committed German fan. He so enjoyed the world cup and made a German flag pizza to match my flag of St George pizza for England. It always makes me smile how much Mookie likes Wayne Rooney because they are both strawberry blond.

Of course football wasn't the only thing we had in common we talked about lots of things and found out a lot about each other's countries. He extended that by generously allowing his friend Lippe to come and visit so many of us of it was wonderful to have him here.

I miss Mookie terribly and hope he will tweet from OTRB sometime because we all love him and his mum so much. We know his mum must not be rushed into doing this and we are sure she will make a decision when things feel right.

But on behalf of all your Twitter friends Mookie we love you and miss you and hope to see you again one day when you are ready. For now I am sending you and your mum lots of Kolo HUGS HUGS HUGS!