Christmas Day

Christmas day was spent at Mums, out in the wilds of Suffolk!
This Photo was taken by my sisters husband! (they haven't been married long!) and shows my Mum and Dad, my sisters and the other ones partner, Lukey, my husband and Alice and Jared, we had just finished the main course, Turkey of course, and a cheese and potato pie for those of us who don't eat meat, with roast potatoes, parsnips, brussel sprouts, leeks in cheese sauce, broccoli, cauliflower, Swede, little sausages, stuffing, bread sauce, cranberry sauce, red current jelly and gravy.

This was followed by Christmas pudding, my favourite trifle and then cheese. I was a bit full up after all that!

I had made some sweet dessert wine and we had a blind tasting against a shop bought one, mine was the favourite although Mum preferred the sweeter shop one.


I made up hampers to give to everyone. In them was a bottle of homemade wine, either Elderflower and Apple or Parsnip, a half bottle of sweet raisin dessert wine, two bottles of home brew lager, a hand knitted dishcloth, a bar of cinnamon soap, which is pictured above, a bag of fudge and a calender. I had these printed at Truprint and had picked out photos to suit each member of the family.

It was lovely to have Alice home for a few days, drove her back to Heathrow airport this morning, left at 4 a.m. and she was back at work in Hamburg by lunch time!

My trip to Hamburg continued....

On the Saturday morning we enjoyed a German breakfast I had rolls with cheese and jam, yogurt and tea.

We went into the main shopping area of the town and visited 3 markets and also went in some fantastic shops. One sold "Christmas things" I bought a table cloth, candles and candle holder thing, strands of stuff to hang up. Alice took me to the craft shop that she had found and I bought some scrapbook stuff and some felting wool, which I plan to use to knit handbags with. But that is project number 2 and I have to finish my sisters scrapbook before I start anything else.

We decided to try all the different types of food on offer. Alice and Aniela started with these fried potatoes. I had a large chocolate thing that was a bit like a walnut whip and then we had "curry wurst" and chips, which is basically a large sausage in curry sauce. I know I don't usually eat meat, but it looked and smelt so nice.

Then we watched the parade. There were floats and people dressed up and dancing and lots of music - lovely. In the picture above are two round brown characters, I thought that they were Christmas puddings, but Aniela said that they couldn't be as they don't have Christmas pudding in Germany!!

This picture shows a stall with a wooden nativity scene with the sails on top. These are in all the shop except much, much smaller. I saw them from 3" high to about 3 ft high. You put candles in the bottom to make the sails go round. I don't know what they are called.

In the evening we went to the St Pauli market where we had German pizza, these have a much thinner base than we have and were very nice. There was a band playing - Is this the way to Amarillo in German - very strange. We then went to the "Dom" or funfair, there was a massive big wheel giving a view of all of Hamburg. We had more Gluwien, donuts and Alice and Aniela went on a scary ride -I held the handbags.

More tomorrow.....

Weekend in Hamburg

I have just spent a wonderful weekend in Hamburg, Germany,
I left home at 4 am on Friday morning and drove to Stansted Airport, where I met my sister and we set off to catch a Ryanair flight. Oh dear the staff were very nasty to us, one lady shouted at us to put our handbags into our suitcases as we could only have one piece of handlugage. But the girl in front of me had multiple bumbags and was allowed to take them on and we spotted other people with a handbag- next time I will tie my handbag around my waist.

We flew into Lubeck airport which is a tiny airport with a shed, you go in one door have your passport checked and walk out the other side! We then got on the bus for the one hour drive into Hamburg. This took us to the main bus and train station.
We headed off to find our hotel and stopped for breakfast or Fruhstuck on the way at this cafe- rolls, jam and coffee.


We headed straight back into town to the "Rathaus" or Town Hall, where there was a Christmas market and were found drinking Gluwien at 11 am!!

We wandered along the amazing stalls looking at all the different things for sale. There were decorations, chocolates, biscuits, cakes, pottery and more.

It was then time to meet Alice for lunch, she took us to her local cafe and I also met her work friends.

In the evening we went to another market and then had dinner in an Italian restaurant ( I know we were in Germany) but it looked nice and we were hungry.

Then back to the Rathaus for another hot drink, I think that we had applepunch this time. A walk along the lake to look at the Christmas tree in the middle and then back on the U-bahn to The Holiday Inn and sleep at last, it had been a very long day.

More tomorrow..........