Christmas!

It's been a very busy couple of weeks back in England. and this is literally the first chance I have had to post some photos.  The first week back, we did our usual thing of going for a curry.  You can't get curry really in Germany, so we enjoyed it very much!  We also went to the IMAX cinema in London to see the new Star Wars film (Amazing!).  We went to the Apollo in London to see Caro Emerald perform.  The tickets were my birthday present from Matt.  Caro was wonderful, I really enjoyed myself.  She played all her hits, plus some new material, and a few Christmas songs and covers.

We also had a few days in York planned for last week.  We took the train up on the Thursday, arriving about 3pm.  We walked into the town centre, and I felt so sick that we had to go back to the hotel.  Then followed 8 hours of the Winter Vomiting Disease.  I finished, and an hour later, Matt started!  Matt's brother had caught it a few days earlier, so we must've got it from him.  We spent the next 48 hours in bed, and only left the hotel to get the train to Newcastle for our next stop.  So we didn't get to see any of York at all!  It was such a shame, but we will definitely go back.

We were visiting friends from Germany who moved back to the UK this year.  The boys went off to see Newcastle play football, and the girls did some Christmas shopping, before we all went out for dinner in the evening.  We went to the beach the next morning, which was lovely, and there was a nice craft and bric-a-brac market on which we had a good rummage around.  Unfortunately, Matt and I were still recovering from being so ill, and our friend had got a nasty ear infection, and his face had swollen over night, so we ended up getting dropped off at the station 3 hours early for our train, so that he could go to the walk in centre.  It was nice to see our friends, but the weekend was a bit of a disaster really!

Back in London, and feeling much better, we had a nice couple of days with Matt's parents, before heading to Mum and Dad's for Christmas day.  As is the family tradition, we went to the street in the next town to look at the ridiculous Christmas lights that raise money for charity every year.  I'm not sure that Matt was particularly impressed! but I love it.

We went to the Garden centre to see the reindeer...

... and then Christmas day was upon us...

The best present of all has to be Matt's to me; he bought me a DSLR camera!!!  I love it, and it can do so many things!  Here are some of the pictures I took playing around with it...

 

We went to Highcliff beach for a walk on boxing day, and of course had the obligatory coffee and cake.

Today we gave the dog a bath, and are off this evening to a party.  Only one more week until we're back to Germany, and to school, but that also means that the countdown to America for Easter is getting closer!!!

Boxing, Parent Visits, Winter Fair, and the Light Market

As promised, here are a few photos from the boxing match that Matt and his friend from home, plus two friends from school went to last weekend.  They had a fantastic time, and the Brit won, so they were very happy.

Matt's friend coming to stay marked the first of our 3 visitors in an 8 day stretch.  It's been an incredibly exhausting week!  Matt's friend went home last Sunday.......

I went to Cologne for the day on Sunday with my friend from school and her Mum.  Cologne is beautiful at Christmas, and the markets are wonderful.

Mum and Dad arrived on Monday for a few days of Christmas market hopping.  We were at work, so unfortunately couldn't go with them, but we saw them in the evening for schnitzel, and Christmas market hot salmon, and gluwein......

They left on Thursday, and Matt's parents arrived on Friday.

We had our Winter Fair at school on Saturday, and we were both down to work the morning shift, 11-2pm.  I was on a stall of games, where you played to win little prized.  It was a shame that we were downstairs in the food area, rather than upstairs with all the crafty christmas stalls, because the atmosphere was lovely up there.  The Choir sang on the stage, and Santa arrived.  Matt was supervising generally, so I think he got to see more than me.  Matt's parents came for an hour - enough time for a sausage in a bun, and then when we were finished, we headed into Duisburg for the Christmas markets, which are lovely.  We had dinner at Websters Brewery, and lots of gluwein at the market.

Saturday night was our house Christmas drinks in the garden.  We were determined to show our faces, which we did for an hour, with a glass of gluwein (with a shot of Amaretto) to aid us.  It was quite hard work because none of them speak English.  Matt did brilliantly, but I really struggled. I am determined next year to know a bit more conversational German!

Today we went to the Landschaftspark Nord, which is the old steel work landscape park that I have been to several times before.  They had a Christmas market on just for this weekend, and it was lovely.  All the stalls were handmade crafts, so just what I like!  We had currywurst for lunch there, and then had a wander around the park.  I took loads of photos as I always do, even though I've been there 3 times before, but I did spot these moving fans that I hadn't seen before, so thought I would share them with you.  The picture at the bottom reminds me of the old channel 4 adverts, where things move into the shape of a 4!

An exhausting, but really nice and festive week.  We're quite glad that we have an evening to ourselves now though!