Merry Christmas!

                              

It's been a wonderful week so far being home from Germany (and away from the children!!!)

I had a wonderful weekend with Alex, who came to stay with us for a few days.  Lots of photos from then, which I will upload soon.

for now, some Christmas piccies of our few days with Mum and Dad and Christmas day with Matt's family...

Here are my lovely presents.  I really love the Star Wars crochet!

Matt bought me a new lens for my camera and a beautiful necklace.  I'm such a lucky girl!

Tonight we're heading out for a curry, but for now, it's bubble and squeak time! Whooo!

Christmas and Banana Bread

A busy week as usual here.  Lots happening at school- covering people who are off sick (just the Christmas crafting lessons), and making pros for the various plays going on.  Year 2 had their play on Wednesday, but the teachers decided the day before that they needed some more props.  I had a very busy Tuesday getting the props ready!  Year 4 have their play (Aladdin) this coming Wednesday, and then I'm done for prop making, thank goodness!  

I can't quite believe that we only have one more week left of this term.  It's gone really fast!  I'm looking forward to my friend Al visiting next weekend.

This weekend, I went into Duisburg to the shops for some last minute Christmas shopping, while Matt went to watch Duisburg win their football match.  Today, Matt played his first match for the team he joined a few months ago.  They lost, but he enjoyed himself and is now exhausted!

While Matt was at football, I was playing with my camera and new flash, working out what it can do.  I like that it has an LED light on it that can be used like a torch.  Lots of fun!

Christmas Party and Christmas Markets

Christmas has come to the Harris household!

Last week was very busy and tiring at work - lots of cover for me in nursery (not my favourite place to be).  Matt was busy playing football in the evenings, and may even get to play in a match this Sunday.  Fingers crossed!

On Friday night it was our work Christmas party.  Not many people signed up to go this year - it may have something to do with the alcohol not being free this year! - But the food was delicious and the company was great, considering it was pretty much Primary, and everyone in my friendship group!  We went for a few cocktails in Dusseldorf, near the restaurant after the meal, then decided to head home to Duisburg.  There were 4 of us heading home on the train, and we decided to stop off at a cocktail bar in Duisburg on the way for a few mojitos, which was fun.  It's just nicer when your around the corner from your house, rather than all the way in Dusseldorf with an hours journey to get home,  No dramas at the party this year, which makes a change!

On Saturday, we had a very lazy day.  I went to the shops for food but that was pretty much the extent of our day.  Matt watched all the sports fixtures that were on.

On Sunday we were slightly more energetic, heading to Dortmund Christmas markets.  The markets are huge, and really nice.  The centre piece is a gigantic tree which is made up of 500 little trees.  Pretty impressive.

Going to a different market was nice because it had different craft stalls and different food too.  We ate mini calzones (pizza brotchen) filled with salami and tuna, and some deep fried gouda cheese with pineapple and cranberry jam - so delicious!!!

There was plenty of gluhwien to be had too and a hot chocolate with banana liqueur in it - yum!

 

This was a gigantic advent calander, with each shipping container sponsored by a different shop or company...

We also put up our lovely little tree on Sunday.  Feeling very festive as we launch into our last two weeks of school before the Christmas break.

Heidelberg

This week I have been off sick again!  I blame having to cover in nursery!  I did make it in to work on Monday, and was on the year 6 trip to Osterbeek in the Netherlands.  I will add my photos tomorrow because they were on the school camera and I didn't get a chance to email them to myself yet.  I was feeling really unwell, which was such a shame because the trip was really fun for the kids and I would have loved it if i'd been feeling well.  Year 6 are studying WW1 and WW2 this term, so the trip was to the Airbourne Museum and WW2 cemetery.  It was an hour and a half drive from school and I slept all the way there and back, at one point waking up to find a child sitting next to me, smiling at me! Creepy.

We went to the cemetery first, which was really interesting.  We had a tour around, taking us to 10 different grave stones and were told the stories behind them, which were all tragic.  The graves were all of very young men, English, Dutch, Jewish, one German Jew who changed sides, Polish and one American.  It's interesting to see the affect it had on some of the children, who were upset and wanted to talk about how awful war is.  It was good to see the cogs working in their heads and resolving to do all they can to make sure war doesn't happen in their lives.  I love how idealistic and ambitious our kids are!

The museum was great.  We went in and sat down at tables which had suitcases on them.  In pairs, the kids opened a suitcase and inside were photos and medals and models all relating to a person who died in the war, who is featured in the museum.  They had to follow questions around the museum that would help them work out who their person was - English, German, Dutch, civilian, military etc.

The final part of the museum was an immersive experience in a very high ceiling basement, which was just fantastic.  You entered through the belly of an aeroplane into a war scene in a town, with actual houses to wander around, and huge screens with authentic videos of fighting on the walls, and sound effects all around.  You walked through trenches and past a hotel that was playing a radio announcement about an attack.  It was really effective, and so well done.  Even I managed to enjoy myself despite being ill!

The rest of the week I was off sick and pretty much watched TV and crocheted for the next 4 days.  Matt was busy, with playing football on Monday and Wednesday.

On Friday I was feeling much better (and Matt was unfortunately starting to feel unwell).  We headed off for the train station in the evening, towards Heidelberg in the south of Germany, to meet Matt's parents and brother for the weekend.  We have been to Heidelberg before and really enjoyed it.  The Christmas markets just made it all the more enjoyable.

Please take note of the fabulous 'Homo Heidelbergensis' who appears on the roof of this bar.  He is a famous skeleton found in the area.  All of the figures were based on well known people from Heidelberg.  I love the detail!  I'm going to have to have a look at the Duisburg one and see if it's similar.

Fried potato...

Drinking gluvine.

Going up the funicular railway to the castle and to the viewpoint at the top of the mountain.

This was at the top of the mountain...

... a gigantic wine barrel in the castle.

My challenge to myself this weekend was to take all of my photos on the 'Manual' setting on my camera, which means that I was controlling everything.  It was so much fun!  And really fantastic when I realised just what I could do with the camera not on 'Auto' settings.

A real stroke of luck was that it was 'black friday weekend' an American thing where there are huge sales on in the shops for one day (extended to a week really).  We popped into Saturn (like PC world or Currys) to look at the flash I was about to buy for my camera.  The deal I managed to get was the better flash (the one up from what I wanted) for the price of the worse one that I was going to buy!  I ended up saving 70 euros on a considerably better flash.  Fantastic!  Now I just need to learn how to use it. If it's as much fun as discovering 'manual' mode i'm in for a treat.