Friday letters

I say this every week, but how is it Friday again already?! This will be my last Friday letters of 2016 since I plan to take a break from blogging for the holidays. Next Friday I’ll be on a plane at daft o’clock in the morning (remind me why we picked the 7 am flight?!) and the Friday after I’ll be in Glasgow with Jan and K. Good times! Anyway, some letters…

Dear Christmas cards. You will not defeat me! Ten more to assemble and post then I’m done!

Dear Lebkuchen. I knew opening you was a mistake! It appears I’ve eaten you all already. Oops!

Dear scales. I will put new batteries in you eventually… but not until well after Christmas. Right now I really don’t want to know! (See previous letter…)

Dear Lemsip. You may not taste great, but you work and that’s good enough for me!

Dear Dara Ó Briain. Tickets for your show in January have been purchased! You’d better bring your best jokes along 😉

That’s all folks! Friday letters will return in 2017. (Eeep, 2017! How did that happen?!)

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Friday letters (holidays are coming)

Today is my final day at work, then we’re closed for a whole two weeks. Hooray! I am certainly in need of a break after all the overtime I’ve been doing recently! Just a few more things to sort out tonight, then it’s off to England tomorrow to spend Christmas with the family…

Letter to Santa (Photo credit: katerha)

Dear flights. I’m counting on you to not be delayed or cancelled this time. I’ve had enough stress recently without dealing with that, too!

Dear boyfriend. Can’t wait to spend an entire two weeks with you without any work or other commitments! Please not getting ill this time though…

Dear suitcase. I know I have a lot of gifts to put in you, but I would appreciate it if you could stay within the weight limit anyway!

Dear British food. I am coming for you!! First up: a bacon sadwich with decent bacon!

Dear family, friends and godson. Can’t wait to see you. And I hope you like your gifts.

Dear readers. I’m not sure whether I’ll be able to get on WordPress while I’m in England, so I’ll wish you all a very merry Christmas and a happy New Year now. “See” you in 2014!

Christmas is officially coming

I’ve been “deserted” this weekend (Jan’s had to go to Hamburg for work), and for the first time in a while I’m not invited to anything, so I actually have some time on my hands… which means I have time to write a proper blog post. Mircales do happen, it seems.

Well, the Christmas season is now officially upon us. The Karlsruhe Christmas market (and probably a number of other Christmas markets) started on Thursday. And I received my first Christmas card today. Therefore, it is official. The season has begun…
This year we’ve decided to spend Christmas in England. The last 2 years we’ve been in Germany so it’s about time. We’ll be there for 10 days, which I think will be the longest time my little brother’s seen me for in his entire life (admittedly he’s only 4, but still. That tells you something about how much time I spend in the home country). Then we’ve decided to do Edinburgh for New Year, since we only got to spend one afternoon there when we did our tour of Britain this summer.

Next weekend I’m cooking Christmas dinner for 8. Well, possibly for 8. Right now it could potentially only be 3 as only one person has confirmed that they’re coming (the other 2 being me and Jan of course). Then Jan’s choir is performing the following weekend, and we’re invited to a birthday on the same day (the choir performance is in the morning, the party in the evening so it works). In between we have my work Christmas meal, the monthly pub quiz (yes, it’s only once a month) and we want to fit in a few trips to some Christma markets. And all that before we fly to England on 18th December. Phew! It’s going to be a busy one…

And now I’d better get back to wrapping presents. Who knows when I’ll have another opportunity to do so…

Plans and potatoes…

Despite all my promises to get back to regular blogging, once again it’s been over a week since my last post. That pesky little thing called life has reared up its ugly head and got in the way again! So what have I been doing that’s kept me so busy?

~ Learning Spanish! Jan and I started another Spanish course recently (our third), so now that’s where we go on Monday evenings. Each lesson is an hour and a half and let me tell you it’s hard work! Hopefully it will be worth it in the end though!

~ Socialising! Last Saturday a friend of Jan’s who moved to Frankfurt was back in town for the day, so we met up with him and went to Stadtfest. Then in the evning we met up with friends for “Dirty Old Town”, the annual event in which all the pubs in Karlsruhe’s old town have live music all night. And on Wednesday our favourite Irish pub celebrated it’s 2nd anniversary, so of course we had to be there.

~ Cooking Sunday dinner! The meat was fried pork steaks, so it wasn’t a real Sunday roast, but my roast potatoes were absolutely perfect. Crunchy on the outside and lovely and soft in the middle. Luckily I made extra so I get to enjoy them again for lunch tomorrow. Mmmm.

~ Making plans! We’ve decided to go to Edinburgh for new year as we only got such a short time there (one afternoon!) during our trip around Great Britain this summer. And since we’ll be heading to the island anyway, it makes sense to spend Christmas there as well this year. So we’ve been looking at flights, trains and B&Bs and have finally come to a decision. We’ll be staying at my dad’s for 9 whole days! My little brother won’t know what’s hit him – he’s never seen me for that many days in one go!

Organising my brain

There is so much going on this week and I have so many things to do and think about, both right now and over the next few months, that my brain feels as if it might explode. The only way to deal with this I feel is to misuse my blog to write a list of all the things that I keep forgetting then remembering again. Hopefully it will all seem much more manageable when I can see it all written down (or rather typed up).

• Cleaning. My floor has to be cleaned this week. (Not floor as in thing you walk on but as in thing you live in, ie. in my case ground floor). I am unavailable on the 2 nights they’ve chosen for us all to do together (Tuesday and Wednesday) so I will be given an individual task. This must be completed before I fly to England on Friday. I would also like to sort out my room before I leave. Yet more cleaning.
• Work Christmas meal. This is on Tuesday evening after work. We’re going to a hotel/restaurant in Ettlingen.
• Spanish homework & Spanish course. My last Spanish lesson before Christmas is on Wednesday evening. Before that I have homework to do. Must not forget.
• Job hunting. I still don’t know whether I’m going to have a job after January, and even if they do decide to keep me I’m not 100% sure yet whether I want to accept. Either way it would probably be a good idea to have another option open to me. Must update CV and send out job applications before going home for Christmas…
• Flat hunting. I have decided I am definitely moving out in March whether I have a job or not. If I don’t have a job I won’t be able to afford the rent here anyway, so I’m either moving into a flat or moving to England. Hopefully I will have a job, which means I’ll be needing somewhere new to live. Only 3 months to go… definitely about time I started trying to find a flat!
• Floor Christmas party. Taking place on Thursday. There will be food, Christmas biscuits and Feuerzangenbowle (sort of likeGlühwein (mulled wine), except after making up the wine they put it in a big pan, stick a cone of sugar over the top pf it on a metal thing, pour run over the sugar and set it on fire. The sugar/rum mixture then melts into the Glühwein. It’s pretty good and very, very strong!)
• Buy last few Christmas presents. Nearly there. I only have 3 more to buy. Phew!
• Finish wrapping Christmas presents… and then hope I can actually get them all in the suitcase without going over the weight limit
• Write and send Christmas cards. Some of them have already been posted but I do still have one or two more to write. If any of you would like one I’ll be needing your address…
• Pack. This will probably be done in a massive rush on Thursday night/Friday morning, after the Christmas party and before catching the train. I will most likely be shoving in last minute items as I’m rushing out of the door…
• Sort out fridge. I’m going to be gone for almost three weeks! Better make sure there are no stray vegetables or out of date cartons of milk lurking around while I’m away…

OK, I think that’s it. The plan didn’t work though. I still think it’s going to be an exhausting week!
Oh well, only 4 more days then I’ll finally have some time to relax.