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As I couldn't find a suitable poem mentioning Glühwein, I composed my own. Please don't laugh.

All welcome - anyone living in Germany, Austria or anywhere else who would like to chat.

Just marking this, looking forward to my first Glühwein tomorrow - even going to use the bus and tram to get into town so I can have one!

Love it Linzer! Thank you.

Oh please add Der Schweiz to your group. <<left out over the border Stollen eater emoticon>>

Sorry Binfullofmaggots (love the name btw) - of course you'd be welcome to join us! I thought Switzerland had its own thread but I've just had a look and can't see one, so I must have been mistaken. Whereabouts in Switzerland are you?

And now I have an Ohrwurm.

We're off to Bratislava when everyone is up. It was DH's idea (again); he's far more obsessed with M&S than I am. Not that I'd ever turn down the chance of a trip, of course.

Basel, Linzer. And a shameless border-crosser for the benefits of an all you can eat Chinese buffet for 14 euro!

After a year and a half I still can't bring myself to buy a 30chf chicken in Switzerland....

I have to work in Bavaria on a regular basis too, as I work for a German company.

Off to Nurnberg for the Market in a few weeks - so excited. Bring on the Gluhwein!!

Marking my place.

(and I've also got the Ohrwurm...)

Ohrwurm here too!! But it reminds me of fun single living in Liverpool going out dancing all the time! So not a bad Ohrwurm

Love the poem, Linzer!

I'm quite enjoying thhe Ohrwurm, especially as the lyrics will now forever involve maggots for me!

The laptop crashed at the critical moment last night so I didn't get my Kitchenaid on Black Friday but I thiink I've found something even better, if not as pretty. Now to convince DH it's worth the price (220€, ouch, but a snip in comparison to a KA).

Have a lovely weekend!

Ah but it's better than "in der weihnachtsbäckerei....." no?

That's been with me for a week now!

Hello!
Love having a new thread, German not nearly good enough to judge the standard of poetry written in it

We have been drinking Glühwein at home for several weeks (well not continuously...) is that wrong? I think it's goos as soon as you need to light the wood burner, not necessarily Christmas linked...

I have the Ohrwurm too, and as soon as I reas binfull 's name I no longer had the original lyric in my head! Cool name though Welcome to the thread.

Christmas market at which ds1's KiGa and dd's school have their stalls is tomorrow, hope they are finally well enough to go, dd missed the school Adventfest yesterday but wasn't bothered.

Enjoy Bratislava Linzer ... I forgot what else I wanted to say as baby ios pulling my hair...

I definitely wasn't complaining Binfull; as Ohrwürmer go, it's actually quite a good one! Takes me back to my child-free days and being at work (as I used to sit next to someone who kept singing it). I'll never be able to listen to the song in the same way again, though!.
So how do you like living in Switzerland? How long have you been there? It must be good to be so close to the border, especially as I've heard life in Switzerland can be quite expensive; a German friend of DH's works in Basel (but I think they live in Germany).

No, definitely not wrong 5more (unlike all the Christmas songs that are being played on the radio) - all the Christmas markets have opened here, which means it's definitely time for Glühwein, and I'm sure we had our first mug a few weeks ago. We bought a bottle on the way home, so may have some later too.

Later Sorry you missed out on the Kitchen Aid - hope you manage to convince your DH about the alternative!

We've just got back from Bratislava, where we bought quite a few Christmas presents and food goodies at M&S. Our three bags of food only cost just over €30, but we then made up for it at Tesco - can't quite work out how we managed to spend so much money there... The M&S cafe has a smaller and smaller range every time we go, though; they only had cakes and biscuits there today, so we couldn't stay for lunch. I'm amazed it's still there tbh, as it's always so quiet.

Right, must get on with some work so that I can treat myself to Glühwein later!

Grrrr didnt get my cup on ebay. It was on the uk site and it wouldnt let us bid because we are abroad. But luckily no-one else bid for it either so dh has sent the woman an email. Fingers crossed!

Oh no Canella, how disappointing. But I can't see why the seller wouldn't want to sell it to you if no one else bought it, especially if you have an address in the UK it could be sent to - and she may even be willing to send it to Germany. Have you heard back from her yet?

Had a bit of a lie in this morning as I was up working fairly late last night. I'll be going ice skating with DD2 and some friends of ours when the rink opens at 10, and then it's back to work this afternoon.

Whoo hoo! She replied to dh's email - said she'll happily sell it to us and send it here or to an address in the UK. Either is ok with me. Feel so relieved!

Enjoy the ice skating. But about the work on a sunday. But at least you've got those goodies from M&S and tesco to keep you going!

Sorry Linzer got waylaid by the giant Marktkauf shop yesterday which ended up taking the whole day. Still that's all the drinks, snacks etc done for Christmas.

DH was very excited to find Derby Sage cheddar, wensleydale with cranberries and victorian cheddar there, so that's the Christmas cheeseboard bought and frozen for now too. Following that I ended up reorganising the fridge in the cellar and trying to identify tiny frozen tupperware boxes of red food that I froze months ago!! Probably a good idea at the time!

We've been here for 18 months now and loving it. Work is quite stressful but we do so much more here together as a family than in the UK. It's great being on the border of France and Germany, and 1.5 hours from Austria - everything is accesible.

Basel market starts next week so it will feel superfestive around the beautiful city.

Where are you guys?

That's great news Canella! You've inspired me to look for our dinner service as we've broken quite a few of our cups and there is one on eBay atm, but the starting bid is 2 pounds and then there's 3.50 postage on top (or 5 pounds to Austria), which is a bit much to pay for one mug that's not even new. I'll keep checking, though.

Binfull That cheese sounds great - DH gets very excited about British cheese too and always brings a lot back from the UK. Sadly M&S don't sell cheese, although I did buy 12 blocks of mature Cheddar during British week at Lidl recently!

We're just south of Vienna, so have all the advantages of a big city nearby but without the cost of living in the capital. Having said that, we don't go into Vienna all that often (apart from DH, who commutes in every day) as there's more than enough to do where we live.

How old are your DC btw?

Linzer Thanks for starting a new thread. I´m always [enyy] about your regular shopping trips to M&S.

binfullofmaggots I´m in Hessen in Germany. It sounds like you´re settling in well in Basel.

Canella I´m glad you won the cup. Dh has been selling stuff on e-bay this weekend. i just know he´s going to want me to pack it all up and sort out the postage.

We had a great time geocaching. We used dh´s mobile phone this time, but will get a hand held GPS device now that we know we´ll do it again. We spent about 2 hours in the local woods, found 3 caches (is that really the plural of cache?) and ds didn´t moan once which is truly miraculous.

Hupa The geocaching sounds like it was good fun and a successful day out.

Linzer M&S AND Tesco?! You are killing me! I'm also very jealous. How was the ice skating?

Canella Yay about the cup! It really is the little things that make us happy

I need to check Ebay out as we had a bit of a clear out when I was pregnant & have loads to get rid of. A lot of the stuff is books, dvds etc so I don't know how well they would sell.

If anyone wants any books do let me know - I'd be happy to send a few.

5more It's definitely time to crack open the Glühwein.

Binfull Good cheese haul! I'm also in Hessen, not too far from Frankfurt. How are you finding life in CH? I read your post on the obesity thread & had no idea that health insurance is higher if you are overweight - I can't quite decide how I feel about that!

We popped round to see our friends who have just had a baby yesterday - she is 3 weeks old & absolutely adorable! She is half Japanese so has a full head of gorgeous, thick, silky, black hair & is almost the same size as DS (10 weeks) already, but she was almost a kilo heaver than him at birth.

Later You don't need to be too envious about Tesco, as they only have a tiny section of British food. All their non-food goods seem to be British, though; Cinders introduced me to it when I was looking for somewhere to buy a slow cooker. I wish I'd waited to buy my ice skates as they only cost half of what I paid at the sports shop here; luckily they didn't have any in the DC's sizes, otherwise I would have been even more annoyed!

What books do you have? I shouldn't really be looking for any more as I have a huge to-read pile as it is, and postage to Austria may be too expensive anyway - or does the printed paper option apply internationally as well?

hupa The geocaching sounds like fun; I'll have to look into it.

DD2 and I had a good time ice skating; I can see that she's going to be better than me before too long (not difficult, admittedly) as she was whizzing round the ice yesterday - but falling over quite a lot too. I spent the rest of the day working and finally got the job finished at 1.30 am, was then woken at 4 am by DH getting up to leave for the airport (he's in Berlin for the next three days), and managed about an hour's sleep after that so felt like death warmed up when I first got up. Am now feeling slightly more awake after a short run and two cups of coffee!

Canella I've just bought two cups on eBay; would never have thought of looking on there otherwise, so thank you!

Glad you got your cup canella! There are some tempting offers on ebay.

Linzer, are you feeling the benefits of the jogging yet? Do you feel as if you have more energy than before? I ask as I think although I never did alot of sport in the old days of my youth I need something to help with my tiredness and maybe that would help.

Binfull, very impressed that you have done Christmas shopping already, what did you get apart from the cheese? Can you really trust your family not to touch any of the goodies for so long or are they well hidden? If I bought snacks and drinks they would be finished before Christmas as dh is addicted to snacking in the evening. He's thin so OK for him but if one of the dc happens to be in the same room they also join in and that's a packet of crisps gone in no time.

We're in Hanover by the way, before that 3 years Berlin and before that south west Germany near Stuttgart.

Later, did you figure out how to sell on ebay? Dd has 2 massive boxes of grown-out of toys that she wants to sell but I'm not sure if it's worth it. New price the stuff is expensive (loads of littlest pet shop and Bratz dolls) but maybe ebay kleinanzeigen would be worth a try as it says it's free - but how much is normal ebay?

admylin I'm an Ebay novice so have no idea about charges etc (mainly because I just end up looking at things I want to buy instead of figuring out how to sell). My SIL is always selling on Ebay so I might give her a call.

Linzer Once (if) I get DS down for a nap I'll investigate a few of the boxes. They are mostly Krimis I think but there are all sorts of randoms in there, some in English, some in German. No idea about postage to Austria but I'll check it out.

Speaking of British food, these two websites were mentioned in a magazine recently:
UK/USfood
UK food
They look fairly pricey (well, I only looked at tea) but th UK/US one sells suet, which I haven't seen here.

Thanks Later - no rush, as like I mentioned I still have plenty of books to get through! Don't worry if the postage is too expensive, though; it costs a ridiculous amount to send a book internationally here.

admylin Yes, I think I do feel less tired and have more energy since I started running; I definitely feel better about myself too. I used to feel guilty that I never got any exercise, as although I cycle quite a bit in the summer, it's never really far enough to build up much fitness. I can really recommend the Couch to 5k plan if you do decide to take up running, as it takes you from running for a minute at a time up to 30 minutes - this time last year, I'd never have imagined I could run for half an hour.

I've decided that selling things on eBay is too much hassle, although the things I sold (English books, children's clothes) would only go for one or two euros - it's obviously different if you have things that are worth a bit more. I don't remember the fees being too extortionate, about 20-40 cents maybe. Have just found more info here. You do pay a bit more if you want to have more than one picture of your item, to have it listed in more than one category, etc.