Durch die Strassen auf und nieder, leuchten die Laternen wieder... ***Herbstunterhaltung im Deutschem Eck***

[MmeLindt]

Durch die Strassen auf und nieder
leuchten die Laternen wieder:
rote, gelbe, grüne, blaue,
Lieber Martin, komm und schaue!

Wie die Blumen in dem Garten
blühn Laternen aller Arten:
rote, gelbe, grüne, blaue,
Lieber Martin, komm und schaue!

Und wir gehen lange Strecken
mit Laternen an den Stecken
rote, gelbe, grüne, blaue,
Lieber Martin, komm und schaue!

*

It is that time of the year again. Check your lanterns, get enough batteries, start the Bastelaktion.

thats wher dh's fave scottish phrase is from - "there's been a murder jim" - said in a shockingly bad german/fake scottish accent!

taggart is very gory ...

does any have idea how long the shops may be shut over christmas here

as i have no idea

normally when one goes away I clear everything out

but i sort of need to stock up too
for when we get back

this is silly

Supermarkets usually close around 1 or 2 p.m. on Christmas Eve and pretty much everything will be locked up tight on the 25th, 26th and 27th.

thank you ...

just a quicky - can you buy double cream in germany? whats it called?

No, don't think that you can buy double cream, they only have schlagsahne. Could you use whipping cream?

not sure - want to make a cheesecake for xmas day - it was my never fail recipe in the UK! going to use oaty type biscuits instead of digestives but i always used double cream (although i've no idea what the difference is!! is it the fat content?). i've only ever bought schlagsahne here for other recipes - what is the translation for whipping cream?

ta xx

Schlagsahne/Schlagobers = whipping cream. I think it has around 30% fat here. I'm just reading that double cream has 48% fat? I've never seen it in Germany. I suppose you could substitute whipping cream and add a bit of melted butter to the recipe?

You can buy creme double here, but it´s not really like English double cream - it´s already really thick as if it´s already been whipped, so I don´t know how much you would have to use.

It´s snowing heavily here at the moment and is -8 Grad, so I´m hoping it stays around until Christmas. I´ll be quite happy then for no snow for the rest of the year.

I've just finished all the wrapping of presents. Somehow dd has a much bigger looking pile than ds but he keeps saying he doesn't mind , his also cost more but looks like nothing.

Now I just have to get through the shopping on Monday and I won't be going near a shop until after Christmas.

Went to the Christmas sing song at Gymnasium this morning too, they have a very enthusiastic music teacher! Obviously loves her subject, and then drove back at snails pace due to snow. Dd will want to try and get a snowman out of it this afternoon for sure!

thanks for that westvan and hupa - been shopping for our normal weekly shop yesterday (germans dont seem to do a weekly shop! feel like i'm the only one with a full trolley!) but going shopping again on mon or tues for xmas food! will have a look! thanks!

well done you admylin for finfishing all your wrapping - i'm going to get off the computer and go and do mine now!

cold her too but snow's not nearly impressive enough for me - its been snowing all morning but its so light - i want the proper stuff so i can send the kids out in it!

Same here, I try to do a big weekly shop and I never see trolleys as full as mine! Although next week there will be plenty, people think they are going to starve to death because everything is closed for 3 days don't they, you see overflowing trolleys!

When do all your guests arrive Cannella?

Puh, just spent an hour doing an online shop. Coop decided in their wisdom to change their website just before Xmas, it is very pretty but extremely slow.

Should not complain though, it saves me going out in the snow to the supermarket. It has stopped snowing now but the roads are not clear, I can see folk driving past at a snails pace.

I know what you mean about the weekly shop, my PIls go out every day. I could not be bothered with that.

Do you think that the supermarkets encourage that in Germany by having different days to start their aktionen. Aldi has Monday and Thursday, Lidl not sure but you are tempted to go in a couple of times a week.

Just popping in to wish all of a you a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year. I'm still up to my ears in baking and my kitchen is a disaster area. Tomorrow we'll be meeting my mother-in-law for afternoon coffee at father-in-law's care facility and after that we've got Christmas all to ourselves. Crossing my fingers for more snow!

Hope you all had a lovely Christmas. Ours was very relaxing and stress free - probably due to the fact that we only had sil here and the dc only wanted to play their new games with her.

Is anyone up to anything exciting at Silvester? We´re be having a quite night in as always (or at least since we have the dc).

Happy new year everyone - if any one is still here, been very qiuet hasn't it.

Sounds like our Christmas hupa, very relaxing and stress free! New year was the same, nice and quiet with a pack of fireworks suitable for children from 12 years of age! No headache either today as we only drank moderatley.

Dd was at her friend's house for a party and only turned up here at 4pm. Hope everyone had a nice Sylvester.

Happy New Year!

We had a quiet Hogmany, was really nice. I cannot be bothered with big parties any more. If more of our friends had been around I would have liked to have thrown a party, but cant be bothered going out.

There was a party in the village, but it would have been a bit of a problem gettign the DC home.

DH back to work tomorrow and the DC off for another week. Wah.

happy new year!! not had much MN time with all the festivities! glad its quieting down now!

Xmas worked out surprisingly well with the IL's being here! felt like a waitress most of the time tho! well a tipsy one with all the wine! We also didnt do much at Hogmaney - just more wine!! (do you see a pattern here!)

But DS's went back to kiga this morn (it was enough!!!)- dd back at school on thurs! and dh is off till next weds so we might even get a few mornings to ourselves!

Most stress over th holidays was DD who i'm sure is having migraines - she was ill this whole last weekend - she was sick all over a shopfloor when it started - we've diagnosed her ourselves as she's got classic symptoms but now going to try to work out what triggers it! read on the internet it can be from cooked meats like salami - think she would cry if she had to give salami up!!!

Happy new year to all!

Have you seen the BBC articles about Germany? How do they match up with your experiences?

There are a couple of articles in the Europe section which give the impression of a major situation here re the snow, grit shortages, threatened power cuts, people being told to stock up for 3-4 days of food + alternative fuel, heavy snow and gales forecast for this weekend....

I have to say, we haven't seen a flake of new snow this weekend, and everything is completely normal here (east of Munich). There is absolutely no grit or salt shortage, they were even salting the supermarket car parks last night (the stadtwerk salt lorries), all the pavements are gritted, roads salted etc.

Is the BBC just bigging up how terrible it is in other countries again?

We had 26 cm of snow in Hannover last week before they predicted the big Daisy storm and only a few cm since. Not windy at all, not much snow, but other parts of Germany did have it really bad - Schleswig-Holstein, for instance and a lot of small villages on the Baltic Sea and on Fehmarn Island. The streets around the Harz mountains were also very dangerous. Lots of people cut off completely. And many were silly enough to insist on driving somewhere over the weekend and of course got caught in big traffic jams because some of the bigger trucks tipped over.

Just been back online a few days, my coputer has been at the shop being repaired - no idea why it just stopped working, but it's only a year old so still under guarantee thank goodness.

Half term today and half year reports. My 2 have managed, ds doing well and dd just made it! 4 days off, nothing planned except flat hunting as usual!

hi admylin! did wonder where you'd got to!good on your kids for managing well in their reports - now starting to realise how tough the school system is here!

we're having a shocking amount of snow at the mo! fed up to the back teeth of shovelling it off the pavement! ds1 has been with his grandparents all week and i'm suppposed to drive there to get him today- its 100 miles! slightly anxious - already saw a car in the ditch when i took ds2 to kiga this morning!! but FIL has already been on the phone to tell me to drive carefully! as if i was going to drive anything else!

Plenty of snow here too, thank goodness the car has managed it all up to now, winter tyres are good things!

Has every one enjoyed lidl British food week? Was OK, but we need Branston and they didn't have that, shame. The other day we watched a documentary about Japan and they were cooking a vegetable called karela - dh said he used to eat that all the time back in his home country so I bought some at the Asian store and cooked it curry fry style. It was awful, extremely bitter but he loved it. I couldn't eat it. Funny how we all crave our childhood foods.

Hi there, been quiet on this thread recently.

Still no news on the flat hunting front, Admylin? Hope you find something soon. Well done to your DC for surviving another term of German school. Have they settled well then?

Everything fine here, started snowing again today after a couple of snow free weeks. Bit fed up with snow tbh.

Yes, they have settled really well into this school. They have loads of offers for school clubs too and dd loves her groups. Ds has invites every other day to go round to different boys houses.

Hopefully something will come up on teh flat/house side very soon. I keep seeing removal vans and thinking it's maybe this time of year that alot of people move on to new jobs? No idea but we'll get there in the end! Quite glad of our small cosy warm place actually in this weather. Thank goodness we didn't move into the Stadtvilla with the mega high cielings and huge windows, cold just thinking about it and I bet ????? to heat.