In celebration of the yuletide, I have returned home for about a week of festive frivolity and joy with the family back in Blighty before the semester resumes itself. Unlike the UK, which runs on three terms, Germany is based on the two semester model – winter and summer – and as such, Christmas is only a short break and not a full blown vacation. Apologies for not reporting on each event as it happened; I’ve been spending my time catching up with many members of the family (12 of us on Christmas Day).
On Christmas Eve Eve, my other half and I went to the Royal Albert Hall to attend the Carols by Candlelight concert. Accompanied by the Mozart Festival Orchestra, resplendent in Mozart period costume complete with wigs, and the Mozart Festival Chorus, we sang our way through many of the older Christmas carols and songs. Much to our delight, there were also two readings – from A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens (one of my favourite books) and from The Birth of the Infant Jesus (which my other half believes was the gospel of Luke).
On Christmas Day we headed to The Swan pub for a traditional Christmas dinner with all the trimmings; I was in heaven as I ate my way through apple and raspberry crumble, rather than Christmas pudding. Returning home utterly stuffed, we then proceeded to play many games, much to my father’s delight, as well as singing various songs horrendously loudly including much of the Sound of Music – I’m not sure my family are ready to imitate the von Trapps in public quite yet!
On Boxing Day we went to St Michael’s Manor in St Albans for Afternoon Tea, which was served on a three-tier cake stand, complete with little sandwiches with the crusts cut off, a selection of yummy petit fours (little cakes) and scones to be filled with clotted cream and strawberry jam. We had a lovely time pretending to be in a period drama ‘taking tea’ and letting the world go by for the afternoon.
Today though was less ladylike, as my other half took me to a Rugby match for ‘his team’. It was not quite how I had imagined it was going to be. Having never been to a sports match of any kind, I was imagining some form of scrum both on and off the pitch, but the reality was rather different. Instead both teams’ supporters were sat together and the songs were politely sung in friendly rivalry, without menace. What also surprised me was how much standing around there was during the actual game. There were patches of intense action with mad running and crazy tackles, which were exciting and thrilling, even though I had no idea what was going on most of the time! Apparently one team was not doing the scrum properly, so this lead to a lot of getting into hold, stopping and then reforming – this happened at least four times in a row until the referee got bored or they did it properly or something...Would I go back? Yes, if I was invited and if my inviter doesn’t mind having to explain everything to me and suffer my morbid interest in first aiding!
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