After being stuck in the house for a week, a combination of the stores being closed for the holidays and then miserable, rainy weather after they reopened, we finally emerged today to go downtown to walk around the city centre, do a little shopping, and see the decorations before they take them down later this week.

Basel Rathaus at Christmas

Matthew at Marktplatz

Aude at Marktplatz

The entrance to Marktplatz

Christmas lights

Street scene

Fountain with Christmas lights

Christmas lights at the Hotel Basel

Christmas tree at the Hotel Basel

A creative use of bottles to decorate the tree outside a bar

I’m long overdue for an update to the blog. Since my last post, I’ve been to Hyderabad once and Mumbai twice, plus a week in the mountains in Switzerland on our off-site.

We’ve also finally moved into our permanent apartment. The move itself was uneventful, aside from a few breakages. Apparently, the French definition of good packing includes putting books on top of china and glass. With my heavy travel schedule, it has taken a while to get unpacked, but we’re finally settled in. The wardrobes are built (a task I vow I’ll never repeat), the bookshelves are up, and my study is the only part of the apartment that remains a disaster zone.

Aude & Daisy in front of the fireplace

Our neighbours’ houses, covered in snow

Looking out onto the hills behind our house

We’re beginning to get ready for Christmas. The weather has turned much colder this week, and we’ve had our first snowfall of the season. We’ve got the fireplace working (just about – the engineer is on his way for another technical visit today to try to solve some problems with the smoke drawing out properly) and we’re ready for the winter.

 

Happy New Year! I hope everyone had a chance to relax over the holidays. Though I was forced to cancel part of my Christmas vacation to support urgent client requirements, we were able to sneak off for a four-day minibreak in Berlin, leaving Aude’s parents at our place in Paris to look after the cats. (Reports are that Daisy was somewhat horrible to look after, not friendly at all. Some things never change.)

Berlin Television Tower

Aude was in charge of the planning…

The bus depot was one of the highlights of the trip to Berlin. Had to take a photo to remember the moment!

A little gluhwein to warm up in the sub-freezing temperatures…

Inside the church

Francois & Gratiane

Lost again! We seemed to spend a lot of time looking at the map. Not much fun in the cold weather.

Holocaust memorial

The Berlin Wall

A line indicates where the Berlin Wall wall used to stand. It runs around the entire city.

Checkpoint Charlie

Checkpoint Charlie

Francois & Matthew enjoy a couple of well-earned beers after a day of sight-seeing.

A section of the Berlin Wall, covered in grafitti

Aude and Gratiane make their mark!!!

So off we went to Berlin to see the sights. We rented an apartment in the Northeast of the city which turned out to be a mixed blessing. The apartment itself was lovely, bigger than our apartment in Paris, but the 10-minute walk to the metro was a nightmare as the temperatures plunged to -10. Next time I go to Berlin, it will be in springtime.

We hit all the major sites – Checkpoint Charlie, the Brandenburg Gate, the Berlin Wall – and managed to squeeze in a few museums as well. We walked around a lot of the city, but the layout of Berlin is not conducive to walking – the scale of the streets and buildings means that everything is too far apart to walk between.

Highlights of our trip included a ride all the way around the S-Bahn on the first night (when our plan to go find a nice spot for a drink went wrong!), misunderstanding the bus driver when he ordered us all off the bus and ending up in the bus depot, freezing every time we went outside, and eating a lot of cabbage. I think I ate cabbage at least twice a day for the entire trip. You did not want the seat next to me on the plane home.

Better late than never, right? In a country where “London Underground minutes” are a time-keeping unit of their own and where our journeys are perpetually delayed on the M25, it’s only reasonable that Santa Claus would be held up in traffic. He came today, though, twice (via his helpers at the Royal Mail) with presents for me — some CDs from Aude and my shiny new Nikon lens from Germany.

We went out this afternoon to try the lens out, and my suspicions were confirmed. Santa Claus was indeed in Canterbury this afternoon — we spotted him in our local coffee shop, relaxing after what must have been a tiring few days…

Santa Claus