wednesday 3 – go to concert with katie at Munich Philharmonie for the classical concert featuring, Dvorak’s American Symphony, Gershwin’s Symphonic Jazz and back to Dvorak’s New World Symphony – all in all very enjoyable and mixing with the well-attired, classical audience makes you feel a million dollars

thursday 4 – went to hansa’s for evening meal to celebrate with mario in good humour seeing us all eating together for first time in years – previously it was me taking back takeaways for home or just one or two of us eating there.

friday 5 – pizza at home

saturday 6 – did 53 minutes for the 10km winterlauf around olympiapark

sunday 7 – practicing the church nativity, with me doing “little donkey” on guitar assisted by elisha, pacosi and joris on percussion

decorating the tree with first katie, then Eve with the Celine Dion backing music as ever, looking over at her (Eve not Celine Dion!) and thinking what a special moment it was

helping eve with her physics homework, she has a test tomorrow, doing pulleys and the splitting of weight which they introduce – not so easy, took both katie and i to work it out, well mainly katie – it must involve more common sense! Was too much for me, although i’m ok with the energy questions

saturday 13 – Mum refuses to get out of bed for her carer, she has been a little sick these last couple of days I later found out from reading the care reports. They call a doctor, who diagnoses a urinary tract infection and she gets transferred into Airedale Hospital.

sunday 14 – christmas nativity play at church, the guitar playing on “Little Donkey” went ok when I’d composed myself, standing a bit crooked one leg on a chair, faltering intro but got going, even if the percussion players missed the exact cues!

tuesday 16 – Klenze school concert at the church at Sendlinger Tor with the bad acoustics, well for amplified sound, for acoustic sound it’s wonderful. Eve is in the choir as we arrive in the split second of it starting, due to delays on the U-bahn in. Her group sing a lovely english carol and then the finale is “Stille Nacht” where the each group comes in in waves, the youngest first with the teachers walking backwards to bring them in, keep them in tune and motivate them. Evening was wonderful and she hangs out a little with her friends at the end, needless to say we have to disappear out of the way, as way too uncool.

sunday 21 – Christmas concert from Frau Jonas at the evangelische church near Sendling, Eve plays a few pieces and it goes well, with the usual mini-orchestra for a selection at the end

monday 22 – still rushing round getting last minute christmas presents, Lizzie loves Christmas:

tuesday 23 – make it out to the office for weisswurst frühstuck which rheinhold had organised, with most of us in the office

wednesday 24 – still some last minute shopping in the morning at karstadt/hauptbahnhof and /galerie/marienplatz, gave up trying to find mincemeat, seems all sold out. went to christmas eve service where katie and eve played in and out, “first noel” and “silent night”. Lasagne for evening meal, then we all sit down to watch “wonderful life” together.

thursday 25 – up around 9am to open presents round the tree slowly intertwined with breakfast turning into brunch. A bio-chicken for meal with a chestnut, apple and celery stuffing which went down a treat and which the girls have been asking for ever since:

http://www.marthastewart.com/318000/chestnut-and-apple-stuffing

maybe this can replace my penchant for the apple, celery and egg salad, which am slowly going off, since it doesn’t tend to turn out fine and which I end up eating. Plus there is enough protein for it to be a main course, with additional vegetables.

We watch “Polar Express” in the evening, overall a nice relaxing day together indoors, we had played the “Activity” game earlier which was ok, but resulted in a bit of argument!

friday 26 – flight back to blighty, we have to stop at Unterföhring because I failed to stamp some the required Streifen at Englschalking. Still it gave a chance to look at the station:

Arrive at Bright Street, have rice meals for evening meal and rush around to prepare sleeping arrangements, but time to enjoy a real fire.

saturday 27 – drive to keighley and look round the shops, girls not really enjoying it: we’d have been better walking around Cliffe Castle, even Sabs said so afterwards. We have a meal in Sainsbury’s cafe with excellent carrot cake. Then we visit Mum in hospital at Airedale.

We go back to Clitheroe and have a meal at the Lower Buck in Waddington, which pleased the children and having an open fire, excellent food and ales, must be the perfect place to visit in the Ribble Valley, our favourite pub by far.

sunday 28 – go out with lads for night out, starting at the Narrow Boat and going to the Wolly Sheep for the last hour.

monday 29 – bit worse for wear from last night and no holiday left to use, so have to work today, tomorrow and New Year’s Eve.

wednesday 31 – katie arranged party for the evening with imogen, amy and paul coming round, was a nice time playing games as 2 teams (advertising/brand game which imogen brought) and watching “Dinner for one”; then going up to Clitheroe Castle to watch the fireworks, taking some sparklers and just getting there in time. Amazed at the number of east europeans up there, also at the number of young people on the main streets outside the pubs on the way back.